Faculty Career Paths: Multiple Routes to Academic Success and Satisfaction
Gretchen M. Bataille Betsy E. Brown
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Faculty Career Paths: Multiple Routes to Academic Success and Satisfaction
Gretchen M. Bataille Betsy E. Brown
AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION PRAEGER
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FACULTY CAREER PATHS
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FACULTY CAREER PATHS Multiple Routes to Academic Success and Satisfaction
Gretchen M. Bataille and Betsy E. Brown
AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION PRAEGER Series on Higher Education
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bataille, Gretchen M., 1944– Faculty career paths : multiple routes to academic success and satisfaction / Gretchen M. Bataille and Betsy E. Brown. p. cm. — (ACE/Praeger Series on Higher Education) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-275-98748-5 (alk. paper) 1. College teachers—United States. 2. Universities and colleges—United States— Faculty. I. Brown, Betsy E., 1950– II. Title. III. Series. LB2331.72.B38 2006 378.1'2023—dc22 2006014287 Copyright © 2006 by Gretchen M. Bataille and Betsy E. Brown All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2006014287 ISBN: 0-275-98748-5 First published in 2006 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America
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Faculty Career Paths is dedicated to the many fine and committed faculty members on campuses across the country, especially our faculty colleagues at University of North Carolina institutions.
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Conventional Assumptions and the Realities of Contemporary Faculty Life xiii Chapter One
Changing Demographics 1 • Breaking Trail: One Path to a University Chancellorship 7 France A. Córdova • Our Experience with Dual-Career Couple Hiring at Virginia Tech 11 Shelli B. Fowler and Karen P. DePauw • Access to Higher Education for the Differently Able 15 Rachel A. Willis • Partner Accommodation and Changing Definitions of “Family” 19 Wendy K. Wilkins and Patrick M. McConeghy • Minority Faculty at Historically White Institutions 22 Michelle R. Howard-Vital • Ruminations of an HBCU President 24 Carolyn R. Mahoney • Affirmative Action, Sexual Harassment, and the Changing Legal Climate 27 Barbara Mawhiney
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Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars: Meeting Faculty Supply 31 • SREB-State Doctoral Scholars: Program Progress and Promise 37 Ansley A. Abraham • A Model Program 39 Bernard J. Milano • Preparing Future Faculty 43 Jerry G. Gaff • The Phenomenon of Increased Postdoctoral Appointments at US Research Universities 46 Jennifer Ma and Paula E. Stephan
Chapter Three Expectations and Needs of Early-Career Faculty 53 • Early-Career Faculty Members’ Expectations and Experiences 56 Ann E. Austin • Excerpts from Interviews with Early-Career Faculty 60 • Five Criteria for Early-Career Faculty Success 66 Carroll-Ann Trotman • What New Scholars Want 76 Cathy A. Trower Chapter Four
Non-Tenure-Track Faculty 87 • Contingent Faculty 92 David W. Leslie • University of North Carolina Summary Report on Campus Focus Groups 2001 100
Chapter Five
Late-Career Satisfaction 109 • Seeking Mutual Benefit: Late-Career Faculty Vitality and Institutional Mission Enhancement 114 Jerry Berberet • Suggestions for Helping Faculty Transition into Retirement 116 • Being a Quadruple Threat Keeps It Interesting 119 Ronald G. Ehrenberg
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• Health and Retirement Benefits 122 Robert L. Clark • Law Student, 66, Sets a New Bar 128 Raleigh, NC, News and Observer Chapter Six
Leadership for a New Academic Environment: Developing Policy, Creating Change 133 • The Technology Revolution and the Faculty Generation Gap 137 Mary Doyle • Transforming University Culture to Promote Innovation and Entrepreneurship 139 Russ Lea • The Importance of Internationalization at a Comprehensive University 143 Kenneth Peacock • Policy Implications for University Systems 149 Ellen S. Switkes • Faculty of the Future and Collective Bargaining 151 Linda L. Lamwers • Departmental Leadership and Faculty Careers 154 Gary S. Krahenbuhl • To Choose Is to Lead 156 Kermit L. Hall
Notes 163 Bibliography 169 Index 189 About the Authors and Contributors 197
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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or the past five years, we have worked together to improve faculty support polices and practices for the University of North Carolina, a system of sixteen campuses with over 13,000 full-time and parttime faculty members. UNC has developed policies or undertaken research to address some faculty needs, including a broad survey of latecareer faculty at multiple institutions and a study of early-career faculty, both funded by the TIAA-CREF Institute, and a comprehensive study of the roles played by non-tenure-track faculty members. UNC has experience with policies that address mid- and late-career needs, including post-tenure review and phased retirement. The university is developing employment policies and revisiting the faculty reward system as it faces the challenge of recruiting and retaining nearly 10,000 new faculty members over a ten-year period, 2001–2010, to replace retirees and to meet expanding student enrollment. UNC also has a diversity of institutions representing multiple Carnegie institutional classifications and including five historically black and one historically Native American serving university as well as a performing arts conservatory. This diversity of institutions and purpose in our own state has led us to consider examining a broader set of institutions and policies to determine the universality of these issues and to establish some “best practices” to guide administrators grappling with similar concerns. Although two University of North Carolina studies to elicit responses from those faculty nearing retirement as well as early-career faculty have provided us with a rich source of information about different periods in
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faculty careers, we recognized that multiple examples from other regions and types of institutions would improve our approach to policy and would assist others concerned with the same issues. The goal of this book is to provide administrators and policy makers with concrete examples of what has worked in responding to faculty needs and what changes need to be made to ensure that hiring and retention practices adapt to the needs of the faculty of the future. Although many of the policies and practices included in this book apply to faculty at any institution, our focus is on faculty at four-year institutions. Portions of Chapters Two and Three are adapted from “Supporting Early-Career Faculty Members” by Betsy E. Brown, Effective Practices for Academic Leaders, edited by Tim J. Delmont and Robert Secor, Sterling, Virginia, Stylus Publishing. Portions of Chapter Three are included in “Faculty Recruitment and Retention: Concerns of Early and Mid-Career Faculty” by Carroll-Ann Trotman and Betsy E. Brown, TIAA-CREF Institute Research Dialogue, Volume 84 (December 2005). We are grateful for the support we have received from our colleagues in the UNC Office of the President as well as throughout the country. From the moment we began soliciting participation, we received enthusiastic responses that support the need for this information. Elissa Zellinger, our research assistant, was diligent, exhibited good sense, and provided a keen eye in the editorial process. We are grateful for the financial support from the TIAA-CREF Institute and the Office of the President of the University of North Carolina. A project of this magnitude has many contributors, and we are grateful to all of them. Gretchen M. Bataille Betsy E. Brown
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INTRODUCTION
CONVENTIONAL ASSUMPTIONS AND THE REALITIES OF CONTEMPORARY FACULTY LIFE
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aculty Career Paths is an examination of the multiple ways faculty travel through the academic environment and the levels of satisfaction—or dissatisfaction—that they experience. Some faculty members remain in non-tenure-track positions throughout their careers, teaching composition, lower-division math courses, or classes in other high-need areas, and they find their experiences fulfilling, especially when they have multi-year contracts, benefits, and a “voice” in departmental governance. Other faculty might work in tenured full-time positions at research universities and yet are dissatisfied because of autocratic department chairs or outdated facilities. Career success can be measured by individual expectations as well as institutional rewards, and the results vary from small, private colleges to large, public research universities. No single type of institution or appointment guarantees faculty satisfaction. However, there is one overriding principle—the level of satisfaction varies depending on the degree to which faculty believe they are valued and their work is recognized and rewarded. Higher education has been slow to recognize that faculty have different needs at different times in their academic careers. Institutions continue to operate based on an outdated history—a paradigm that assumes a new faculty member is a young white male beginning an appointment with a just-completed doctorate, a non-working wife, and perhaps a child in tow.
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He has no duties at home except perhaps mowing the lawn of a small, rental townhouse, leaving plenty of time to concentrate on the research and teaching needed to attain tenure. Even though everyone knows this is not the case, many institutions continue to operate as if it is. Although at present women make up less than 40 percent of tenured faculty nationally, over 50 percent of the doctorates awarded to US citizens today are awarded to women. Thus, we can expect that women faculty members will become an even more important segment of the corps of faculty in the near future. In order to attract and retain an increasing number of female faculty, institutions will have to pay more attention to their needs, including contracts and work schedules that acknowledge the desire of many of them to balance work and family responsibilities. The percentage of minority faculty members (who made up 20 percent of full-time faculty in 2003) is not increasing at the same rate as the percentage of female faculty members, and many institutions report finding it difficult to attract and retain minority faculty members even as the percentage of minority students at their institutions grows. The presence of a more diverse faculty has resulted in concerns about meeting the needs of this “new” faculty cohort. Women of child-bearing age, faculty of color who are relied upon to mentor larger numbers of minority students, persons with disabilities who are due reasonable accommodations to ensure their success, and “contingent” faculty who need to be better integrated into institutions are challenging assumptions about who faculty members are and how they can be expected to fulfill their duties. Dual employment policies, partner accommodation, shared positions, part-time tenure, and the expansion of the definitions of work to include mentoring, the creation of technology-assisted courses, teamteaching and interdisciplinary teaching, and transferring research into patents or business enterprises are examples of the changed paradigm in higher education. These changes result in the need to rethink faculty work and to reconsider the reward system. Other changes are caused by economic pressures on institutions. Historically PhD recipients could anticipate entering the teaching profession as tenure-track assistant professors, but increasingly they find themselves serving for multiple years in postdoctoral positions, accepting adjunct or part-time positions, or leaving the academic environment entirely to take positions in foundations, business, or government. An increasing number of faculty each year are hired into non-tenure-track positions, and in 2003, 44 percent of faculty at degree-granting institutions were employed part-time. This situation is a loss in two ways: wellprepared scholars are not being hired on traditional tenure tracks by
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colleges and universities, while these same campuses rely on faculty who may teach in multiple locations, with little long-term commitment to or from a single institution. On the political front, legislatures challenge higher education to find more economical ways to address increasing enrollments. The hiring of non-tenure-track faculty meets the expectation for less costly instruction; however, this short-term solution may have long-term impacts on the quality of American higher education. The strength of American higher education—a strength that is recognized worldwide—is the tripartite mission of teaching, research, and outreach or engagement. Scientific breakthroughs do not happen during annual appointments of faculty, but rather are the result of multiple-year research grants, the mentoring of graduate students, and the commitment of institutions to provide laboratory space and released time. Changes in the curriculum to meet twenty-first century information needs do not come from faculty who are hired to teach for one semester from a common syllabus. Such changes come from faculty who are engaged with business and industry, who address the new needs of a changing social, economic, and scientific environment. This book looks at how these external pressures, demographic realities, and the concomitant changes in the academy are reflected in the career paths of faculty. More importantly, the book provides guidance to administrators seeking ways to make the faculty career satisfying to a changing faculty. This book is divided into chapters that outline current research and trends in faculty careers along with commentary by faculty and administrators from across the United States who face contemporary challenges on their campuses. The first chapter addresses current demographic changes and their implications for policy. This chapter argues that the “new majority” of faculty members—women, faculty of color, gay and lesbian faculty, faculty with disabilities, and non-tenure-track faculty, among others—are not being well served by traditional career and performance expectations. Critical too is the preparation of graduate students for their roles as faculty members. There have been dramatic changes in the graduate student population. More women are receiving doctoral degrees; fewer international students are applying to graduate school in the United States, and organizations such as the KPMG Foundation and the Southern Regional Education Board are recognizing the imperative to ensure a more diverse faculty of the future. The Pew Charitable Trusts and others have supported the “Preparing Future Faculty” project, and the Council of Graduate Schools monitors the applications, enrollment, and degrees
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achieved by students. Recent research has also focused on the role of postdoctoral appointments in the career track of university and college faculty. The success of many of these programs is critical to ensure that the next generation of faculty is adequate in numbers and prepared for the diverse missions of the institutions where they will be employed. Different forces influence faculty satisfaction during the course of the faculty career. Recent surveys and much research are focusing on the “generational turnover” of the faculty and their diverging needs. Studies supported by the TIAA-CREF Institute and others provide significant information that is needed by administrators as they look to sustaining the institutional history and experience of seasoned faculty while cultivating new strategies to recruit and retain a faculty with very different institutional expectations. While late-career faculty tend to have institutional loyalty and a desire to “pay back” the institution, new faculty may find themselves with heavy teaching assignments and the added pressure to participate in interdisciplinary programs, to publish, to secure external funding, and to participate in community, business, and industry outreach. They are more likely to feel loyalty to their academic disciplines through teaching and research than to the institution, making retention and succession planning a critical aspect of administrative responsibility. Opportunities such as technology transfer and ownership of faculty research provide a challenge for universities unequipped to address these new aspects of faculty commitment. In the end, it is university leaders and, frequently, legislators, who must be cognizant of the changing faculty profile. At the same time, responsive institutions are seeking ways to improve the worklife and job security of the increasing numbers of non-tenuretrack faculty. These “contingent faculty”—whether identified as adjunct, part-time, or fixed term—have a different set of needs and expectations. All of these changes mandate new policies. On the personal front, faculty want to know if campuses have partner accommodation policies, flexible benefits that might include eldercare along with childcare, or the opportunities for shared appointments. In a litigious society, universities must ensure that administrators know the law on affirmative action, sexual harassment, accommodation of employees with disabilities, and equal opportunity. With increasing numbers of contingent faculty, universities have to confirm that these faculty are not being exploited, that benefits are available to them, and that appropriate participation is afforded these faculty in departmental and university governance. In most cases, administrative leadership for these issues comes from the individual campus; however, in states such as California, New York, Texas, and North
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Carolina, large university systems with diverse campuses must provide the leadership for consistent policies. In those states where retirement and health benefits for public institutions are linked to state policy, legislators must be brought into the discussions. What changes can be made? What changes should be made? It is clear from the discussions in this book that it is necessary for universities to change the way work is done within departments all the way up to changes in large systems and state policies. Public and private institutions must find ways to work together on research projects that benefit the society as well as individual faculty members. Legislators must broaden the definition of “family” for benefits as the concept of family changes to include blended families, stepchildren and adopted children, grandparents raising grandchildren, same-sex partners, and dual-career marriages. Departments must realistically assess the strengths of individual faculty and fit those strengths into overall departmental or institutional expectations. Not all faculty come into the profession with the same strengths in traditional teaching, research, and service, so staffing patterns and assignments need to change to ensure that faculty expertise matches the needs of the department. Universities must recognize the ongoing need for community, but that community is changing. The measurement of quality is increasingly a measure of diversity—of thought, of ethnicity, of gender, and of contribution to the overall strength of higher education. The bibliography shows the large number of books being written by and about women, minority faculty, non-tenure-track faculty, and other demographic groups regarding their experiences in higher education. Books increasingly are addressing administrative responses to the changes identified in higher education. Faculty Career Paths includes a list of “best practices” in each chapter, as well as commentary by actual faculty members, researchers, and administrators to illustrate the changes that need to be made to meet the needs of the future. These short commentaries illustrate the real-life experiences that parallel the research findings. In adding the “voices” of academe, this book strives to remind us that while our institutions have endured for centuries, each century has brought new challenges. The twenty-first century is no different, and we must be prepared.
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CHAPTER Changing Demographics
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uring the 1960s, society and the political establishment began to address historical inequities in employment, housing, and education. Forty-five years later, many people believe that these inequities no longer exist. As a result of assumptions that discrimination had ended and affirmative action was no longer needed, Proposition 209 was passed in California and Initiative 200 in Washington, both measures designed to abolish many attempts to diversify the faculty as well as the student bodies of the institutions in those states. More recently, the decisions of the Supreme Court in the University of Michigan’s admissions cases have again brought attention to diversity issues from both the left and the right. The Supreme Court recognized the importance of a diverse environment in education, and colleges and universities are struggling with how to strike a balance in recruitment and hiring practices to achieve diversity and yet remain within legal boundaries. The retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor from the Supreme Court and the appointments of new justices may once again bring these contentious issues into higher education. This chapter addresses the environment that is needed for a diverse faculty and addresses the demographic changes that will make it imperative for administrators and governing boards to recognize the policies and practices that are needed to ensure that campuses are able to recruit and retain the faculty of the future. Barbara Mawhiney’s contribution to this chapter addresses the current state of affirmative action on many campuses, demonstrating that many institutions have a long way to go to ensure a diverse faculty. A diverse student body deserves a diverse faculty—in ethnicity and gender as well as in points of view. A number of initiatives can make a
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difference in the campus environment for faculty: summer research grants, mentoring programs, career development workshops, tenure and promotion workshops, a rethinking of tenure and promotion policies, accommodations for faculty with joint appointments or appointments in centers, and attention to climate issues. These issues are important to all faculty, but particularly critical to those faculty who have been previously excluded from the ivory tower—women, minorities, GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) faculty, and faculty with disabilities. Higher education can no longer keep doing things “the way we always have done them.” The persistent issues of race, gender, class, sexuality, and the presence of students and faculty with disabilities require that we affirm the distinctiveness of various communities without creating a climate of divisiveness. We have an obligation to create an environment of inclusiveness and relevancy while maintaining what we believe is the common core of education. Two primary assumptions about universities and faculty need to be challenged. First, most universities assume a “traditional” faculty member; in fact, the majority of new hires are “non-traditional.” Subsequent chapters discuss how the early-career faculty differ in attitude as well as in demographics from their more senior colleagues. Second, our campuses must recognize that many of our programs, and particularly those directed to new hires, aim to change faculty and faculty behavior to fit an established academic model; our long-term goal must be to change the university to respond to the new faculty and students. Diversity is not incompatible with high standards of performance. Indeed, a high-quality educational environment is one that is diverse. We are preparing all students for the next century, and it is a world that will not look like the university of the past. Because colleges and universities are preparing leaders for a diverse population, all programs and curricula need to reflect this reality. We must take a holistic approach to the environment and not focus only on curriculum or only on minority faculty recruitment or on any number of specifics. Our immediate goal is the increased participation, retention, and graduation rates of a diverse student population at both the graduate and undergraduate levels; however, to do this requires an institutional commitment. Such a commitment includes attention to faculty recruitment and retention as well as curriculum change. Institutions must be realistic about what is possible. Every university is facing diminished resources, and mentoring programs, internal research grants, and even scheduling lunches with new faculty may seem like luxuries. But such types of programs are essential to provide all faculty with the resources they need to be successful. Frequently, administrators do not
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know what those needs are, but it is not difficult to find out. As surveys of early-career faculty show, these faculty members are not shy about stating what will help them succeed. WOMEN IN THE ACADEMY Women outnumber men in post-secondary education, now making up about 57 percent of the undergraduate population. Although in 2002–03 nearly as many women as men received doctoral degrees (24,341 awarded to men and 21,683 awarded to women), over 60 percent of the faculty at research universities are men. Even new assistant professors are overwhelmingly male.1 Women predominate at the ranks of instructor and lecturer, but make up only 24 percent of the full professors. Women will continue to find employment opportunities, but primarily as adjunct, lecturer, or assistant professor, not at higher ranks. Only at community colleges do women make up close to 50 percent of the faculty population, and many of them do not have terminal degrees. So while more and more women are achieving doctoral degrees, the profile of the faculty is not changing significantly. Some research shows that women progress more slowly along the tenure track, perhaps taking advantage of extending the tenure clock for pregnancy and childrearing, and equity studies show that women are frequently paid less than their male counterparts. If universities are serious about recruiting a gender-diverse faculty, there are expectations that need to be met to attract women to university positions.2 In the 1960s and 1970s, women thought they could “do it all”—work full-time, raise children, and have a fulfilling life. Now, more than ever, women—and many men—realize that they want to have both personal and professional lives that are satisfying. Often this attitude is not appreciated by hiring committees, and the result is that women are not hired or choose not to apply for positions at universities that they perceive do not offer them the possibility of a balanced life. The issue of women in the academy was analyzed in the press in 2004 after Harvard’s president Lawrence Summers speculated about why there were not more women in math and the sciences. In fact, Harvard’s record for tenuring women is not very good, but the controversy has prompted a rethinking of the tenure process and drawn attention to the disparities there and elsewhere. A number of factors influence the imbalance in the hiring of women. Whereas at one time women were aware of overt discrimination, now the biases are more subtle. Virginia Valian, author of Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women, says that what is happening is “below everyone’s radar screen.”3 Unless there are conscious decisions made about seeking out
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women candidates, evaluating their records fairly, and being willing to select someone who may not fit the current department profile, this pattern will continue. As the need to hire new faculty expands, it is critical that universities evaluate what is needed to attract women to their institutions and to have mentoring programs and support networks that keep them there. Of particular concern to female faculty are the very real sacrifices that they may make to achieve career success. In a recent study commissioned by the Sloan Foundation, women were shown to be much more likely than men to remain single, have fewer children, or delay having a second child.4 Campus policies that allow part-time tenure, a delayed tenure clock, and recognized and institutionalized maternity leave provide support for families. Such an approach must be viewed as normal and acceptable, however, and not an exception for one or two faculty at an institution or else the policies will be viewed as negative rather than an endorsement of a family-friendly workplace. Many universities are recognizing the importance of family-friendly environments, and all institutions would be wise to follow such guidelines as those implemented at the University of Michigan to support families.5 FACULTY OF COLOR Although the “face” of the faculty is changing, it is doing so slowly. In 2002–03, 60 percent of the doctorate degrees were awarded to white Americans, with another 25 percent awarded to non-resident aliens, meaning that 15 percent were awarded to American minorities. In the fall of 2003, 74 percent of the assistant professor positions were filled by white Americans, suggesting that this group is being hired at a rate greater than their proportion in graduate programs.6 A sense of community is essential for all new faculty. When there is one woman in physics, one African American male in history, and two Latinas (one Cuban and one Mexican) in English, it is difficult to establish community. Universities can help this situation with “cluster hiring” or by bringing together faculty from across departments or from nearby universities who might share interests and history. Often, minority group members are also interested in the community outside of the university, and opportunities for interaction will increase the likelihood that these faculty will become more comfortable in the environment. Many of the subtle biases that keep women from the academy also operate to keep minority faculty from being hired. In the case of minority hiring, however, the problem begins much earlier. More minority students—especially males—drop out of high school and never make it to
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college. Those who do may stop at the two-year college level, and those who graduate with baccalaureate degrees tend not to go on to graduate school. Programs such as the Southern Region Education Board (SREB)-State Doctoral Scholars Program and The PhD Project sponsored by the KPMG Foundation are addressing the need for more minority PhDs prepared for university teaching and research. Other programs, such as the National Institutes of Health’s Minority Research Infrastructure Support Program (M-RISP) and even early intervention programs such as GEAR UP and Upward Bound, have been successful in getting more minority students to college. The most recent statistics compiled by The PhD Project look at the business faculty in the universities ranked in the top twenty by U.S. News and World Report in 2005.7 Of the 26,000 faculty in business schools in the United States, only 746 were minority group members. In the top twenty business schools, there were forty-nine African American faculty, eleven Hispanic faculty, and two Native American faculty. Although the number of minority faculty in business schools has more than doubled from 1994 to 2005, there remain many business schools with no minority faculty at all. The largest and fastest-growing population group in the United States is Hispanic. The percentage of Hispanics in the US population exceeds that of African Americans, and in most states the growth in the number of high school graduates will be determined by how many Hispanic high school students actually stay in school to graduate. The 2005 Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac reports that in 2002 while 10 percent of undergraduates were Hispanic, only 5 percent of graduate students were Hispanic. Only 3 percent of the professors in the United States in 2003 identified themselves as Hispanic. The number of Hispanics receiving degrees, however, is growing at a faster rate than other racial or ethnic groups; during the 1990s, there was a 128 percent increase in the number of master’s degrees awarded to Hispanics and a 76 percent increase in doctorate degrees, suggesting increases on Hispanic faculty in the future.8 Given the diversity of this population—Mexican, Cuban, Latin American, South American, Puerto Rican—even having some Hispanics on the faculty will not be representative of the group. Among Hispanics, national origin, race, and class all add to the diversity of the population. For this group—as with other groups—gender issues also come into play when cultural traditions influence decision-making within the group. There is great diversity among the group, ranging from the conservatism of Richard Rodriguez and Linda Chavez to the more liberal views of scholars such as Laura Rendon and Gloria Anzaldúa. Even the label attached to this group varies, and using an inaccurate term can be viewed negatively.
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In the Southwest, the term Chicano tends to predominate as a reference to the many people of Mexican origin, but that term is seldom heard in the Southeast where Latino/Latina or Hispanic are the preferred terms. Scholar Ronald Takaki has written much about the “model minority,” Asian American students and faculty at our institutions. The implication of the term is that this group does not need special attention. It is true that Asian American students tend to outscore their peers on standardized tests and excel in high school and college and that Asian Americans are not underrepresented among US faculty. However, it is also true that “Asian American” includes people of Japanese and Chinese origin who have been in the United States for several generations along with Hmong, Vietnamese, and Laotians who are more recent immigrants. Just as elementary, middle, and high schools have addressed these differences with multiple-language announcements for parents, universities must recognize the differences within this larger group. One of the ongoing stereotypes is that Asian Americans will excel in math and science rather than the humanities; however, one need only read Amy Tan’s novels to know that the stereotype is limiting. Because many hiring committees make the “model minority” assumption, members frequently fail to recognize the specific and general needs of these faculty. Their needs can be as simple as a Chinese language school for their children in the community or an Asian market nearby. Search committees need to familiarize themselves with the community resources that can support new hires, no matter what specific requirements there might be. In her study on this issue, Shirley Hune addresses the “cultural invisibility” of Asian Pacific American women, addressing the differences in language, culture, social organization, residential patterns, religion, income, education, occupation, and location in American history that differentiates the members of this group. The descendants of the Chinese and Japanese who arrived as early as the 1840s and into the 1930s are very different from the second wave of Asian immigrants who arrived after 1965, when changes in the US Immigration Act eliminated national origin quotas. The arrival between 1975 and 1990 of over one million Southeast Asians in resettlement programs, primarily Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong, and Laotian, introduced yet another group of differences among these immigrants.9 Native Americans continue to be the smallest percent in the population as well as the least likely to appear in a final pool of candidates for a faculty position. The statistics on the education of Native Americans are dismal. Less than 1 percent of the doctorates awarded in 2003 went to Native Americans, and less than 1 percent of the faculty in the country are Native American. In 2003, less than 3,000 faculty in the entire country were Native American.10
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When a hiring committee does have an opportunity to interview a Native American, the members need to recognize, as with Asian Americans, the diversity of this population. Native Americans may come from reservations or urban areas, may speak a native language or not, may participate fully in ceremonial activities or may be only tangentially connected to a tribal tradition. In fact, some individuals who identify themselves as Native American are only marginally so. Yet most applicants who identify themselves as Native American or Alaskan Native do so because they have a connection to this identity and to the values and traditions of a tribal history. This may mean that they need to return home for ceremonies or that the definition of family is the extended family, from whom the pulls are strong. As with every group, Native Americans’ political and religious orientation can vary from traditional Diné clans and ceremonies to the Mormonism of the Catawba or the Christian denominations of the Lumbee of North Carolina. Even after civil rights legislation and affirmative action policies, coupled with targeted hiring programs, the number of minority faculty at predominantly white institutions remains low. In the Southeast, the preponderance of African American faculty are teaching at one of the many Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Similarly, increasing numbers of American Indians are teaching at tribal colleges, and Hispanics are teaching at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Although the numbers of women and minorities in the faculty ranks are growing, the presence of these groups in higher education administration remains low. In fact, some observers have speculated that, after a round of hiring women or minorities as deans, provosts, and presidents, many governing boards are congratulating themselves on being early examples of nondiscrimination and are replacing women with men and minorities with white administrators. France Córdova’s contribution to this chapter illustrates the professional success and personal satisfaction of an administrative career that began with her appointment as a department chair. Unless attention is given to hiring diverse faculty and mentoring them, there will be little opportunity for diversity among the administrative ranks. BREAKING TRAIL: ONE PATH TO A UNIVERSITY CHANCELLORSHIP France A. Córdova Some of my fondest memories are of back-country skiing, especially after a new snowfall. I recall the freedom my friends and I felt as we launched uninhibited into a virgin wilderness, with the snow bright white and tall pines converging around the lens of a blue sky. We took turns creating trails as we shot along mountain ridges and across the
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valleys between peaks. When my daughter was born, she traveled as a pack on my back, her new face flecked with snowflakes, her eyes wide open as we broke trail. We were pathfinders. A recap of my journey is in order. After receiving my PhD in physics in 1979 from Caltech, I accepted a staff scientist position at Los Alamos National Laboratory because it was a permanent, rather than a temporary, postdoctoral position, and it therefore afforded me an opportunity to be a full-fledged member of the scientific community of the Lab, and because the mesas of northern New Mexico comprised, in my view, the most beautiful place on Earth. I stayed in Los Alamos for ten years, during which time I met my husband and we had two children in rapid succession. I did basic research in astrophysics and served on a variety of national committees for space science. Then I began to get offers to join the faculties of various universities. I accepted Penn State University’s offer of a department chair and a full professorship. Being the head of a department was not an aspiration, but apparently others thought I could and should do this, and it was interesting and a bit exciting to me to have this confidence and trust placed in me. It was also an opportunity to raise the visibility and potential of a very good department. At Penn State, I pursued my science, working with both undergraduate and graduate students, and continued to serve on various national scientific committees; the latter brought me to the attention of the Administrator of NASA. He asked me to interview for the position of Chief Scientist of NASA, and then offered me the position. I accepted this new challenge only after much soul-searching. I asked a hundred people close to me about the benefit of taking this position on a temporary basis (on leave from Penn State); most were against it, saying it would take me away from science. But in the end I accepted because a few people thought I could make a difference in Washington, DC, especially for women in science. I did not know anything about science policy when I joined NASA, but I soon was in the thick of it, working not only within the space agency, but also with the top scientists from other federal agencies. We addressed a wide range of topics, from the value of refurbishing the South Pole Station to an all-agency definition of research misconduct to facilitating closer relationships between NASA and the National Academies. It was a wonderful time for me and for my spouse. Our children, born in New Mexico, were at a young age living in their third state (Virginia); they were soon to make the journey to their fourth. As we finished our terms in Washington, DC, I was invited to interview at several universities. I chose the University of California, Santa Barbara because of the opportunity to be in a quality physics department; to serve as Vice Chancellor for Research, a wonderful job advocating research;
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and to be much closer to my parents and siblings, all of whom lived in California. Starting in mid-1996, my husband and I enjoyed several wonderful years at UCSB. I would have been content to grow into the emeritus status there, but that was not to be. In 2002 I was asked to interview for the position of Chancellor of University of California, Riverside. And here I am, at UC Riverside—with a load of challenges before me, such as assisting in the transformation of the economy, the health, and the environment of the vast “Inland Empire,” arguably the fastest growing region in the nation. I have set many additional goals for the campus, among them enhancing its reputation and rankings; initiating multidisciplinary ventures and new professional schools; expanding opportunities for our undergraduates in research and academic programs; growing our graduate school; stimulating the growth of technology transfer, industry startups, and venture capital; and increasing the diversity of our faculty and graduate program to reflect the diversity in our undergraduate student body. There was no point during my career when I actually thought of my life as a “career,” a word which implies deliberateness. Until, that is, I reached my present position, the chancellorship of a University of California campus. Now people ask me to describe the path that led me to this point, as if I had carefully made a strategic plan for my life in college and checked it systematically as I went. I tell them that I happened here by a series of accidents, without a map. But honestly, when I look in my tool box I find a compass, one which keeps pointing me towards challenge, a search for excellence, and intensity, a desire to create, a drive to make a difference. A series of choices brought me here. I said “yes” more than I said “no” to opportunity because I am an adventurer. What do I most treasure? I’m a lucky person to have a supportive spouse and gracious, flexible children. Through all our moves from lab to university to federal government and back to university, over four states and five locations, we have been a happy, close family. That’s a blessing I would wish on everyone.
GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER FACULTY Almost invisible on many college campuses, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) faculty are not protected by federal or most states’ laws against discrimination. Although many college campuses have adopted broad policies to prevent harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation, such policies are not reinforced by the legal system. Health insurance, the distribution of retirement benefits, tuition benefits, and
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other benefits accorded to legal spouses and children are usually not available to gay and lesbian couples. Although campuses increasingly have organizations that address gay and lesbian concerns, such organizations are more prominent at private institutions. Harvard, Northwestern, Columbia, and Georgetown have such organizations; however, such entities are less frequent and more “closeted” at public institutions. Harvard University has had an anti-discrimination policy since 1985 and has published the Gay and Lesbian Review since 1994. There are few similar records in state colleges and universities where legislatures establish policies and the state is the primary source of campus funding for benefits. National disciplinary organizations such as the Modern Language Association and the American Anthropological Association have done surveys on the prevalence of discrimination against GLBT applicants and faculty, which can provide important information to search committees and administrators about the issues. The contribution to this chapter by Wendy K. Wilkins and Patrick M. McConeghy recounts the efforts of one public university to defend its policies to accommodate same-sex partners and their dependents. Gay and lesbian faculty have legitimate fears about their future employment, as the account in this chapter from two lesbian faculty at Virginia Tech demonstrates. Such fears can frequently limit progress through the ranks because of the limitations on socializing or outright non-acceptance by peers. Couples may have concerns about childcare that they are reluctant to address. The lack of benefits enjoyed by colleagues frequently places economic burdens on couples as well when they must seek health coverage outside the benefit programs offered to other couples at the institution. Although there may be a growing acceptance for faculty of color, GLBT faculty continue to be suspect by boards and legislatures as a result of lack of knowledge about their lifestyle, misunderstandings about committed relationships, and misinformation about the cost of adding health coverage for partners. In 2005, Georgetown University added health benefits to a new category of individuals who are identified as LDAs—“legally domiciled adults.” This new policy addressed issues for gay and lesbian couples as well as opposite-sex couples and the growing number of single individuals caring for a family member. The policy allows faculty and staff to select a plan for either a spouse or LDA. The LDA may be someone with whom the person has a close personal relationship or a blood relative such as an elderly parent or adult child. In each case, the relationship must be financially interdependent or the person must actually be a dependent of the employee. Ironically, it is a school with strong Catholic roots that has responded to this very real need within the academic community with a creative policy that endorses caring relationships of many kinds.
