Nationwide, there has been an increase in non-tenure track (NTT) faculty positions in higher education. These positions once accounted for 10-12% of full-time faculty, but now they account for the largest chuck of educators in higher education (70%). IUB shows a similar increase in NTT faculty members. A recent report by the NTT Faculty subcommittee of the BFC reports 53% of IUB faculty fall into the NTT category.
As this career path grows, so does the conversation around the changing role of the professoriate. Multiple disciplinary and national organizations have joined the conversation offering definitions, predictions, best practices, and reports of personal experience in these roles. For those who study higher education organization, this change is providing an opportunity to examine the increase from an empirical point of view. A search of the IUB ONESEARCH database for “non-tenure track faculty” results in over 2,000 results; 190 just from 2017.
In all of these conversations, (whether empirical, descriptive, or opinion), there is a call for greater support in all areas of the professional life of the NTT faculty member. The primary role of the majority of these faculty members at IUB is teaching, with instructors, professors of practice, clinical faculty, visitors and post-docs teaching 52% of all credit hours. Therefore, a crucial area of professional support (and the focus of the CITL) is in teaching.
While the CITL offers regular programming in a variety of formats for all individuals with a teaching role at IUB, we are pleased to offer a new event just for NTT faculty. In collaboration with VPFAA and FACET, the CITL will be hosting a NTT Day on Professional Development, on January 5, 2018 from 10am-3pm. This event is a peer led, intensive look at teaching as well as service and research in support of teaching, through the lens of the unique challenges and opportunities of full-time NTT faculty. During the day, participants will have the opportunity to hear from VPFAA on career development, attend a choice of two of six breakout sessions, choose among eight roundtables, and listen to a panel of peers who have successfully navigated the promotion process. For more information about the day or to register to attend, please visit the CITL events webpage.
For more information on national trends on non-tenure track faculty, please refer to the following articles consulted when writing this blog post:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/3-Insights-About-the/241841
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Tenure-Status-of-Faculty/240511
https://www.aaup.org/report/status-non-tenure-track-faculty
https://www.aacu.org/publications-research/periodicals/why-are-we-hiring-so-many-non-tenure-track-faculty
Leave a Reply