Teaching Without Tenure: Policies and Practices for a New Era
by Diane Calabrese
THE MESSENGERS DIFFER. But the message is the same. Most
doctoral recipients that aspire to tenure-track, full-time
faculty positions will never find them. In mid- January, the
Pew Charitable Trusts released the results of a study it funded,
a study that illuminates the quantitative dimensions of life
after graduate studies. As currently configured, the U.S.
higher education sector employs almost half of all U.S. faculty
members as part-timers. (See the Pew report, “At Cross Purposes:
What the experiences of today’s doctoral students reveal about
doctoral education,” at www.phd-survey.org.)
In fact, according to Dr. Roger G. Baldwin and Dr. Jay L.
Chronister, the authors of Teaching Without Tenure, Policies
and Practices for a New Era (The Johns Hopkins University
Press), “in the fall of 1995, about 52 percent of full-time
faculty were tenured” (page 23). Thus, about one in four
faculty members across the nation works full-time and has
tenure. But Dr. Baldwin, a professor of education at the College
of William and Mary, and Dr. Chronister, a professor of education,
emeritus, at the University of Virginia, offer no hope of
constancy in higher education. And should any position seeker
still need a harsh reminder to be set straight, the first
line of the “Introduction” to the book advises,
“Higher education institutions are no longer cozy sanctuaries”
Teaching Without Tenure is the culmination of a research
study by the authors. Dr. Baldwin and Dr. Chronister wanted
to understand the professional experience of those who teach
without tenure. To make their data gathering manageable, they
restricted their study to full-time employees at institutions
that award a baccalaureate, or baccalaureate and advanced
degrees. Thus, anyone looking for insight into how part-timers
gluing together several positions make a go of it–financially,
emotionally or socially–should not look to this book. Even
so, part-time faculty members will resonate with many of the
anecdotal accounts of full-time faculty who also work without
the knowledge of whether they will be reemployed by their
institution in the next semester.
Methodology used in the research study is outlined clearly.
Questionnaires were sent to a “cross-section of U.S. higher
education institutions.” The institutions were queried about
their hiring policies and their employment documents were
obtained and reviewed. Site visits were made to twelve institutions
(representing all types in the study) to interview administrators
and faculty members. Questionnaires and site interview questions
are included as appendices.
Read against the backdrop of the contemporary marketplace,
the composition Teaching Without Tenure takes on the
quality of fugue. After all, the constituents of higher education
are fighting each day to keep their jobs. Parents and students,
alumni and taxpayers live a world where pink slips swirl and
safety nets are few. Monetary limitations are everywhere.
In a societal context, tenure looks otherworldly, or even
antiquated.
“In a time of financial constraints and dynamic change,
the employment of full-time non-tenure-eligible faculty gives
institutions a flexibility not provided by the continued tenuring
of faculty,” write the authors (page 23). We are not surprised
to read in the penultimate chapter about a “best practices
model,” or to turn to the last chapter (7) and find it titled
“An Action Agenda.” The lexicon of the corporate sector now
permeates higher education.
What of the intervening pages, those that sift through the
comments of non-tenure-eligible faculty and the administrators
to whom they report? There is a relatively balanced mix of
individuals with laments and optimistic people who report
they shunned tenure, it did not elude them. Some respondents
have consented to being named in print. Others are anonymous.
An encouraging note: Ninety-three percent of the institutions
surveyed by the authors offer full-time faculty the same fringe
benefits whether they hold tenure or not. But the discrepancies
in teaching assignments (non-tenure-eligible are more often
assigned to introductory courses), career ladders (typically,
there are none for the tenure ineligible), research (no time
for it), and professional status (there is systematic exclusion
from decisions about policy, curriculum, etc.)
Not surprisingly, the “Action Agenda” the authors propose
would redress the complaints of the tenure ineligible. Also
predictable is the call for institutions to continue to have
the flexibility they need. Essentially, the Agenda would bring
people who work now within a “marginalized” model into more
acceptable “integrated” or “alternative career track” models,
which do exist already in a few institutions.
A particularly sour point in the text is the authors’ use
of the term “tenure-track wannabes” (page 105). Their editor
should have saved them from disparaging people whose goals
are laudable but perhaps, unattainable, with what constitutes
a demeaning throwaway word. Certainly, no one calls a creative
businessperson who may or may not realize financial success
with a start-up a “business owner wannabe.” We call him or
her an entrepreneur. (An equally spirited appellation should
be developed for those who love to teach and to do research
and to capitalize on the synergy between the two endeavors.
Would it be so wrong to reclaim the mantle of “scholar?”)
Similarly, the discovery that “Teachers without a doctorate
are generally more satisfied with their working conditions
than teachers with a doctorate…” (page 101)–except in
the category of salary–confirms more than it denies. Teaching
at an institution of higher education without a doctorate
stands as a coup d’etat. There is reason for the individuals
without doctorates to be more sanguine, especially if they
never imagined themselves as teacher-scholars, invigorating
their lectures thanks to their intimate, ongoing tie to research.
They have managed to achieve parity without meeting the traditional
standards set for others.
The Jan. 31 issue of The Wall Street Journal carries
a page B1 story titled “U.S. Is Inclined To Lift Aid
Ban For Web Studies.” If the ban is removed, students
will be able to use federal aid to pay for courses from institutions
that provide more than half their courses–in some cases all
their courses–via distance learning. The implications for
bricks and mortar institutions are enormous, contributing
to more of the “organizational uncertainty” Dr.
Baldwin and Dr. Chronister warn we should expect in the future.
In short, the authors conclude the decline in tenure-eligible-faculty
slots is not an aberration. They suggest “treating nontraditional
faculty off the tenure track as first-class members of the
academic community” (page 192) is a remedy that would promote
harmony and make the nontenure eligible positions desirable.
It is a lovely sentiment, but not much more. With budgets
so tight (and often shrinking in real dollars adjusted for
inflation) and the economy so uncertain, the only way for
institutions to offer more to tenure ineligible faculty is
to offer less to tenured and tenure-eligible faculty. Unless,
the groves of academe have suddenly been repopulated with
altruists, there is no reason to expect a change in the status
quo. Those who have tenure will want to keep it, and everyone
who has dreamed of the freedom it provides will want to get
it.