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OUR EXPERIENCE WITH DUAL-CAREER COUPLE HIRING AT VIRGINIA TECH Shelli B. Fowler and Karen P. DePauw In many universities, dual-career couple hires further the institution’s ability to recruit and retain diverse faculty, particularly in rural or semi-rural areas. In 2002, as an academic dual-career, same-sex couple, we experienced firsthand what we viewed, and what many within academe viewed, as discrimination on the basis of our sexual orientation. While our initial experience at Virginia Tech began with the kind of covert discriminatory practices that too many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) faculty and administrators worry about having to confront, our experience ended up reminding us all about the important impact that collective action makes in bringing positive change (whether locally or nationally) to the academy. Virginia Tech is a land-grant, research university located in a small college town at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Southwest Virginia. Historically, Virginia Tech began as an all-white, all-male institution with a large and active Corps of Cadets. According to several accommodated spouses at our institution, dual-career couple hires (or spousal-accommodation hires) have been “standard issue” at Virginia Tech for several years. Although there is no official policy governing the practice, there appears to have been a de facto practice that had over the years sanctioned spousal-accommodation hires—at least for straight, white, legally married couples. Our experience at Virginia Tech was quite different from any of the other dual-career couple hires who preceded us. In the fall of 2001, Karen DePauw was nominated for the nationally advertised position of Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate School at Virginia Tech. At the time, Karen was the Dean of the Graduate School at Washington State University, and Shelli was an Associate Professor with a joint appointment in Comparative Ethnic Studies and English at WSU. By February 2002, Karen was one of four finalists for the position, and she was flown in for a week-long, on-site interview. In March, the Provost told Karen that she was the candidate Tech wanted to hire and invited her to return to Tech for a second visit. We already knew that Tech included sexual orientation in its non-discrimination policy, as that was one of the important factors in our seriously considering Virginia Tech. It was at that point, as part of the initial negotiations, that Karen asked if Tech had a partner-accommodation policy. The Provost, a recent addition to Tech’s administration himself and a former Dean at UC Davis, showed no hesitation and actively began to discuss options for a partner hire. By mid-March, Shelli had interviewed with the Department
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of English and shortly thereafter the Department voted to approve her candidacy as a tenured member of the department. Following that confirmation, the Provost offered each of us a contract. We sent two signed contracts back to the Provost during the last week in March, and made plans to join the Virginia Tech community in August 2002. As we were later to learn, some time in early May 2002, a homophobic email was sent to a handful of the most conservative members of Virginia Tech’s governing board, the Board of Visitors (BOV), alerting them that we were lesbian partners and that our hire would be the demise of traditional values at Virginia Tech. At the June 3, 2002, quarterly meeting of the BOV, both of our names, along with nine faculty hires, were on the new personnel list routinely approved by the BOV. During the Academic Affairs Committee (a sub-committee of the BOV) meeting on June 3, there were no questions, nor was there any discussion about any of the hires on the new personnel list, including us, although this was the committee whose responsibility it would have been to raise and address any questions about new hires. During the BOV’s closed session later that day, however, things were not, apparently, business as usual. At the end of what was close to three hours, the BOV emerged to announce that all of the hires on the list were approved, except for one—Shelli Fowler. No explanation was offered at that point, and no one could (or would) tell us why. The silence spoke volumes, and with the support of the central administration and numerous faculty who were outraged by the BOV’s actions, we decided that we would not be intimidated. We felt that it was important to come to Tech to stand up to the perceived discrimination with the support of the Virginia Tech community. We knew that whether or not we stayed at Tech for very long, it was the right time to help those who wanted to move Virginia Tech forward into the 21st century. Soon after we arrived in August 2002, concerned faculty, upset with the fact that the BOV could reverse a faculty decision, circulated a petition asking the BOV to reconsider the cancellation of Shelli’s contract. The Chronicle of Higher Education picked up the story, and the university’s statement regarding the cancellation of Shelli’s contract finally emerged. The budget was officially to blame. As news of the fact that a homophobic email had been sent to select members of the BOV became known, and as the fact that a spousal-accommodation tenuretrack faculty hire (for a straight couple) had been routinely approved by the BOV in March 2002 (within the same budgetary time frame), more and more members of the university community became increasingly suspicious about the Board’s motives. As a result, the intensity of the collective activism increased. An anonymous group calling itself “Justice for Tech” initiated a nation-wide letter-writing campaign on our behalf. In the spring of 2002, over 200 letters were sent to each
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member of the BOV, Virginia Tech President Charles Steger, and Virginia Governor Mark Warner. The letters came from Tech faculty, staff, and alums, from colleagues who had worked with us as well as from colleagues who did not know us personally, and from professional associations. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) reviewed the specifics of our case and wrote a letter to the BOV and President Steger condemning the Board’s actions. The Faculty Senate and the Graduate Student Assembly both passed resolutions, and a group of faculty and student activists protested at the November 2002 meeting of Virginia Tech’s Board of Visitors. In March 2003, Shelli received a temporary, restricted faculty position. During the same March BOV meeting when the temporary contract was approved, the BOV removed sexual orientation from Virginia Tech’s official anti-discrimination policy and also passed a resolution ending all affirmative action policies related to admissions and hiring processes. Those actions brought together an even larger and more diverse campus coalition made up of student, staff, and faculty groups, as well as community groups such as the local and regional NAACP. The degree of activism in response to the BOV’s actions was, we have been told, something that Virginia Tech had not seen in decades. Campus protests and national press coverage forced the BOV into an emergency session one month later in April 2003. During their public meeting, it was clear that there was growing dissent among the ranks of the BOV members. At that meeting new leadership within the BOV began to emerge, and the BOV voted to rescind its actions of one month earlier by reinstating affirmative action policies and by reinstating a non-discrimination policy that included sexual orientation. A renewed valuing of diversity among the BOV members and the election of a new Rector of the BOV during their June 2003 meeting changed the tone and tenor of the BOV. In November 2003, the BOV approved a new, permanent contract for Shelli as the Director of Graduate Education Development Institute (GEDI) in Learning Technologies and as Associate Professor of English. Since then, the university has been working on creating dual-career hiring guidelines, and early drafts have received favorable review by the Academic Affairs Committee of the BOV. With the new BOV members and a change in BOV leadership, the 2004 Board of Visitors of Virginia Tech was strongly committed to diversity and inclusivity in higher education. Dual-career couples are now once again on the radar screen for faculty hires, including same-sex domestic partners. Tech recently recruited and successfully hired a highly sought-after female faculty member following newly drafted dual-career hiring guidelines. Seeing the same-sex couple and the departmental faculty (and wives) enjoying dinner at a local restaurant during the candidate’s visit, it seemed so
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normative. It was hard to believe such a dramatic change had occurred in just two years. Our experience at Virginia Tech was a personal struggle and a professional challenge. Yet our personal and professional success at Virginia Tech has been due to the collective activism of a local and national academic community that refused to sit quietly when spousal hiring was perceived as acceptable for straight academic couples, but unacceptable when the academic couple was not straight. Most important, the collective response of the Virginia Tech community has resulted in a positive and forward-moving change for the institution. Our success and the reinvigorated campus-wide energy for progress at Virginia Tech would not have been possible without the collective action of the university community. This brief narrative describes our own personal journey, but the lessons learned are applicable in other colleges and universities around the nation. As the 21st century unfolds, institutions of higher education must continue to contemplate and prepare for the academic enterprise of the future in an increasingly diverse socio-cultural-political-economic context. Non-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation, dual-career couple hiring policies, and institutional resources and support services for LGBT students, staff, and faculty are some of the proactive steps that should be offered in an environment that welcomes diversity. When our institutions of higher education adopt social justice initiatives that are inclusive of the LGBT community and when our colleges and universities do so in ways that bring positive change to our institutions’ policies, programs, and personnel across the nation, then we will be much closer to achieving the kind of diverse and progressive educational practices that are essential for the 21st century.
FACULTY WITH DISABILITIES Faculty with disabilities are increasingly in applicant pools as opportunities expand for students to achieve master’s and doctorate degrees. Such successes must be reflected in success in the academic hiring process, although search committees are frequently ill-informed about relevant issues. Search committees should be instructed regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act and other legislation that requires that they not ask illegal questions and that they provide reasonable accommodations. Too often, search committees assume that a person with a visual impairment, a wheelchair, or a hearing loss cannot teach or participate in departmental activities, when all that is needed is an accessible office, a screen reader, screen enlargement or speech recognition software, or other adaptive technologies. All campuses must be aware of the architectural
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requirements for students, faculty, and staff to be able to negotiate the physical environment. The source of funding for necessary accommodations should be addressed by institutions separate from any individual need so that hiring decisions can be made in a relatively neutral environment. Frequently faculty with disabilities have succeeded in spite of the odds, and they are often better able to address the needs of the increasing number of students with physical or learning disabilities. Faculty without disabilities sometimes find that efforts to provide accommodations for colleagues and students with disabilities can have a profound effect on their own attitudes toward their work. Rachel A. Willis’s contribution to this chapter describes the revolutionizing impact that developing classroom accommodations for a student with disabilities had on her teaching, research, and service. Her efforts to accommodate the needs of a single student have led, among other impacts, to her organizing a survey of physical barriers on UNC campuses. ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION FOR THE DIFFERENTLY ABLE Rachel A. Willis In 1982, I arrived at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to begin work as a faculty member in Economics. Laura Thomas, Director of Disability Services, informed me that a blind student had registered for my Labor Economics course. She quickly informed me I was “fortunate to qualify for special free teaching and technology support” because of this particular student. Blind since birth, he would need to be able to access the lectures and graphical presentations so critical to learning. I would need to use alternative teaching strategies so that he could access all the course materials. I provided paper versions of graphs that I was going to use in the course, then a technician constructed the graphs in three dimensions with string, yarn, small plywood strips, various grades of sandpaper, and glue. Two-dimensional shaded areas of cost, revenue, profit, and numerous other economic concepts were transformed into tactile models. Each fragile page was then converted into a heavy plastic sheet with Braille labels. I was taught how to give complete verbal explanations of visual teaching tools from charts to data estimates. I typed in lecture outlines, equations, definitions, and explanations in electronic files in advance of each lecture. I sent the files via a BITNET connection to a mainframe University computer, where they were printed on a Braille embossing machine for the student. He took his class notes using a Braille slate and received and completed homework and exams in Braille using appropriate graphs. I read transcribed versions on computer printouts.
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Through course evaluations and grading, I discovered that many of his classmates quickly learned to follow my detailed verbal instructions. They only checked with the board to see if their mental interpretation of the concepts was correct. It was clear that my teaching effectiveness was enhanced for everyone because of the accommodations made for the student with disabilities—or different abilities. My introduction to one of the critical challenges facing faculty—learning how to communicate effectively to students in multidimensional ways—proved to be a turning point in my career, resulting in my use of alternative teaching strategies: service learning, field research, and co-curricular public policy service projects. The 1990 passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) resulted in stronger requirements for government, institutions, and businesses to improve access to programs and services for people with disabilities. ADA compliance concerns in higher education quickly fueled interest in building accessible campuses not only to meet the letter of the law but also to improve the independence and success of students with disabilities. Already engaged in community paratransit planning, I began serving on UNC’s Buildings and Grounds and Master Planning Committees beginning in 1997. I also developed an experimental course that used the campus as a laboratory for understanding the development of higher education through the physical development of the campus. Offered as “The Role of the University in American Life,” the course includes a field lab option. Students travel to area campuses and a wide range of local facilities to focus on themes ranging from sports to research. While I have actively recruited students with different abilities to all my courses since 1982, I also assign temporary physical disabilities to my students in the field lab. The effectiveness of using physical disabilities as a teaching tool eventually led me to develop and offer a new course in 2005 that focused broadly on “Access to Higher Education,” linking multiple dimensions such as socioeconomic circumstances, technology resources, and disability. Working with Rebeccah Williford, a former student and undergraduate teaching assistant, we have developed a summer service project related to campus accessibility. The UNC ACCESS (Accessible College Campuses for Everyone Site Survey) Project was designed to measure and communicate one aspect of campus accessibility: functional wheelchair access for students at the sixteen campuses of the University of North Carolina. Working in partnership with Senior Vice President Gretchen Bataille at UNC’s Office of the President, we were able to coordinate campus logistics and capitalize on the timing of a $3.1 billion bond for campus construction currently under way at North Carolina’s public universities and community colleges. Students have completed site surveys at the ten most distant campuses in the
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UNC system, using a variety of methods to find, document, and communicate best practices to improve physical access. I have been able to engage a new cohort of students in field research; each student has advanced the project using his or her different abilities with accessible information technology, photo documentation, presentation, and data analysis. What began in 1982 as a teaching challenge has evolved into a new approach to pedagogy, a research agenda, and public service projects for my classes. Laura Thomas was right: most of my experiments with more active learning pedagogies including service learning, field research, and public policy service projects have resulted from her constantly urging me to “think of alternate ways to discover, learn, or communicate an idea.” She ended most of our conversations about improving access with the reminder that “we are all temporarily able.” As I have aged, I have experienced and witnessed in my colleagues both temporary disabilities and gradual declines in mobility. I have been struck repeatedly by the importance of providing universal access to ensure the participation of temporarily or gradually disabled members of the academy. Smart planning, policies, and resource allocations can extend the productive work life of faculty and staff as well as improve access and success of students with disabilities.
PARTNER HIRING Some prospective faculty come to interviews knowing that they have a “secret” that may affect their chances for employment. It may be that they have a spouse or partner who is also looking for a position. If the partner is a same-sex partner, the situation is even dicier. While some campuses have addressed partner accommodations, others still cannot figure out what to do when hiring dual-career couples. An example comes from a campus that had just hired a new dean. During the same time period, the top candidate in an independent search by a department within the college was the dean’s wife. Frantic, the department chair called the provost to say that the department was unable to hire the best candidate. Hanging on to old notions of nepotism, the chair had told the candidate she could not be hired. The provost quickly summed up the situation and told the chair that the best candidate needed to be hired; any personnel actions or salary actions would be made by the provost, bypassing the dean. Had the provost not been proactive, the campus might have lost a dean and a faculty member and perhaps would have lost a lawsuit! It is not surprising that faculty often come in pairs. They meet in graduate school, finish degrees, go on the job market, and then hope to find
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positions that do not require cross-country commuting. While much has been written about the problem, less has been suggested about practical solutions. There are several ways to make hiring of couples work. Some positions can be held by the dean or the provost to accommodate academic couples when the accompanying partner has been interviewed and found worthy by the hiring department. Once given to a department, such positions are linked to the person and do not become a permanent line in the department if the person leaves. Another approach is for the provost to hold a pool of funds that can be used when requested by a dean to address partner accommodation. In one plan, the provost provides the full salary for one year, half the salary for the second year, and a quarter of the salary for the third year. The hiring departments must negotiate who will pay the remainder of the second and third year salaries. By the fourth year, either the accommodated partner has proved to be worthy of an open line or has not worked out and the funds are no longer available. This provides ample time for a couple to determine if there is a good “fit” for both of them or if they need to figure out a better way of addressing their employment issues. Some may argue that the methods cited above violate affirmative action policies. To counter this accusation, campuses must ensure that interviews are rigorous and that accompanying partners meet the highest expectations of the department doing the hiring. In every case, the affirmative action office and human resources must review and approve such policies. As Chapter Four documents, campuses are hiring an increasing number of non-tenure-track faculty. Such appointments provide another alternative for partner accommodation. Many campuses have needs for part-time or adjunct faculty, and it is not difficult to provide such an appointment to a partner of a new faculty member, giving that person some experience and time to find a more permanent position. However, departments should not assume that a “trailing spouse,” as institutions used to identify such persons, will be in such a position forever. A recent example is that of a woman who had accepted a position at a much lower salary than anyone would find acceptable in order to remain with her husband and children. A divorce made her more likely to leave the campus, and only then did the chair decide to nearly double her salary to keep her. Such inequities are inexcusable and need to be addressed during the negotiation and hiring process.11 The contribution to this chapter by Wendy K. Wilkins and Patrick M. McConeghy describes how campuses have extended partner hiring and other benefits to same-sex couples and can defend their practices through broader definitions of “family.”
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PARTNER ACCOMMODATION AND CHANGING DEFINITIONS OF “FAMILY” Wendy K. Wilkins and Patrick M. McConeghy As recently as the late 1980s, if asked about employing the professional spouse of a prospective new hire (and in those days, it was a matter of hiring a so-called “trailing spouse”), many university administrators would refer to nepotism policies and avoid it. Therefore, when a handful of institutions determined they could ethically hire spouses by requiring the married couple to sign a conflict of interest disclosure and could also maintain institutional quality by a) arguing a programmatic need for the expertise of the spouse, b) expecting qualifications of the spouse to be comparable to those of short-listed candidates in an open search, and c) allocating funds for the position without diverting them from more critical needs, such universities had a distinct advantage in the recruitment of their top-ranked job applicants. The hiring of trailing spouses had the added advantage of sending the message that the institution was family-friendly and that it cared about the personal well-being of its employees. Nevertheless, spousal accommodation was quite clearly an innovation that responded to market pressures—a way to succeed in recruiting top-ranked job candidates who might otherwise accept job offers from competing institutions. The selfsame factors remain in play as, more recently, institutions respond to candidates’ inquiries about accommodation for same-sex partners. As finalists become less reticent to reveal long-term gay and lesbian relationships before accepting an offer, and as they expect similar consideration for the hiring of their partners as married applicants do, institutions have adapted their understanding of “family” to include the needs of gay and lesbian candidates. Of the 235 tenure-system faculty in Michigan State University’s College of Arts and Letters in 2003–04, 90 had partners at the university, most the result of partner accommodation. Four of these had same-sex partners. Although the numbers for same-sex partners are small, it remains in the interest of our institution to promote a gay-friendly/family-friendly environment when recruiting and to compete with other universities. Market remains the driving force in policy change, especially where the political cost is small. In the realm of partner hiring, accommodating samesex partners has had few negative repercussions internally and has prompted negligible public outcry. Political costs must be taken into account, however, when one extends the discussion of partner accommodation to the realm of benefits. Despite vocal opposition in the community, MSU offered domestic partner benefits in 1997, but only for same-sex couples. Although
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this policy shift built on earlier market arguments, proponents cited equal protection and antidiscrimination arguments as well. By and large, higher education has been at the cutting edge in furthering inclusiveness in antidiscrimination policies. Typical of large public institutions, MSU does not deny institutional benefits to employees because of marital status or sexual orientation. The new policy explicitly provided equal protection in benefits to a group of employees who, because of their sexual orientation, were not permitted to marry and enjoy the same advantages available to their heterosexual colleagues. Thus, unmarried straight couples who could legally marry were excluded from the expanded benefits policy. Similar reasoning is exhibited at Massachusetts colleges now seeking to repeal domestic partner benefits because gay employees may, for the time being at least, marry in that state.12 Laudably and logically, MSU (like many sister institutions) extended benefits to the children of same-sex partners, defining “dependent children” as the biological or legally adopted children of benefits-eligible employees who are “qualified dependents for federal income tax purposes” or for whom the benefits-eligible employee pays more than 50 percent support. This definition, narrowly crafted to follow IRS regulations with regard to dependency status, is an important step forward. However, the university provides no benefits to childless employees who wish, for example, to claim tuition waivers for a nephew whose education they are supporting. Benefits policy does not allow for such equal protection and therefore the university’s familyfriendly policies (which really amount to nuclear-family-friendly, even if the children have same-sex parents) enforce a rather conservative and legalistically determined notion of what constitutes “family.” When the university uses equal protection and marriage equivalence to justify domestic partner benefits, it does not go unnoticed in the general public. Beginning with “defense of marriage” acts across the country in 1996, public displeasure with this and similar innovations culminated in the November elections of 2004, in which Michigan, like ten other states, amended its constitution to define marriage as the union between one man and one woman. Particular to the Michigan amendment is the statement that such a union “be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose” (emphasis added). In light of this language, Michigan courts will determine the legality of domestic partner benefits granted to same-sex unions as marriage equivalencies. The University quietly defends its decision to offer domestic partner benefits and will continue to do so as long as it is legal. But recent lessons provided by the “defense of marriage” laws and constitutional amendments should prompt university administrators not to pitch
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legal argument against legal argument but instead to reexamine the rationale for partner accommodation in general. As in the early years when arguments of nepotism were made moot by universities reframing the issue and eliminating possible abuses, so too should universities now make the issue of same-sex marriage moot by framing partner accommodation in sociological rather than legal terms. Policy can be based on accepted personal behavioral and cultural norms that advance the institution: long-term, stable relationships; responsible concern for the welfare of children; good health; and community commitment. While it would have considerable financial implications, especially for state-supported institutions, these norms could replace categories of marital status as the basis for providing accommodation and benefits. By defining eligibility for “family” consideration in such terms, and avoiding reified legal conditions, universities could more independently live up to their goals of advancing a more inclusive social good within their cultures.
VALUING FACULTY DIVERSITY In his essay in Hale’s book, Racial Diversity, William Kirwan says “neutrality alone cannot erase the efforts of centuries of discrimination.”13 Too often, search committees and administrators seek a “level playing field” by being neutral rather than affirmative. Faculty search committees should be accountable in ways that promote diversity, and deans and provosts are the administrators best able to monitor the search process. Although rules, guidelines, and policies exist on every campus and searches are monitored at many levels, in the end the search process is still a very private and secret one that can exclude qualified applicants at every step along the way. Beyond following required policies and practices, institutions need to display a commitment to recognizing the contributions of a diverse faculty to the success of higher education. Just as the Supreme Court in the Michigan case recognized the value of diversity in the student body, so must colleges and universities recognize the richness that a diverse faculty brings to the institution. Although “lip service” is given to the concept of diversity, actual practices of search committees and boards often mitigate against achieving it. The contributions to this chapter by Michelle Howard-Vital and Carolyn Mahoney illustrate the contrasting experiences of faculty of color. Their accounts of the experiences at different types of institutions offer a reminder that ethnic minority faculty have important roles in shaping the environments of the institutions they elect to join. The contribution by
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Barbara Mawhiney describes how campuses are approaching affirmative action in the current legal climate. Much of what is recounted in this chapter is not new. The chilly climate for women, the lack of policies to address work-family issues, the not-so-subtle biases that continue to exist against anyone “different” from the majority in a department have all been analyzed. In the end, most faculty want the same things: a secure environment in which to do their research and creative activity, the opportunity to teach an interested and interesting group of students, and a living environment that supports their interests and lifestyle. Faculty expectations may differ—not all faculty want an idyllic countryside or a raucous urban environment for their personal space—but all want to work in a harmonious atmosphere, one that validates them as individuals and as scholars and teachers. MINORITY FACULTY AT HISTORICALLY WHITE INSTITUTIONS Michelle R. Howard-Vital I started teaching when I was six years old by “playing school” with my sister and brother and anyone else who would listen to me. I learned early about the power intrinsic in learning, and I wanted to share it. A career in higher education was clearly a natural progression. Challenges, hard work, the support of others, an awakening of personal strength, a sense of spiritual purpose, and a bittersweet understanding of the limitations we humans impose upon ourselves have all characterized my thirty-year career in higher education. Would this journey have been different if I were not a person of color in Historically White Institutions (HWI)? Certainly. Would America be different if my journey were the norm and not the exception? Definitely! Undoubtedly, we are making progress in higher education by championing access for all students, encouraging institutional partnerships with diverse stakeholders and constituencies, promoting community engagement, expanding international understandings, and demonstrating the link between educational institutions and economic development. Yet there are still enormous societal losses from unrealized human potential—intellectual, creative, and entrepreneurial—that we cannot continue to afford as Americans. These losses are often borne as costs to all Americans as our social systems strain to respond to displaced workers, the growing economic dominance of other countries, correctional issues, and numerous other community frictions and tensions. How can faculty in higher education prepare 21st century leaders and teams—who will need to resolve intricate, interconnected, global,
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economic, environmental, and ethical problems—while still employing 20th century constructs and worldviews? America, once dominant in trade, manufacturing, technology, and higher education, could be losing its competitive edge. Leaders in higher education must be proponents of ensuring America’s well-being by confronting intractable assumptions that limit the collective futures of the diverse constituencies that constitute America. It will be difficult to envision a future for the next hundred years that excludes diversity in America in leadership roles! Thirty-five years ago when I entered the University of Chicago as a freshman student, there were few African American faculty or administrators who could serve as mentors. The talented cohort of eighty students with whom I entered constituted the largest number of African Americans who had ever entered in a freshman class. We were told that we were admitted because we were academically talented. As a cohort of students, we helped each other manage the university environment and served as sources of support for each other. Needless to say, our alumni include physicians, attorneys, judges, scientists, business and bank executives, educators, and other professionals who contribute abundantly to America. In 1983, when I earned my doctorate from the University of Illinois at Chicago, there were still few tenure-track African American faculty or professors who could serve as potential mentors. The National Opinion Center at the University of Chicago reported that 1,708 African Americans earned doctorates in 2003. This was an increase of 4 percent from 2002. Additionally, the increase represents 6.5 percent of all doctorates awarded to all American citizens—even more progress. In 1987 (four years after I earned my doctorate), only 787 African Americans earned doctorates—less than 4 percent of the total doctorates awarded. Hopefully, the 2003 increase in the number of doctorates (and the pipeline) will lead to a more balanced faculty for 21st century students everywhere in our country. The hiring, promotion, and tenure of African Americans and other faculty of color increase slowly. In my role as a faculty member and administrator, I observed that faculty of color in HWIs often spend inordinate amounts of time and energy maneuvering past barriers (e.g., insular academic departments, racial stereotypes regarding intellectual ability, views regarding “worthy” scholarly subjects, incompatible world views, low expectations, etc.) when striving to gain tenure or to ascend the academic administrative ladder. Because of the physical and psychological energy expended, behind the politically attuned smiles of African American faculty are often grimaces, grievances, and disappointments. Wherever I travel in the United States, I hear African
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American faculty and administrators sharing stories of their experiences in HWIs of higher education around the country. These stories echo similar themes of arduous work schedules, racial stereotypes that limit potential, frustration with parochial views, difficulty in ascertaining political realities governing tenure, and lack of commensurate monetary rewards. What is the vision of the future that our higher education institutions promote? Our economic survival, well-being, security, and democratic society depend on higher education sending clear and unambiguous signals regarding the value of and need for diverse faculty and perspectives in the academy. To be effective, these values must penetrate academic departments and be rewarded in the tenure and promotion system. Needless to say, a broad base of intellectual capital strengthens America. What legacy will African American faculty and administrators and other faculty of color leave for the next generation of students and faculty who enter HWIs? It is my hope that the experiences of African American faculty and administrators in HWIs will help alter these institutions so that they will become more attuned to the challenges and potential of an America that functions in a very diverse and interconnected global community. It is also my hope that African Americans and other persons of color will bring attention to the need for those in the academy to examine assumptions about teaching and learning, to rethink stereotypes about the potential of others, to broaden academic measures of success, and to realize the power of developing new, more inclusive paradigms. This transformation in higher education is necessary for justice, equity, and security for all.
RUMINATIONS OF AN HBCU PRESIDENT Carolyn R. Mahoney It is interesting to consider the possible challenges and opportunities that administrators at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) face as they seek to recruit faculty during the next several decades. I believe the prominent issues that will impact faculty recruitment include mission and institutional culture, compensation, workload, and to a lesser extent physical, geographic and infrastructural characteristics of the campus. In the future, viable institutions will respond to the need to prepare students for citizenship in a democratic society and for responsible participation in the global economy. Through their college experiences, students can learn that pluralism is a source of strength and vitality that will enrich and improve the lives of individuals and communities. Many HBCUs already have a diverse student and faculty
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population, and a rich history of offering and involving students in educational and outreach services and programs. Hence, HBCUs have an enhanced opportunity to integrate an active commitment to diversity and civic engagement into their institutional missions. Through campus and community partnership efforts to teach and model tolerance, decency, and fairness, students can learn both to respect difference and to work together for the common good. Faculty likely will be more committed to an institution in which the institutional goals and priorities are developed and accomplished through shared governance and the involvement of faculty, students, staff, administrators, alumni, and the community. HBCUs have a proud history of offering quality education at an affordable price, and realize enormous benefit from faculty and staff who are dedicated to preparing students for careers, citizenship, and leadership. The historical and present commitment of faculty to the particular students traditionally served by HBCUs is widely recognized and valued. The Supreme Court landmark decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka in 1954 had a profound effect on faculty recruitment in the academy. Before Brown, there were limited academic employment opportunities for black and other minority faculty, and consequently many HBCUs were able to attract and retain outstanding faculty. After Brown, some black faculty took advantage of available opportunities at predominantly white institutions that led to increased pay, expanded opportunities for research support, decreased teaching loads, and, in some instances, enhanced institutional prestige. While it is true that Brown generally created more choice for minority faculty, the decision did not result in deterioration in the overall quality of the education offered at HBCUs. Nonetheless, ensuring a sufficient number of role models for black students is and will continue to be particularly important. Faculty recruitment efforts at HBCUs have been hampered due to historical funding inequities. Funding levels will continue to significantly impact institutional ability to attract and retain faculty. Universities will need to offer reasonable start-up packages and travel opportunities, support for faculty and student research, as well as support for civic engagement and other institutional priorities. It is imperative that HBCUs attract and retain well-qualified, dedicated, and committed faculty and staff, and find resources to support them to do exemplary work. An often mentioned issue related to faculty retention is workload. Many HBCUs originated as normal schools, and some continue to emphasize teaching as the primary responsibility of faculty. As a result of this and other factors, it is not unusual for faculty to teach three or four courses per semester. Such a substantial classroom commitment
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may create time and structural impediments to scholarly creativity. In some instances, there are but a small number of faculty in certain high need areas. In addition to dealing with challenges attendant on finding research collaborators, such faculty often are expected to teach multiple courses for majors each semester, interact with advisees and student clubs/honorary societies, monitor undergraduate and graduate student research, and provide curricular oversight and development. Additionally, faculty members are expected to serve on university committees, oversee outreach activities for pre-college students, and actively participate in civic and community organizations and projects. It might be appropriate to mention that while faculty view community service as interesting and important for mutual growth and development, they caution that the infrastructure for such involvement may be lacking on campus. They cite the lack of staff to oversee and coordinate such activity as adding to the workload of faculty. These faculty recognize that there are workload issues peculiar to any particular campus and take every opportunity to affirm their choice to serve at their particular campuses. Many HBCUs are fortunate to enjoy relative stability in the faculty ranks, and do benefit from, and are challenged to maintain, a culture of commitment among those who serve and are served by the particular institution. There are numerous other issues that impact faculty recruitment and retention. For example, HBCUs must provide adequate research and laboratory facilities to support learning and discovery. Campuses must ensure that the equipment and technological infrastructure is adequate to support academic and administrative functions at the level required to achieve the campus vision. These primarily financial challenges loom large for public institutions, given the current and projected status of state funding support; however, the need to expand extramural private, federal, and public fundraising is a significant challenge for all institutions. Some HBCUs are located in small, geographically isolated, and/or rural towns, and must contend with challenges related to spousal employment; family, cultural, educational, and recreational opportunities; quality medical care; and travel accessibility. On the plus side, small towns are generally viewed as safe and caring communities that recognize and appreciate the inextricable link between the college and the community, especially as related to economic growth and development. HBCUs in large metropolitan areas often are faced with the challenge to compete for faculty with other large universities in the area, but often can help spouses locate employment opportunities and address other quality of life issues. HBCUs historically have shown tremendous flexibility in transforming themselves, and tremendous resolve in accomplishing their
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mission and goals. With continued strong leadership and willingness to adapt and adjust, there is good reason for optimism that future recruitment and retention efforts will overcome whatever difficulties present themselves.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, SEXUAL HARASSMENT, AND THE CHANGING LEGAL CLIMATE Barbara Mawhiney The higher education context for affirmative action has dramatically changed in the last few years. The legal climate now includes challenges from multiple directions to institutional values, to text and context of education, and to definitions of academic freedom. These challenges require reevaluation of affirmative action practices and recommitment to assuring equal opportunity to achieve diversity among faculty and students. Affirmative action methods and programs primarily have been “add-ons,” e.g., programs providing information/assistance to underrepresented groups to learn how to maneuver through the system, or exceptions to current institutional rules/practices, such as target of opportunity programs. Seldom have universities made substantive changes to underlying values and structures to make sure that rhetoric and actions match. The end result is a view of higher education as particularly hypocritical when it comes to issues of inclusion and diversity. The public relations efforts are many, but the substantive impact of these efforts are minimal when viewing the demographics within higher education. While there are many examples of positive institutional efforts to promote equal opportunity for faculty, e.g. salary equity studies, space allocation analyses, and workload assessments, these really have not required structural or value changes, just equitable application of existing rules. And while some institutions may realize there is something fundamentally wrong with considering exceptions to policies as good affirmative efforts, these realizations have not gone far enough. When higher education has made an effort to recognize the new faculty mix by implementing family-friendly policies such as extended tenure clocks and part-time tenure-track positions, central administration often does not recognize or acknowledge how actively departments work against use of these policies. Some of my favorite examples of the contradiction between institutional rhetoric and action include these: • doing everything possible to retain a faculty member who brings in large grants but who also has been found guilty of sexual harassment of students • hiring an individual to bring interdisciplinary (code word for “diversity” in many cases) scholarship to a department and then penalizing the individual
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Faculty Career Paths for publishing in journals that accept this scholarship rather than in those top-tier journals that do not accept this scholarship • unofficially expecting, even facilitating, faculty of color to serve on numerous committees and advise students and then penalizing the faculty for not enough attention to research/scholarship (when the college/ university made this virtually impossible) • emphasizing the value of teaching yet offering fewer rewards to those whose time, by institutional definition, is devoted to teaching; or considering teaching less important than research/scholarly activity in evaluations for tenure and promotion in contradiction to policy statements.
Many of the perceptions of institutional hypocrisy occur at the department level, where the culture most often conflicts with diverse faculty values. Yet it is at the department level that individuals are either supported or not in the most critical ways to assure productivity and retention. At this level it is highly important that rhetoric and actions match. However, there are too many examples of tolerance of the intolerable, e.g., tolerating the department “letch” because “that’s just the way he is and everyone knows he does not mean any harm,” in order for departments to claim credibility through ignorance of the behavior once someone complains outside the department. Too often the department is outraged when the complainant indicates this departmental enabling is symptomatic of other equally serious problems. To get beyond the status quo, administrators must continue to promote equal opportunity in policy and practice through such examples as salary equity studies, analysis and correction of both formal and informal workload demands, and evaluating the consistency between rhetoric and action. Additionally, administrators must look deeper into the climate within departments and the leadership provided at the department level. Is anything, let alone enough, being done to assure departmental leadership has the tools, knowledge, and ability to address the issues arising from a diverse mix of faculty? Is anything being done to assure that criteria for assessing excellence in all areas of faculty life truly reflect the mix of values that is critical to recruiting for and retaining a diverse faculty? If universities continue reward systems based solely on competition and self-promotion, if faculty do not accept family-friendly policies or ignore intolerable behaviors, then all of the add-on programs and mentoring programs will have little impact on developing and supporting a faculty mix that is reflective of the changing population characteristics. Because the legal climate for affirmative action in employment is more restrictive than ever, immediate attention is needed to make serious structural changes in university operations. In addition to those programs devoted to helping the “new” faculty assimilate, programs that focus on administrators at all levels, particularly the department
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level, are needed to teach them how to promote inclusive environments, how to recognize cultural and gender bias and how to appropriately eliminate it. Until a university spends as much time and effort on eliminating bad administrative practices as it does on new programs to address diverse faculty needs, there will never be enough new programs to create the inclusive environment needed for a new mix of faculty.
