Contingent appointments and the academic profession

Academe, Sep/Oct 2003

The statement that follows was approved in May 2003 by a joint subcommittee of the Association's Committee on Part-Time and Non-Tenure-Track Appointments and Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. In May 2003, both full committees reviewed the statement; the joint subcommittee now invites members' comments. Comments should be addressed to Ruth Flower at the Association's Washington office.

Ten years ago, the Association addressed the conditions and status of part-time and non-tenure-track faculty in a thoroughly documented report.1 Since that time, faculty work has become more fragmented, unsupported, and destabilized. Faculty members are now classified in a growing number of categories with new titles and with distinct responsibilities, rights, and privileges.2

The proportion of faculty who are appointed each year to tenure-line positions is declining at an alarming rate. Because faculty tenure is the only secure protection for academic freedom in teaching, research, and service, the declining percentage of tenured faculty means that academic freedom is increasingly at risk. Academic freedom is a fundamental characteristic of higher education, necessary to preserve an independent forum for free inquiry and expression, and essential to the mission of higher education to serve the common good. This report examines the costs to academic freedom incurred by the current trend toward overreliance on part- and full-time non-tenure-track faculty.

A common thread runs through earlier statements and reports on the topic of part-time and non-tenure-track appointments. Some of these statements, which were adopted by the Association's committees and Council over the last three decades, are described in a note following this report. They acknowledge the economic and managerial pressures that have been presented-in good economic times and bad-as justification for a constantly increasing reliance on part- and full-time non-tenure-track appointments. But they also clearly articulate the dangers to the quality of American higher education that are inherent in this trend.

Consistent with the Association's earlier statements, this report and its recommendations proceed from the premise that faculty in higher education must have academic freedom protected by academic due process and, following a reasonable probationary period, by tenure. It emphasizes the importance of preserving for all faculty the integrity of the profession, founded on the interaction of research, teaching, and service, and it offers recommendations for institutions and academic departments that are undertaking to restabilize their faculties by increasing the proportion of full-time tenure-line appointments.

Definition of Contingent Faculty

The term "contingent faculty" includes both part- and fulltime faculty who are appointed off the tenure track. The term calls attention to the tenuous relationship between academic institutions and the part- and full-time non-tenure-track faculty members who teach in them. For example, teachers hired to teach one or two courses for a semester, experts or practitioners who are brought in to share their field experience, and whole departments of full-time non-tenure-track English composition instructors are all "contingent faculty." The term includes adjuncts, who are generally compensated on a percourse or hourly basis, as well as full-time non-tenure-track faculty who receive a salary.

For purposes of a policy discussion, these faculty cannot be separated neatly into two groups-part- and full-time-based on the number of hours they work. Some faculty members are classified by their institutions as "part-time," even though they teach four or five courses per term.3 Whether these faculty members teach one class or five, the common characteristic among them is that their institutions make little or no long-term commitment to them or to their academic work. The fact that many non-tenure-track faculty are personally committed to academic careers, even while putting together a patchwork of teaching opportunities in one or more institutions in order to sustain themselves, has become all but irrelevant in institutional practice.

A small percentage of part-time faculty bring the benefit of expertise in a narrow specialty to add depth or specificity to the course offerings otherwise available at an institution.4 Another small percentage are practitioners of a profession such as law, architecture, or business and bring their direct experience into the classroom in a class or two each week. While many individuals with such appointments may find the conditions of part-time academic employment acceptable, their situation is the exception rather than the norm, and therefore should not serve as the primary model for a policy discussion.5 The vast majority of non-tenure-track faculty, part- and fulltime, do not have professional careers outside of academe, and most teach basic core courses rather than narrow specialties.6

Graduate students who teach classes fall along a spectrum. At one end is the student who teaches a reasonable number of classes as part of his or her graduate education. At the other end is the person who teaches independently, perhaps for many years, but not in a probationary appointment, while he or she completes a dissertation. To the extent that a person functions in the former group, as a graduate student, his or her teaching load should be carefully structured to further-not frustrate-the completion of his or her formal education. To the extent that a person functions in the latter group, undertaking independent teaching activities that are similar in nature to those of regular faculty, the term "contingent faculty" should apply. (For a more detailed discussion, see the AAUP's 2000 Statement on Graduate Students.)