Embracing Non-Tenure Track Faculty

The nature of the higher education faculty workforce is radically and fundamentally changing from primarily full-time tenured faculty to non-tenure track faculty. This new faculty majority faces common challenges, including short-term contracts, limited support on campus, and lack of a professional career track. Embracing Non-Tenure Track Faculty documents real changes occurring on campuses to support this faculty group, unveiling the challenges and opportunities that occur when implementing new policies and practices. Non-tenure faculty contributors across a diverse range of universities and colleges explore the change process on their campuses to improve the work environment and increase the quality of learning. Kezar supplements these case studies by distilling trends and patterns from a national study of campuses that have successfully implemented policies to improve conditions for non-tenure track faculty. This invaluable research-based resource illustrates that there are multiple pathways to successfully implementing policy for non-tenure track faculty. Embracing Non-Tenure Track Faculty provides the tools to create a lasting culture change that will shape the work lives of all faculty and ultimately improve student learning. Outlining detailed strategies and approaches for providing equitable policies and practices for non-tenure track faculty on college campuses, this book is essential reading for both contingent faculty and higher education administrators.

"The academy needs and should heed this book. Kezar has framed and brought to well-integrated narrative life scholarly synthesis and practical guidance for professionalizing non-tenure track faculty’s conditions of work in unionized and non-unionized settings alike. The voices of contingent faculty activists are strong and give hope that we can embrace all our faculty colleagues and enhance the quality of higher education in the process." —Gary Rhoades, Professor of Higher Education, University of Arizona"Finally---a new book that recognizes the need for faculty career paths and employment policies beyond the tenure track. Many scholars have documented the rising numbers of non-tenure track faculty and the lack of career enhancing employment policies, but few have addressed the need for appropriate employment policies. Kezar provides a rich resource of concrete examples of successful changes that emphasize employment equity, career development, and inclusion in campus life for all faculty members. This book can serve as a guide for administrators and faculty member on how to develop and implement employment policies and practices that ensure non tenure-track faculty teach well and benefit from their faculty careers."— Juddith M. Gappa, Professor Emerita of Higher Education Administration, Purdue University"Kezar and her chapter authors move our focus on the growing contingent faculty phenomenon from identifying the problem to crafting and implementing needed reforms. This book provides useful frameworks for examining the contingent faculty issue on individual campuses, introduces innovative policies and practices that can be adapted in many settings where contingent faculty play a vital role, and offers practical guidance for promoting organizational change. It will spur institutions to take the steps necessary to support contingent faculty and enhance their contributions to education."— Roger Baldwin, Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education, Michigan State University

Adrianna Kezar is Associate Professor for Higher Education at the University of Southern California.