BEST PRACTICES IN RECRUITING AND RETAINING A DIVERSE FACULTY 1. The leadership should express a firm commitment to diversity. Any change in the institutional culture must come from the top—and it must be expressed in deeds as well as words. How diverse is the staff in the administrative offices? What studies have been commissioned by the Board or administration? What is the relationship of the administration to the diverse communities within and outside of the institution? 2. Annual reports should document the success of diversifying the faculty, staff, and student groups. Not only do institutions need to set goals and monitor them, there should also be public accountability for what has been achieved. 3. Faculty and administrative evaluation instruments should address the achievement of diversity goals. Students are frequently perceptive about how faculty respond to them in class and recognize both negative and positive attitudes toward student success. Are administrators evaluated based on their attention to affirmative action and diverse hiring practices? 4. Policies against bias-related harassment and discrimination should be enforced. Not only must institutions have policies, there must be clear mechanisms for enforcement and redress of grievances. 5. Staff should have the opportunity to attend college classes at reduced or no cost. Often staff serving in clerical positions have little opportunity to move up in their positions because of the lack of formal education. Institutions should provide opportunities for all staff to take college courses and to work toward a degree. 6. Relationships should be established between Historically White Institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges, and Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Although such partnerships are more difficult in some states than others, there are always opportunities for building relationships based on curricular needs. For example,
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for years Washington State University had a partnership in agriculture with an HBCU in Florida. 7. The curriculum should reflect diversity. Certainly a diverse curriculum benefits the learning process, but it also adds to the likelihood that faculty with specialties in women’s, ethnic, GLBT, or disability studies will be hired by the institution. 8. The tenure and promotion process should recognize the publication of materials in specialized journals or with presses that focus on ethnic, women’s, or GLBT issues. Often the requirements for tenure and promotion are based on old-line journals and traditional presses, while much innovation and cutting-edge research is published by small presses, specialized journals, or online. 9. The institution should have a partner hiring program that is used as a recruitment measure for all faculty. Such programs can often make the difference in hiring a new faculty member whose partner can find a job within the institution or region. 10. Mentoring programs should be available for all new faculty. While all faculty need to be mentored, minority faculty often need both professional mentoring in the discipline and mentoring to adjust to the cultural environment of the department or the institution. Often the search committee can include members who can move into mentoring positions for new faculty. 11. Internship programs should be provided to give faculty the opportunity to learn about administrative roles. Such programs are important for all faculty who seek administrative careers, but often women and faculty of color are more reluctant than men or majority faculty to seek out such opportunities. Department chairs, deans, and provosts can encourage faculty with leadership potential to take on internship opportunities or attend programs such as those offered by Harvard’s Graduate School of Education or the American Council on Education. 12. Department chairs and search committees should receive guidance about how to achieve diversity. Such books as JoAnn Moody’s Faculty Diversity: Problems and Solutions and Caroline Turner’s Diversifying the Faculty: A Guidebook for Search Committees provide useful information about what can be done to hire and retain a more diverse group of faculty.
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CHAPTER Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars: Meeting Faculty Supply
T
his chapter focuses not on how academic leaders might structure their graduate or postdoctoral programs but on how trends in graduate education and postdoctoral training will influence the kinds of faculty that institutions may hire in the future. While this discussion may influence considerations about doctoral and postdoctoral training, it is concerned more directly with the kinds of questions institutions and departments should ask about the preparation of prospective faculty members. This chapter looks at trends within doctoral education that will influence the diversity of future faculty and how administrators can anticipate the needs of the next generation of faculty. The chapter also discusses data on postdoctoral scholars and how trends in the number, duration, and preparation of postdocs may also affect future faculty careers. While the circumstances of postdoctoral scholars as employees are often compared to those of non-tenure-track faculty members, viewed as future faculty, the duration and nature of their postdoctoral training is more relevant than the circumstances of their current employment. We begin with some data about doctoral production in the US and the implications for cohorts of future faculty, then discuss programs designed to assist women and faculty of color to prepare for and succeed in faculty
Portions of this chapter are adapted from Betsy E. Brown, “Supporting Early-Career Faculty Members,” Effective Practices for Academic Leaders, edited by Tim J. Delmont and Robert Secor (Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2006).
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careers. We explore the implications for hiring institutions of programs designed to better prepare doctoral students for the variety of institutions and roles available to them in higher education. Finally, we discuss the trend toward longer postdoctoral appointments and efforts to better prepare postdocs for their roles as faculty. TRENDS IN DOCTORAL DEGREES AND GRADUATE ENROLLMENT The 2003 Survey of Earned Doctorates, supported by the National Science Foundation in collaboration with other federal agencies, mirrors trends from other data collection. Data suggest a possible decline in the pool of new PhDs from which institutions can expect to draw new faculty. The report on doctoral awards for 2002–2003 reveals these important trends: • The 40,710 doctorates awarded by US universities represented a 1.9 percent increase over the previous year but a 4.5 percent decline from a high of 42,645 in 1998. • US citizens received 68 percent of all doctorates awarded in 2003; the increase in doctorates awarded to non-citizens continues, with 27 percent of doctorates awarded to candidates on temporary visas. • The percent of doctorates awarded to racial and ethnic minorities continues to increase, to 19 percent in 2003. • A majority of the doctorates awarded to US citizens in 2003 went to women—51 percent, for the second year in a row. • Of those who reported postdoctorate employment plans in the US, only 55 percent reported that they intended to work in education.1
The Council of Graduate School’s report, Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 1986–2004, which provides information on potential faculty members “in the pipeline,” suggests that the trends reflected among recent doctoral recipients will continue. Overall, graduate enrollment (both doctoral and master’s levels) is increasing moderately (a 2 percent increase in 2004 over 2003 and an average annual percentage change of 2 percent since 1986). Enrollment increased at a higher rate for women graduate students (3 percent from 2003 to 2004) than for men (a 1 percent increase for the same period).2 US minority graduate enrollment has increased at an average annual rate of 5 percent for African Americans and Hispanic/ Latinos since 1986, although the annual increase for these groups slowed somewhat from 2003.3 At the same time, enrollment of non-US temporary visa holders was down 3 percent from 2003 to 2004, in contrast to an average annual percentage increase of 3 percent since 1986.4
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Of the more than 1.5 million graduate students enrolled in doctoral and master’s programs in fall 2004, 57 percent were women.5 The disciplines enrolling the highest percentage of male students were engineering, the physical sciences, and business, while the health sciences, public administration (including social work), and education enrolled the highest percentage of women graduate students.6 Non-US citizens on temporary visas represented 17 percent of graduate enrollment, concentrated primarily in science and engineering fields.7 Among US graduate students, 26 percent were members of minority groups, including 11 percent African American, 8 percent Hispanic/Latino, and 6 percent Asian enrollment.8 What are the implications of these data for faculty hiring? With only modest growth in graduate enrollment and a decrease in the number of doctorates awarded to US citizens, the pool of PhD candidates for faculty positions is likely to decrease. The percentage of degrees awarded to nonUS citizens has increased, but it has been estimated that no more than half of the non-US PhDs will remain in the country after receiving their degrees.9 All of these trends suggest that institutions and departments need better planned recruitment and enhanced efforts in retention of new faculty, who may be hard to hire and may become even harder to replace. While the increasing number of doctorates awarded to women and minorities may result in a more diverse pool of potential faculty members, male and female graduate students still tend to enroll in traditionally gender-identified fields, suggesting that institutions will have to continue working hard to ensure gender diversity in traditionally male fields such as science and engineering and in traditionally female fields such as education, nursing, and social work. A growing percentage of female tenuretrack faculty members, who face multiple challenges in their efforts to balance work and family responsibilities, will require supportive institutions with the policies and resources female faculty members (and male caregivers) will require to succeed and be retained. DIVERSIFYING THE POOL OF PROSPECTIVE FACULTY Women in Non-Traditional Fields: While male and female graduate students still tend to cluster in gender-identified fields, a number of programs have been initiated to encourage and support graduate students entering non-traditional fields, particularly programs to increase the number of female doctoral students and faculty members in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The most notable is the National Science Foundation (NSF) ADVANCE program.10 In addition
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to attempting to increase the number of women faculty in STEM departments, these programs have also investigated policies and practices that help women faculty negotiate the faculty career track and manage the multiple responsibilities of career and family. As the project summaries on the NSF website show, ADVANCE projects have concentrated in particular on mentoring female graduate students and early-career faculty and identifying and promoting institutional policies and programs that ensure fairness and provide support for women in traditionally male fields. This NSF project may be too recent to document long-term impact on the number of females entering STEM departments as graduate students and faculty members; however, enough successful strategies have been reported that hiring institutions and departments may want to ask recent doctorates about the mentoring that they have received to prepare them for the faculty role, since such experiences are likely to mean that they will be better prepared to succeed in male-dominated disciplines. Faculty of Color: Although the number of minority US graduate students receiving PhDs is increasing, the numbers are still small: 1,708 (6.6 percent) African Americans and 1,270 (4.9 percent) Hispanics among the 25,705 degrees awarded in 2003 in all fields, according to the Survey of Earned Doctorates. These numbers are particularly striking in comparison to their representation in the general population. The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, in Diversity and the PhD, notes that only one in nine PhDs conferred in 2003 went to African Americans or Hispanics, while “roughly one in four Americans was African American or Hispanic—in fact, nearly one in three, within the usual age group for doctoral recipients [age 25–40].”11 African American PhDs in 2003 “were clustered in education, where the doctorate is often a midcareer credential for administrators,” according to the Woodrow Wilson report, while only 4.3 percent of doctorates in the arts and sciences were awarded to African Americans. Hispanic degree recipients were “more evenly spread across fields” in 2003.12 The Woodrow Wilson report (which does not address Native American graduate students) notes that increases in doctoral recipients among African Americans and Hispanics “may not translate into a greater number of candidates for the professoriate. For instance, some PhDs of color may feel disinclined to enter the professoriate, to the extent that they perceive the academy as insular.” The report cites an online survey conducted by Black Issues in Higher Education (January 24, 2005) in which more than 70 percent of respondents thought that in the tenure
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process, “too little attention is given to the role that tenure-track professors can play in the improvement of their communities.”13 Other research by Chris Golde and Timothy Dore cited in the report suggests that “a greater percentage of doctoral students of color look to non-academic careers than do white doctoral students.”14 Diversity and the PhD surveys thirteen programs designed to recruit and retain minority doctoral students, including individual fellowship programs (such as the Ford Foundation fellowships, the Gates Foundation Millennium Scholars, and the Southern Regional Education Board SREB-State Doctoral Scholars Program), institutionbased fellowship programs (such as the Sloan Foundation’s Minority PhD Program), programs providing support services for minority doctoral students (including the KPMG Foundation’s The PhD Project, the US Department of Education’s McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, and NSF’s Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate), and general minority support programs such as the Council of Graduate School’s award for “Innovation in Promoting an Inclusive Graduate Community.”15 Despite evidence of success provided by the leaders and supporters of these programs, the report finds that over time their effectiveness has been undermined by “a decided shift away from programs offering significant fellowship support for graduate study for minority students” and “[p]olitical opposition to race-based incentives [which] has had an enormous impact on minority support programs, with serious consequences for program design, operational style, and management effectiveness.” Significant financial support in the form of fellowships has been replaced by recruitment efforts and enhanced preparation for graduate study, while political opposition to race-based programs (reflected, for example, in the University of Michigan case regarding undergraduate and law school admissions and lawsuits against federal, state, and institutional programs) “has driven minority support programs underground—with serious consequences for program effectiveness.”16 The implication of these findings for employing institutions is that the pool of potential faculty of color is not likely to grow in parallel with the hiring needs of colleges and universities, especially their desire to hire a more diverse faculty that reflects the growing ethnic diversity of their students. The authors of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation report make several recommendations to program directors, government officials, and higher education leaders for improving the effectiveness and outcomes of these programs and thus increasing the racial diversity of the faculty. Those
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most relevant to institutions interested in hiring faculty of color include the following: “intellectual support” for doctoral students who “may feel disconnected from their peers, and from the larger academic enterprise” and enhanced mentoring and “professionalizing” experiences for minority graduate students such as laboratory and teaching experience.17 The directors of two of the programs highlighted in the Woodrow Wilson Foundation report, Ansley Abraham of the SREB-State Doctoral Scholars Program and Bernard J. Milano of The PhD Project, have contributed commentaries to this chapter. The SREB-State Doctoral Scholars Program, focused in sixteen southern states, attempts to reflect the ethnic diversity that exists and will increase in SREB states within the cohort of doctoral recipients through financial support and extensive mentoring activities. The PhD Project, an initiative coming directly from the business community represented by the KPMG Foundation, focuses on increasing the number of minority faculty in US business schools, with the expectation that this increase will foster an increase in the number of minority students studying and taking jobs in business fields. Their commentaries highlight the goals, activities, and achievements of these two programs, in particular their mentoring and support activities, which have had significant impact on the educational and career directions of hundreds of students. Ethnic minority faculty members face specific challenges in part because of their experiences as graduate students. Bensimon et al. note, “The fact that minority faculty have fewer professional socialization opportunities as graduate students has been extensively documented.” The program descriptions by Abraham and Milano as well as the Woodrow Wilson report suggest that institutions and departments might want to ask prospective faculty members about their experience with such mentoring and support activities; like science and engineering faculty who have participated in Project ADVANCE, participants in these programs are likely to bring to their faculty roles more sharply focused ideas about the responsibilities they will face and the support they will need from their institutions in order to succeed. Bensimon et al. argue that “it is incumbent on department chairs to consider more formal and structured ways of facilitating networking opportunities” for faculty of color, including helping faculty address the fact that “minority-centered scholarship” is often discounted by more traditional disciplinary scholars.18 Institutions might adapt the successful practices of programs such as SREB-State Doctoral Scholars Program and The PhD Project to support early-career minority faculty members, particularly by helping new faculty of color find mentors and collaborators within and across departments.
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SREB-STATE DOCTORAL SCHOLARS: PROGRAM PROGRESS AND PROMISE Ansley A. Abraham Over the last ten years, minority full-time faculty have increased their presence on college and university campuses. Is this encouraging? Perhaps it is, because more than one-third of the nation’s workers and more than one-fourth of the nation’s college students are people of color. It is less encouraging, however, even with this upward trend, that the percentage of racial/ethnic minorities who are faculty members in higher education is still a small fraction of the total. Nationally, about 5 percent of full-time faculty members are African American and about 2 percent are Hispanic. Even more startling is the gap created when considering the number of those minority faculty members who teach at predominantly black or Hispanic-serving institutions. For example, in the sixteen state Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) region, 8 percent of full-time faculty are African American, 60 percent of whom teach at predominantly black institutions. This means less than 4 percent of African American full-time faculty are employed on predominantly white campuses. There are not more racial/ethnic minority faculty members because too few minorities earn doctoral degrees and subsequently choose to become teaching and research faculty at colleges and universities. According to the 2005 Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation report on the PhD: In 2003, roughly one in four Americans was African American or Hispanic—in fact, nearly one in three, within the usual age group for doctoral recipients—but only one in nine PhDs conferred on US citizens that year was awarded to an African American or Hispanic student. When the full context of the US doctorates that same year is considered, including the one in three PhDs that went to foreign students in 2003, fewer than one in fourteen of the total PhDs awarded in US universities that same year went to an African American or Hispanic US citizen.19 Why should diversity of doctoral education and faculty membership be important to the nation and especially to SREB States? The answer is four-fold: practical, moral, intellectual, and economic. Practically, the US is becoming “browner.” The SREB region will account for more than 50 percent of the nation’s population growth by 2024. African American and Hispanic population increases will be responsible for most of this growth. Moral and ethical concerns point to the constitutional guarantees of access to the highest levels of education that the nation’s institutions provide and equity for all US citizens.
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Diversity of ideas and perspectives is critical, necessary, and demanded for intellectual stimulation and growth in any field of study. Research that produces new ideas, innovations, and new products is a key component of the economic engines that power state and national economies. These statistics on faculty, degree, and population—coupled with the Bureau of Labor Statistics projections for US job growth—highlight a growing issue and dilemma. According to the Bureau, by 2012 the profession with the largest projected increase (38 percent) due to growth and net replacement will be “postsecondary teachers.” The gap that these data identify is stubborn and unacceptable and will not close without the commitment and cooperation of students, institutions, states, and philanthropic organizations.20 To address these issues and to maximize the region’s—and, indeed, the nation’s—intellectual resources and long-term economic well-being, the Southern Regional Education Board established the SREB-State Doctoral Scholars Program in 1993. The goal of the program is simple: to increase the number of minority scholars who earn the PhD and seek to teach on a college or university campus. The Doctoral Program created a “multilayered web of support” that supplements traditional stipend support with direct services related to research, teaching, and mentoring skills and training; academic, personal, professional, and motivational issues of graduate study; assistance to graduates in finding faculty positions; and preparation of graduates to become successful junior faculty members. The program’s motto, “More than a check and a handshake,” accurately captures the concept that has proven to be a key to its success. Program highlights include the following: • • • • •
•
• •
•
more than 600 scholars served 300 PhD graduates expected by summer of 2006 almost 90 percent retention and graduation rate among graduates, 80 percent employed in education, 70 percent on campuses as faculty, administrators, and postdoctoral researchers reduced time-to-degree—scholars entering the program with a bachelor’s degree complete a PhD in an average of 4.3 years; scholars entering with a master’s degree complete in an average of 3.4 years fields of study—one third in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; one-third in social and behavioral sciences; and one-third in other fields of study online recruitment database including more than 700 minority PhD scholars Compact for Faculty Diversity Institute on Teaching and Mentoring— the largest annual gathering of minority doctoral scholars in America seeking to become college and university faculty members US Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring awarded to the program in 2000
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A MODEL PROGRAM Bernard J. Milano For many years, I was responsible for university recruiting at KPMG LLP. While KPMG was striving to increase diversity in the firm, it was a frustrating task because so few people of color were studying business, specifically so few were majoring in accounting. In 1993, we convened academics and corporate representatives that shared this concern and frustration to seek a solution. Over the next several months, a systemic and fundamental program was put in place to correct a major problem: US business school faculties consisted of less than 2 percent minorities. With no faculty of color in the front of the classroom, how were colleges and universities going to attract minorities to study business disciplines? There were no role models and an absence of natural and approachable mentors. The PhD Project was the response to this reality.21 In just ten years, The PhD Project has grown from an idea in the minds of a few corporate leaders and academics (the KPMG Foundation, Citigroup Foundation, AACSB International [The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business], and the Graduate Management Admission Council) into the catalyst for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans to leave careers in the corporate world and return to academia to earn their doctorates and become business professors. The program has been the principal reason for the incredible increase in the number of African American, Hispanic American, and Native American business school professors—an increase of more than 150 percent in just ten years. The PhD Project uses a three-pronged approach to increasing the population of minority business professors. The first component of The PhD Project is a marketing campaign to identify a population of the best and brightest potential PhD candidates of color—via an extensive direct mail, print advertising, and public relations campaign. Qualified candidates are invited to visit The Project web site and apply to The PhD Project annual conference. The second component of The PhD Project is its annual conference. The Project invites a select number of minorities to its annual conference, where they hear from deans, professors, and current minority doctoral students about the benefits of pursuing a business PhD. More than eighty doctoral-granting universities are represented. The third component of the program is the Minority Doctoral Student Associations, formed as a means of combating the high (25 percent) attrition rate among all business doctoral students. These peer associations (in accounting, finance, information systems, management, and marketing) put minority doctoral students in contact with others who are facing similar challenges on the way to
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becoming business school professors. Every minority business doctoral student in a fulltime AACSB accredited program is a member of one of these Associations. Each Association has an annual conference held in conjunction with the relevant professional academic association. The retention rate of these students exceeds 90 percent. The PhD Project’s success is undeniable. In 1994, when the program began, there were only 294 African American, Hispanic American, or Native American professors at US business schools. Today, there are 746 minority business professors—555 African American, 171 Hispanic American, and 20 Native American. Further, 417 minorities— 309 African American, 90 Hispanic American, and 18 Native American—are currently enrolled in doctoral programs, and will likely take a place at the front of the classroom in the next five years. Minority professors are mentoring the next generation of minority business leaders, conducting groundbreaking research on previously neglected topics, and bringing fresh viewpoints to the education of all students. In addition, their role as faculty is meaningful to a diverse learning climate. Unfortunately, minority professors are still a rarity—not just in business, but in most disciplines. PhD Project participants have found that their presence in front of the classroom is destroying stereotypes and improving the education and workplace preparation of students. We recently surveyed undergraduate and graduate students taking classes from minority professors and minority doctoral students to gauge the impact those instructors are having on minority and nonminority students’ education. Also surveyed were business school deans at doctoral and non-doctoral universities. The results from both surveys support The PhD Project’s mission and objectives. When students were asked, “Do you believe minority professors are having an impact on minority students’ career decisions?” 92 percent of respondents indicated that minority professors are positively impacting the education of minority students, and 82 percent of respondents answered that minority professors are positively impacting the education of non-minority students. Students were asked, “Do you believe that students, regardless of race, who have taken a class from a minority professor, will be better prepared to work in a diverse business environment?” Seventy-seven percent of respondents said students will be better prepared to work in a business environment as a result of their having had a minority professor. Business school deans were also surveyed, and their responses support The PhD Project goals. When asked, “In comparison to nonminority professors, how are minority professors impacting these aspects of your business program?” 81 percent of respondents said that minority professor and/or minority doctoral teaching assistants are having a positive impact on the education of minority students, 69 percent of
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respondents said that minority professor and/or minority doctoral teaching assistants are having a positive impact on attracting minority students, and 69 percent of the respondents felt that students who have taken a class taught by a minority business professor or a minority doctoral teaching assistant are better prepared for a business career. The founders of The PhD Project believed that minority professors would be a vital positive influence on minority students. They have now learned that the influence transcends race and ethnicity. When the surveys asked about the influence of minority professors on career decisions, 85 percent of minority student respondents said minority professors are positively impacting their career decisions. When business school deans were asked the same question, 77 percent said minority professors are positively impacting their students’ career decisions. The student survey also revealed that 90 percent of seniors about to graduate said minority professors are positively impacting their career decisions. Equally significant, 65 percent of all respondents feel that minority professors positively impact career decisions of nonminority students. Clearly, students and business school deans alike feel minority professors and doctoral students are impacting positively on career decisions and the education of all students. The PhD project is undoubtedly succeeding in its mission.
PREPARING THE FACULTY OF THE FUTURE The decade of the 1990s saw the development of a number of initiatives designed to restructure doctoral education to better prepare new PhDs for the realities of faculty work. This development paralleled two other important developments in higher education: the call for a redefinition of scholarship in Ernest Boyer’s influential work, Scholarship Reconsidered (1990), and the pressure for colleges and universities to refocus their institutional reward systems to recognize the importance of undergraduate teaching and public service. Pressures to broaden the training of doctoral students reflect the fact that most new faculty members will be employed not by the research institutions in which their career expectations were shaped but by comprehensive universities and liberal arts and community colleges, where the reality of faculty work differs significantly from that of most research university faculty. Among the programs designed to address the gap between professional preparation and the realities of faculty employment, each supported initially by The Pew Charitable Trusts, are Preparing Future Faculty, initiated by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS), and Re-envisioning the PhD,
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initiated at the University of Washington. More recent initiatives include the Carnegie Foundation’s Initiative on the Doctorate and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation’s The Responsive PhD: Innovations in US Doctoral Education. The former encourages institutions to reflect on the purposes of their PhD programs; the latter focuses on redefining doctoral education in ways that allow PhD recipients and their institutions to become more responsive to the larger society. Descriptions of these programs, along with the key findings of recent research on graduate education as preparation for the faculty career, are included by Wulff, Austin, and Associates in their work, Paths to the Professoriate: Strategies for Enriching the Preparation of Future Faculty. Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) and similar programs grew out of a recognition that too many doctoral programs focused heavily on preparing graduate students to become scholars but invested relatively fewer efforts in preparing them as teachers and even less in preparing them for institutional, professional, and public service roles. Pruitt-Logan and Gaff identify the “key ideas” behind PFF, including the following: • “The doctoral experience should provide increasingly independent and varied teaching responsibilities as well as opportunities for prospective faculty to grow and develop as researchers.” • “The experience should help students begin to understand and appreciate elements of faculty service.” • “Doctoral students should learn about the academic profession through exposure to the range of professional responsibilities in the variety of institutions that may become their professional homes.” • “Doctoral programs should formalize a system for mentoring in all aspects of professional development.” • “Doctoral experiences should equip future faculty for the significant changes taking place in classrooms and curricula.” • “Professional development experiences should be thoughtfully integrated into the academic program and sequence of degree requirements.”22
Recognizing that graduate faculty at research universities alone might not be able to help doctoral students develop all of these skills and experiences, PFF employed institutional collaborations in “clusters,” made up of doctoral-granting institutions as well as primarily undergraduate institutions, including two-year and four-year institutions. Jerry Gaff, in a contribution to this chapter, describes the role of each member of an institutional “cluster” in better preparing doctoral students for future jobs and identifies the “value-added” of the experiences provided in PFF and similar programs for doctoral students.
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PREPARING FUTURE FACULTY Jerry G. Gaff Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) is a relatively new form of professional development for graduate students preparing for a career as a college or university professor. The program gives graduate students training in college teaching and learning and introduces them to concepts and practices of the academic profession, in addition to supporting them in conducting research. In short, students learn about the three different kinds of roles played by most faculty at the majority of institutions: teaching, research, and service. The Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Council of Graduate Schools collaborated between 1993 and 2003 to champion PFF. The organizations awarded grants to graduate schools at twenty-three doctoral universities to create new programs offering a broader education for those interested in an academic career. In addition, grants were awarded to forty-four departments selected by disciplinary societies in eleven fields to create PFF programs and to highlight students’ experiences in the conferences and publications of the societies. By the time the collaboration ended, approximately 4,000 doctoral students had enrolled. One of the distinctive features of PFF programs is that they involve a variety of different kinds of institutions. Receiving a grant required that the graduate university or department assemble a “cluster” of diverse institutions, so that they could cooperatively implement the program and give students a view of institutions with different missions, student bodies, traditions, and expectations for faculty. Graduate students have opportunities to work with a faculty mentor in a partner institution to, for example, plan and teach a section of a course, attend a faculty meeting, or participate in a faculty development activity. This arrangement not only allows graduate students to learn about important aspects of the profession but also to find a job at an institution and department that fits with their own interests and talents. A great deal of assessment has been done on the outcomes of PFF programs. Graduate students and faculty members have reported a configuration of benefits to graduate students from their PFF programs. They include these benefits: • developing expertise as a teacher, articulating a philosophy of education, and using different approaches to engage diverse students • learning about faculty roles and responsibilities • understanding the variety of institutions in which graduates may work and the expectations they have for their faculty • being mentored by a faculty member at a partner institution • clarifying students’ career choices and empowering students for the job market
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Faculty members from partner institutions appreciate the opportunity to work with advanced graduate students, which they are seldom able to do at their own institutions. They report several benefits, including intellectual insights from junior colleagues, fresh perspectives on teaching their courses, renewed enthusiasm for their work, and gratification from assisting younger colleagues to learn about the profession and their kinds of institutions. Graduate faculty members appreciate the professional development opportunities their students receive through PFF programs, and they themselves learn about the roles of faculty at other institutions, the changing job market, and interesting new colleagues. Outcomes for departments and institutions include better recruitment and placement of students and a greater sense of academic community. The prevalence of these outcomes is the reason why virtually all PFF participants who have been surveyed—graduate students, faculty members, program directors, and graduate deans—have said they would recommend PFF to others. These benefits outweigh the modest investments in PFF that are required to add such a program to any graduate program of study. A three-year independent evaluation of PFF was supported by NSF and The Atlantic Philanthropies, two of the three sources of grants to the PFF initiative (the other was The Pew Charitable Trusts). Although technically still a draft, the findings generally support the positive assessments conducted by the staff and program participants. The independent evaluation concluded that PFF “adds value” to graduate students by preparing them for the full range of faculty roles in a variety of institutions; helping them make informed career decisions, conduct successful job searches, and achieve early career success; and providing enhanced professional development that usually does not extend time to degree. Additional specific findings include the following: • PFF alumni in faculty positions said that PFF helped them in their job searches and prepared them to be successful faculty members. • Graduate faculty rated PFF participants significantly more competent in teaching and service and slightly more competent in research than their peers who did not participate. • 98 percent of all participants in PFF programs would recommend them to others, particularly those interested in academic careers.
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Although the original collaboration between AAC&U and CGS has ended, virtually all of the programs established with their support remain in place. Leaders from campuses and disciplinary societies who have experienced PFF programs sustain these programs with their own resources, having concluded that these programs are a better way to prepare future faculty members.23
Re-envisioning the PhD, like PFF, challenges graduate programs to move toward a model of doctoral education more responsive to the realities of faculty employment. Nyquist et al. have identified three “pervasive myths about doctoral education,” which Re-Envisioning the PhD attempts to address through a variety of activities: • “Myth One: Research institutions are solely responsible for determining the preparation of future faculty, who should emerge as PhDs in the tradition of their mentors.”24 Through conferences, web-based forums, and on-line resources, the program encourages representatives from a variety of institutional types to define what each type of institution could contribute to doctoral education and to “clarify expectations for PhDs who will obtain employment in various kinds of institutions.”25 • “Myth Two: The only intellectual endeavor truly worthy of a PhD’s time is traditional disciplinary research.”26 The program offers bibliographies and resources “for supporting creative approaches to scholarship in teaching and engagement” and “to aid institutions of all types in promoting more generous notions of the scholarly endeavor.”27 • “Myth Three: Graduate faculty members know what is best for their doctoral students’ career choices in education.” The program provides a large number of “Promising Practices” for helping doctoral students explore the range of employment opportunities in higher education, including programs that enable graduate students to work with faculty across disciplines or institutions on curricular and service projects and those that provide workshops to assist students in career exploration and in applying for academic and non-academic jobs.28
From the perspective of potential employing institutions, the benefits of hiring faculty who have had these kinds of experiences as graduate students are obvious: a more realistic understanding of varied faculty roles and responsibilities, better preparation as teachers and academic citizens as well as scholars, and a greater likelihood for finding ways to balance these responsibilities earlier in their careers. Even for research institutions, early-career faculty who understand the implications of PFF’s “key ideas” and Re-envisioning the PhD’s “myths” are likely to require less mentoring and support in achieving institutional expectations for scholarship and
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research if they come with a broader understanding of academic employment and better preparation for defining and managing their goals for teaching and service as well as research. In fact, institutions that hire faculty who have not had the benefits of participation in programs offering broad professional preparation will have to provide it, if they are to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse faculty confronting ever more complex demands. Asking prospective faculty members about the breadth of their training as doctoral students and assessing the “value-added” of candidates who bring this broader experience from their graduate programs will likely make the job of institution acculturation and assimilation easier and increase the likelihood that such faculty will succeed and be retained. BROADENING THE PREPARATION OF POSTDOCTORAL SCHOLARS Research by Jennifer Ma and Paula E. Stephan, described in their contribution to this chapter, indicates two trends relevant to colleges and universities as they recruit more new faculty members. The first is that an increasing number of recent PhDs are taking postdoctoral positions, largely as a result of increased research funding, an increased number of non-US PhDs taking postdoctoral appointments in the US, and the scarcity of tenure-track appointments in many fields. The second is that PhDs are remaining in postdoctoral appointments longer, sometimes for five or six years, with some taking two, three, or more such appointments, not merely in order to obtain the laboratory or practical training expected in many fields prior to assuming a faculty position but also because of scarce faculty job prospects. As Ma and Stephan note, many of these postdoctoral appointees are destined for jobs as research scientists rather than traditional faculty appointments. THE PHENOMENON OF INCREASED POSTDOCTORAL APPOINTMENTS AT US RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES Jennifer Ma and Paula E. Stephan The postdoctoral position has a long tradition in the United States, especially in certain science fields. In such fields, the typical career path of a newly minted PhD pursuing an academic career often involves obtaining a postdoctoral position upon receipt of the terminal degree. Many departments generally direct their searches to the postdoctoral pool when making tenure-track hires at the rank of assistant professor.
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Two dimensions of postdoctoral training have changed considerably over the years, however, leading to a dramatic increase in the number of postdocs in the US. One involves the increasing number of new PhDs taking a first postdoctoral position, including individuals who received their doctoral training abroad as well as individuals from fields that traditionally did not include postdoctoral work as a component of training. The other involves a lengthening of the duration of individuals’ postdoctoral experience. The rise in the proportion of new PhDs taking a first postdoctoral position has been fueled by several factors. First, research grants obtained by faculty readily fund postdoctoral positions, and research funding, especially in the life sciences, has increased in recent years. Consequently, postdocs play an increasingly important role in staffing faculty labs and, with their short tenure (and relatively low rate of pay), provide more flexibility than would be present if the lab were staffed by permanent staff, as is often the case in Europe. Second, there has been a substantial increase in the proportion of international students who are temporary residents in the graduate population; they are more likely to take a postdoctoral position upon graduation than US citizens or permanent residents. Third, tenure-track positions have become more difficult to come by, making it more challenging and competitive for new PhDs to land an academic position. In the early years of postdoctoral training in the US, the postdoc position typically lasted two years. This is no longer the case. For example, 35 percent of life science PhDs observed in 1999 were in postdoctoral positions three to four years after graduation, compared to 12 percent in 1977; 20 percent held postdoctoral positions five to six years later, compared to 5 percent in 1977. In some fields, the initial postdoc position is practically mandatory for young PhDs pursuing an academic career, allowing them the opportunity to hone their skills and enhance their research record. Repeated postdocs, however, are generally taken for other reasons, notably poor job prospects, especially in the academic labor market. Not only are individuals staying longer in postdoctoral positions, but if and when they move out of these positions, they are considerably less likely to hold a tenure-track position and are increasingly more likely to hold non-tenure-track positions in academe. Charlotte Kuh, executive director of the Office of Science and Engineering Personnel at the National Research Council, notes, “We educate graduate students, they go into postdocs, stay there longer and longer, and then at the end, it’s not at all clear that there’s a real career for them.”29 Another concern associated with the lengthened postdoctoral experience is that scientific independence tends to decrease with repeated
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postdoctoral positions, as the postdoc takes on more and more of the responsibilities of a staff scientist. From the perspective of research universities, the increased presence of postdocs on campus is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, postdocs receive training and contribute to the research productivity of the university. On the other hand, the growing number of postdocs, coupled with their poor career prospects, has led to considerable dissatisfaction among them. This in turn creates morale problems for laboratories. It can also have negative spillover effects for undergraduates pondering a career in science and engineering. One statistic that communicates in part the emerging tension on campuses surrounding postdocs is that there are currently fifty known active postdoc associations on campuses, including those of Stanford, Yale, Johns Hopkins, the University of Illinois, and the University of Chicago. As the proportion of the postdoctoral campus community has grown, university administrators have begun to address many of the complex issues related to postdocs such as length of time in position, pay, and benefits. Today, many universities limit a postdoctoral position to five years, and many provide health benefits. However, the majority of postdoctoral positions still do not provide pension benefits. The long-term career prospects of postdocs, however, are more of a national issue, outside the scope of the local university. The academic career prospects of postdocs are strongly affected by the budgetary environment. Our research suggests that during the late 1990s, when the economy heated up, new PhDs were less likely to take a postdoc. One possible “fix” to the postdoc phenomenon is to use federal funds increasingly to support the career position of research scientists.
