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Conference Addresses Growing Use of Part-Time Faculty
Terri Snyder, California State University, Fullerton On September 26-28, OAH representatives attend ed the American Historical Association sponsored "Conference on the Growing Use of Part-Time/Adjunct Faculty" held in Washington, D.C. The representatives included OAH Executive Director Arnita Jones, Elizabeth Kessel (Anne Arundel Community College) and Terri Snyder (California State University, Fullerton). Along with nearly fifty participants from a variety of national academic organizations in the humanities and social sciences, such as the Modern Language Association, the American Political Science Association, and the American Association of University Professors, we participated in plenary sessions and workshops which culminated in drafting a policy statement to address the implications of the increasing reliance on adjunct, part-time, and full-time non-tenure-track faculty and formulate guidelines for recommended institutional practices regarding the treatment of these "nonregular" faculty. The numbers of part-time and adjunct faculty in history departments across the U.S. is low relative to other disciplines. According to Charlotte V. Kuh of the National Research Council, in 1981 12 percent of history Ph.D.s held fulltime non-tenure-track appointments, a figure that increased two percentage points, to 14 percent by 1995. During the same period, the percentage of history doctorates employed on a part-time or adjunct basis rose from 5 to 7 percent. On the face of it, these numbers may not appear alarming, but they are no doubt exacerbated by the imbalance between the oversupply of new history doctorates relative to new academic history jobs. Adding even more complexity to the increase in nonregular appointments is the simultaneous decline in the percentage of history Ph.D.s holding tenure-track appointments, from 82 percent in 1981 to 79 percent in 1995. The growth in nonregular appointments within all humanities fields, including history, has been consistently accompanied by a decline in probationary faculty, from 83 percent to 78 percent overall, with only a very slight growth in academic employment. All indications suggest that these trends will continue. If these directions in the composition of history department faculties do not immediately appear disturbing, try considering them from an institutional rather than a disciplinary vantage point. Compared to 1975, more students today study with relatively fewer faculty in larger institutions. Among all higher education institutions, the proportion of tenured faculty has remained fairly constant since 1975, but, more tellingly, the number of probationary, tenure-track appointments has declined by 9 percent. Additionally, during this same period, the proportion of non-tenure-track faculty rose from 19 percent to 28 percent, and the percentage of all faculty members who were employed part-time nearly doubled. These national statistics are underscored by the extreme conditions at some campuses, such as California State University, Hayward, where the percentage of students taking history classes taught by part-time lecturers jumped from 14 percent in 1991 to 42 percent in 1995. In 1992 Hayward employed 407 tenured and probationary faculty and 142 lecturers institution wide, but by 1995--in five short years--the numbers were 373 and 330, respectively. According to Jack Schuster of Claremont Graduate University, changes in academic staffing are mirrored by changes in students' patterns of attending colleges and universities. The percentage of undergraduates attending colleges and universities part-time was 42.2 percent in 1992, and this figure is rising. In higher education today, fewer students and faculty are engaged in full-time pursuit of their academic responsibilities. Both the precirculated papers and the conference sessions contained troubling information on the characteristics of part-time, full-time non-tenured, and adjunct faculty. Women along with younger, newly minted Ph.D.s are disproportionately represented among their ranks. Nonregular appointments are certainly desired by some individuals, but increasingly in fields like history where the supply of doctorates outstrips the number of new academic hires, nonregular positions represent the best option in a limited range of choices. Nonregular faculty frequently have research agendas and classroom skills on par with tenured and probationary faculty, but they simply lack traditional positions. Furthermore, the work environments of nonregular faculty are strikingly varied. In some systems, like the California State University, full-time lecturers are hired for multiple-year contracts, with health and retirement benefits, access to faculty development funds, and eligibility for performance-based salary increases, and part-time faculty can receive many of these same benefits if they have at least a one-half time appointment for a full academic year. Yet in California's community colleges, part-time faculty frequently lack these benefits and can often find themselves without offices, telephones, and administrative support. Reliance on part-time, adjunct, and full-time non-tenure-track appointments are often justified by citing the pressures of increasing enrollments and a lack of funding to keep pace with them. Participants of the conference began to address the material consequences and problems of these continuing trends. In real ways, the growing reliance on nonregular appointments ultimately erodes faculty governance and departmental stability and weakens the ability of departments and institutions to provide sound educational experiences for their students. This is not because nonregular faculty are somehow or inherently less qualified or capable academic employees, but rather because the overall quality of instruction is substantially and negatively effected when the percentage and turnover of nonregular faculty is high, when they are not compensated for course preparation, advising, or grading, and when they work without contractual benefits or protections. The policy statement drafted by conferees urges administrators and educators to find their common interest in avoiding excessive nonregular faculty, and, when they do employ them, to provide regularized, equitable, and humane conditions of employment. Only by placing limits on the use of nonregular faculty and by providing reasonable conditions of employment for them can we ensure that our commitments to scholarship, teaching, and collegiality will endure as we adapt to changing institutional circumstances. |
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