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November 20,
2007
Decline of
the Tenure Track Raises Concerns
By ALAN
FINDER
DEARBORN,
Mich. Professors with tenure or who are on a tenure track are now a distinct
minority on the countryÕs campuses, as the ranks of part-time instructors and
professors hired on a contract have swelled, according to federal figures
analyzed by the American Association of University Professors.
Elaine
Zendlovitz, a former retail store manager who began teaching college courses
six years ago, is representative of the change. Technically, Ms. Zendlovitz is
a part-time Spanish professor, although,in fact, she teaches nearly all the
time.
Her days
begin at the University of Michigan Dearborn, with introductory classes. Some
days end at 10 p.m. at Oakland Community College, in the suburbs north of
Detroit, as she teaches six courses at four institutions.
ÒI think we
part-timers can be everything a full-timer can be,Ó Ms. Zendlovitz said during
a break in a 10-hour teaching day. But she acknowledged: ÒItÕs harder to spend
time with students. I donÕt have the prep time, and I know how to prepare a
fabulous class.
The shift
from a tenured faculty results from financial ressures,administratorsÕ desire
for more flexibility in hiring, firing and changing course offerings, and the
growth of community colleges and regional public universities focused on
teaching basics and preparing students for jobs.
It has become
so extreme, however, that some universities are pulling back, concerned about
the effect on educational quality. Rutgers University agreed in a labor
settlement in August to add 100 tenure or tenure-track positions. Across the
country, faculty unions are organizing part-timers. And the American Federation
of Teachers is pushing legislation in 11 states to mandate that 75 percent of
classes be taught by tenured or tenure-track teachers.
Three decades
ago, adjuncts - both part-timers and full-timers not on a tenure track -
represented only 43 percent of professors, according to the professors
association, which has studied data reported to the federal Education
Department. Currently, the association says, they account for nearly 70 percent
of professors at colleges and universities, both public and private.
John W.
Curtis, the unionÕs director of research and public policy, said that while the
number of tenured and tenure-track professors has increased by about 25 percent
over the past 30 years, they have been swamped by the growth in adjunct
faculty. Over all, the number of people teaching at colleges and universities
has doubled since 1975.
University
officials agree that the use of nontraditional faculty is soaring. But some
contest the professors associationÕs calculation, saying that definitions of part-time
and full-time professors vary, and that it is not possible to determine how
many courses, on average, each category of professor actually teaches.
Many state
university presidents say tight budgets have made it inevitable that they turn
to adjuncts to save money.
ÒWe have to
contend with increasing public demands for accountability, increased financial
scrutiny and declining state support,Ó said Charles F. Harrington, provost of
the University of North Carolina, Pembroke. ÒOne of the easiest, most
convenient ways of dealing with these pressures is using part-time faculty,Ó he
said, though he cautioned that colleges that rely too heavily on such faculty
are playing a really dangerous game.
Mark B. Rosenberg, chancellor of the State University System
of Florida, said that part-timers can provide real-world experience to students
and fill gaps in nursing, math, accounting and other disciplines with a
shortage of qualified faculty. He also said the shift could come with costs.
Adjuncts are
less likely to have doctoral degrees, educators say. They also have less time
to meet with students, and research suggests that students who take many
courses with them are somewhat less likely to graduate.
ÒReally, we
are offering less educational quality to the students who need it most,Ó said
Ronald G. Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell Higher Education Research
Institute, noting that the soaring number of adjunct faculty is most pronounced
in community colleges and the less select public universities. The elite universities,
both public and private, have the fewest adjuncts.
ÒItÕs not
that some of these adjuncts arenÕt great teachers,Ó Dr. Ehrenberg said. ÒMany
donÕt have the support that the tenure-track faculty have, in terms of offices,
secretarial help and time. Their teaching loads are higher, and they have less
time to focus on students.Ó
Dr. Ehrenberg
and a colleague analyzed 15 years of national data and found that graduation
rates declined when public universities hired large numbers of contingent faculty.
Several
studies of individual universities have determined that freshmen taught by many
part-timers were more likely to drop out.
ÒHaving an
adjunct in a course is not necessarily bad for you, but having too many
adjuncts might be,Ó said Eric P. Bettinger, an economics professor at Case
Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Students say
they can often tell when a professor is part-time. Mike Brennan, a sophomore at
the University of Michigan, Dearborn, said the courses taught by adjuncts tend
to be more basic and the exams less challenging. ÒThey have so many classes
that they give tests that are easier to grade,Ó Mr. Brennan said.
Carly
Matkovich, a senior at the university, said she had bonded more with her
part-time teachers, in part because they have more practical experience. But it
is usually hard to find time to talk with them outside class. ÒTheyÕre never
around,Ó Ms. Matkovich said. ÒIt does make me feel kind of cheated.Ó
At some
departments the proportion of faculty who are tenured is startlingly low. The
psychology department at Florida International University in Miami has 2,400
undergraduate majors but only 19 tenured or tenure-track professors who teach,
according to a department self-assessment. It is possible for a psychology major
to graduate without taking a course with a full-time faculty member.
ÒWeÕre at a
point where it is extreme,Ó said Suzanna Rose, a psychology professor who said
she stepped down as department head in August, primarily because she could not
hire as many tenure-track professors as she thought the department needed. ÒIÕm
just very concerned about the quality.Ó
Ronald
Berkman, the provost at Florida International, disputed her numbers, saying the
psychology department has 23 professors who are tenured or tenure track and 5
full-time teachers on contracts. The department is conducting a search for
three more tenure-track professors, Dr. Berkman said. ÒWhich is not to say that
they donÕt need more, which they do,Ó he said.
Tenure, a
practice carried from Germany to the United States, was designed to guarantee
academic freedom to professors by protecting them against dismissal. Some argue
that it also protects incompetent or lazy teachers and sometimes leaves
universities saddled with professors in disciplines that have lost currency.
The lack of
tenure can leave adjuncts vulnerable. In a number of cases, professors outside
the tenure track have been dropped after run-ins with administrators over
everything from grading to opinion articles in newspapers.
Several unions
have been organizing adjunct faculty in recent years. In Michigan, the American
Federation of Teachers has successfully organized
full-time,
nontenure-track professors at Eastern Michigan University, as
well as
part-time and full-time adjuncts at the University of Michigan
campuses in
Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint.
ÒThey are so
exploited, the only difficulty in organizing adjuncts is finding them,Ó said
David Hecker, president of the teachers federation.
Keith
Hoeller, who has been teaching philosophy for 17 years as a part-timer in
Seattle, described it this way: ÒItÕs a caste system, and we are the
untouchables of academia.Ó
Aletia Droba
taught for 10 years as a part-time philosophy professor in the Detroit area.
She said she was paid as little as $1,400 a course at community colleges and as
much as $2,400 a class at universities. Some semesters, Ms. Droba said, she
taught as many as seven courses at four colleges, including across the border
in Canada. This fall, she landed a full-time, non-tenure track job. She will
teach five courses in the fall and spring combined - less than the number she
often taught in a single semester as a part-timer.
Ms. Droba
will not miss the constant driving that a part-timer does, shuttling among
universities. ÒMy students used to ask me how come I knew so much about current
affairs,Ó she said. ÒAnd IÕd say, ÔI listen to NPR all day.ÕÓ
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