Reporting on a Sigma Xi survey of postdoctoral appointees, Geoff Davis notes NSF findings that only 35 percent of science and engineering postdocs in the 1960s–1980s held tenured or tenure-track appointments in 1995 and that many of them were employed at liberal arts or comprehensive institutions rather than research universities. Davis’s report cites a “mismatch” between postdocs’ career expectations and the realities of the job: 38 percent of respondents to the Sigma Xi survey “are relatively set in their plans and indicate that they are very interested in working at a research university but only somewhat or not at all interested in working for any other type of organization.”30 Like some graduate students, many postdocs are receiving training that will prepare them for a narrow range of positions focused primarily on research, while the reality is that relatively few of them will receive faculty positions in research universities. Increasingly, professional organizations are recommending that postdocs receive training and career development opportunities that will
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better prepare them for the positions they might actually assume. Davis notes the need for postdocs and their advisors to develop “a serious plan of research and career development” as well as regular evaluation and “formal training that educates postdocs about the limited opportunities available in academic research and gives them the skills that would be marketable in a variety of careers.”31 The Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy of the National Academy of Sciences, in its report Enhancing the Postdoctoral Experience for Scientists and Engineers, recommends “more information on career opportunities, more assistance in planning their careers, and opportunities to learn a number of career skills (writing grant proposals, writing research papers, critiquing the papers or proposals of others, managing a small program or lab, mentoring or teaching students, and communicating to non-specialists).”32 These “career skills” are precisely those most faculty need to succeed, at whatever type of institution they find positions. Prospective academic employers need to take note of these trends toward expanded training and job preparation for postdocs, which parallel the trend toward broader preparation of all doctoral recipients outlined above. Efforts to broaden preparation for faculty careers during postdoctoral training should result in greater success for early-career faculty members who have had the benefits of this expanded training. Exploring the breadth of preparation beyond the traditional and somewhat narrow research training expected of many postdocs can help job candidates determine how well prepared they are for the range of roles and responsibilities a hiring institution expects. This determination can help institutions plan support for newly hired faculty, beyond start-up packages and assistance with grant preparation, and help ensure their success. FINDING AND SUPPORTING FACULTY OF THE FUTURE With the overall pool of PhD candidates for faculty positions likely to decrease and the likelihood that the number of women and minorities in the pool will increase (at least in some disciplines), academic administrators and their institutions need to identify the support and training new faculty will require and make sure they have the policies, practices, and programs in place that the new cohort of faculty will require. Women and minority faculty members, in particular, may need and expect mentors and collaborators who share their interests in teaching and service as well as research, expectations that programs like the SREB-State Doctoral Scholars Program and The PhD Project help to create. An increasing number of women faculty members may need and expect policies to help
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them balance their careers with family responsibilities. Recent doctoral recipients and postdoctoral fellows may or may not have received preparation in understanding the various responsibilities faculty are expected to meet provided by Preparing Future Faculty, Re-envisioning the PhD, and similar programs. Institutions that are fortunate enough to hire new faculty from among the graduate students and postdocs who have had the benefit of such experiences can build on them in designing orientation, mentoring, and other support programs. For faculty without these experiences, institutions may be challenged to provide more extensive orientation to institutional missions, faculty roles and expectations, and career planning in order to help new faculty get a start on career success. These challenges in assisting early-career faculty are explored more fully in Chapter Three.
BEST PRACTICES FOR INSTITUTIONS EMPLOYING NEW PHDS AND POSTDOCS 1. Institutions should monitor trends in doctoral production and assess the challenges they are likely to face in recruiting diverse faculty members in particular disciplines. In fields where there are fewer women and minority PhDs, departments may need to develop and sustain strategies to identify and contact prospective faculty members in anticipation of vacancies these faculty might fill. 2. Institutions should become familiar with programs designed to increase the number of minority PhDs. Administrators can participate in conferences and access the databases of these programs and of some disciplinary organizations to identify potential faculty hires. 3. Institutions should become familiar with programs designed to expand the preparation of doctoral students for faculty careers. Chairs and deans can use participation of potential hires in such programs to assess their suitability to the institution’s needs and expectations. 4. Departments should become familiar with the pattern of postdoctoral appointments and preparation in their disciplines. Department chairs may be in a position to influence the number and length of postdocs and the development of faculty positions best suited to the postdocs’ experiences, such as research scientist appointments. When hiring, departments should make certain that postdocs understand the range of faculty responsibilities at the institution and have been trained to succeed in all of these roles.
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5. For new PhDs or postdocs who may not be prepared to take on the full range of faculty responsibilities, departments and institutions should provide extra orientation and support. Institutions might consider special orientation sessions for new faculty whose experiences as graduate students and postdocs have been limited primarily to research experiences. 6. Departments and institutions should provide mentoring and help to identify potential research collaborators for all new PhDs and postdocs, particularly for women and ethnic minorities in fields in which they are under-represented.
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CHAPTER Expectations and Needs of Early-Career Faculty INTRODUCTION
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n their first academic jobs, faculty members build on the foundation for career success and satisfaction that was laid (or not) in their years of training as graduate students or postdocs. As higher education becomes more complex, so do the demands on faculty, and institutions owe it to their most recently hired faculty to assist them in meeting an expanding set of expectations for success. This chapter examines trends affecting the ability of institutions to recruit the next generation of faculty and research on the attitudes and experiences of early-career faculty, including an ongoing research project at UNC campuses to identify issues important to faculty recruitment and retention. The chapter highlights the important role of the department chair and senior colleagues in fostering the success of new faculty, particularly in helping them understand and prepare for tenure and promotion. Included are the results of research in which early-career faculty report their levels of satisfaction with their academic workplaces and a list of family-friendly policies that can assist faculty in the important balance
Portions of this chapter are adapted from Betsy E. Brown, “Supporting Early-Career Faculty Members,” Effective Practices for Academic Leaders, edited by Tim J. Delmont & Robert Secor (Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2006), and Carroll-Ann Trotman and Betsy E. Brown, “Faculty Recruitment and Retention: Concerns of Early and Mid-Career Faculty,” TIAA-CREF Institute Research Dialogue 86 (December 2005).
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between work and family responsibilities. A number of “best practices” for supporting early-career faculty, implied by the analysis of their needs, concerns, and job satisfaction, are included to assist department chairs and other administrators in developing strategies for recruiting and retaining new faculty. TRENDS IN HIGHER EDUCATION IMPACTING NEW FACULTY While many departments and institutions look forward to the possibility of hiring new faculty members, several trends within higher education may complicate their efforts to recruit junior faculty, particularly on the tenure track, and to provide them with the supportive climate they will need to succeed. Two influences on recruitment are the trends in the number of doctoral degrees awarded and demographic changes in the pool from which faculty have traditionally been hired, which were explored in Chapter Two. As noted in that chapter, minimal growth in the number of doctorates awarded to US citizens, in conjunction with the increase in women receiving doctorates and the small but continuing growth in doctorates awarded to African Americans and other ethnic minorities, is likely to result in a smaller but more diverse pool of new PhDs from which institutions will recruit new faculty. A second influence is the age structure of US faculty, which is explored in more detail in Chapter Five. An increasing proportion of faculty are over age fifty (approaching or exceeding 50 percent in most institutions) and a small proportion of faculty are under age forty (perhaps no more than 20 percent in many institutions). Robert L. Clark has noted: “Slow growth in the number of new faculty positions and relatively low exit rates from the academy have produced the aging of the professoriate. Ultimately these relatively large cohorts of older faculty will retire and this will create a unique opportunity for institutions of higher education to restructure their faculties.”1 In addition, given the well-documented trend toward replacing retiring tenured faculty members with full- or part-time non-tenure-track faculty members, the cohort of tenure-track faculty in particular departments or even institutions may not increase in proportion to faculty retirements. There are several implications from these trends for the success and satisfaction of newly hired faculty. First is the likelihood that early-career faculty, for the near future at least, will have fewer peers and a greater number of older, experienced colleagues who may not immediately understand or share their needs and interests. While these senior faculty will be needed to mentor their younger colleagues, they may need assistance in understanding changing institutional expectations for tenure and promotion, the particular challenges faced by women and faculty of color,
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and the impact of family and personal responsibilities on many young tenure-track faculty members. Second, smaller cohorts of entering faculty at many institutions may limit opportunities for peer collaboration and support, which are important to the socialization process for early-career faculty. Third, newly hired faculty members may face heavy responsibilities in areas such as curriculum development and student advising, as the number of tenure-track and tenured faculty declines in many departments. The result is that while smaller-than-expected cohorts of new faculty may appear to be easier to recruit, they may not be as easy to retain, with fewer peers sharing their experiences and increased service and teaching responsibilities as their older colleagues retire. The challenges of recruiting new faculty and balancing the dynamics of different age cohorts within departments heighten the need for institutions and departments to help early-career faculty socialize into the campus community, find helpful mentors and collaborators, balance their work and family responsibilities, and succeed in meeting the institution’s expectations for tenure and promotion. As they assume their first jobs, many new faculty have expectations about the nature of those jobs and the support they will need that many institutions may be unequipped to meet. EXPECTATIONS AND CONCERNS FOR EARLY-CAREER FACULTY In their Heeding New Voices project, based on interviews and focus groups with graduate students and newly hired faculty members, R. Eugene Rice, Mary Deane Sorcinelli, and Ann E. Austin document a gap between the vision many graduate students have of their future careers and the reality of faculty life. Graduate students in the Heeding New Voices study “report being drawn to the faculty career because they love to learn and pursue intellectual interests; because they perceive that faculty work involves variety, creativity, and the challenge of inquiry; because they anticipate . . . ‘freedom to pursue things that fascinate you all the time.’” The authors found that these prospective faculty members look forward to working with students, helping others, and being part of an academic community.2 Despite evidence to the contrary, when they observed what appeared to be the “crazed lives” of early-career faculty in their graduate institutions, most early-career faculty retain the ideals and enthusiasm that Rice and his colleagues observed in faculty members-to-be.3 Too often new faculty members’ idealism is replaced with disillusionment and disappointment when they encounter difficulties understanding what is expected of them, finding colleagues who can help them in their development as faculty, and balancing the time demands of their
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jobs against the time they want to devote to their personal lives and family responsibilities outside of work. The Heeding New Voices authors identify three “core, consistent, and interwoven concerns on the minds of early-career faculty”: lack of a comprehensible tenure system, lack of community, and lack of an integrated life.4 In interviews, new faculty identified four problems with the tenure system: vague, unclear, shifting, and conflicting expectations for tenure; insufficient, unfocused, and unclear feedback on performance; flawed aspects of the tenure and review process itself, especially frequently rotating chairs, turnover in the membership of personnel committees, and closed committee meetings, leading to secrecy and therefore uncertainty on behalf of the untenured faculty; and the tenure timeline.5 The new faculty interviewed for the Heeding New Voices project also reported disappointment in not finding a “community of scholars” among the colleagues in their new departments and feeling “isolation, separation, fragmentation, loneliness, competition, and sometimes incivility.”6 They noted, in particular, a lack of guidance from senior colleagues in understanding institutional and student expectations. The authors report a generation gap between new and established faculty created in part by the bimodal distribution of faculty discussed at the beginning of this chapter. Desire for an “integrated life” is the third concern identified in the Heeding New Voices project. Juggling the multiple demands of their professional lives while balancing personal lives is a consistent theme in the interviews reported by the authors. In their professional lives, new faculty report difficulty in “finding enough time to do my work” as they attempt to balance their responsibilities in teaching, research, and service, particularly “juggling pressure to publish with heavy teaching loads,” and frustration that although they are encouraged to be good teachers, their institutions reward research.7 Ann E. Austin, in her contribution to this chapter, summarizes some of the “lessons learned” from this and other research into the challenges for early-career faculty.
EARLY-CAREER FACULTY MEMBERS’ EXPECTATIONS AND EXPERIENCES Ann E. Austin Early-career faculty members constitute the future of the academy. They are the teachers, researchers, institutional leaders, committee members, and liaisons with the community who shape the work that universities and colleges accomplish, the quality of the teaching, the
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creativity and insightfulness of the research, and the role the academy plays in the broader society. Over the past decade, various studies have examined the perceptions of early-career faculty members about their expectations, work experiences, and concerns about the academic career.8 While institutional differences and the nature of faculty appointments (full-time or part-time) certainly provide particular dimensions to faculty members’ careers, the consistency of key findings from these studies is noteworthy. Several major themes cut across the experiences of many earlycareer faculty members. Graduate students preparing for the faculty role and early-career faculty look forward with eagerness and dedication to faculty life. They envision that faculty work will involve flexibility, autonomy, variety, community, and creativity. They want to contribute to their disciplines and fields, to the growth and learning of students, and to the betterment of society. They plan to pursue a faculty career because they love their areas of study, want to make a difference, and are committed to engaging in the serious work of being researchers and teachers. In the words of a number of aspiring and early-career faculty members, they look forward to doing “meaningful work.”9 Their vision and commitment, however, run up against some significant concerns. One concern pertains to the nature of the academic community as experienced by early-career faculty. They look forward to an environment characterized by respect, collegiality, collaboration, community, and connectedness. In contrast, many early-career faculty report that they feel isolated and lonely and encounter more competition than they would like. Several factors undoubtedly contribute to the loneliness and isolation. Technology enables faculty members to conduct aspects of their research and teaching from locations away from campus. Faced with multiple responsibilities, busy faculty members may not choose to make time in the day for collegial interaction. And, according to some early-career faculty, they feel a generation gap when interacting with senior faculty, many of whom began their careers under different circumstances—often one spouse was at home, funding in some fields was more prevalent than at the current time, and new specialties and interdisciplinary areas have developed that did not exist a decade or two ago. Concerns about time pressures and the challenge of finding balance across the dimensions of one’s life are also on the minds of many early-career faculty. They are committed to doing effective work but worry that their time is too fragmented and their energies are spread too thin. Women and faculty of color in institutions without highly diverse faculty bodies often feel particularly stretched in different directions by requests to sit on committees and support students. At some institutions, early-career faculty worry that the reward structure
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does not match the range of responsibilities they are asked to fulfill, thus adding to their stress in trying to do good work. This is not to suggest that they do not want to work hard. Rather, early-career faculty are concerned that too many different demands are inhibiting their ability to do the high quality work to which they are committed. For some early-career faculty, concerns about balance and time especially pertain to the challenge of juggling their professional and personal lives. Given changes in society over recent decades, dual-career couples are common and both men and women faculty members expect to have domestic as well as professional responsibilities. Additionally, the start of the career often corresponds with child bearing, putting added pressure on early-career women, and both male and female parents today often wish to participate actively in the lives of their children. For early-career faculty in institutions with tenure, a third concern relates to the tenure system. Generally, early-career faculty members in tenure-stream situations do not call for the end of tenure, but they do articulate some serious reservations about how the tenure system typically works. They cite vague and often shifting expectations, and explain that feedback about their progress during the pre-tenure period is seldom regular, systematic, or particularly clear. They worry when department chairs and personnel committees rotate because expectations can change. In some fields, early-career faculty report that slow publishing cycles lead them to choose research topics that can be addressed in relatively short time frames. The academy is fortunate to have many highly committed, creative, and hard-working early-career faculty. Yet many of these scholars are concerned about collegiality and community, time pressures and balance, and the tenure system. Some are wondering whether the academic world provides the kind of environment in which they feel they can do their best work and in which they can create the kinds of professional and personal lives that they envision. Given these issues, what strategies can universities and colleges employ to support more fully their early-career faculty?10 • Department chairs can communicate expectations as fully as possible and provide clear, consistent, regular, and written feedback about progress. • Senior faculty can welcome and initiate relationships with early-career faculty. • Department, college, and university committees can organize mentoring programs for early-career faculty. • Chairs can encourage new faculty to participate in university orientation and professional development programs that support scholarly growth in teaching and research. • Institutional leaders can disseminate information and implement policies that provide flexibility in tenure and appointment procedures (such as “stop the clock” options to accommodate individual needs).
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The quality of higher education for the next five decades depends on the early-career faculty entering the academy today. Strategies to support talented scholars in doing their best work and creating meaningful lives will benefit faculty members, their institutions, and the whole society.
INTERVIEWS WITH UNC FACULTY At the University of North Carolina, Betsy E. Brown and Carroll-Ann Trotman have conducted research with tenure-track and newly tenured faculty in order to determine how concerns such as those which surfaced in Heeding New Voices might affect the University system’s ability to recruit and retain faculty. With support from the TIAA-CREF Institute, their project included interviews with selected probationary faculty and faculty tenured within five years. In-depth telephone interviews with approximately fifty faculty members identified issues that the sixteen UNC campuses may need to address in meeting expected enrollment increases and attracting and retaining sufficient new faculty to replace faculty who leave or retire—a need projected to be as many as 10,000 new faculty between 2001 and 2010. In addition to the interviews, the project will include participation in a national survey of tenure-track faculty being conducted by the Coalition for Academic Careers in Higher Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education described later in this chapter. The telephone interviews included a number of questions about such issues as faculty members’ reasons for choosing an academic career and a position at their current institution, the institution’s interest in and support for teaching, research, and public service, and the time commitment required to meet institutional expectations, as well as questions about salaries, benefits, and quality of life (including family support). The interviews also addressed faculty members’ perceptions about the tenure and promotion process and the role of colleagues and administrators, particularly department chairs, in fostering their success.11 Analysis of interview transcripts is ongoing, but the researchers have found that UNC faculty in the early stages of their careers share many of the experiences and concerns expressed by faculty included in Heeding New Voices. In addition to opinions about salaries, benefits, support for professional development, and the quality of life provided by their communities, faculty responses indicated both dissatisfaction and satisfaction in such areas as information and assistance in balancing work and personal responsibilities, relationships with department chairs and senior colleagues, and the tenure and promotion process. The responses of tenure-track and
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tenured faculty revealed similar patterns of experience, although the experiences of both groups appear to vary dramatically based on their institutions and, in particular, their departments. The excerpts below (edited for clarity) provide insight into the range of experiences described in their own words by tenure-track and tenured faculty members in a variety of disciplines and departments at different institutions. EXCERPTS FROM INTERVIEWS WITH EARLY-CAREER FACULTY I. CAMPUS COMMUNITY AND BALANCING WORK AND FAMILY Although UNC faculty were generally satisfied with their campus location and environment, many reported that they needed more information about the area and services to help them balance work and family responsibilities. Examples of Dissatisfaction 1. Lack of Information on Campus Community [Tenure track] We have this one-day orientation. But that orientation is on the dumbest of things, like how to not have a filing cabinet fall over on you. But they don’t talk to you at all about potential in the community. [Tenure track] That’s totally played down [university community information] and you have to try and find stuff, and this is my fourth year and I still don’t know anything about anything. I was not even told when graduation was or where the ceremony was. 2. Ability to Balance Work and Family Life [Tenure track] In principle I think that would be possible [i.e., to balance work and family life], but if you think about the fact that I’m on the tenure track and that you need to satisfy certain requirements which are not very well defined, there could be some uncertainty as to, well, am I doing enough? Am I going to make it? That makes it hard to make those decisions. [Tenure track] [Finding a job for a spouse] was done on an informal level. I contacted a faculty member here and, knowing the local [professional] scene, he suggested firms and so we got in touch with them. [Tenured] I’m divorced and so I always thought I’d be married again by now, but I never had time to date. 3. Lack of Information or Confusion about University Policies [Tenure track] Family Medical Leave . . . that’s something the university just responds to, doesn’t initiate. The university certainly isn’t proactive on that.
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[Tenure track] To be honest I don’t think I know enough about university policies and I think it would be useful. The orientation for new faculty, at least when I went through it, really went through things like retirement plan options very, very quickly and I don’t think any of us really knew what our options were. 4. Availability of Daycare Facilities and Respect for Family Responsibilities [Tenure track] There is absolutely no infrastructure at all for anything like daycare or any kind of release time or even anybody to point you in the right direction. [Tenured] I know the daycare directors are very careful but you really need to be on it the day you get proof of a pregnancy. And everyone who’s here knows that. So you go from the doctor to the childcare place with the letter from the doctor. But if you were new to campus or you didn’t realize how it works . . . it’s very, very expensive and it’s not subsidized. Examples of Satisfaction 1. Flexible Work Schedules Alleviating Work-Family Issues [Tenure track] Obviously the academic schedule is a very nice one because of the flexibility day-to-day as well as summer blocks. There is the potential for interface with the children. [Tenure track] As long as you’re getting your stuff done, you don’t actually have to be anywhere at any time. So that’s fairly flexible. 2. Improving Work-Family Policies [Tenured] I had two children before tenure, and one of the things that was a major concern for me was the lack of maternity policy here when I started. There is one in place now that’s being applied and so my junior colleagues who are coming through who are looking at having kids before tenure at least know the rules. That’s something that’s only been in place for a couple of years here. 3. Availability of Daycare Facilities [Tenure track] I feel pretty good about all of the daycare/ childcare/preschool and now after-school care that I’ve been able to have. I have paid pretty top dollar for it. II. IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORT FROM DEPARTMENT CHAIRS AND SENIOR COLLEAGUES Interviews with UNC faculty document the importance of department chairs and senior colleagues, for better or worse, in new faculty members’ confidence about their ability to succeed. Examples of Dissatisfaction 1. Internal Politics and Competition among Faculty [Tenure track] My reappointment was made into a very political issue about senior faculty. Debates that they’ve had amongst one
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another for 30 years of “I don’t like you and I see you aligning with X and I worry that even if you retire, he’ll just replace you and so I’m going to politically vote against this person.” And it was actually kind of messy in that the dean got so frustrated and upset with all our faculty because they were playing these kinds of games. But at the same time, you can’t for sure know if somebody is making it because the faculty really believe somebody is capable, or if they’re doing it for another reason. [Tenured] There are some problems among faculty and how people tend to treat and view each other. It’s not as competitive as other places I’ve been, but there is some need for better dialogue and better ways of addressing potential competition among faculty. [Tenured] I was given very clear expectations and positive reinforcement. A very clear sense of deadlines, but as an undercurrent [there’s] always a little bit of anxiety. I felt a lot of that was counterproductive and I think it comes mainly from other faculty. The administration doing nothing to dispel the sense of competition and anxiety, sort of letting it sit, can be counterproductive. I think some administrations will do that because they know it’ll make people work harder. Examples of Satisfaction 1. Importance of Informed Colleagues [Tenure track] A senior faculty member was an advocate for me as much as he could. He came in the last two years of my time here, just before I went up for tenure. But the fact that he knows how to evaluate my work in line with our area is helpful. There were senior people in the department who were looking at my work suspiciously saying, “You know, this isn’t like my work at all.” 2. Protection and Guidance by the Department Chair [Tenure track] One of the things is having the chair protecting you more because he was keenly aware of what I needed to do and made sure I had the time. [Tenure track] I actually laid out a 5-year plan and brought it to him [the chair] and asked him, “How does this look?” and he actually said I had more than I needed for tenure. [Tenured] I think it was a smooth process, and I will give my department head tons of credit in that regard. Because she, from the get-go, was very up front. Our annual evaluations were extremely helpful in telling us where we were, what we needed to do, encouraging us to do the things that we needed to do. She set up a mentor program in the department where we would be mentored by tenured faculty who would help us along the process as well.
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III. THE TENURE AND PROMOTION PROCESS Many faculty reported being unclear about guidelines and expectations for tenure, felt the need for support and more follow-up on their progress, and felt tenure expectations were a “moving target.” Examples of Dissatisfaction 1. Unclear and Ambiguous Guidelines for Tenure [Tenure track] I asked when I came what exactly are the metrics or the criteria for promotion and tenure. That was almost five years ago, and I’m still waiting for an answer and I haven’t seen any clear criteria for promotion and tenure. [Tenure track] How teaching factors into it is a little unclear to me, and certainly number of publications, where you fall on the author list, whether it’s primary, has never been discussed. [Tenure track] Generally on this campus there’s been a hesitancy to say your teaching evaluations must have this particular number or it’s not good enough. Or you have to have X number of publications, or you have to do this much service. [Tenure track] There’s also a feeling around the university that there’s not a lot of coordination between departments, so some departments have a much easier research and writing requirement than my department does. 2. Tenure as a Moving Target [Tenure track] I had a vague general sense, but I have to tell you that if I would go up for tenure next year, I’m still not sure what the expectations are because they’re in flux. And no one seems to really know. The department’s expectations are different from the school’s; the school’s are different from the college; the college is different from the university. So nobody knows, no one knows what the expectations are. I would say that there are probably three targets for tenure: department, school, and university. I think the targets are fixed in place. I think the expectation of which target you are expected to hit has changed. I think for a long time my particular department felt that the department was the only one you really had to hit. I always geared my career more towards what the school wanted. And I think that was a really wise choice. [Tenure track] When I first came here, the notion was that you had to be a good teacher because that’s the emphasis of this school. That had to be not perfect but very good. And then the way I first heard it was that either you had to be very strong in research or service. And it later started sounding like, well, you can do as much service as you want and it really won’t matter if you don’t have any research.
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[Tenure track] The requirements have changed with each group of faculty coming in. And so I think there’s been a movement to honor or give privilege even to research over service. But then there’s been a contrast or a tension on our campus over just what tenure should look like. [Tenured] Since I’ve been tenured, there has been a lot of turnover at the university—the dean, provost, and the chancellor. The expectations have gone way up. 3. Reliance on Alternate Sources for Information about the Tenure Process [Tenure track] The grapevine does a very good job of telling me exactly what’s needed. What’s written on paper, well, actually we don’t have anything written on paper. [Tenured] I was so confused that I went outside of the North Carolina system to choose a mentor in academia who could start teaching me what it would be like if I decided to stay. It was so confusing. [Tenured] They hired this woman the second year I was here. And, thank God, she came in the year that I rolled over into tenure track. Because if she had never come, I can assure you I would’ve never been tenured. So what this lady did, because she needed to recapture her tenure in a year, she set up an education meeting and asked the black faculty that had been on campus for years and years to present to us how we should go about getting tenured. Actually that’s where I learned what I needed to do in order to get tenure. [Tenured] I have a dean who’s incredibly autocratic, and everything is under his control, and he tells you when you’re going up for tenure. And he told me when I was going up and then next they wanted my package. I had no idea what went in a package so I just informed him he’d have it in a week. I had a friend on the faculty who’d gone up the year before and I said, “Could I see yours?” 4. Lack of Feedback to Faculty on Progress Toward Meeting Tenure Criteria [Tenure track] It’s very hard for me, although I’m getting very positive feedback and everything, but still I haven’t heard that “yes, this is enough” or “when you do this, that would be enough.” I haven’t heard that, so this is quite worrying for me. [Tenured] Part of the anxiety around being in a tenure-track position was even though there was a document that outlined the expectation, there’s still a lot of unknowns about what really goes on behind the scenes. [Tenured] Tenure had never been explained to me in terms of how you actually do it; the action of it had never been explained to me.
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Examples of Satisfaction 1. Clear Guidelines and a Transparent Tenure Process [Tenure track] I think in this particular college there’s a fairly transparent and supportive administration such that if there are issues that need to be dealt with, they seem to make you aware of them pretty quickly and then provide you the opportunity to find your way around to improve things, or if there are a series of marks that one needs to hit, they’re relatively visible from the moment you get here. [Tenure track] We changed vice chancellors, we had someone leave and a new one come in, and the new person has articulated more clearly a broader definition of what counts as research, which is wonderful. [Tenure track] The main emphasis that has been given to every single member of the faculty is that it is up to the faculty member to make his or her case for tenure and to explain to the committee what their research means and how that reflects professional activity within his or her own discipline so that the committee is not having to compare apples to oranges across disciplines. It seems fairly clear to me. I will say that virtually no one is denied tenure. [Tenured] I felt like I was well prepared. There was a discussion of what it takes to get tenure. I’ve had good chairs since I’ve been here; everyone was very clear, “You should be looking at this number of publications and external grants.” [Tenured] I felt well prepared. I felt that I knew what the expectations are; I feel like I had a certain amount of support in terms of reaching those expectations. I feel like it was a pretty fair and even process. 2. Benefits of Having a Head Start on the Tenure Process [Tenure track] If I had come here directly from graduate school and without a little bit of a trajectory already under way, it would have been extremely hard. And I think that’s recognized in the hiring. I don’t know anyone who has been hired in the last few years who has not been somewhere else first. [Tenured] I was in another state for five years, so I had myself established in the field, so I can attract some grants and get everything going. I was here as an assistant professor for only one year and the next year I was promoted to associate without tenure, so that’s two years ago. So I think I had plenty of time to prepare myself.
The experiences captured in these interviews parallel those growing out of Heeding New Voices; both research projects identify recurring challenges for early-career faculty. Based on these challenges, Sorcinelli has recommended “principles of good practice,” reproduced below, which can
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serve as a point of departure for administrators committed to assisting new faculty members’ success: Principles of Good Practice: Supporting Early-Career Faculty Improving Tenure Processes 1. 2. 3. 4.
Good practice communicates expectations for performance. Good practice gives feedback on progress. Good practice enhances collegial review processes. Good practice creates flexible timelines for tenure.
Encouraging Collegial Relations 5. Good practice encourages mentoring by senior faculty. 6. Good practice extends mentoring and feedback to graduate students aspiring to be faculty members. 7. Good practice recognizes the department chair as a career sponsor.
Easing Stresses of Time and Balance 8. Good practice supports teaching, particularly at the undergraduate level. 9. Good practice supports scholarly development. 10. Good practice fosters a balance between professional and personal life.12
Trotman’s insights as a result of this research and her own experience as a tenure-track faculty member in dentistry are described in her contribution to this chapter. She echoes the findings of other researchers in identifying criteria for the success of early-career faculty: mentoring relationships, collegiality and a positive work environment, clear criteria for tenure and promotion, recognition and use of each faculty member’s skills, and flexibility in academic career paths. FIVE CRITERIA FOR EARLY-CAREER FACULTY SUCCESS Carroll-Ann Trotman The dental specialty is facing an acute shortage of academic dentists. Existing data shows that for each year between 1999 and 2002 approximately 300 faculty positions were vacant.13 The situation is expected to worsen with impending retirements of an aging cohort of senior faculty and limited numbers of junior faculty entering the
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profession. As an orthodontist who has carved out an academic career balanced among research, teaching, and service, I find this situation worrisome because of the implications for the future of the profession. For the profession to continue as it is, there must be dramatic changes that will permit alternative and more creative approaches to recruit and develop faculty and educate future students. Recruiting, developing, and retaining future faculty are major undertakings for any academic institution. My own experiences as a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan and then as a tenured Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina School of Dentistry led me to conclude that although the academic life was rewarding in numerous aspects, it involved enormous commitments, many of which I accepted because of my love for the profession and my enjoyment of teaching and research. I am aware, however, that several of my colleagues began to find these experiences burdensome. As a result, I became very interested in the “work experiences” of faculty on the tenure track. This interest ultimately led to research in faculty recruitment and retention, first for the dental profession,14 and then for the faculty of the 16-campus University of North Carolina system.15 The numbers for the system are staggering: in order to replace retiring faculty and to meet projected enrollment growth, the system needs to hire more than 10,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) faculty by 2010.16 Clearly, the need for faculty extends well beyond the dental specialty. Based on the research projects that my colleagues and I have conducted on faculty recruitment and retention as well as my personal experiences, this commentary underscores what I consider the top five criteria for success in academia for full-time faculty. One caveat is that I acknowledge and accept that “limited financial compensation” and “unfair compensation practices” are obvious perceptions by many faculty; however, there are many other factors that contribute to their dissatisfaction which can be remedied. Top Five Criteria for Success 1. A proper mentoring relationship. Not unexpectedly, this is the most frequently cited criterion for success. Mentorship means many things to different people, but in the end it is the outcome of this relationship that is critical. The expectation is that positive and fruitful gains should result for both parties, specifically the acquisition of tenure or other promotion and a line of publications that identifies the more junior faculty member—the mentee—as an expert in his or her field. The mentor must not be overlooked. For the relationship to grow and be productive, the mentor should benefit in some fashion from the fruits of her labor. To avoid difficulties in this regard and drive the momentum of the relationship, constant dialogue and career planning
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are needed. My experience at the University of Michigan was positive in this regard. The administrative powers mandated a committee of senior professors convened to monitor my progress while on the tenure track, and the committee was brutally honest. 2. Collegiality and a positive work environment. The ability to work in an environment that fosters creativity and an enthusiasm for collaborative endeavors is recognized by faculty as an asset. Many research-extensive universities foster a competitive environment that results in tremendous productivity but, in many instances, the environment is void of positive collaboration. Unfortunately, an unwritten predictor of success becomes an individual’s willingness to remain in this type of setting. 3. Clear criteria for tenure and promotion. Tenure and promotion issues rank quite high on the list of concerns. Uncertainty with the criteria for tenure and promotion is a major cause for anxiety among faculty. Clear criteria and milestones of accomplishments can go a long way to alleviate faculty concerns. My experience, however, is that unless you are a “super star” in academia, even definite criteria cannot completely dispel concerns regarding tenure and promotion; one’s appointment as a tenured professor is never certain until the institutional decision is made. 4. Skills are valued and appropriately utilized. There must be a fairly close match between an individual’s academic needs and aspirations and those of the department or school. Once there is a match, empowering faculty to do what they do best is one way to ensure productivity and individual personal growth. This growth, however, must be steered and fashioned within the confines and criteria necessary for tenure and promotion. The latter poses potential problems in that personal interests and expectations change as faculty set goals and achieve them. Junior and mid-career faculty need to stay “on course” with the criteria needed for tenure and promotion. 5. Flexibility in the creation of academic career paths. The present cohort of potential and junior faculty find themselves in a time when higher education is involved in a major period of transformation shaped by a variety of forces, including the rise of the information society and new technologies, increased diversity of students (backgrounds, expectations, etc.), and new educational institutions (e.g., for-profit).17 As a result, current faculty expectations and values are different from those of their more senior counterparts. These factors may support the need for greater flexibility in academic career paths tailored to individual strengths and university needs in this fast changing academic environment, and not just to satisfy long-standing university policy requirements. Recruiting and developing new faculty is the single most important job of an academic administrator, especially the department chair and dean of a school. These administrators must be aware of those
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factors that affect the academic well-being of their faculty and use this awareness to foster productivity and collegiality among faculty. Recruiting and retaining faculty will be greatly strengthened if administrators create the setting for faculty to prosper.
THE IMPORTANT ROLE OF THE DEPARTMENT CHAIR Most studies of the challenges early-career faculty face recognize the importance of the department chair and other academic administrators as, in Sorcinelli’s words, “career sponsor.” The chair can serve effectively as a guide for new faculty, helping them become socialized within the department and institution, providing the resources necessary for their success in teaching and research, helping them understand what is expected of them, and providing feedback on their progress toward achieving these expectations. On the other hand, the department chair who does not provide these types of support can be perceived as the institutional “enforcer” whose formal evaluations reflect a “moving bar” of departmental and institutional expectations which the new faculty member has little time or resources to achieve. In addition, frequently rotating chairs, identified as a problem by the faculty interviewed for Heeding New Voices, may impact the consistency of feedback and support given to new faculty during their probationary years. A department chair who wishes to serve as mentor rather than enforcer needs to plan regular consultation and feedback to new faculty members throughout their years on the tenure track. An excellent resource for chairs and other administrators who wish to support new faculty members is The Department Chair’s Role in Developing New Faculty into Teachers and Scholars, containing extremely practical “checklists” for department chairs. Among their recommendations, the authors suggest that chairs or other mentors work with new faculty to develop individualized annual work plans for writing, teaching, and service, then work with them to achieve their goals and departmental expectations. Developing an annual plan such as the sample below would help the new faculty member balance teaching, research, and service and help the department chair anticipate the human and financial resources the new faculty member will need to succeed: Sample Annual Plan for the First Year Research Goals • Establish a research agenda with a focused line of inquiry. • Make connections to fellow faculty members with similar interests to develop the potential for collaboration.
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• Submit one conference proposal. • Submit one article for publication. • Writing 1. Work on dissertation to prepare for publication. 2. Send draft of article to three colleagues for feedback (1 local, 1 dissertation advisor, 1 national). 3. Attend faculty development workshops on writing and research. 4. Brainstorm for conference proposal. • Publication 1. Incorporate comments from colleagues and submit article for publication. 2. Submit conference proposal. 3. Meet with department chair to discuss short- and long-term research and publication goals and solicit suggestions on how to best meet these goals. • Grants 1. Collect information about internal grant opportunities campus-wide. 2. Submit “minigrant” application for new faculty research projects.
Teaching Goals • Prepare for spring courses. • Limit class preparation and grading to no more than teaching days (Monday, Wednesday, Friday—fall semester; Tuesday and Thursday— spring semester). • Say no to summer teaching for the first year. 1. Prepare syllabi for spring. 2. Submit book requests. 3. Have at least one person come to class to do an informal evaluation of spring and fall classes. 4. Conduct midterm evaluations of fall courses and incorporate information into courses for spring and fall.
Service Goals • Collect information about departmental, college, and university priorities. • Find out about committees that will help acclimate the newcomer to the campus.
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1. Say no to committee work for the first year (at a minimum the first semester). 2. Meet with department chair to strategize commitments for the first year.18
FOSTERING COLLEGIALITY AND SUCCESS FOR WOMEN AND MINORITY FACULTY MEMBERS Chairs and other administrators need to address the lack of community identified as a problem for new faculty by exploring ways to foster collegiality within a department. Bensimon and her colleagues note the particular difficulties some women and minority faculty have in finding supportive colleagues. They report research showing that female faculty who feel alienated within a department often spend more time teaching, advising, and mentoring students, which “puts them in contact with others” when they do not feel connected to their colleagues; these activities may, ironically, take time away from activities that are more important for their success.19 The feminist scholarship some female faculty members undertake may also make it more difficult for them to find research colleagues within their departments, and without assistance they may have difficulty making connections across departmental or disciplinary lines. The authors note, “New female faculty members’ transition into a predominantly male department can be eased by a sensitive department chair who provides access into the existing collegial structure.”20 The Bensimon et al. volume also notes that ethnic minority faculty members may not have had the same “socialization opportunities” when they were graduate students as their white peers may have had. Efforts to formalize networking opportunities for minority faculty new to the institution may include organizational support for teaching and research across departments or disciplines. New faculty may find that “minoritycentered scholarship” is either not understood or not valued by some colleagues. In addition, minority faculty often face what the authors call “cultural taxation,” described as “the obligation placed on minority faculty to help the institution represent diversity by serving on committees or by being expected to participate in a variety of activities that . . . are not likely to be rewarded.” The authors note, “Department chairs can use their position and authority to protect minority academics from being overused by the institution or by their own sense of obligation.”21 DEMYSTIFYING THE TENURE AND PROMOTION PROCESS New faculty members have identified “the lack of a comprehensible tenure system” as a major concern. Attempting to “demystify” the tenure
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and promotion process may strike many as trying to explain the unexplainable, since in many departments and institutions this process relies on tradition, unwritten rules, and even the whims or prejudices of the faculty serving on the tenure and promotion committee. Although a number of institutions have attempted to delineate both the procedures and expectations for promotion and tenure more clearly, many are reluctant to develop “scorecards” that could be used too literally by candidates or committees, offering the valid argument that a “one size fits all” set of measures is unrealistic and may create false expectations for probationary faculty. However, between the two extremes of overly defined standards for performance and no written standards at all, most departments can define the expectations for tenure and promotion at least to some degree, supplementing written standards with individual guidance and frequent feedback to new faculty on their progress. Department chairs need to approach demystifying faculty evaluation procedures systematically, providing information to new faculty about annual and mid-probationary reviews as well as the tenure and promotion process. Chairs need to meet regularly with new faculty, perhaps in conjunction with discussion of the faculty member’s annual plan, to assess their progress and help them “learn the ropes” as they prepare for the promotion and tenure process: clarifying the steps in the review process and explaining the documentation expected (including letters from external reviewers), the criteria used to assess the quality of the documentation, and the weight given to different activities by the department or institutions. This information needs to be provided to faculty early in their careers at the institution, not in the year before the tenure decision. Chairs can involve others in this effort, including senior colleagues, recently tenured faculty, and peers from other departments who can meet with tenure-track faculty to discuss how to prepare for the process. DEFINING WHAT “COUNTS” The central question for most new faculty members is not how the tenure process works but, as Rice and Sorcinelli put it, “For what is tenure awarded?” They cite as one answer to that question Ernest Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, which summarized a Carnegie Foundation project that inquired into “the changing role of faculty and the scholarly work rewarded by American colleges and universities.”22 Boyer’s taxonomy of scholarship—teaching, engagement, integration, and discovery—offered faculty and institutions a way to raise the profile of scholarship other than traditional research or “discovery,”
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encouraged them to define methods for evaluation and reward, and helped “reunite personal and institutional endeavors,” according to Rice and Sorcinelli, encouraging institutions to recognize faculty for work such as teaching and outreach about which they were often passionate and which institutions were under increasing pressure to encourage and reward.23 Boyer’s four forms of scholarship led to new approaches to defining faculty work, including peer review of teaching and teaching portfolios, revised promotion and tenure guidelines, increased emphasis on multidisciplinary teaching and research, and faculty collaboration with undergraduates in their research—all of which continue to be incorporated into many institutions’ review systems. The possibilities for documentation, review, evaluation, and rewards for these multiple forms of scholarship would seem to meet the desire, identified in Heeding New Voices and other research with new faculty, for integration in the various aspects of their work. However, alternate forms of scholarship have received emphasis at the same time that expectations for research productivity have also increased, for institutions as well as for individual faculty members. Faculty scholarship is not a “zero-sum game,” as Rice has pointed out.24 Although adopting a broader definition of scholarship may provide institutions a way to document their commitment to wide and more encompassing missions, for faculty at many institutions, especially early-career faculty, activity in one of the alternate forms of scholarship may not change expectations that they participate and excel in the scholarship of discovery. Rice and Sorcinelli note that “an incremental, add-on approach to change has been put in place. The scholarly responsibilities of early-career faculty have not only expanded, but also multiplied. As the conception of scholarly excellence has become multidimensional, new faculty are being held accountable for more work in more areas.”25 They argue that while all of the forms of scholarship need to be addressed, they do not have to be addressed by each faculty member. Kerri Ann O’Meara argues for “the critical need for discovery, integration, teaching and application of knowledge in our society” and “the need to honor faculty and their contributions more equitably,” stating that “encouraging multiple forms of scholarship in policy and practice benefits individual faculty, institutions, and society.”26 In light of the “incremental” expansion of expectations for newly recognized forms of scholarship and the obstacles individual faculty members may face in getting support and recognition for their work, O’Meara proposes “Ten Principles of Good Practice for Encouraging Multiple Forms of Scholarship,” paralleling Sorcinelli’s principles for supporting early-career faculty cited above. O’Meara’s principles are designed to help institutions and academic
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administrators “ensure that faculty rewards, priorities, and workload are aligned with institutional mission and a shared sense of aspirations.”27 Ten Principles of Good Practice for Encouraging Multiple Forms of Scholarship 1. Prepare faculty in graduate school for the variety of roles and types of scholarship in which they will engage. 2. Socialize new faculty to the broader institutional definitions of scholarship. 3. Present clear expectations for scholarship in promotion and tenure guidelines. 4. Do not expect or reward the “overloaded plate.” 5. Assess the impact of scholarship on multiple beneficiaries and partners. 6. Provide useful feedback to faculty during evaluation. 7. Support pioneers with resources—structural and financial, training and development, political and symbolic. 8. Encourage scholarly contributions that build on strengths. 9. Define and emphasize scholarship in the context of institutional mission. 10. Resist increasing research expectations to enhance institutional prestige.28
Despite suggestions such as O’Meara’s “Ten Principles,” tenure-track faculty members and their department chairs may be reluctant to depart from the forms of scholarship that have traditionally been recognized and rewarded. Institutions may want to encourage new faculty members to exercise their skills and interests in a range of scholarly pursuits, but this encouragement needs to be balanced by clear statements about how the institution defines scholarship and guidelines for tenure and promotion that reflect those definitions. In reality, the tenure timeline may not allow probationary faculty to engage fully in multiple forms of scholarship, and some forms of scholarship—discovery and teaching—in practice are still likely to be given more weight in awarding tenure at most institutions. Although institutional priorities may change, proof that the reward system has also changed is demonstrated one faculty member at a time. Departments may want to identify the range of scholarly activities valued by the department and restructure departmental responsibilities and the reward system to involve all faculty members.
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CREATING WORKPLACE SATISFACTION FOR NEW FACULTY In her contribution to this chapter, Cathy A. Trower reports results from The Study of New Scholars. The pilot study, which included focus group discussions and a survey of tenure-track faculty at six research universities and several selective liberal arts colleges, was designed to measure workplace satisfaction with many factors that lead to success for tenure-track faculty members. The major question driving the project was “What Makes a Great Academic Workplace?” The focus groups and surveys identified the characteristics of great workplaces, which the researchers organized into five key areas: tenure, work and workload, professional development and support, climate, and policy provisions.29 Trower reports on differences in survey results based on institutional type (university or college), some of which are not surprising (e.g., university faculty received higher salaries and were more likely than college faculty to be satisfied with their salary and benefits). Survey results have also been analyzed based on gender and race, including a number of statistically significant differences that institutions might test among their own faculty in order to determine how different groups of faculty members experience their academic workplace differently. A few examples drawn from three statistical reports suggest the richness of the survey results.30 Gender Differences: Among faculty at research institutions participating in the pilot study, Trower and Black report: “Of the 28 measures of workplace satisfaction . . . junior faculty women were significantly less satisfied than men on 19—two out of three. Conversely, in no area were males significantly less satisfied than females.” Females rated their institution as a workplace and their global satisfaction with their department and with their institution significantly lower than males and were less likely than males to recommend their departments to a candidate for a tenure-track position.31 The survey also identified several specific differences between male and female job satisfaction related to the tenure expectations and the tenure process. Given that the majority of new US doctorates in recent years have been awarded to women, institutions may need to investigate differences in the ways male and female faculty are differentially affected by the institutions’ policies, practices, and environment. Racial Differences: Among faculty at the six participating research institutions, the researchers found that in general faculty of color and white junior faculty were equally satisfied with their workplace. The
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study found a number of statistically significant differences, however, in the following areas: • Tenure: “White faculty felt clearer about the tenure process and the body of evidence they would be required to present” and were “more likely than junior faculty of color to report that tenure decisions are based on performance rather than on politics, relationships, or demographics.” • Pressure to conform: “Minority faculty reported more pressure to conform to departmental colleagues in their political views.” • Research focus: Faculty of color were less satisfied than white faculty “with the influence they feel they have over their research focus.” • Institutional policies: Faculty of color “were significantly more likely than white junior faculty to report that they would find the following policy provisions to be helpful: professional assistance to improve teaching skills, childcare, financial assistance with housing, stop-the-tenureclock, and personal leaves during the probationary period.”32 Female junior faculty, too, reported feeling more pressures to conform in political views, personal behavior, and attire. Female faculty also reported that they would find childcare, financial assistance with housing, stopthe-tenure-clock, and personal leaves during the probationary period helpful.33
According to summaries prepared by Trower and Black, the project “allows us to gauge and compare the institutional policies and practices; assess satisfaction levels of junior faculty across participating institutions; and identify the institutional characteristics and personnel practices of the best places to work, with a special focus on women and minorities.”34 The primary benefit of a project such as The Study of New Scholars, which will be conducted nationally with a greater number of institutions under the auspices of the Coalition for Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE), is the ability of an institution to compare its survey outcomes with those of similar institutions, including the responses of demographic groups: males and females, faculty of color and white faculty. The sample results from the pilot surveys suggest the benefits institutions of all types might gain from similar job satisfaction or “campus climate” surveys of their junior faculty. WHAT NEW SCHOLARS WANT Cathy A. Trower New scholars want precisely what older scholars wanted when they started: reasonable performance expectations, clear tenure policies and fair practices, equity, professional development support, protected time, effective mentoring, colleagueship, and balance
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between work and home. The trouble is, today’s scholars have more complicated lives than did their predecessors, so achieving these goals is more difficult. The Study of New Scholars35 surveyed junior faculty satisfaction at a dozen pilot institutions and found important differences between the faculty attitudes in liberal arts colleges and universities on several key workplace dimensions.36 College junior faculty were significantly more likely than their university colleagues to respond as follows: • • • •
rate their institution highly as a workplace report that the Chief Academic Officer cares about their quality of life report intention to stay at their institution, assuming tenure is granted say they would accept their current position if they had “to do it all over again” • recommend their institution to a prospective tenure-track faculty member • be clear about performance expectations for teaching, advising, and campus citizenship • be satisfied with their salary and benefits, despite the fact that university junior faculty reported significantly higher salaries on average than did college junior faculty.
College faculty were significantly more satisfied than university faculty with how they were expected to spend their time, the level of courses they teach, the number and quality of the students they teach, the senior faculty’s commitment to their success, the physical setting in which they work, their discretion over course content, the professional assistance available for grant-seeking, how well they “fit” in their department, and the gender and racial diversity of the faculty in their department. By comparison, university junior faculty felt significantly clearer than their junior colleagues at colleges about the performance expectations for scholarship; were significantly more likely than college faculty to believe that tenure decisions are based on performance rather than on politics, relationships, or demographic characteristics; and were significantly more satisfied with the amount of time available to conduct research. Junior faculty at colleges and universities were equally satisfied with the number of courses taught, research expectations, expectations for outside research funding, their department chair’s commitment to their success, the interest senior faculty take in their success, the resources available to support their work, the influence they have over their research focus, and the opportunities to collaborate with senior colleagues.
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Several common themes emerged from the responses of both groups of faculty: • An overloaded plate. If faculty at both types of institutions could have one wish, it would be for more protected research time, meaning they want a more reasonable teaching load, protection from committees and service work, and less time required for administrative busywork—at least until they achieve tenure. • Collegiality and mentoring. They want better mentoring and greater collegiality/collaboration with senior faculty. While there was no statistically significant difference in satisfaction with mentoring, 26 percent of college and 33 percent of university faculty expressed dissatisfaction, and 17 percent of both faculties were only neutral. • Tenure issues. Faculty want greater tenure clarity, consistency, more reasonable expectations that do not continue to increase over time, better feedback and transparency, and more flexibility. • Quality of life. Junior faculty would like childcare on campus, familyfriendly policies including stop-the-clock, mortgage/housing assistance, and spousal/partner hiring provisions.
The implications for liberal arts college administrators and university administrators differ somewhat, but it is clear that both can make changes to improve the working conditions for new faculty. FOR COLLEGE ADMINISTRATORS • provide greater clarity around research expectations; explain what constitutes excellence in research • define the appropriate balance for teaching, research, and service • ensure that heavy teaching loads do not preclude research excellence • provide travel funds to present papers or conduct research, paid research leave, or course reduction • be aware that college faculty were less likely (28 percent vs. 21 percent) to believe that tenure is based on performance rather than on politics, relationships, or demographic characteristics. While personalities matter, they should not outweigh performance as the key to tenure. Be cognizant of the extent (and reality) of this sentiment on the campus and provide mechanisms to bolster the measurement of merit over partiality.
FOR UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATORS • provide equitable workload (courses, advising, committees); appoint equity advisors to monitor workload distribution and resource allocation • formalize mentoring by constructing mentoring teams within departments (if large enough), schools, or colleges of senior men and women, and people of various races/ethnicities • require periodic meetings of department chairs and mentoring teams to examine the level and degree of junior/senior faculty collaboration
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within the department, school, or college to detect and correct gross inequities • provide professional assistance with grant-seeking and proposal writing • spend time showing junior faculty that they are a valued and valuable part of the institution, not a commodity in a buyer’s market • train department chairs about departmental guidelines for tenure and promotion, as well as about communication with, and evaluation of, junior faculty
FOR BOTH • Nearly one third of the faculty in both groups reported being “unclear” about tenure standards; tenure performance thresholds should be detailed for all junior faculty in all departments. • Faculty at both types of campuses were least clear about the tenure performance expectations for campus citizenship. What role does it play in tenure and promotion decisions? To what can they say “no” without fear of repercussions? To the extent possible, make clear the expectations for the all too often unmentioned “third” rail of academic performance. • Half of all respondents reported having received mixed messages from senior colleagues about tenure requirements—yet another reason to write them down and ensure that communication and feedback are flowing to and from an informed department chair. • Neither college nor university faculty were very satisfied with the balance they were able to find between their personal and professional lives; 43 percent of college and 46 percent of university respondents expressed dissatisfaction. • Implement a variety of family-friendly policies and practices, and monitor their usage and efficacy.
The men and women of Generation X—most of today’s junior faculty—want a home life that is in sync with their work life. This generation, more so than any before, is less tolerant of imbalance and is seeking careers that allow for harmony—a life of the mind and of the heart.
BALANCING WORK AND FAMILY The Study of New Scholars is one of many initiatives that highlight the need for institutions to recognize and respond to the necessity for faculty, particularly early-career faculty, to balance their work and personal and family responsibilities, the need for an “integrated life.” As a new cohort of young faculty are hired to replace retiring faculty, and with the likelihood that more of these new faculty will be women, institutions need policies in place that anticipate the needs of faculty with family responsibilities and create a climate that encourages faculty to take advantage of them.
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Early-career female faculty are not alone in facing conflicts between work and family responsibilities, of course; responsibilities for the cohort of senior faculty include care not only for children but also often for spouses, partners, or parents with serious illnesses. The development of family-friendly policies can not only assist institutions in recruiting new faculty but also contribute to the whole faculty’s success in meeting expectations for their performance. The Center for the Education of Women at the University of Michigan has identified key family-friendly policies based on a survey of higher education institutions about their policies and practices in addressing workfamily balance. The first three policies are most often available to faculty: • Tenure-clock extension: allowing tenure-track faculty a period of time, typically one year, that will not be counted as part of their probationary period. • Modified duties: allowing faculty members a reduction in their job responsibilities, usually for one semester or term, without any reduction in pay. • Leave in excess of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA): allowing faculty members extended unpaid leaves, beyond the twelve weeks mandated by FMLA, in order to care for children or other family members or to receive personal health care. • Reduced appointment: arrangements by which faculty members work less than 100 percent for the institution. • Employment assistance: help in job searches and job placement for partners or spouses of faculty. • Paid dependent care leave: infant care leaves, including maternity or paternity leave. Many colleges that have such paid dependent care leaves also include care for ailing parents, spouses, or partners. • Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993: Federal law providing unpaid time off up to twelve weeks, without risk to employment status, for those 1) giving birth, or caring for newborns, newly adopted, or foster children, 2) caring for seriously ill family members, or 3) taking medical leave for their own serious health conditions.37
In addition, most studies of institutional support for work-family responsibilities include the availability of quality and affordable childcare, preferably on campus, to the list of family-friendly practices. Such policies as tenure-clock extensions, unpaid family leave, assistance with job placement for spouses and partners, and reduced appointments (with proportionally reduced pay) are essentially cost-neutral and can be provided by most institutions. Modified duties at full pay, paid leave, and campus-sponsored childcare are more expensive and less likely to be
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available at most institutions. All institutions have to comply with the relevant federal statutes addressing family leave, including FMLA and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978). However, the University of Michigan study found that even the least costly policies, tenure-clock extensions and unpaid leave beyond the requirements of FMLA, were offered by less than half of all non-research institutions. The study found that family-friendly policies are most frequently available to faculty at research institutions, although the authors note: “The irony is that research universities, while offering the greatest number of family-friendly policies, also employ the fewest tenure-track and tenured women faculty.”38 While at least some family-friendly policies are available to most faculty, many do not take advantage of them, fearing that if they take parental leaves or request modifications of their work assignments for personal reasons, they will be seen as “less serious” than those who do not. Thus, nearly every study of family-friendly policies encourages institutions to examine not only what formal policies or informal practices are available to support faculty with family responsibilities, but also how often they are used, what factors influence their use or avoidance, and how their use has impacted the success of faculty in employment decisions such as reappointment, tenure, and promotion. While individual academic units may be limited in their ability to create policies that enhance flexibility for faculty, they can provide the environment crucial to their use and benefits. And while department chairs and colleagues often find it difficult to accommodate the needs of earlycareer faculty in balancing work and personal responsibilities, finding ways to balance human and financial resources to make these accommodations available will create more attractive places for faculty to come and stay. Departments that are seen as “great places to work” are often able to compete against departments with higher salaries, lighter teaching loads, and more support for scholarship in hiring and retaining faculty. In addition, exploring options for attracting and developing those who might not otherwise be considered in the pool of available faculty, such as those who have pursued non-academic careers or non-tenuretrack faculty appointments, can bring new kinds of talent and new perspectives to departments and institutions. CONCLUSION Meeting the needs and expectations of early-career faculty may require some departments and institutions to rethink the structure of faculty work and the faculty reward system as well as the policies and practices
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that have guided academic organizations for several generations. This rethinking, while challenging, is a logical outgrowth of the generational turnover of faculty, which is sure to occur in colleges and universities in the near future. It is important not only for recruiting the next generation of faculty but also for retaining them. Most institutions attribute attrition from their faculty ranks, especially attrition among women and minority faculty and faculty within competitive disciplines, to the attraction of higher salaries from institutions which “raid” their faculty. In many cases, however, the reasons faculty members leave for other jobs is more complex. When pushed, departing or departed faculty will admit that, in addition to more attractive salaries and benefits, they were attracted to other jobs because of a lack of support from their department chair, a lack of collegiality and collaboration with their colleagues, an “overloaded plate” of both professional and personal responsibilities, and an uncertainty about whether fulfilling those responsibilities would be sufficient to ensure reappointment, tenure, and promotion. Although some faculty are lured away from their institutions by money, others may pass up more lucrative offers for a better “fit” between their needs and aspirations and the climate in their departments. Departments and institutions that position themselves to support earlycareer faculty more effectively will be more successful in recruiting a new generation of tenure-track faculty, bringing them through the tenure and promotion process successfully, and retaining them as they continue the work of the cohorts of senior faculty which preceded them. In the process, departments may find that they improve the quality of work, life, and community for all faculty.
BEST PRACTICES FOR SUPPORTING EARLY-CAREER FACULTY MEMBERS The number of challenges facing early-career faculty and the issues they raise for academic administrators, especially department chairs, seem formidable. Effective academic leaders will develop a systematic approach to supporting faculty members and seek out resources to help them implement them. Outlined below are some important practices and questions chairs and other academic administrators can ask in order to position themselves to attract, support, and retain faculty members, including meeting the specific needs of women or minority faculty members. 1. Departments should define professional expectations before recruiting begins. It is helpful to define expectations for the position that will
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be filled by a junior faculty member before the position is ever advertised. The needs of new faculty members may vary depending on whether the position will add a new specialty to the department or fill a vacancy in an existing sub-discipline. Key Questions: • If the faculty member will bring a new specialty to the department, how will this area be integrated into the agenda of the department? Will the faculty member be able to find mentors or others with whom to collaborate on teaching, research, or outreach activities within the department or institution? Can a possible mentor be included on the search committee or involved in the interviews, in order to establish a climate of collegiality? • If the faculty member will fill an existing position, is there room for new ways to define and support faculty responsibilities? Are there senior colleagues familiar with new lines of scholarship and teaching within the field who can serve as mentors for the new faculty member? If not, how can the department help the new faculty member find colleagues within the field? • Are department guidelines for promotion and tenure designed to reinforce and reward the teaching, scholarly, and service interests a new faculty member is likely to bring to the department? • If the demographics of the department are changing, what may the department need to do to identify colleagues inside or outside the department to provide a support network for women or minority faculty members?
2. Departments and administrators should clarify performance expectations. Although departments may never be able to provide guidelines as explicit as many new faculty members might wish for, examining policies, guidelines, and procedures from the perspective of a probationary faculty member can help identify ways to better inform and direct the activities of new faculty members. Key Questions: • How have expectations for probationary faculty changed at the institution since senior members of the department began their careers? Are department guidelines congruent with collegiate or institutional expectations? Do policies and guidelines for performance reflect as clearly as possible what will be expected of faculty seeking tenure and promotion (e.g., timelines, types and numbers of publications and professional activities, requirements for student or peer evaluations of teaching, documentation of service activities and outreach)? Are the policies, processes, and criteria for merit pay decisions clearly explained?
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• What kinds of feedback will the new faculty member receive? Will new faculty be expected to create annual development plans? In addition to the chair, will mentors provide periodic feedback on these plans and the faculty member’s performance? Does the department encourage “teaching circles” or writing groups to provide informal feedback to new faculty? Are new faculty given an opportunity to meet with recently tenured faculty members to discuss expectations and what new faculty will need to meet them? How can the department ensure that the feedback is consistent? • Does the department provide a mid-probationary review or evaluation for reappointment that provides clear direction for approaching the tenure and promotion review? Are the procedures and consequences for this review clearly defined? • Do early-career faculty have an opportunity to give feedback to the department or institution on how well it is meeting their needs? Has the institution conducted climate surveys or focus groups with recent hires or departing faculty that can gauge their satisfaction or unmet needs? Can a “faculty advocate” (perhaps an associate dean or member of the provost’s staff) be appointed to collect this feedback and provide it to the chair or dean in ways that protect probationary faculty members’ anonymity?
3. Departments should provide necessary professional development resources. A new faculty member cannot be expected to meet the institution’s or department’s expectations without the necessary resources and support. Departments should anticipate rather than react to these needs and make clear to new faculty members what resources exist to assist in their development. Key Questions: • What kinds of orientation programs are planned for new faculty members? Does orientation extend throughout the first year? Is there danger that the orientation will overwhelm faculty with too much information (“just in case”) or provide information on resources to be accessed throughout their probationary years (“just in time”)? • If the new faculty member was promised a “start-up” package at hiring, will the space and equipment needed for research be provided early in the faculty member’s first year? Will the faculty member receive assistance in managing budgetary or personnel processes associated with running a research project or laboratory? • What is the standard teaching load in the department? Can faculty be given reduced teaching loads or relief from service during their probationary years, if appropriate, in order to focus on their scholarship? • Is leave available for probationary faculty members? Are small grants available to supplement new faculty members’ salaries so they can avoid
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summer teaching? How can the department assist faculty in applying for this support? • Will new faculty have access to travel funds to present their research or teaching at professional conferences or attend workshops to improve their knowledge and skills? Can funds be designated for this purpose so that they do not compete with more established colleagues for support?
4. Departments and institutions should help faculty balance work and personal needs. More than their senior colleagues, early-career faculty articulate the desire for a “balanced life,” both in and outside their work. By clearly defining performance expectations and matching them with appropriate assignments and support for professional development as outlined above, departments can help new faculty balance their teaching, service, and scholarship interests. In addition, institutions and departments need to put in place policies and practices that recognize the need many new faculty have to meet family responsibilities. Key Questions: • Does the institution have clear guidelines for approving leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)? Is leave under FMLA paid or unpaid? Do benefit policies spell out clearly the provisions for parental leave? • Are probationary faculty able to take extended paid or unpaid leave to handle personal illnesses or family emergencies? Can they move to parttime employment temporarily and maintain their probationary status? • Does the institution allow for “stopping the tenure clock” for personal or family reasons? Does the faculty member have to request this accommodation or is it assumed in cases of personal leave or childbirth? • How are timelines and performance expectations adjusted to take workfamily responsibilities into account? How frequently have faculty at the institution taken advantage of existing policies, and how has their use affected the success of faculty members? • Does the department or college schedule activities (e.g., teaching assignments, department meetings, and events) in ways that recognize faculty members’ personal and family responsibilities?
5. Departments and institutions should provide assistance for the relocation process. A new faculty member and his/her family members or partner need assistance in making the transition to a new location. Key Questions: • Does the institution provide information about the area to relocating faculty?
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• What assistance can the institution provide new faculty members with regard to moving expenses, finding housing, learning about the community, selecting schools for children, or arranging for child or elder care? • If the new faculty member is part of a dual-career couple, what assistance can the institution or department provide in finding employment for a spouse or partner?
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CHAPTER Non-Tenure-Track Faculty INTRODUCTION
T
he release of a report in 2001 analyzing results from the National Study of Post-Secondary Faculty: 1999 (NSOPF: 99) initiated a national conversation on hiring trends in US higher education. Based on data from a 1998 survey, the report documented a trend, previously reflected in 1987 and 1992 surveys, toward the increasing use of non-tenure-track faculty among colleges and universities. Between 1987 and 1998, the percentage of part-time non-tenure-track faculty increased by ten points, from 33 percent to 43 percent. The percentage of full-time non-tenure-track positions increased from 8 percent to 18 percent in the same period.1 Combined, full-time and part-time non-tenure-track faculty at institutions with tenure systems increased from 41 percent to 61 percent between 1987 and 1998. In a 2004 update to NSOPF: 99, the increase in part-time faculty continues. According to NSOPF: 04 (2005), based on a survey of faculty and other instructional staff conducted in fall 2003: • At all institutions (those with and without tenure systems) 44 percent of faculty were employed part time in 2003, up slightly from 43 percent reported in NSOPF: 99. • At institutions awarding tenure, 86 percent of part-time faculty and instructional staff were not on the tenure track, compared to 78 percent reported in 1999. • At four-year institutions, the percentage of part-time faculty off the tenure track grew to 89, compared to 83 percent reported in NSOPF: 99.
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• At institutions awarding tenure, 24 percent of full-time faculty and instructional staff were non-tenure-track in 2003, increasing from 18 percent reported in 1999. • At four-year institutions, the percentage of full-time faculty off the tenure track grew to 27, up from 21 percent in NSOPF: 99.
These figures reflect continuing significant growth in the percentage of non-tenure-track faculty: up 8 percent among part-time and 6 percent among full-time faculty nationwide. At four-year institutions, the figures increased by 6 percent for both part-time and full-time faculty. These increases, following on those from NSOPF: 99, are likely to intensify the debate over the use of non-tenure-track faculty. They suggest a change not only in employment practices but in the very definition of “faculty” at many institutions. Discussions about the role and impact of nontenure-track faculty generally proceed from one of two positions: either from the argument that the number of these faculty should be restrained, because of consequences for the quality of instruction and for the tradition of tenure, or from the argument that because increased hiring of nontenure-track faculty is inevitable, institutions should concentrate on improving their working conditions and more clearly defining their institutional roles. In this chapter, we review research that informs the conversation about faculty appointments from both perspectives cited above. In addition, we draw on a comprehensive study of non-tenure-track faculty at the sixteen campuses of the University of North Carolina undertaken by a committee of faculty and administrators in 2001. The UNC Committee on NonTenure-Track Faculty was established to address the role and increasing numbers of part-time and fixed-term non-tenure-track faculty, an issue raised by the system-wide Faculty Assembly. The committee’s findings and recommendations, while specific to a single system, address the numbers and working conditions of more than 3,500 part- and full-time non-tenuretrack faculty at sixteen institutions of varied sizes and missions—from doctoral-research extensive and intensive institutions and comprehensive master’s institutions to primarily baccalaureate liberal arts institutions. The UNC committee’s report illustrates the issues and possible responses to the hiring of increasing numbers of non-tenure-track faculty, often under less-than-optimum working conditions, and may offer other institutions and systems a model for developing policies that address issues affecting their own non-tenure-track faculty.2 The UNC study illustrates how individual campus or system hiring trends may vary significantly from national trends:
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• UNC’s percentage of part-time non-tenure-track faculty (21 percent) was much lower than the percentage of part-time faculty (43 percent) among all US institutions. • Part-time faculty at UNC institutions increased six percentage points between 1990 and 2000, compared to an increase of ten percentage points nationally in roughly the same period (1987–1998). • The percentage of full-time non-tenure-track faculty at UNC institutions (23 percent) exceeded national percentages (18 percent). • Full-time non-tenure-track faculty at UNC increased four percentage points between 1990 and 2000, compared to a ten-point increase nationally from 1987 to 1998. • Combined, full-time and part-time non-tenure-track faculty at UNC institutions increased 9 percentage points from 1990 to 2000, compared to a national increase of 20 percentage points in roughly the same period. • From 1990 to 2000, UNC institutions saw a parallel decline in tenured and tenure-track faculty; the percentage of tenured faculty declined from 47 percent to 42 percent; the percentage of tenure-track faculty declined from 19 percent to 15 percent; when these two groups are combined, the percentage of tenure-track and tenured faculty declined from 66 percent in 1990 to 57 percent in 2000.
This chapter begins with an analysis of the forces influencing the hiring of increasing numbers of non-tenure-track faculty, then discusses the implications of this pattern both for faculty work and instructional quality. These discussions are followed by examples of “best practices” for improving the working conditions of non-tenure-track faculty, based on the recommendations of the UNC Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Committee. INFLUENCES ON HIRING PATTERNS The reasons for the national trend toward hiring more non-tenure-track faculty have been analyzed by a number of authors, many of whom note that the higher education community has not paid sufficient attention to the trend and its possible consequences. Two important studies have described the non-tenure-track workforce: Judith M. Gappa and David W. Leslie’s The Invisible Faculty: Improving the Status of Part-Timers in Higher Education and Roger Baldwin and Jay Chronister’s Teaching Without Tenure: Policies and Practices for a New Era, which focuses on full-time nontenure-track faculty. These works remain the most comprehensive analyses of both the working conditions and the impact on institutions of an increasing majority of faculty members working off the tenure track.
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A more recent volume, edited by Ernst Benjamin, former General Secretary and Director of Research for the American Association of University Professors, explores the impact on undergraduate education of “contingent faculty,” a term Benjamin argues is more comprehensive than “adjunct” or “part-time” as a generic term that includes “nontenure-track part-time faculty but also many instructional staff who lack faculty status, an increasing proportion of full-time non-tenure-track faculty, and a substantial number of graduate student teaching assistants.”3 In its title, the Benjamin volume does not refer to “faculty” at all but to “contingent instructional staff.” This terminology highlights the fact that the number of non-traditional instructors who teach US students, particularly undergraduates, is even larger than the percentages of non-tenuretrack faculty suggest. Baldwin and Chronister, in their study of full-time non-tenure-track faculty, provide a helpful summary of the internal and external factors that have led to shifts in faculty hiring, including “rising costs, perceived declines in faculty workload and productivity, projected increases in student enrollment, a diversifying student clientele, the shifting popularity of academic fields, an aging faculty, and a favorable academic labor market.”4 In its study of non-tenure-track faculty, the UNC committee identified specific challenges to traditional faculty hiring patterns: • • • •
declining state support relative to actual personnel and operating costs rapid enrollment growth a series of state budget reversions the delay between allocation of funds and the enrollment of new students or between the implementation of new programs and allocation of funds for new enrollment • the emergence of more applied and clinically based academic programs • the aging of the faculty and their move to formal or informal phased retirement arrangements • the growth in sponsored research, with the accompanying need to hire research faculty on “soft money” or temporary faculty to replace those faculty whose instructional time is “bought out” by grants.
These forces, while often consistent with university goals, result in the need for more fixed-term or part-time faculty to carry out the teaching, research, clinical, and public service missions at many institutions, including those in the UNC system. Changes in the mix of faculty at US institutions has been called a “silent revolution” by Martin J. Finkelstein and Jack H. Schuster. Citing
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the “radically decentralized” organization of higher education and forces similar to those delineated above, they conclude: No sinister conspiracy orchestrates this change. It truly is a revolution driven from ‘below,’ fueled by innumerable decisions on individual campuses—often at the academic unit level—as they develop strategies to engage an uncertain future. No single agency’s or institution’s decisions can influence more than a small portion of the larger picture—either by way of further fueling or retarding the changes.5
However, Finkelstein and Schuster urge “that faculty members and administrators alike commit to focusing more attention on monitoring the extent and pace of change, and that they also contemplate, beyond acknowledging the expedient flexibility and cost savings that accrue with faculty redeployment, the likely consequences for the quality of education.”6 Just as a number of forces affect hiring patterns among institutions, faculty members accept non-tenure-track positions for a variety of reasons. The results of focus groups and surveys of non-tenure-track faculty at UNC institutions suggest that some full-time faculty choose their nontenure-track jobs because they either do not have the credentials or do not want the multiple responsibilities associated with the tenure track; others would prefer tenure-eligible appointments but are place-bound and thus are not able to seek them or find competition keen for such appointments in their fields. Some part-time faculty hold full-time non-academic jobs and teach a course or two for their own personal or professional development; others seek part-time employment because family or other personal responsibilities keep them from pursuing full-time positions. Still others would like a full-time appointment but, when these are not available, piece together “full-time part-time” jobs by teaching multiple sections or taking on other responsibilities, often at more than one institution. At the North Carolina School of the Arts, all faculty are on multiple-year contracts, a common practice in arts conservatories and other specialized institutions. The degree of “contingency” varies considerably among these faculty members, as do their satisfaction and their needs. David Leslie’s contribution to this chapter provides in-depth analysis of the demographics of non-tenure-track faculty. The forces influencing institutions to offer and faculty members to accept increasing numbers of non-tenure-track appointments largely operate independently of one another. Institutions rarely match appointments and terms of employment consciously to the circumstances and needs of each “contingent” faculty member or their departments. More
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intentional planning for various types of appointments at the institutional level and policies and practices better matched to the employment needs and intentions of individual faculty members might produce a more stable cohort of non-tenure-track faculty supplementing and complementing the work of faculty on traditional tenurable appointments. CONTINGENT FACULTY David W. Leslie In two different projects, I have studied both “invisible faculty,” and “anomalous academics.”7 In both projects my co-authors and I were trying to understand more fully the extent to which the academic profession is increasingly part-time, non-tenure-eligible, and more contingent than ever. My colleagues, Roger Baldwin and Jay Chronister, recently published Teaching without Tenure, a more comprehensive analysis of the increasing number of full-time, non-tenuretrack faculty. The trend has been recognized by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in four official “statements” dating from 1980. As pointed out by Ernst Benjamin and his colleagues, the consequences for quality may be significant in the long term, although direct empirical evidence about outcomes for students is scarce. At one time, principally in the 1950s and 1960s, enrollment demand and an insufficient supply of doctoral graduates may have led to the employment of part-time and contingent faculty. Anecdotes suggest that many part-timers in earlier generations were trailing spouses (probably well- or over-qualified) teaching freshman English and other lower-division courses. More recently, it would appear that tightened finances along with new enrollment demands have pressured institutions to substitute cheaper contingent workers for fully vested permanent workers. In the earlier period, institutions had to find the people (at whatever cost) to fill teaching positions. More recently, holding long-term costs down via piece-work (per course) pay and bypassing benefits for workers have been more pressing in institutions whose budgets have been squeezed by a variety of factors. Whatever the causes, institutions began to use (proportionally and absolutely) more contingent faculty in the past two decades. Drawing partly on data from the National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty conducted in 1998–99 by the National Center for Education Statistics, I will attempt to describe briefly who the contingent or temporary faculty are, where they work, and how their increasing numbers might affect the core activities of the academic enterprise: teaching, research, and service.
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It is no longer the case, if it ever was, that “contingent” academics are predominantly those who aspire to academic careers. To be sure, many do. But it is just as clear that large numbers of those who teach part-time are otherwise employed and teach for the extra income, for the satisfactions (which also motivate full-time faculty), and for their dedication to their professions and communities. Male faculty are less likely than female faculty to rely exclusively on part-time employment: only about 17 percent of male part-time faculty report that it is their only employment while about 27 percent of women report that it is their only employment. I estimate that about half (48 percent) of women teaching part-time are otherwise fully employed, while 61 percent of men have other employment. The high level of job satisfaction reported by part-time and non-tenure-eligible faculty alike (over 3.00 on a scale of 1–4) indicates that intrinsic motives are at least as powerful for these groups as pay or security. As might be expected, parttimers do indicate a lower level of satisfaction with their ineligibility for benefits. Women are far more likely to be part-time or non-tenure-eligible faculty than are men: roughly half (50.2 percent) of all women faculty are part-time, while proportionally far fewer men (38.6 percent) are parttime. While 62 percent of full-time female faculty are tenured or tenureeligible, just over 75 percent of men are tenured or tenure-eligible. Contingent status is also directly related to one’s place of work. Three quarters (74.1 percent) of faculty at public two-year colleges are either not tenured or not eligible, while well over half (57.6 percent) of all faculty at research universities are tenured or on track. Nearly two thirds (63.9 percent) of faculty at two-year colleges are part-time, while over three quarters (77.5 percent) of faculty at research universities are full-time. Other types of colleges and universities fall between these extremes. By discipline, contingent status is more common among fields that have been “traditionally” female, such as business, communications, education, fine arts, and occupational programs. In some traditionally male fields like math and computer science, women are markedly more “contingent” than men, indicating a more gendersegregated distribution of work. Part-time faculty are far less likely to hold a doctorate or terminal professional degree (27 percent) than full-time faculty (67 percent), probably the main discriminating factor between the two populations. The highest degree earned for about half (54 percent) of all part-time faculty is a master’s. Slightly more than half of all married women faculty with children are part-time, while only 38 percent of married men with children are part-time. Assuming all other things equal (which they may not be),
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this confirms the likelihood that (especially) younger women starting families may choose part-time work as a more accommodating and flexible option. In fact, the majority (57 percent) of married women faculty under age 40 and who have children are part-time. The same figure for men is 42 percent. It should come as no surprise that part-time faculty mainly teach undergraduates and are far less likely than full-time faculty to engage in research. They publish infrequently compared to full-time faculty, and are far less likely to receive grant awards. The same trends, though far less marked, characterize differences between non-tenure-eligible faculty and tenured or on-track faculty. Although contingent faculty are paid less and may be ineligible for benefits, it is important to make clear that there are hidden costs of both a tangible and intangible nature when their numbers reach some critical mass. Contingent faculty generally do not perform the full array of faculty work. They typically do not advise students or take on responsibility for curriculum development and review, peer review, or other governance-related functions. Because these efforts are increasingly loaded onto full-time “vested” faculty, the attributable costs are necessarily higher. So while credit hour costs may go down, other costs go up, assuming all of the same work gets done one way or another. Similarly, the “product” changes. With more turnover and less institutional commitment, and perhaps less experience, a more contingent faculty brings a different set of perspectives and skills to their work. As Ernst Benjamin points out, fewer terminal degrees, less intensive involvement in research and professional peer activity, and more fragmented involvement in both campus and student lives may diminish the effectiveness of the less “vested” faculty. On the other hand, it may not be possible, financially speaking, to commit institutions to tenure-eligible positions or even to find qualified PhD graduates willing to teach. In our study of the “invisible faculty,” Judith Gappa and I found an extraordinary array of talented and committed people teaching part-time at the institutions we visited. Musicians, public officials, engineers, lawyers, physicians, artists, accountants, civic leaders, and corporate executives brought extraordinary value to their classrooms and to campus life. As fully engaged professionals, they worked at the front-of-the-curve in their fields and could bring new ideas and applications to their classes. They neither needed nor wanted more than nominal pay. On a strictly cost-benefit basis, colleges and universities appeared to us to come out ahead in relying on them. However, as reliance on this contingent workforce has continued and grown in the past decade, concerns have surfaced. Suppose, for example, that some functions are abandoned by “vested” faculty and performed almost exclusively by “contingents.” Some undergraduates
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may see few tenured or tenure-track faculty for their first year or two in college. Similarly, a “cash cow” mentality may move institutions to create popular programs that can be taught cheaply on- or off-campus with contingent faculty and little or no oversight or accountability for fundamental educational goals. Contingent faculty, whether part-time or full-time (but not tenure-eligible), may be more transient than is healthy for them or for their institutions. If depending more heavily on contingent workers means more turnover among those who teach, there may be less continuity in students’ experiences. They may see too few stable mentors and too many new faces semester after semester. If this means less coherence and depth in their experience, then perhaps there are serious quality implications. We do know from previous research that part-time faculty can be very stable, teaching for years or decades at the same institution. On the other hand, full-time, but nontenure-eligible faculty may—of necessity—move often. At some indefinable point, transience among faculty can be damaging to individuals, to programs, to students, and to the institution. So it is something to be monitored closely. Contingent employment is not healthy for many of those working part-time or without hope of more than a temporary job. Unless well integrated into the life of the institution and its particular teaching/learning culture, contingent faculty may affect the continuity and depth of students’ educational experience. An over-reliance on contingent faculty may displace or erode the way institutions meet their responsibilities for self-governance, quality control, and longterm development.
CONSEQUENCES OF NON-TENURE-TRACK APPOINTMENTS FOR FACULTY WORK As noted earlier, the conversation about non-tenure-track appointments has been conducted largely along two dimensions: the conditions under which these non-traditional faculty are appointed and the consequences of their numbers for institutions and the nature of “faculty work.” Researchers and professional organizations cite several consequences for faculty work life and educational quality of recent hiring trends. In their study of part-time faculty, Gappa and Leslie discovered several “themes” in their questionnaires and campus interviews with tenured faculty, part-time faculty, and administrators that would seem to apply to full-time non-tenure-track faculty as well: • “bifurcation” of faculty into “high- and low-status ‘castes’” which are “damaging to the general ethic of community” among academics
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• a lack of integration and support of part-time faculty as “full partners” among campus faculty • “false economies” that result from “failing to account for the burdens that accrue to full-time faculty” such as increased student advising loads, responsibility for curricular development, other service activities, and higher expectations for research productivity as more part-timers take on teaching assignments.8
Another false economy may result from the failure to calculate the costs in administrative time (for department chairs and institutional staff) of hiring, orienting, evaluating, and making reappointment decisions for an increasing proportion of faculty employed year-to-year or semester-to-semester. Finkelstein and Schuster point to a number of long-term policy implications from their evidence that many full-time non-tenure-track faculty spend more time teaching, less time in service, and even less time in research than tenure-track and tenured faculty. Non-tenure-track faculty members often “play a highly circumscribed, that is, specialized, role at institutions, usually centering on the teaching function.”9 In some departments, this leaves a smaller group of tenure-track and tenured faculty to assume greater responsibilities in advising, curricular development, research, and public service. In other departments, particularly in graduate and professional programs, non-tenure-track faculty appointments may be in specialized research or clinical rather than instructional positions. Finkelstein and Schuster express concern about the “unraveling of the ‘holy trinity’” (teaching, research, and service) of the traditional faculty role and about the implications of this “unraveling” for the quality of teaching, advising, and research.10 Their concern is not so much for the impact of non-tenure-track faculty members on the quality of instruction, since researchers using student evaluations of instruction and other indirect data have not documented that non-tenure-track faculty are less effective in the classroom than tenure-track faculty. Instead, increasing the number of faculty whose responsibility is primarily instruction may have greater consequences for the research and service missions of institutions, as fewer tenure-track and tenured faculty take on an increasing share of these responsibilities. The most important consequence for faculty and institutions, beyond changes in responsibilities as the faculty cohort changes, may be the impact on the tradition of tenure itself as the standard by which all faculty are measured. In addition to a loss of commitment to the institution and its students, “the excessive use of part-time and non-tenure-track
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faculty,” according to AAUP, undermines “academic freedom, academic quality and professional standards” and erodes the tenure system: “The treatment of non-tenure-track faculty appointments is the barometer whereby the general status of the profession may be measured. . . . Failure to extend to all faculty reasonable professional commitments compromises quality and risks the stability of the professional and the integrity of our standing with the public.”11 Whether non-tenure-track appointments are concentrated in instruction, research, or clinical practice, they reflect a shift away from traditional assumptions about faculty responsibilities (the “holy trinity” represented by the tenure system) and raise issues about the distribution of faculty responsibilities across institutions. Professional organizations such as the AAUP and the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) recommend limits on the percentage of non-tenure-track appointments in institutions and departments. AAUP’s Policy Documents and Reports recommends that institutions limit the use of non-tenure-track and part-time faculty to no more than 15 percent of the total instruction within the institution, and no more than 25 percent of the total instruction within any given department. CCCC suggests that departments reconsider their hiring practices when the percentage of sections taught by part-time faculty exceeds 10 percent.12 In making staffing decisions, institutions should weigh concerns about the ability of an increasingly specialized cadre of faculty to achieve all aspects of an institution’s mission and the consequences for educational quality against the need for reduced personnel costs and hiring flexibility. The UNC committee decided against recommending that institutions develop target percentages of non-tenure-track faculty at the program, department, or institutional level, recommending instead that UNC institutions develop plans for future staffing that define the desired mix of faculty appointments and are monitored to measure progress toward staffing goals. These staffing plans should be based on regular, comprehensive institutional analyses that include the following: • how many faculty they employ in each kind of appointment: tenureeligible and non-tenure-track faculty, full- and part-time • how these appointments are arrayed among programs, departments, colleges, and the institution as a whole • how the proportion of appointments is changing • how faculty responsibilities in teaching, research, and service are—or are not—being fulfilled by these faculty at the levels and quality dictated by the institution’s mission.
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Although faculty needs may vary across departments and schools (particularly at large, complex institutions), campuses need to maintain institutional as well as unit perspectives on their faculty mix. Such plans can enable institutions to determine where and how tenured and tenure-track faculty are needed to ensure that all parts of the institution’s mission are being achieved and how non-tenure-track faculty in appropriate numbers and with the appropriate qualifications and experience can complement the work of more traditional faculty. CONSEQUENCES OF NON-TENURE-TRACK APPOINTMENTS FOR INSTRUCTIONAL QUALITY While the impact of increasing numbers of non-tenure-track faculty on the profile of faculty as a whole has been broadly discussed, there is as yet little evidence to document the impact of non-tenure-track faculty and other contingent faculty on student learning. The authors in the Benjamin volume attempt to document this impact on undergraduate learning but are unable to identify specific outcomes on student learning linked to non-tenure-track or other instructional faculty. Ten years after Gappa and Leslie’s study and in keeping with a report by the Sloan Conference on Part-Time and Adjunct Faculty, both of which found no evidence that part-time faculty were less effective teachers than their tenured colleagues, Benjamin reports that “there is not as yet an adequate research base to determine with reasonable certainty whether the increased reliance on contingent instruction substantially affects undergraduate learning.” However, the Benjamin volume explores “many of the factors and arguments that should be considered in seeking to improve our understanding of this issue.”13 Schuster suggests that “far too little is known about whether the proliferation of contingent faculty appointments has positive or negative effects on how much students actually learn” and points out “the main effects appear to be in tension”: while contingent faculty spend more of their time teaching, they may be less available to students outside of the classroom. He also notes that “in varying degrees, they bring less scholarly authority (as measured by publications) to their jobs, and they are less integrated with the campus culture.”14 Robert B. Townsend, noting the low wages and marginal or no benefits for parttime faculty, recognizes that “they are clearly subject to other pressures and other time commitments. The other jobs and classes required to make ends meet, the time spent traveling from job to job—all cut into
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the time available to prepare for classes, grade papers, and provide personalized attention to individual students.”15 Karen Thompson lists “ways that typical contingent working conditions may undermine student learning conditions”: lack of accessibility and involvement in student advising, lack of professional development opportunities, lack of collegial involvement in their departments and institutions, and lack of assurance of academic freedom.16 The UNC committee did not have access to student evaluations or other indicators of the possible impact of non-tenure-track faculty on student learning. However, UNC regularly conducts surveys of seniors measuring, among other items, their satisfaction with instruction. The UNC committee wondered whether these survey results might suggest a relationship between the proportion of non-tenure-track faculty at a campus and student satisfaction, particularly for seniors who would have had most access to classes taught by these faculty. Faculty data from individual UNC institutions showed variation in the proportion of tenured/tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty and of full-time and part-time faculty. Institutions employed as few as 36 percent or as many as 53 percent nontenure-track faculty (full- and part-time). The percentage of part-time faculty varied among institutions from 8 percent to 42 percent. Responses to a survey item asking students about their satisfaction with the overall quality of instruction at their institutions did not suggest a correlation with institutional percentages of non-tenure-track and part-time faculty, however. The highest mean response to this question, 3.3 on a four-point scale, came from seniors at two institutions that employed the highest percentages of non-tenure-track faculty in the same year. The next highest mean satisfaction rating, 3.2, was reported by seniors from the institution with the lowest percentage of non-tenure-track faculty. This indirect measure did not suggest that the proportion of non-tenure-track faculty at an institution was a major influence on student satisfaction with instruction. The issues raised in the Benjamin volume may all impact student learning and educational quality at least indirectly. They are also the issues typically identified as important to professional status and working conditions of non-tenure-track faculty. Even without more substantive evidence of the direct impact of faculty members’ employment status on student learning, institutions which address these issues will improve the working conditions of a large and often unstable proportion of their instructional corps and, at the same time, improve the learning environment, if not learning outcomes, for their students. The “best practices” described at the end of the chapter offer institutions means to both of these ends.
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IMPROVING WORKING CONDITIONS FOR NON-TENURE-TRACK FACULTY EMPLOYMENT The issues surrounding the equitable employment of non-tenure-track faculty are linked to institutional mission, institutional or state policies on salaries and employee benefits (or the terms of collective bargaining agreements), and a number of other institution-specific factors. The issues also vary to some degree for full-time and part-time faculty members. In the case of the UNC Non-Tenure-Track Committee’s research, issues which surfaced in surveys and focus groups with non-tenure-track faculty on UNC campuses largely parallel those discussed by Gappa and Leslie and Baldwin and Chronister. A summary of the results of the UNC focus groups is included in this chapter. The major issues were raised by non-tenure-track faculty at many institutions: • low salaries, infrequent or no salary increases, and lack of eligibility for employee benefits • inconsistent definitions of what constitutes a full- or part-time assignment and inconsistent titles at some institutions • lack of job security, including little notice of semester-to-semester reappointment for many part-time faculty and a lack of multiple-year contracts for many full-time faculty, raising concerns about their academic freedom • unclear procedures and expectations for performance evaluations • lack of office space and access to telephones, computers, e-mail, and clerical support • exclusion from departmental and institutional governing bodies • feeling undervalued by colleagues and the institution.
These issues are not easily or immediately resolved, particularly by centralized policies and procedures that must be applied to a number of institutions which vary widely in size, mission, and location. UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA SUMMARY REPORT ON CAMPUS FOCUS GROUPS 2001 In order to determine UNC non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF) members’ concerns, members of the Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Committee held campus and regional focus groups. A summary report on the committee’s focus groups represents the range of issues raised and recommendations suggested by focus group participants.
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Salaries and Benefits: Issues: • Salaries for both part-time and full-time non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF) are unreasonably low, and the salary differential between tenure-track (TT) and NTTF is large. • Salaries for both part-time and full-time NTTF vary across disciplines within an institution, presumably driven by market forces or quality of performance but often seemingly capricious. • Salaries do not take into consideration such factors as years of experience at an institution, professional qualifications, class size, responsibilities other than teaching, meritorious performance, classification of position, and cost of living. • Part-time NTTF are not eligible for merit increases, some full-time NTTF are not eligible, and others do not know whether they are eligible. • Low salaries result in a revolving door for NTTF, which negatively affects the quality of instruction and mission of each institution. • There is little opportunity for NTTF in rural areas to supplement their income through “outside work.” • The definition of “part-time” NTTF is not clear or at least not uniformly applied, as at some institutions any workload below a 4/4 arrangement is treated as part-time without benefits. • NTTF often do not know the source of the funds supporting their salaries or the factors affecting decisions regarding salary increases. • At some campuses, part-time faculty teaching three or four courses a semester are paid at or below the federal poverty level.
Recommendations: • Institutions should be provided clear guidelines regarding the provision of benefits to NTTF based upon workload over an academic year, and monitoring of an institution’s implementation of the guidelines should occur. • Uniform UNC system policies should be established for determining salaries of part-time and full-time NTTF and should include such factors as credentials, years of experience, responsibilities, and performance. • UNC should establish uniform classifications of part-time and full-time NTTF and set minimum salaries for each classification. • UNC should establish uniform policies regarding merit increases for NTTF.
Contracts and Workload: Issues: • Part-time faculty need more notice regarding their status from semester to semester. • In some institutions, multi-year contracts are utilized in some departments and colleges but not others; NTTF, and apparently administrators,
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•
• • • •
are not clear about policies regarding such contracts. Job security is a major concern for NTTF. Contracts of NTTF do not specify clearly their responsibilities; some are responsible for non-instructional activities such as student advising, others are not. Lack of job security affects NTTF’s perception of their academic freedom. NTTF who teach four courses a semester are not given full-time contracts with eligibility for benefits. Full-time NTTF often carry heavier teaching loads and larger classes. Those who want to do their own research have little time or support and cannot be Principal Investigators on grants.
Recommendations: • Institutions should consider new job titles for long-serving NTTF. • UNC should establish “best practice” guidelines for rehiring notification of part-time faculty from semester to semester. • Institutions should establish policies for departments and colleges related to the use of multi-year contracts. • Institutions should specify the responsibilities of NTTF in contracts. • NTTF who teach full loads each semester should be given year-long, fulltime contracts with benefits.
Work Environment: Issues: • All learning does not occur in the classroom; therefore, it is important for part-time as well as full-time NTTF to have a place to meet with students and access to telephones, computers, and e-mail. • It would be helpful to extend to part-time NTTF some amenities such as electronic deposit of salary. • There is too little recognition of the contributions that NTTF make to their departments and institutions. NTTF too frequently feel undervalued. • NTTF are isolated from the decision-making processes in their departments and institutions. • NTTF are either not provided travel funds and other professional development support or are unaware of the availability of such funds. • NTTF often are not eligible for teaching awards and other recognition.
Recommendations: • Establish mechanisms to assure that NTTF are provided the amenities and recognition afforded their tenure-track peers. • Include NTTF in web sites, catalogs, and departmental listings. • When possible, provide all NTTF office space and access to telephones, computers, e-mail, necessary instructional supplies, and clerical support.
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• Make NTTF aware of departmental policies related to travel funds and how to obtain funding if it is available. • Make tenured faculty aware of working conditions of NTTF.
Faculty Governance: Issues: • Some NTTF are systematically excluded from departmental and institutional governing bodies; some have no idea whether they are or are not excluded. • In some departments and institutions, NTTF are not particularly encouraged to participate in faculty governance but are accepted if they decide to do so. • There may be some reluctance on the part of departments and institutions to encourage NTTF participation in faculty governance for fear of further exploitation. • Some NTTF are reluctant to participate in faculty governance for fear of reprisal without the safety net of tenure.
Recommendations: • Establish guidelines providing for the involvement of NTTF in faculty governance.
Performance Evaluation: Issues: • Within institutions, some NTTF are subject to annual performance evaluations and some are not. • Consequences of performance evaluations vary within institutions from nonexistent to determining whether NTTF will be retained. • NTTF are not always given access to their evaluations. • Merit increases are either not affected by performance evaluations, or NTTF are unclear about the effect. • Departments vary regarding whether NTTF are subject to peer evaluations and whether student evaluations are made available to NTTF.
Recommendations: • Establish UNC guidelines regarding methods of performance evaluations for NTTF and the utilization of results.
Judith M. Gappa, Ann E. Austin, and Andrea G. Trice have proposed a radical rethinking of academic work by recommending that the current “parallel systems of academic employment” for tenured and non-tenuretrack faculty be replaced by a model defining the “essential elements of faculty work which are the glue that bonds the individual faculty member
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and the college or university together in a mutually rewarding reciprocal relationship.”17 The authors identify five elements “important to all faculty members, though they may be manifested differently for faculty with different kinds of appointments”: • employment equity (including centrally administered policies for evaluation, compensation, benefits, and work environments) • academic freedom (with assurances extended to all faculty members and grievance procedures available to faculty regardless of appointment type) • balance and flexibility (including flexible working arrangements and assistance to all faculty in managing their work and personal responsibilities) • professional growth (including orientation, mentoring across faculty types, and “unofficial” sabbaticals) • collegiality and community involvement (including participation in decision-making and recognition of contributions for all faculty).18
The authors make a strong case for moving beyond the “piecemeal” approach to improving the conditions for non-tenure-track faculty to a reconceptualization of faculty work and the academic workplace; they suggest that institutions might use the five essential elements to assess the work experiences of all faculty members regardless of appointment types.19 Institutions engaging in such an exercise might discover that the issues, if not the specifics, identified by faculty in traditional and non-traditional appointments are not as varied as our “bifurcated” conception of faculty has led us to believe. CONCLUSION The same forces that have produced an increase in the proportion of non-tenure-track faculty at colleges and universities also make it difficult to change institutional hiring patterns. Increasing enrollment, declining and uncertain state funding, broader demands within institutions for non-instructional personnel and services, and increasingly complex instructional, research, and service missions are trends that will likely be exacerbated rather than moderated in the future. However, because of the potential impact of an increasingly specialized cadre of non-tenure-track faculty on the ability of institutions to achieve all aspects of their missions and the likely increase in competition to hire both tenure-track and non-tenure-track categories of faculty in the next decade, institutions need to address the issues identified in this chapter in order to ensure an appropriate mix of qualified, adequately compensated and supported faculty. Although the University of North Carolina has not produced a formal progress report on the impact of its 2002 study, campuses have reported making a number of changes in their hiring patterns and in policies and
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practices for non-tenure-track employment. Campus responses include the following: • converting some part-time appointments into full-time lectureships with benefits • providing multi-year contracts to experienced full-time lecturers • creating the position of “senior lecturer” • rewriting reappointment policies to update expectations for full-time non-tenure-track faculty • rewriting non-tenure-track faculty policies to include information about workload, the length of appointments, and evaluation procedures for part-time faculty • developing staffing plans to guide their hiring and to satisfy accrediting agencies that their reliance on non-tenure-track faculty is consistent with their plans.
In the academic year after the report, one campus provost decided that all of its full-time faculty appointments would be tenure-track. UNC campuses have taken these actions at the same time that the state has asked them to make permanent budget cuts in the face of record enrollment increases. Despite these constraints, the report appears to have had a positive impact within UNC. This impact is reflected in hiring patterns since 2000. In the years since the UNC Report on Non-Tenure-Track Faculty, the trend toward hiring more non-tenure-track faculty has continued, with tenured and tenuretrack faculty making up a smaller percentage of total UNC faculty. However, the pattern of these changes was not consistent across all types of faculty appointments from 2000 to 2003. The percentage of part-time non-tenure-track faculty remained unchanged (21 percent), while the percentage of full-time non-tenure-track faculty increased by 2 points, to 25 percent. The total number of non-tenure-track faculty increased by 3 points, to 46 percent of all UNC faculty. At the same time, the percentage of tenure-track faculty increased slightly, from 15 to 16 percent, while tenured faculty decreased by 4 percent. The combination of a decreasing proportion of tenured faculty, a higher proportion of tenure-track faculty, and an increase in full-time non-tenure-track faculty appears to reflect increased retirements and resignations among tenured faculty, with tenure-track and full-time non-tenure-track faculty hired both to replace these tenured faculty and to meet growing enrollments at UNC institutions. The increase in full-time non-tenure-track faculty also reflects the conversion of some part-time to full-time appointments. As enrollments increase in many states and as state support for public institutions continues to decline, administrators will continue to be faced
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with making hiring decisions that ensure institutional stability, improved student learning, and equity for faculty, whether they are full-time or part-time, tenure-track or contingent. It is critical that institutions adopt policies that reflect best practices. BEST PRACTICES FOR NON-TENURE-TRACK EMPLOYMENT As the list of recommendations below suggests, non-tenure-track policies and practices varied widely at UNC campuses in 2002; at many of them, employment practices did not provide working conditions that would ensure a stable, professional corps of non-tenure-track faculty or create a learning environment adequate to ensure maximum student learning. While at UNC campuses, change in these conditions took the form of guidelines for best practice, at other campuses, particularly those in which non-tenure-track faculty are included in collective bargaining, improved working conditions may be mandated by contract. A useful description of how one unionized campus has addressed best practices for contingent faculty is Gary Reichard’s contribution to the Benjamin volume; Reichard, provost at California State University at Long Beach, notes that even when non-tenure-track faculty are represented by a union, “administrators have considerable latitude” in moving beyond salary equity toward best practices in such areas as teaching load, professional development opportunities, and faculty governance.20 Although UNC non-tenure-track faculty members understandably recommended system-wide mandates to address their complaints, the UNC committee recommended that campuses develop their own policies based on guidelines suggested by the committee. These guidelines, while developed for a specific set of issues within a single state system, may offer other institutions and systems several best practices affecting their own nontenure-track faculty. In addition to the recommendation that UNC campuses develop comprehensive staffing plans (described earlier in this chapter), the committee recommended the following policies and practices: 1. Each campus, whenever possible, should offer multi-year contracts (three or more years with eligibility for reappointment) to full-time nontenure-track faculty who have successfully completed a probationary period. 2. For part-time faculty, each campus should develop policies that: • define “full-time” faculty load applicable to non-tenure-track positions • define the assignments and responsibilities that constitute partial loads, with identification of the employee benefits available to non-tenuretrack faculty employed at 50 percent or 75 percent of full-time
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• determine under what circumstances, if any, faculty on part-time appointments would be assigned full-time loads • determine under what circumstances part-time faculty should be issued two-semester continuing contracts with accompanying eligibility for benefits • provide for timely notice of appointment or reappointment of part-time faculty.
3. Each campus should develop a set of clearly defined position descriptions and titles for full- and part-time non-tenure-track positions, including the use of advanced titles, with appropriate salary increases and other recognition, to appropriately distinguish faculty with longer service records and accomplishments (for example, Senior Lecturer or Research or Clinical Faculty with rank). 4. Each campus should provide full-time and part-time non-tenure-track faculty with a specific description of the evaluation process and criteria by which their performance will be judged and linked to reappointment and salary determination, with training provided to department chairs on evaluating and supervising non-tenure-track faculty. 5. Each campus should: • provide non-tenure-track faculty adequate orientation to their responsibilities and access to office space, telephones, computers, e-mail, clerical support, and other assistance necessary to fulfill their responsibilities • develop guidelines for the appropriate compensation, either through stipends or adjusted teaching loads, for advising and administrative activities assigned to non-tenure-track faculty • include non-tenure-track faculty as appropriate in decision-making processes at the department, college, and university level, particularly in decisions affecting their own responsibilities and employment conditions.
6. Each campus should provide opportunities to non-tenure-track faculty for professional development activities and for recognition of their accomplishments through campus awards. 7. As part of their staffing plans, institutions should: • analyze the compensation of full-time and part-time non-tenure-track faculty in light of their duties and responsibilities • increase compensation where appropriate to ensure the retention of qualified, experienced, and professional faculty • develop policies for regular salary increases, both across-the-board within disciplines and for individual faculty based on experience and performance.
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5
CHAPTER Late-Career Satisfaction
“T
he aging of the professoriate” is a familiar theme in both the higher education and popular press as well as for researchers. The large cohort of faculty members hired in the 1960s and 1970s are now in their late fifties or older. While researchers and institutional administrators predicted a flood of retirements among this population beginning in the late 1990s, the expected flow of faculty out of higher education has not occurred, more than likely because economic downturns have resulted in small or stagnant salary increases and shrinking retirement accounts. The general level of satisfaction these faculty members feel toward their jobs and the institutions where many of them have been employed for thirty or more years has likely also influenced their decisions to postpone retirement. The continuing presence of a large group of late-career faculty members and their impending exodus raise issues for institutions about how to help senior faculty maintain their vitality and effectiveness and how to prepare both faculty and institutions for their departure. This chapter addresses a number of these issues, including professional development for senior faculty, post-tenure review, and retirement options, including phased retirement. FACULTY DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE The age profile of faculty in US institutions has changed dramatically in little more than a decade. Although there is dearth of recent data on the age of faculty across higher education, Robert L. Clark has used data from the National Center for Educational Statistics to analyze the aging of the faculty since 1983. Taking both full-time and part-time faculty into
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account, the data allow one to track the percentage of senior faculty in various age cohorts since 1983. The percentage of faculty fifty years and older increased from 39.9 percent in 1983 to 50.1 percent in 1998, while faculty fifty-five and older increased in the same period from 24.8 to 31.4 percent.1 In 2005, it is safe to assume that the percentage of faculty age fifty-five and older has surpassed 50 percent nationally, given that faculty generally identify their planned retirement age as between sixty-two and sixty-five (and when they reach sixty-five, some studies have shown, they project an even later retirement age, closer to sixty-eight). As an example of the national trend, the University of North Carolina’s faculty age structure has changed dramatically in the past two decades. Analysis of tenured and tenure-track faculty from 1983–2003 by Clark and Linda Ghent2 shows that over two decades the percentage of younger and older faculty has reversed: in 1993, faculty under forty represented 34.7 percent of UNC faculty, while faculty over fifty-five represented 17.7 percent. By 2003, faculty under forty represented only 17.8 percent of UNC faculty, while faculty over fifty-five represented 35.7 percent. During the same period, faculty over fifty years of age increased from 31.8 percent to 53.6 percent of UNC faculty. Institutions across the US have responded to the aging of their faculty members with a number of programs and policies. An initial motivation for such programs and policies was the elimination in 1994 of mandatory retirement for faculty at age seventy. Institutions anticipated that many faculty members might keep working well past expected retirement age or beyond their effective working years. In recent years, the focus of these programs and policies has generally shifted away from fears
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engendered by the elimination of mandatory retirement, which according to Karen C. Holden and W. Lee Hansen “failed to materialize,” and toward demographic realities.3 For UNC, for example, the percentage of faculty members working beyond age seventy was only 1 percent in 2003, nine years after the end of mandatory retirement, while the percentage of faculty aged fifty-five to sixty-nine nearly doubled from 1983 to 2003, from 17.8 percent to 33.8 percent. As Holden and Hansen note, other factors influence retirement decisions, including “personal characteristics of faculty members, institutional characteristics, job histories and current responsibilities, and fringe benefit and other personnel policies.”4 Recent research on senior or late-career faculty (variably defined by age—fifty or fifty-five and beyond—and rank or years of experience in higher education) has focused on issues related to the “generational change” facing higher education, as the large number of senior faculty members hired in the 1960s and 1970s move into retirement and are replaced by a new generation of early-career faculty. Assisting these senior faculty in their continuing professional and personal development and managing the policies, programs, and practices that influence their performance and retirement plans are attracting considerable interest from researchers and demanding time and attention from institutions. ADULT DEVELOPMENT THEORY AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR LATE-CAREER FACULTY Much current research on late-career faculty builds on theories about how faculty members’ needs and interests develop through the stages of their careers. Several studies have employed adult development theory to identify characteristics of senior faculty that should inform effective posttenure or late-career faculty policies, practices, and programs (among them senior faculty development, phased and early retirement, and posttenure evaluation programs).5 Carole J. Bland and colleagues have summarized several of these studies, including Baskamp et al., who “situate adult development theory within the major transitions of an academic career and identify specific professional and personal changes that occur with each transition. For example, associate professors are more likely to focus on developing a work-life balance and achieving career advancement while faculty who have transitioned into full professors are likely ‘branching out into other areas of life and work’ and are keen to address overarching ‘lifetime goals.’” According to Bland et al., Furniss “concurs that late career faculty entertain a broader array of interests and are likely more interested in roles, like leadership, that utilize their knowledge, experience, and understanding of academia.”6
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In their comprehensive study of post-tenure faculty development, Bland and William H. Bergquist argue for a comprehensive approach to faculty vitality based on these and other studies of senior faculty members, including organizational, personal, and functional development strategies. They include such organizational development activities as continuing leadership opportunities and involvement in governance for senior faculty; opportunities for development such as fellowships, sabbaticals, and faculty exchanges; opportunities to mentor younger colleagues; and personnel policies that address variable benefits and appointments and salary inequities. They also recommend that institutions provide opportunities for personal development for faculty, including workshops on financial planning and career development, opportunities for part-time employment, and early retirement programs and career alternatives for faculty whose interests have moved away from their institutional roles. Functional development opportunities related to faculty members’ job responsibilities might include training in technology, curricular design, and instructional skills. Bland and Bergquist also list specific methods of assessment and diagnosis at the organizational, personal, and functional levels such as morale and climate surveys, analysis of faculty self-reports, peer and student assessments of teaching, and posttenure review.7 The portrait of late-career faculty members suggested by adult development theory is reflected in a 2005 essay by Jeffrey Nesteruk on “Midlife in Academe.” Upon turning fifty, Nesteruk reflects: “Tenured and a full professor, I’ve reached the last of my job’s well-defined professional stages. But with retirement a number of years off, the end to my formal advancement is hardly the end of my working life. And so this point in my career has an unsettling quality: I’ve made it but I still have a long way to go.” Nesteruk has recognized “for the first time in my professional life, that I no longer felt I had anything left to prove on the job. The external tokens of success for which I had striven . . . were now securely ensconced in the lines of my vita.” He finds that “the most basic challenge at this stage of my career is the deeper kind of self-definition it requires” but notes: “The end of formal advancement opens up rich possibilities for personal development.” With these possibilities comes uncertainty, “less than comfortable terrain. But that, I now believe, is precisely where a middle-aged professor needs to be. I’m learning to rediscover what my younger self couldn’t avoid—paths I haven’t yet fully mapped, places that still surprise me.” Nesteruk faces the opportunity, as he puts it, “to put my own distinctive stamp on my job.”8 The challenge for institutions is to provide support and opportunities for development to ensure that the new directions
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Nesteruk and his senior faculty colleagues pursue provide value both to the individual and the institution. PERCEPTIONS, MOTIVATIONS, AND ATTITUDES OF SENIOR FACULTY The survey of senior faculty members described in the commentary by Jerry Berberet in this chapter confirms many of the conclusions about late-career faculty members drawn from adult development theory and the perceptions and attitudes of senior faculty like Jeffrey Nesteruk. The survey (supported by the TIAA-CREF Institute and the participating institutions) elicited responses from over 2,000 faculty aged fifty and older in the University of Minnesota and University of North Carolina systems and at Associated New American College (ANAC) campuses. These responses indicate that senior faculty are motivated by the intellectual stimulation of their jobs and a desire to contribute to the missions of their institutions rather than by professional advancement (tenure, promotion, and recognition in their fields) that may have been strong motivators earlier in their careers. Their willingness to take on new areas of responsibility and leadership roles and their desire to “leave a legacy” offer institutions an opportunity to recognize and reward the contributions of this growing cohort of faculty and take advantage of what they have to offer both before and after retirement. The survey results suggest that institutional retirement plans and other institutional policies and practices (including professional development opportunities such as those identified above, flexible workloads, phased retirement programs or other part-time employment after retirement, and retiree health benefits) can influence not only the decision to retire but the involvement of faculty with their institutions after retirement.9 Experienced academic administrators may recognize the patterns of attitudes and behaviors predicted by adult development theory and survey results in their own senior faculty colleagues. The challenge is to use this recognition and the findings of current research to build institutional programs and policies that reflect the knowledge that the late stage of a faculty career, like the early stage, is developmental. Senior faculty members’ needs may differ from those of their younger colleagues, but they still look to their institutions for opportunities, support, and recognition. And in a period of shrinking resources, growing student enrollment, and a predicted flood of faculty retirements, institutions can ill afford to waste the opportunity to engage senior faculty in new and rewarding opportunities.
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SEEKING MUTUAL BENEFIT: LATE-CAREER FACULTY VITALITY AND INSTITUTIONAL MISSION ENHANCEMENT Jerry Berberet Although a subject of considerable research, the American professoriate remains enigmatic to many and a lightning rod to some both inside and outside the academy. Much is at stake, however, as the generation of faculty who began their careers during the great expansion of higher education in the 1960s and 1970s retire and colleges and universities must find thousands of replacements over the coming decade. Faced with this prospect and whether replacements are “out there” in sufficient quantity and quality, academic leaders must take a fresh look at the contributions of the retiring faculty generation with the future well-being of their institutions in mind. Strategic planners must analyze the potential impacts of such a large-scale loss in a relatively brief time of faculty leadership, expertise, and “institutional memory” on program and institutional stability. Understanding what motivates late-career faculty, their contributions and work ethic, and their professional needs and interests is essential for administrators, trustees, and other policy makers inside and outside the academy. National surveys consistently reveal important similarities in faculty perceptions and behaviors across institutional types (e.g., large and small, public and private). Equally significant, survey results, adult development theory, and changing professional priorities underscore that faculty have distinct pressures, needs, and opportunities at different stages of their careers to which institutions need to be responsive. Surveys and other studies of faculty consistently find that faculty are motivated most by four factors: 1) the intellectual stimulation they receive from their field of study, 2) the desire to be a member of a meaningful academic community, 3) the goal to make teaching, research, and service contributions that have impact, and 4) the wish to be recognized for their contributions.10 Similar to earlier faculty surveys, the 2003 Associated New American Colleges (ANAC) survey of faculty aged fifty and older (with University of North Carolina and University of Minnesota) reinforced these findings. Of the nearly 2,000 respondents, 98 percent rated intellectual stimulation and 94 percent rated contributions to their institution as key sources of satisfaction. They reported a mean work week of fifty-seven hours, including twenty-six hours related to teaching, twelve hours to research or artistic creativity, and thirteen hours to institutional and community service. Their leading frustrations include time pressures (86 percent overall, women 92 percent) and lack of institutional recognition for service (84 percent).11
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The insight from adult development theory that people, as they age, increasingly desire to leave a legacy that validates the significance of their lives matches survey findings in which older faculty report that their interests have become more interdisciplinary (81 percent), and that they would like to shift some of their workload to areas of greater interest (85 percent). Considering their work ethic, expertise accumulated over a career, their view that “this is an especially creative and productive time in my field” (76 percent), and their interest in oncampus internship opportunities to prepare for a new role (46 percent), a responsive institutional policy toward senior faculty interests would seem to be a sound investment. Indeed, there may be institutional risk in not responding, as suggested by survey results showing that 54 percent of respondents feel unappreciated by their institution, that their institution inadequately uses senior faculty leadership and expertise (48 percent), and that their interests are less focused on their institution at this stage of their career (38 percent). When a late-career faculty member is associated with “deadwood,” the reference in reality may be to a faculty member whose interest has shifted away from the institution to passions elsewhere.12 Finally, it is helpful for the institution viewing older faculty as an asset worth retaining to understand what may cause faculty members to delay retirement or decide to retire. High work satisfaction (90 percent) is the leading reason faculty cite for delaying retirement, followed by financial incentives such as a phased retirement program (83 percent), rising health care costs (83 percent), anxieties about the economy (75 percent), and institutional support for professional development (66 percent). Interestingly, at the top of the list of reasons to retire early (just after “having sufficient income”) are feeling “burned out” (73 percent), work environment dissatisfaction (69 percent), and “not performing job to my expectations” (69 percent). These responses help allay concerns that institutional policies to delay or encourage retirement will cause strong faculty to retire and weak faculty to continue in service. In addition to attending to late-career faculty satisfaction and professional development, colleges and universities might be well served to undertake strategic planning as a means of associating the tasks the institution must accomplish to thrive in the future with the expertise that resides in the faculty. Indeed, the traditional ladder elevating faculty members primarily into academic administrative posts might be extended across the institution to fill new types of roles—usually on a part-time basis—as well as appropriate established positions. On ANAC campuses, faculty members have become chief finance and student affairs officers, as well as directors of offices such as counseling, technology, institutional research, strategic planning, and community
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outreach. Since the theoretical base for nearly all roles resides in an academic discipline, senior faculty wishing to explore new interests and to teach less than full-time might become part-time alumni, corporate, or community ambassadors; lend their expertise to campus master plan, admissions, fundraising, human resource, governance, or fiscal projects; or take on such roles as new faculty mentors and professional development specialists. The potential for a fresh look at such roles is reflected in the survey finding that 65 percent of faculty would delay retirement to assist their institution in making the transition to their replacement. Only 28 percent indicated they would retire to assist their institution financially. Senior faculty members’ desire for workload flexibility is supported by survey results suggesting that older faculty retain a deep commitment to students and to teaching (93 percent would choose a faculty career again, 90 percent cite positive student evaluations as a primary source of satisfaction). Indeed, at ANAC member institutions, faculty who take on new roles that benefit their institutions almost always insist on continuing to teach because of the satisfaction it gives them. A final word about retirement, faculty satisfaction, and institutional well-being: most faculty members believe academic community will continue to be important to them in retirement. In addition to health benefits (98 percent), opportunities for part-time teaching (71 percent) rank high among retirement aspirations. A third of older faculty say they would volunteer as a speaker or liaison for their institution in retirement, and 18 percent express willingness to take on fundraising roles. The vision of a lifelong mutually beneficial relationship between colleges and universities and their faculty members is both uplifting in human terms and a significant pragmatic response to the prospect of continuing funding limitations and the accountability demands higher education is almost certain to face in the future.
The excerpted letter from a UNC faculty member who completed phased retirement suggests the kind of support campuses might provide to retiring faculty to help them establish their legacy.
SUGGESTIONS FOR HELPING FACULTY TRANSITION INTO RETIREMENT The following is an excerpt from a letter sent to one of the authors by a UNC Chapel Hill faculty member after a chance meeting on campus. He mentioned that he was completing his period of phased retirement and felt that, even after working part-time for several years, he still did not feel ready to retire fully. He believed retiring faculty still
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had much to offer their institutions. He promised to send the author his suggestions for ways campuses might assist faculty facing the transition into retirement, which are excerpted below: As we said, there is a build-up of diverse and valuable experience in the older faculty and it is too bad not to tap into it for mutual gain if it is available and willing. 1. I suggest the powers that be consider small grants (a few thousand dollars) ear-marked for the older faculty that can be used to finish up projects, papers, books, or package and purvey courses and lectures of value. These could be considered “completion grants.” I have actually suggested this to others and some other universities have indicated an interest in doing this. I mentioned it to [a former provost] before he retired. He liked the idea and was to go ahead with something like it but retirement caught up first. (If he had had a completion grant for this, maybe it would have been done!) 2. I also think it would be a good idea to make some sort of fellowship or hourly wage available to undergraduates who might like to work with these older faculty on a one-to-one basis to help them on these completion tasks and projects. I think it would be a wonderful experience for the student and a beneficial assistance for the older faculty member as well. (I had a job drafting for an older scientist from Russia while I was at Brooklyn College. It was a delightful and memorable association. I learned so very much from this learned and experienced gentleman. I still recall vividly his stories of his escape from Russia into the hands of the Nazis.) 3. I would also like to think that there might be travel funds for these semior fully-retired people, especially if they were for travel for teaching lecture series in other universities, perhaps within the system. I know there is an adult learning program [on campus], and I should find out more about it. Here however I was exploring ways for the older faculty to get assistance to continue and complete projects as well as getting younger students in touch with older faculty. I have presented here a few ideas that have come to me during this bittersweet period of parting that I hope would benefit both the University and the senior-most faculty. February 2003
POST-TENURE REVIEW The adequacy of professional and organizational development resources for late-career faculty is particularly important for institutions that have implemented formal post-tenure review policies. Christine M. Licata’s work with a number of colleagues on post-tenure review, beginning in 1986 with an early definition of the post-tenure review process
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and following its implementation across a variety of institutions over nearly two decades, has emphasized the need for institutions to clearly define the purpose of post-tenure review: to provide assistance for the faculty member’s development (a formative purpose) or to inform personnel decisions such as promotion, retention, salary, and, in extreme cases, dismissal (all requiring summative evaluations).13 Of course, on most campuses, post-tenure review serves both purposes, and adequate resources for individual faculty development are critical to assisting successful faculty in continuing career development as well as to help underperforming faculty improve their performance to satisfactory levels. Post-tenure review, which provides comprehensive performance evaluation for faculty beyond regular tenure, promotion, and annual reviews, began in the 1980s in an attempt to protect the institution of tenure by demonstrating that faculty performance is under continuous review. A number of states and public and private institutions have adopted posttenure review in some form both to ensure continuing faculty career development and to address the assumption that the ranks of tenured faculty include “deadwood” whose failure to perform satisfactorily might lead to their dismissal. Early fears among many faculty that post-tenure review would lead to the “detenuring” of large numbers of faculty members have proven to be exaggerated. In 2004, reports from large university systems with “periodic” post-tenure review (in which all tenured faculty are reviewed on a regular basis) suggested that only a small percentage of faculty had been found to be performing unsatisfactorily and even fewer have been dismissed with cause as a result of post-tenure review.14 Within the University of North Carolina, for example, unsatisfactory ratings averaged 3 percent over the first six years of post-tenure review, during which 5,225 faculty had been reviewed. In institutions with “triggered” post-tenure review systems, in which faculty with one or more unsatisfactory annual reviews participate in more in-depth evaluation, an even smaller percentage of post-tenure reviews have been conducted, with smaller numbers of development plans required and, most likely, an even smaller percentage of faculty dismissed for poor performance.15 Experience at many institutions has shown that the threat or reality of post-tenure review encourages many of the poorest performers to retire, to seek assistance with personal problems that are interfering with their responsibilities as faculty members, or to find alternative careers. While post-tenure review often contributes to personnel decisions such as promotion, faculty awards, and merit pay increases, its summative purpose (identifying and remedying poor performance) appears to have become less important and its formative or developmental function even
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more important. Most post-tenure review processes include evaluations by peers as well as administrators and, most important, provide the faculty member an opportunity for periodic self-reflection and career development planning. These reviews offer institutions an opportunity to reward outstanding performance and match resources to faculty members whose needs and interests change as their careers progress. Particularly for late-career faculty members, who may be pursuing new professional directions, post-tenure review offers a chance to identify new areas of interest, clarify professional and personal goals, and develop career plans in conjunction with peers and department leaders. While it is unlikely institutions that have not implemented a formal post-tenure review process will do so now for purely developmental purposes, it is also unlikely that institutions which have implemented summative posttenure review process will discontinue them. However, it is important for both types of institutions to develop meaningful opportunities for senior faculty to periodically assess the direction of their careers and to match opportunities and resources to their needs. The commentary by Ronald G. Ehrenberg included in this chapter illustrates the developmental stages of a productive and successful academic career, from graduate faculty member doing cutting-edge research to institutional administrator encountering the challenges facing higher education to director of a research institute addressing broad issues of the profession and involving undergraduates in his research. While there is no indication that post-tenure review was necessary for Professor Ehrenberg to map these developments across his career, it clearly required a responsive institution to recognize and facilitate his professional growth. BEING A QUADRUPLE THREAT KEEPS IT INTERESTING Ronald G. Ehrenberg I received my PhD in economics in 1970 at the age of twenty-four and I am now in the thirty-fifth year of my academic career. All but my first five years were spent at Cornell University where today I find myself happier and more interested in my work than I ever have been. The secret to my success is that I am the proverbial quadruple threat, who cares about and does well in all aspects of an academic’s life— undergraduate teaching, graduate teaching, research, and service and administration. Throughout my career, each aspect has fed upon the others enabling me to remain fresh and excited about what I am doing. I spent the first fifteen years of my career as a labor economist evaluating labor market programs and legislation, studying public sector
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labor markets, and evaluating the incentive effects of compensation policies. A term spent on a faculty senate budget committee in the early 1980s, when we realized we did not have enough financial aid resources, led me to write a paper on optimal financial aid policies for a selective university, which laid the groundwork for what is now known in the financial aid business as “preferential packaging.”16 This paper was the first of many papers that I have written that use institutional databases to provide answers to questions that aid in institutional decision making.17 Through my faculty committee work, I learned more about the economics of higher education than anyone should want to learn, began conducting more research on the topic, and decided that I should teach a class to undergraduates on the “Economics of the University.” My teaching of this class and all the research that I conducted on the economics of higher education led me naturally to a term as Vice President for Academic Programs, Planning and Budgeting at Cornell during the mid-1990s. Temporarily devoid of graduate students, I wrote papers with the staff of Cornell’s Office of Institutional Research and Planning (which reported to me) on issues of relevance to decision making at the university. I have often said that I learned more during this administrative term than I did during any other period of my career (including graduate school) and when I returned to the faculty, I wrote perhaps the most important book of my career.18 A former provost at another research university heavily influenced this book, and indeed everything that I have done during the last decade. When I asked him how his transition back to the faculty was, he said it was great, but when you go back remember that your administrative experience has fundamentally changed you; you are a different person and you have to do different things. I decided that I wanted to write for more popular audiences as well as for academics to influence the way that people think about higher education. This led to both my book and my founding of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute (CHERI). Prior to my administrative term, I had always taught a class in our PhD labor economics sequence. However, when I returned to the faculty, I decided that I had gotten stale doing this. As a past president of the Society of Labor Economists, I did not need to formally teach graduate labor economics classes to feed my ego. While I continue to work with PhD students on joint research and dissertation supervision, I now devote a good deal of my time to involving undergraduate students in research early in their careers, in the hope that this will encourage them to pursue PhD study in economics.19 Given the declining numbers of American students going on for PhDs, I believe that faculty at major research universities have an obligation to try to contribute to the flow of students into PhD programs, as well as train them once they get to our institutions.
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I also decided that I wanted to take advantage of our new distance learning facilities to extend the reach of my Economics of the University class. One year, I taught six sessions of the class jointly with a colleague at the University of Virginia to students at both of our institutions, using two-way compressed video technology operated over the Internet and phone lines. Our goal was to illustrate how faculty at different institutions could collaborate to enhance learning at both places. The next year I taught the class simultaneously to students at Cornell and at Harpur College (Binghamton University), my undergraduate institution, to illustrate how faculty members in specialized areas can teach students from multiple institutions simultaneously. This past year, I taught the class to both Cornell students in Ithaca and in our Cornell-in-Washington program, to make the point that students in off-campus programs should still be able to take advantage of the academic resources on campus. So my message to administrators and senior colleagues around the nation is that an aging senior faculty does not have to mean stagnation at the university. I hold my career, which is still far from over, up to them as an example of how to stay fresh and excited and to make major contributions to the university.
ASSISTING FACULTY APPROACHING RETIREMENT: REGULAR, EARLY, OR PHASED An excellent overview of the types of retirement programs offered by US higher education institutions is provided by Ehrenberg’s “Survey of Changes in Faculty Retirement Policies” report for the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in 2000. Based on responses from 608 institutions, the report presents in detail the implementation of defined contribution and defined benefit programs and their prevalence at different types of institutions, including the range of institutional contributions to defined contribution plans (the “modal” percentage of salary was 10 percent) and the annual retirement benefit per year of service offered by defined benefit plans (which ranged from 1.7 percent to 2.5 percent of salary per year of service, with 2.0 being the most frequent “multiplier” used to define retirement benefits).20 Although most academic administrators do not need to become experts on retirement systems, they should probably become familiar with Ehrenberg’s survey of retirement plans and recent volumes edited by Clark and Clark and Ma that include studies of retirement programs and retirement incentives.21 The range of options and the “richness” of insti-
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tutional retirement plans can influence faculty recruitment. The type of retirement plan and the benefits faculty members can expect from them can also influence the timing of retirement decisions; for example, faculty members in defined benefit plans may defer their retirement during periods of meager salary increases, since their benefits are often calculated on their more recent (and highest) annual salaries. Faculty members in defined contribution programs who are considering retirement must keep an eye on the stock market and interest rates, since even a small drop in the value of their retirement accounts may mean that their income in retirement will be less than adequate. As large numbers of faculty members near retirement, both they and their institutions need to engage in careful planning for retirement. Robert L. Clark’s contribution to this chapter outlines the importance of adequate retirement and other benefits, particularly for senior faculty. HEALTH AND RETIREMENT BENEFITS Robert L. Clark Employee benefits are a significant component of total compensation for workers throughout the economy and represent an important cost of hiring and retaining employees. Health and retirement plans are among the most important and costly benefits. Most colleges and universities offer health and retirement plans to their active faculty and many also extend health insurance to their retired faculty; however, these benefits are often restricted to full-time faculty. Thus, many part-time lecturers and contract employees are not covered by these plans. Health and retirement benefits are important components of the compensation package for faculty and represent a significant component of labor costs for institutions of higher education. These plans also provide strong economic incentives that may affect faculty decisions to accept job offers, to remain with the university, and to retire at specific ages. Data from the 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty indicate that virtually all universities provide health insurance to fulltime active faculty; however, only 36 percent of institutions extend health insurance to part-time faculty.22 The rising cost of health care is one of the major financial concerns of employers throughout the economy; these same trends are adversely affecting university budgets. Expenditures by academic institutions for health insurance increased from 6.5 percent of the average faculty salary in 2001–2002 to 7.3 percent of the average salary in 2002–2003.23 In addition to the increased costs borne by the institution, faculty are also paying more for health insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-payments. The rising cost of
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health insurance is a major source of concern to faculty and university administrators. Many educational institutions also extend health insurance coverage to retirees who meet certain eligibility conditions (such as a minimum number of years of service). The cost of retiree health insurance is soaring, and employers throughout the economy are responding to this cost pressure by reducing or eliminating retiree health insurance plans. Retiree health insurance is a key component of the economic well-being of retired faculty and can also affect the timing of retirement decisions. Thus, an important policy question facing many institutions is whether to reduce or eliminate retiree health insurance plans. A survey of colleges and universities by Watson Wyatt Worldwide found that many colleges and universities were engaged in revising and eliminating their plans.24 University administrators must understand that changes in benefit programs will affect faculty retirement decisions; changes such as delayed retirement may have unintended cost and productivity effects. While only about half of all workers participate in a pension plan, virtually all colleges and universities offer a pension plan to their fulltime faculty. In most cases, part-time faculty are excluded from these plans. Among institutions of higher education, public colleges and universities typically offer state-provided defined benefit plans to their employees; however, many public institutions also offer their faculty the choice of participating in a defined contribution pension plan. Private colleges and universities tend to offer only defined contribution plans. Defined benefit plans have strong retirement incentives at specific ages while defined contribution plans are more age neutral. As a result, age specific retirement rates tend to be higher for faculty covered by defined benefit plans. With the ending of mandatory retirement in the 1990s, universities have been reconsidering their retirement policies and many institutions have adopted phased and early retirement plans to influence the timing of retirement. A survey conducted by AAUP reported that about one third of responding institutions had established phased retirement plans. Such plans were most common in private universities and research and doctoral institutions.25 Most phased retirement plans provide prorated compensation for faculty who often give up tenure and accept a fixed-term contract for part-time employment; a typical plan would provide 50 percent of annual salary in exchange for a 50 percent work effort. The value of phased retirement plans to institutions is that they provide certainty regarding senior faculty’s departure from the university. The value to faculty members is that they have a new option, typically halftime work instead of full time. Surveys and case studies indicate that phased retirement programs have been popular with senior faculty;
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however, some department heads expressed concern about their ability to manage phased retirees and their ability to staff classes.26 The “Survey of Changes in Faculty Retirement Policies” showed that almost half of all reporting institutions had adopted at least one early retirement incentive program since 1995. Private universities and doctoral institutions were more likely to have offered early retirement plans to their faculty. Generous early retirement plans can induce many senior faculty members to retire. Administrators always worry that it will be the best professors who accept generous buyout offers; however, evidence from the University of California indicated that the most productive faculty were less likely to have accepted an early retirement offer.27 Universities should consider the costs as well as the benefits of early retirement programs. If the objective is to permanently reduce faculty size, early retirement plans can be a cost effective method, allowing faculty to self-select retirement rather than having the institution resort to layoffs. If, however, the institution quickly replaces the retiring faculty, the university ends up paying higher retirement benefits and still must pay the salary of the new professor. Throughout their careers, faculty choose to accept job offers, remain with a university, and ultimately retire based on a wide-ranging set of characteristics of the institution. The prestige and type of institution are major considerations as well as its location and the work load associated with the faculty appointment. Initial employment decisions are also driven by salary and the generosity of employee benefits. Foremost among the benefits offered to faculty are health and retirement benefit plans. The parameters of health insurance plans and their overall value can add significantly to the total compensation at one university compared to another. Similarly, employer contributions to retirement plans are an important component of total compensation. Thus, academic administrators must consider these plans as they consider how to attract and retain quality faculty. As faculty age and approach retirement, they consider the value of continued employment compared to retirement. Availability of health insurance for active faculty and retirees plays a major role in retirement decisions. Universities that do not extend health insurance to retirees will have few retirees prior to age sixty-five, when individuals become eligible for Medicare. Basic pension plans provide income for retirement and alter the value of continued employment. Early retirement options and phased retirement plans also are important factors as faculty plan for the transition from full-time work to complete retirement. The development of these benefit plans and their management are important issues that require careful consideration. Administrators
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should understand the costs and benefits of these programs. Institutional research on their influence on applications, retention decisions, and the timing of retirement are central to human resource planning and the successful building of a diverse and qualified faculty.
In her survey and interviews with retired faculty members (many of whom had retired while the mandatory retirement age of seventy was still in force), Lorraine T. Dorfman found that most faculty reported beginning their financial planning for retirement around age forty-eight and had received some assistance from their institutions or the providers of defined contribution programs.28 However, many institutions may not recognize the need to steer faculty members toward resources for retirement planning until they are much closer to typical retirement age. The faculty members Dorfman talked with were fairly well satisfied with the resources available to them for financial planning for retirement, but many of them reported being unprepared for other aspects of retirement, including what access they might expect to campus facilities and services, whether there was a retired faculty association, and how emeritus status is achieved. More important, many of them reported a need for information on “the social and psychological aspects, health, housing, and family relations” they could expect in retirement.29 Many relied on informal sources such as colleagues, friends, and family members for such information. While Dorfman’s study of retirees is now somewhat dated, excerpts from her interviews are both poignant and inspiring and provide direct insights into the experience of retirement. They also illustrate the importance of efforts to reach out to senior faculty, to assist them in planning for retirement, and to reinforce their value to the institution. One retired faculty member said of the assistance provided by his institution: “I think they could expand or create a series of conferences of the sociopsychological nature that could help in this transition. What they think are the benefits or prepare some literature. All the information I get is through my wife.” Another said of the way his institution dealt with retiring employees: “. . . it comes at one darn fast. I’ve had the impression that what I went through here in setting myself up for retirement, that it all transpired like in fifteen minutes. . . . This university sells itself short in not making a little fuss about some people. . . . I’ve been here a long time and I want to remember this place in good terms.”30 Higher education institutions have complicated faculty members’ retirement decisions by offering a variety of retirement incentive programs. A survey on early retirement incentives by John Keefe found that 80 percent of the institutions surveyed usually offered some kind of early
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retirement program, including incentive payment plans.31 Both types of incentive plans can have mixed results for institutions and individuals. The most widely studied incentive payment plan is the University of California’s “Voluntary Early Retirement Incentive Programs” (VERIPs), offered in 1990, 1992, and 1993 in an effort to reduce personnel costs in response to declining state support. VERIPs offered employees lump sum cash payments equivalent to three months’ salary at retirement and, in the first two VERIPs, five years of retirement service credit.32 According to Ellen Switkes of the University of California Office of the President, “The premise behind VERIPs was fairly simple: encourage retirement of faculty and staff to reduce the payroll through voluntary employment actions, replace as few employees as possible until the budget crisis eased, and later replace them with junior personnel at lower salaries.”33 The three VERIPs resulted in the departure of more than 10,000 staff and 2,000 (over 20 percent) tenured faculty.34 UC’s VERIPs achieved the goal of reducing personnel costs while maintaining at least minimal academic staffing. Many of the retiring faculty returned to teach part-time at lower salaries or to continue sponsored research, continuing faculty made up the slack through additional teaching and service responsibilities, and the large number of retirements “provided a unique opportunity for campuses to consider major organizational changes in academic programs.”35 However, the circumstances under which the UC system undertook its retirement incentive payment plans differ significantly from those of many institutions considering early retirement incentives today. It is increasingly less likely that institutions will realize significant savings in compensation and other costs by replacing a retiring faculty member with a junior faculty member, given compression of salaries within higher academic ranks and the costs of start-up packages expected by faculty in the sciences and other disciplines. At the time, the system did not face dramatic escalations in student enrollment in conjunction with declining state support—a situation currently faced by many public institutions, including UC campuses. As Switkes noted in 2001, “A program to encourage wholesale retirements of faculty and staff at this point would be contrary to anticipated staffing needs.”36 Keefe’s survey, which asked institutions to evaluate the success of their early retirement plans, found that institutions that had implemented incentive payment plans reported that the plans “turned out to be more expensive than they had anticipated,” because more faculty than anticipated opted for the incentive; over time faculty viewed the program as an entitlement, evolving into a “golden handcuff.”37 An alternative to cash incentive plans adopted by a number of university systems and campuses
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is phased retirement, in which faculty members are asked to give up fulltime employment and sometimes tenure in exchange for a guarantee of part-time employment after retirement; in some programs, phased retirees receive a partial retirement benefit and continued employer contributions to retirement programs during a period of part-time employment before retirement. Some of these phased retirement programs (27 percent in Ehrenberg’s 2000 AAUP survey of retirement plans) offer faculty the opportunity to move to part-time work as a transition into retirement; others offer retired faculty members the opportunity to continue to teach part-time after retirement. John Keefe reported in 2001 that of the institutions he surveyed, only 11 percent reported that they did not offer any part-time employment opportunities to retired faculty, although more institutions reported informal rather than formal phased retirement plans.38 These programs generally reflect two institutional goals: improving personnel planning (by ensuring an orderly and in most cases controlled transition of faculty members into retirement) and providing a benefit for senior faculty, most of whom have taught at the institution for a number of years and may be reluctant to move directly into full retirement, for personal, professional, or financial reasons. Most studies of phased retirement programs find that institutions are able to achieve both goals, although many administrators report that the benefits to individual faculty members may be greater than those to institutions.39 Institutions often cannot control who decides to participate in phased retirement, leading to the retention of less productive faculty members whom the institution might prefer to see retire fully. On the other hand, phased retirement may allow institutions to retain at least half-time the contributions of productive faculty who might otherwise leave the institution entirely. Academic departments sometimes find that they lose the services of contributing faculty members entering phased retirement without being able to hire a new full-time faculty member with half the salary of the retiring faculty member.40 Fairly representative of phased retirement programs that provide parttime employment to retired faculty members is the one adopted in 1998 by the University of North Carolina system. The program enables fulltime tenured faculty who meet eligibility requirements to retire, relinquish tenure, and enter into a contract to work half time for 50 percent of the salary earned during their last year of full-time employment. Institutions are allowed to set caps on participation in order to ensure the quality of academic programs and to define the length of the phased retirement contract period for all faculty (either two or three years at UNC campuses). The program provides institutions the advantage of
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improved personnel planning while providing flexibility in individual work plans for participating faculty, which are individually negotiated at the campus level. Despite some of the disadvantages for institutions outlined above, phased retirees themselves are satisfied with the UNC program. In 2003, in conjunction with its survey of senior faculty, UNC conducted a survey of phased retiree participants; responses to the survey suggested that the program is fulfilling its dual purposes of improving UNC institutions’ personnel planning related to retirements and providing UNC faculty members an opportunity to transition into retirement gradually. The overwhelming majority of respondents to the survey reported being satisfied with the program: 93 percent would make the same decision again, and 90 percent would recommend the program to colleagues. Participants reported that they understood the impact of the program on their salary, benefits, and institutional privileges before entering it. Particularly in an uncertain economic period, the program offers participants several years of financial security (since eligible participants can elect to draw 50 percent of their full-time salaries, full retirement benefits, and Social Security benefits before fully retiring). The program appears to allow faculty members to transition to retirement financially as well as in terms of their commitment to their institutions.41 A newspaper interview with a UNC Chapel Hill phased retiree suggests the rich possibilities such a program can offer; this faculty member used his phased retirement to pursue a law degree and is now a practicing attorney in Chapel Hill. Raleigh, NC, News and Observer May 8, 2005 Law Student, 66, sets a new bar By Anne Blythe CHAPEL HILL—Jim Wilde skipped the “bar reviews” that his fellow UNC-Chapel Hill law school classmates took part in many a Thursday night. While the 20-, 30- and occasional 40-something aspiring lawyers soaked up the nightlife at Triangle bars, the gray-haired man with six decades of life behind him typically holed up in the family room of his Chapel Hill home to pore over case law, torts or whatever else his professors assigned. At a time when many of his contemporaries are plotting retirement, Wilde is set to embark on a new career. He hopes to practice elder law, a field as fast-growing as the gray hairs on baby boomers.
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On Sunday, as 5,275 UNC-CH students are expected to receive bachelor’s, graduate and professional degrees, the one-time economics professor will be among the new law school graduates. At 66, he is the oldest in his class. “I feel very good about what has happened,” Wilde said. “I feel very fortunate that the law school was willing to give me a chance. I feel fortunate that the law school has enough diversity interest to think of age diversity, too.” The forging of this new career path began in 1999. Through a phased-retirement plan at UNC-CH, Wilde was able to alternate a semester of law school with a semester of teaching economics for four years. Last year, after 38 years on the faculty, the man with a doctorate from Princeton who is an expert on public finance gave up teaching to commit to his law studies full time. He wanted to complete law school in the five years required by the American Bar Association. “This is one wonderful example of talented people continuing to use talents,” Provost Robert Shelton said about the professor-turnedstudent-turned-graduate. “The idea behind the phased retirement program is flexibility, and this is a good example of that.” DEATHS SPUR AMBITION For Wilde, being a lawyer was not a latent and unfulfilled lifelong ambition. The soft-spoken father of three became interested in the field after his father and father-in-law died. “Part of it was the experience of watching my mother and my mother-in-law trying to cope with not having a spouse any more and how to adjust to that,” Wilde said. His mother, who relied on her husband for rides through their marriage, learned how to drive in her 70s. Wilde saw the tribulations of the elderly trying to manage finances, insurance and other vexing legal matters. If he passes the state bar exam in late July as he hopes, Wilde would like to work with clients on estate planning, reverse mortgages, the realities of giving up independent living and other matters that older adults confront. Initially, he plans to work out of his home and be a part of an elder law clinic. “This doesn’t have to be my sole livelihood, so I don’t have to quickly get paychecks,” he said. That, he believes, sets him apart from most of his classmates. Being at the top of his class was not as important as getting his next-day reading done as close to midnight as possible. Nor did he find it necessary to jockey for prized internships. The only trouble to speak of, Wilde said, was trying to get former economics students to call him “Jim” instead of “Professor Wilde.”
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The cap-and-gown ceremony Sunday will have a different tone from the previous ones in his life. “This is not a career-defining event the way the other ones were,” Wilde said. (Reprinted by permission of The News and Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina)
David W. Leslie has conducted assessments of phased retirement programs at two large university systems based on analysis of survey data and in-depth interviews with faculty and administrators. One of Leslie’s interests in this research was discovering how much flexibility phased retirement plans offered institutions in matching contractual phased retirement expectations to the needs and desires of individual faculty members. Using the National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF: 99), Leslie and Janson analyzed retirement plans reported by faculty in the context of a number of characteristics such as gender, household income, teaching load, academic success (measured as the number of publications), and job satisfaction in an attempt to determine who might decide to opt for early or phased retirement. They found that for the NSOPF: 99 data, “overall job satisfaction was the most ‘significant’ discriminator, although it was far from determinative.” Their own surveys and interviews with faculty, however, suggested that “faculty who approach retirement age vary dramatically on almost every measure and their choices about how to retire reflect two kinds of interactions: First, aspects of their personal and professional lives interact to predispose them differently to retirement options and opportunities, and, second, their personal economic circumstances interact with the incentives and penalties they confront in deciding when and how to retire.”42 In 2004, the US Department of the Treasury issued proposed regulations concerning phased retirement programs, particularly the distribution of pension benefits to employees on phased retirement programs. Final regulations are expected to be issued in 2006. It is unclear how the proposed regulations will affect many university phased retirement programs; institutions and faculty members will need to monitor the regulations issued by the Department of the Treasury to determine the future of their institution’s phased retirement program. CONCLUSION While the often predicted “generational turnover” of faculty has not yet been realized, the growing cohort of senior faculty at US institutions
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requires the attention of administrators. Adult development theory, survey data, and our own experiences demonstrate that faculty members whose interests and activities are changing may benefit from collaboration with peers and colleagues in planning new career directions and from specifically designed professional development support. Many of them seek reassurance that their contributions are still valued and that they will not be ignored in retirement. Particular types of benefits (such as opportunities for phased retirement or other types of involvement with their institutions in retirement) may influence their decisions to retire or continue working full time. Many are concerned about their own health and that of family members and need reliable pension information and access to health benefits in retirement. Although earlycareer faculty may be more vocal in expressing their needs and expectations, senior faculty still make up a larger percentage of total faculty at most institutions. Institutional administrators will be increasingly forced to balance the competing needs of these two generations: to provide access to health insurance benefits for the families of younger faculty while also ensuring that senior faculty have access to the same benefits in retirement, for example, or to provide professional development support that meets the needs of both newly hired faculty and their senior colleagues who may have been employed by the institution before newly hired faculty were even born! The increasingly rich literature on senior faculty and faculty retirement cited in this chapter suggests a number of ways in which institutions can define and begin to address these particular needs.
BEST PRACTICES FOR SUPPORTING LATE-CAREER FACULTY 1. Academic leaders should become familiar with the demographics and retirement patterns of senior faculty at their institutions. The age at which faculty decide to retire varies based on a number of factors, including institutional type, compensation, and the availability of options such as phased retirement. Based on previous retirement patterns and current economic trends, institutions should develop estimates of expected retirements and begin planning for their replacement. 2. Academic leaders should become familiar with their institution’s retirement options and how they may influence faculty retirement decisions. Defined benefit and defined contribution plans may result in different patterns of faculty retirement and are influenced somewhat differently by economic conditions and salary increases.
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3. Academic leaders, especially department chairs, should become familiar with the range of influences on faculty retirement decisions. These may include family responsibilities, personal health, changing professional and personal interests, individual performance, and institutional changes. Department chairs in particular may use this information to assess the likelihood of retirement and the needs for information and support for individual faculty members. 4. Academic leaders, department chairs, and faculty development staff should become familiar with adult development theory and its implications for the professional and personal development needs of senior faculty. Senior faculty members’ interests and motivations often change as they enter the final stages of their careers. They may need support as their work takes new directions (for example, an increased interest in undergraduate teaching) or they pursue new opportunities (for example, new institutional or community roles) to ensure continuing productivity and satisfaction. 5. Institutions should establish a developmental post-tenure review process that provides senior faculty the opportunity to develop plans for their professional activities with assistance from peers, department chairs, and others. Such processes function best when the purpose is clear (developmental or evaluative) and the role of the review in the context of annual and other review processes is clear. The review process should include consideration of the resources needed for professional development and a plan for follow-up by the reviewers and the faculty member. 6. Institutions should provide access to health insurance benefits for retirees. The availability (or lack of availability) of health insurance can affect faculty members’ decisions to retire. While full retiree health benefits can be expensive for institutions, large group health plans or consortial benefit programs can help reduce the costs of these benefits. 7. Institutions should establish phased retirement programs to assist faculty in transitioning into full retirement. Phased retirement programs help institutions retain the contributions of experienced faculty members and fulfill the need by senior faculty members for maintaining a connection to their discipline and institution. Many faculty members are interested in teaching or doing other institutional work part-time in retirement even if a formal phased retirement program is not available. 8. Institutions should develop formal opportunities for retirees to contribute to the institution. Retirees’ associations, newsletters, and volunteer opportunities provide retirees an important connection and can benefit the institution in a variety of areas.
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CHAPTER Leadership for a New Academic Environment: Developing Policy, Creating Change
A
dministrators must deal with many issues that not only require interpretations of policies, but, almost always, involve strong emotions as well. In a time of downsizing and accountability, with demands for responsibility and increased productivity coupled with concern about lawsuits, charges of negligence, harassment, or discrimination, the role of academic leaders is fraught with ethical dilemmas. How do administrators know what is right? How can they predict the ultimate results of their decisions? What role do basic character and personal values play in the decision-making process? At a time when the future of a department or college may depend upon careful selection of faculty, the right “mix” of full-time tenured and part-time or adjunct faculty, and support for the development of faculty at every career stage, administrators need to be both wise and decisive. Metaphorical images demonstrate the divergent paths academic leaders may choose. As an ivory-tower cowboy, a leader might use force to corral the faculty and send them where he wants them to go. Some will resist, and those faculty might become recalcitrant members of the academic community or be lost to another institution. Or, like a mother duck, an administrator might lead faculty without their ever questioning her authority or direction. In this case it is important to look back occasionally to see if the faculty are still following. Some have described academic leadership as akin to herding cats. But faculty are not so easily classified as
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steers or ducks or cats, and in that is the difficulty. Administrators have to know when to lead, when to direct, when to think about top-down management, and when to emphasize bottom-up planning. In the end, administrators need to know how to use several approaches to ensure that every unit functions well, the lines of communication are open, and that unit goals as well as those of the institution are being met. An administrator would need to have been on a long-term sabbatical to some remote island not to be aware of the changing definition of family, of the Supreme Court cases involving affirmative action at the University of Michigan, or of the dramatic changes in the working conditions of faculty. In an environment where curriculum, research, and thoughtful reflection are the reasons faculty sought academic positions, many are finding that issues that they cannot control overwhelm them. Similarly, administrators can become exhausted by changes in policies, benefits, and working conditions as they find it harder and harder to recruit new faculty. What this requires is attention to the external trends influencing higher education and the changes these influences are making within the campus. THE CHANGING EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT FOR HIGHER EDUCATION The academic environment is one of dynamic change. For many years the university and the church had the dubious reputation of being nearly incapable of change, but for universities that is no longer true. The university that ignores technology, eschews curricular reform to reflect new priorities, or—most importantly for the purposes of this book—continues to operate with old policies for new faculty will doom itself. Social Changes: Society is undergoing dramatic changes. We hear about the demise of the family, the breakdown of traditional values, and the corruption of tradition, all with unclear definitions. But one thing that is clear is the changing definition of family. Single parents, dual-career families, grandparents raising children, adoption and foster care, and oppositeor same-sex domestic relationships have all changed expectations about family life. Universities must consider how these changes affect student activities, financial aid, and support networks for students who increasingly come to college with academic deficiencies, mental health concerns, and financial burdens. Our curriculum and policies must reflect societal changes and recognize that these changes mandate very different ideas about when to offer classes, where to offer them, and how to accommodate
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students and faculty whose needs may include child care, elder care, or other personal and family responsibilities. The Gates Foundation and others are encouraging campuses to address the needs of high school students who want to get an early start on college, whether through dual enrollment, early college, middle college, or accelerated or international high schools. All of these changes affect our future students, their preparation, and their expectations. And all of these changes will ultimately affect what we expect of college faculty and how we address their needs in this new environment. At the same time that our environment for education is changing, our students are increasingly more diverse. We know about the expected increases in student population over the next ten years; while states will have different growth patterns, overall the population of college-age students will increase up to about 2012, level off, and then begin growing again. The growing presence of Hispanics, who will become the majority of traditional-age students on many campuses, will require that institutions reconsider their curricula and co-curricular activities. Projections of traditional college-age students do not include the adult learners who will return to complete a degree or to earn a new credential. The aging population will change who takes college courses as well as when, where, and how they take them. Our planning must recognize that the college population of the future will be older, more diverse, more likely to have special needs for accommodation, more likely to take more courses online, and will probably continue to work while in school. Such a population is much different from that of a generation ago and will require different activities for faculty. Economic Changes: Entitlement programs such as health care, welfare, and corrections take increasingly greater proportions of state and federal budgets. During 2004 and 2005, hurricanes demonstrated what natural disasters can do to institutions and to state and federal budgets. The changes from an agricultural and manufacturing economy to a knowledge economy have also resulted in huge changes in state priorities. Campuses must continue to develop new ways to support education—through capital campaigns and through increased attempts to secure outside funds. These economic changes have an impact on curriculum in several different ways. Certainly the content of the curriculum is impacted. Needs for updated technology in all courses may send institutional leaders in new directions, increasing partnerships with industry and redirecting energy toward external partnerships. Economic changes also mandate that we provide a curriculum that prepares American students for a changing
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workforce and an international economy—something that other countries are doing far more quickly than we are. These changes in curriculum mean new demands on faculty, who may be expected to incorporate technology, internationalization, and economic development into their teaching, research, and service. Technological Changes: Rapid technological changes have transformed the educational process, both in teaching and research and in access to information. Teaching and learning are less place-bound than ever before, and our academic plans must reflect this reality. Similarly, the need for information requires statewide K–16 databases, easy access to enrollment and graduation information, and data warehouses that provide information on research and service provided by colleges and universities. The added value of the Internet, streaming video, grid computing, and new methods of communication between students and faculty require that institutions create new financial, data, and communication structures to accommodate these changes. Technology and environmental forces have already altered our academic calendars and the structure of academic work. Faculty assignments may include summer session, evening and weekend classes, distance and online learning, and classes taught in the community rather than campus classrooms. Year-round academic calendars, intersessions to provide opportunities for internships or international study, and 2⫹2 programs with community colleges create new demands on faculty as well. Technology has changed the role of libraries and library faculty. There is increased pressure on libraries for shared data resources and access to materials for e-learning, while the cost of periodicals continues to increase. The ability of the library to meet the increasing needs of students and faculty for technological support is also challenged, as new ways of teaching and learning are developing. Faculty are increasingly less likely to think a library carrel is a “perk” and instead look to delivery of books and articles online as more critical to their teaching and research. Intellectual property and technology transfer issues have arisen as the result of changes in the teaching and research arena. Although some faculty understand and are prepared for dramatic changes in the use of technology in research and teaching, administrators must recognize the range of familiarity faculty have with using technology in their classrooms and laboratories. Mary Doyle has done research on faculty acceptance of technology at multiple institutions and recognizes that administrators must meet faculty “where they are” in the technological age. In her role at Washington State University, she works with
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faculty to integrate technology into their professional lives, and her success is in recognizing that there are generational differences in the understanding and acceptance of technology. THE TECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION AND THE FACULTY GENERATION GAP Mary Doyle For far more than a decade, higher education has struggled with the role of technology in teaching and learning. Much of this debate centers on the pace of acceptance of new technologies in the instructional environment by established faculty. This situation is often characterized as “faculty resistance.” Another dimension of that debate concerns the expectation that new faculty will arrive fully technologically literate and ready to embrace technology in their classrooms. This distinction between generations of faculty requires that administrators be prepared to support the very different needs of both traditional faculty members and those of the Internet generation. Pre-Internet faculty members, while exposed to technology throughout their careers, did not grow up with a computer in the house, a cell phone for anytime, anywhere communication, Personal Digital Assistants, instant messaging, cable modems, or DSL as have our new generation of faculty. Electronic journals, e-mail, web sites, and other new technologies introduced over the past two decades have been integrated into institutions with individual faculty falling into a clear pattern of innovators, early adopters, mainstream users, and laggards. We still face the challenge of moving mainstream faculty users in sufficient numbers to the adoption of new technologies. The continuous and rapid change in technologies complicates the process through the pressure to upgrade, convert, and implement the latest and greatest products on the market. Just when the faculty seems to embrace— or at least not reject—technology, things change and a new version of software or new equipment appears and a new learning curve is required. For example, the debate over WebCT and Blackboard, with clearly drawn lines on both sides, became a moot argument with the announcement of a merger of the two firms in 2006 and an unknown future for current users of both products. What is certain is that faculty, who may just be getting comfortable with current products, will be forced to change. Undoubtedly, the fear of appearing less than fully in control of the technology in an instructional setting has an influence on the willingness of faculty to attempt to use new tools in the classroom. On the other end of the spectrum, the assumption that all new faculty members will be able to immediately integrate technology into
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their teaching and learning should be carefully considered. While younger faculty may have more overall experience with technology and may well be comfortable with using technology in teaching and learning, they may not be familiar with the software or equipment used at their new institution. Orientation and training programs are essential elements in getting new faculty off to a strong start, and technology should be an integral part of those programs. Depending on the previous instructional experience and formal training the new faculty member has from assignments as a TA or instructor, the first class in a tenure-track career may be an intimidating experience. The technology environment at the institution may add to the stress of the experience. On the other hand, new faculty members may arrive with plans to use wikis, blogs, podcasts, video-on-demand, and other emerging technologies in their classes. How do these tools fit into the institution’s existing learning environment? Is the technical staff prepared to serve and support these and other new instructional tools? New faculty members will most likely expect entirely wireless campuses with both easy access to the Internet and strong security to protect them from damaging worms, viruses, and other forms of unwanted intrusion. At Washington State University, the President’s Teaching Academy and the Students’ Learning Academy extend a watchful eye over the exercise of technology in teaching and learning. The Teaching Academy is populated by acclaimed senior faculty, all having significant undergraduate teaching responsibilities. This group has promoted articulation of learning goals for every undergraduate course and program and has invited every undergraduate instructor to participate in workshops to enhance the classroom experience for undergraduate students. Complementary to the work of the Teaching Academy is a program to encourage innovation in instruction through instructional improvement grants. Each year faculty propose instructional innovations to improve learning outcomes. Successful proposals are funded to support curriculum development, particularly in technology-enhanced learning experiences. At the end of each cycle, grant recipients showcase their accomplishments, with the hope of inspiring others to follow in their path. The technology environments in our institutions must accommodate the needs of all faculty members, whether technology-savvy or technology-averse. The key to success is consistency and simplicity. Choose a single learning management system that can be deployed as basic or fully featured, as each faculty member would prefer. Insist on classrooms designed with common technology features that are easy to use and consistent from room to room. Provide adequate technical support for faculty who use technology in classrooms. Adopt and clearly
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articulate rules for use of copyrighted materials and establish and communicate a simple permissions function to allow quick authorization of restricted materials. Faculty should not have to maneuver the pitfalls of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or the Teach Act without assistance. An important driver for faculty in the use of technology in teaching and learning is its place in the reward systems of the institution. Institutions must clarify the value of teaching with technology as part of annual reviews and promotion and tenure reviews. If use of technology will either not be rewarded or will detract from a faculty member’s rating in an important review, there will be little incentive for faculty to spend much time developing online components of their courses. Use of technology to complement and enhance research endeavors is another evolving expectation of faculty productivity. With research universities and many others relying on Internet2 and, of late, National Lambda Rail backbone networks for connectivity and collaboration, faculty must expand their own professional networks to include colleagues across the nation, and, indeed, the planet, in their scholarly pursuits. Thomas Friedman’s declaration that “the world is flat” is indeed a reality. Using technology to enhance teaching and learning and to reach beyond our isolated local points of view can be the key to a robust future in international collaborations. But to accomplish such lofty goals, institutions must devote the resources necessary to support both seasoned and fresh new faculty in their application of technology to improve teaching and learning and further their research agendas.
As more faculty develop distance-learning courses, institutions must protect faculty intellectual property while still being responsible for the use of state resources in the creation of those courses. Patent, copyright, and equity policies are necessary for institutions to support the work of increasingly entrepreneurial faculty members. Russ Lea’s contribution suggests what institutions and administrators need to do in order to empower the “entrepreneurial” faculty member. TRANSFORMING UNIVERSITY CULTURE TO PROMOTE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Russ Lea Never in the history of the United States has the impact of innovation been more significant—especially if one considers that key elements of a peaceful and secure society include shared prosperity, abundant knowledge workers, and new research and development systems for technology sustainability. Because much regional innovation
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begins within our universities, research administrators often find themselves in the “gun sights” of new economies that demand 1) a steady flow of inputs into our knowledge-based workforce and 2) innovation to fuel job creation. This ultimately means that the administrators’ tasks are twofold: they must continuously provide resources to promote innovation, and then must ensure that the proper networks are in place to pass these innovations on to entrepreneurs who will help diffuse new university technologies into the market economy. Most universities find themselves in the midst of an innovation/entrepreneurship transformation in which the process of how faculty create innovation and how universities can promote its dissemination is being aggressively studied. Some universities have chosen a slow but steady rate of institutional transformation, relying on the innovative juices of the faculty as a logical organic growth of institutional capacity building. Other universities have embarked on drastic and sweeping changes by restructuring their technology transfer offices, setting up venture funds, establishing faculty incubators, building new collaborative and co-occupancy buildings (industry/government/university), and formally changing the mission of the university to include economic development. Yet others have enthusiastically headed down the road of initiating some transformation only to run out of volition, money, or both! While I do not feel sufficiently knowledgeable to proclaim what speed/course of transformation makes sense for any particular university, I do find myself in the middle of institutional transformations, talking with faculty who rightfully challenge the skills of the principals in charge and observing the persistence and leadership at the top of the organization to see the transformation through to the end. I know from my experiences within the University of North Carolina that transformation must be carefully monitored, because the frustration and resistance to change that commonly accompany such a transition require constant administrative soothing. For example, there is nothing more frustrating for an administrator to deal with than the organizational standoffs that occur when great innovations wind up in the file cabinets of technology transfer offices—or on the flip side, when faculty members become recalcitrant to university policies of ownership and/or licensing of technology. I know that transforming a university’s innovation/entrepreneurial culture to suit the given management style of a “visionary administrator” can be disastrous; as a net result, everyone is subjected to a shift in structure without a vision of future opportunities. I suggest that once a campus transformation is under way and the principals are closely monitoring its progress, management should revise processes that will speed the flow of innovation
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by making formal organizational changes. The quickest way to pop the innovation bubble on campus is to box the faculty into a corner by implementing procedures, policies, or outcomes that just do not feel right. The contemporary university and its administrators are faced with manifold challenges: society presents it with new and growing demands on faculty-based innovation, while at the same time applying increasing demands on faculty time and teaching loads. The combination of these two factors has, in many cases, actually quickened the innovation cycles on many campuses out of sheer necessity. When pressed, faculty are resorting to all kinds of new classroom innovations to speed up classroom learning, demonstration, and course management. It is key for university administrators to encourage classroom innovation for creative course-packs, innovative software, and online and distance education courses. Recognition of innovation beyond that which is patentable will set a culture of equity and encouragement on campus, demonstrating that innovation is for everyone and that the entire professorate can participate, whether from the lab or the classroom. It is the university’s responsibility to overcome obstacles that impede innovation and to ensure that new innovations are detected, protected, and transferred to an environment where they are amplified— either in the classroom or commercially. This sounds easier than it really is. Successfully positioning public universities in the new economy means that we must accept our role as the target for technologybased economic development. The guiding principle for managing the university’s expanding role in the economy is to reward innovation wherever it occurs and to promote entrepreneurial faculty and administrators who have a sense of possibilities rather than a pervasive sense of risk and/or forced outcomes.
Internationalization: In fulfilling their mission to support research, teaching, and service or engagement, universities must recognize the importance of common global concerns and acknowledge the interdependence of nations and peoples throughout the world. With America’s destiny increasingly shaped by external forces, global education serves to advance international understanding and peace. Universities have a responsibility to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and experiences to become informed and productive citizens of the state, the nation, and the world. There are many benefits to students and faculty at universities that embrace internationalization. Foreign scholars and students coming to our campuses bring fresh viewpoints to our departments and broaden the horizons of faculty and students. Faculty and
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students who work or study abroad return to the campus to share a greater understanding of global inter-relatedness and new perspectives on their professional fields, as well as new perspectives on their own communities and cultural values. Recognizing and accepting global diversity encourages faculty and students to acknowledge and understand cultural and social differences. Our students increasingly accept positions with businesses and organizations that have international dimensions and must be prepared to work with diverse cultures and people. Faculty increasingly work in partnerships with international colleagues. Such alliances will strengthen the research and public service base of institutions as well as enhance curricula and deepen the personal and professional development of faculty and students. There are also economic benefits. As Kenneth Peacock points out in his contribution to this chapter, often such benefits are difficult to see when one is close to the loss of jobs to China or Mexico, but there is no doubt that the interdependence of the United States and the rest of the world and the impact of world events on the United States have increased dramatically. The United States’s economic life is increasingly dependent on global cooperation and the international movement of capital, goods, and technology. Historically, universities have served as the primary center for education, outreach, and public service in many communities. The exposure of students as well as the local communities to the traditions and thoughts of other races, religions, and nationalities enhances intercultural communication and understanding. International faculty and students visiting campuses return to their home countries with an enhanced understanding of the culture and values of our state and nation. People living and learning in close proximity, as they do in a university setting, discover commonalities and learn to negotiate differences peacefully and productively. At a time of complicated global crises, accelerated change, and instant global communications, international experiences are critical to the security and competence of the United States in world affairs. They establish constructive means by which people may communicate to solve political problems and demonstrate a national and statewide willingness to contribute to a peaceful future. All of the reasons that support internationalizing our campuses come together in the program at Appalachian State University described by Kenneth Peacock. In the Holland Fellows Program, students and faculty are immersed in a different culture and, in the end, learn to live and work in an environment that contributes to a greater understanding of the world. Institutions must prepare their faculty for this changing environment and
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must provide an environment for students that encourages them to learn about world cultures. THE IMPORTANCE OF INTERNATIONALIZATION AT A COMPREHENSIVE UNIVERSITY Kenneth Peacock In 1992, shortly after being appointed Dean of the Walker College of Business at Appalachian State University, I approached several CEOs and asked this question: “If you had my position and wanted to offer a curriculum that was distinctive—a relevant and rigorous program of study that would prepare your graduates for the world of tomorrow—what would you do?” The overwhelming response: “Internationalize your curriculum. Make certain your graduates understand the cultural differences in our global society.” Several CEOs emphasized the importance of Asia and the profound influence it would have on our economy. At first I wondered if an international focus was part of the mission of my college. Appalachian State University was a comprehensive university nestled in the mountains of North Carolina, and attracting a diverse population of students, faculty, and staff was a challenge. Could a quality academic international program be developed? After further discussions, reading, and reflecting, I realized that if internationalization were not part of the college mission, then the mission needed to be changed. I decided to follow the advice I had sought. With the support of business and education leaders in China and the United States and with private funds, we developed a partnership between Appalachian State in North Carolina and Fudan University in Shanghai. The news of the William R. Holland Fellows Program, a program designed to help students understand the challenges and opportunities of doing business in China, was not always enthusiastically embraced by leaders in the furniture and textile industries. This part of North Carolina was routinely losing jobs to China, and there were some who saw this effort as hastening the demise of the traditional industries of Western North Carolina. The Holland Fellows Program focused on pairing twelve students selected by each institution who meet through e-mail and select a research project. The students work in small teams on the assigned project. Then the students from China come to Boone, North Carolina, to spend time on campus, followed by a trip to China by the ASU students. The final assignment is to present a cohesive report on the research project. During the ten years this program has been in existence, ninetyeight Appalachian State students and eighty-four Fudan students have participated. Several Appalachian Holland Fellows now live and work
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in China, some of them for the North Carolina companies that established manufacturing facilities in China. Faculty and staff who participate seek cross-cultural research projects from ideas and relationships developed through this program. Building on the established FudanAppalachian State relationship, the University of North Carolina has established an office on the campus of Fudan University to serve the sixteen UNC campuses, and that office is staffed by a former Appalachian Holland Fellow. During 2005–06, a faculty member from Appalachian taught at Fudan University. There are numerous examples of how this program has provided educational opportunities for students, faculty, and staff on both campuses; however, the real impact of this distinctive international program is measured in personal ways as well. When the assigned research projects are completed and the presentations made, the friendships developed through this program continue. The value of the research has been meaningful but pales in comparison to the value of the friendships developed and the understanding of life in a country and culture very different that is gained by students from China and the United States. Although my campus responsibilities shifted from dean to provost and now to chancellor, my commitment to internationalization is stronger than ever as I have witnessed the teaching and research opportunities for faculty and staff that have resulted and the lives of students changed by gaining an understanding of and an appreciation for the challenges and opportunities of life in a diverse culture. It is clear to me that the future faculty we hire must be prepared to teach in an environment where students embrace international experiences and, indeed, come to expect that the faculty will be leaders in this regard. In many ways, the future of higher education and of our country is dependent upon a global understanding.
Economic Development: Perhaps more than ever, a varied group of constituents expect universities to meet their needs. Legislators, parents, the general public, industry, and the surrounding local community all profess “ownership” of institutions to varying degrees. Public and private institutions must contend with boards and donors, while public institutions must anticipate the expectations of legislators and voters as well. Bioprocessing, nanotechnology, genomics, environmental and marine sciences, and optical electronics are disciplines that were not even in the vocabularies of many administrators when they were in college, but are now the hoped-for economic engines of many states. This means constant retraining of both administrators and faculty to ensure institutional responsiveness to change in teaching, research, and outreach. Many of these new areas of inquiry are expensive, and faculty require high-cost
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equipment for starting their laboratories as well as teaching students. Administrators must be prepared to budget for such costs or share resources within or across campuses, or with area research organizations and industries. In addressing economic development, four-year and two-year institutions must share the responsibilities for workforce training in an economy that is increasingly dependent on “knowledge workers.” Partnerships among the sectors of higher education, research institutions, business, and government agencies can enhance institutional opportunities. Even as we acknowledge new domains of knowledge, institutions must continue to fulfill their obligations to society by preparing enough teachers, nurses, and other professionals to serve the basic health needs of society and to educate the K–12 student population. These demands on institutions translate into new demands on faculty. THE CHANGING INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT All of the environmental, political, and economic factors highlighted above will change the way administrators go about hiring and evaluating faculty and developing institutional policies. Future faculty will be more diverse, arriving with a different set of expectations about the career of a faculty member than the senior faculty in their departments. They will more likely be female or faculty of color and more likely to be involved with their communities in different ways that focus on research, technology transfer, and economic development. They will have concerns about work/family demands and about how to integrate the various aspects of their professional lives and balance professional and personal commitments. Such changes require that institutional leaders develop policies and reward structures to address a changing faculty within an evolving environment. In Academic Duty, Donald Kennedy points out that the “very heart of the institution’s academic duty to society is the work of its faculty.”1 He argues for our understanding of the times in which we live, times when “particular skills will lose their utility fast . . . [but] the ability to think, reason, and analyze well will be much more durable.”2 He understands that traditional institutions may feel besieged, but he reminds us that in any redesign of our organizations, we must hold fast to the central mission to transfer knowledge from generation to generation. The primary role of administrators and leaders is to ensure that their institutions will support the faculty and all those who pass knowledge from one generation to the next.
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Accountability: Increasingly, campuses and, by extension, individual departments are being judged on their achievement of particular accountability measures. Assessment reflects the way campuses measure student achievement and faculty evaluate their colleagues in promotion and tenure decisions. While academics are traditionally very good at assessment, increasingly the term “accountability” is being used in ways that suggest that higher education is not doing its job. While No Child Left Behind addressed issues of accountability in K–12, a commission established by the U.S. Secretary of Education in 2005 is addressing similar issues of accountability in higher education. Proposals to use unit record data to track college students as they move from one institution to another, to find out which students graduate and which do not or what disciplines keep students enrolled and which do not, reflect what critics of higher education want to measure as meaningful determiners of campus success. Faculty productivity, faculty retention, academic salaries, and the relationship between faculty research and student learning are all under scrutiny. These external forces will affect how faculty are judged, influencing the traditional faculty reward system. The Reward System: When Ernest Boyer, in Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, proposed that evaluation and reward structures should include the scholarship of teaching, there was a flurry of papers and conference presentations predicting how the academy would change to recognize the primacy of teaching and learning. In reality, little has changed. External peer review continues to focus on research and usually values research that is data-driven, spawns citations, wins prizes, or is favorably reviewed by other academic researchers. Promotion and tenure committees find it easier to count refereed articles than to evaluate a course syllabus or take the time to visit multiple classes to observe teaching. Even when a faculty member publishes articles and books about new teaching methods, such publications may be in lesser known journals or rejected as “personal experience” rather than evaluated as serious research. Administrators need to design promotion and tenure documents that recognize and reward good teaching itself as well as the scholarship of teaching. Value should not be measured by how many courses a faculty member teaches, but by other factors such as how many advisees went on to graduate school or how many students in a capstone course achieved high scores on various professional licensure examinations, at least for departments if not for individual faculty members. These external measures for institutional and individual accountability will
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increasingly influence how external audiences view higher education performance. When Boyer addressed the scholarship of engagement, he was prescient about the future role of service in faculty work. Campuses today are truly engaged with their communities, with economic development, and with legislators eager to ensure that their state will not lose out to other states and regions. When the Morrill Act created the land-grant university, the concept of service to improve the community was central to these new institutions. At that time, no one thought of it as workforce preparation or economic development. Many faculty, particularly at landgrant institutions, continue to think of external involvement as the purview of extension and a defined role within a discrete part of the institution. Increasingly, however, faculty are being drawn into the circle of economic development, whether through their applied research, technology transfer, consulting, or service learning. While lip service is still paid to community and civic awareness, increasingly being a “good citizen” is expected but not rewarded as a use of one’s disciplinary knowledge. For some campuses, institutional autonomy may give way to consortial arrangements. Joint degrees, between private and public institutions as well as with international institutions, will become more prevalent. For some faculty, this expanded opportunity will be attractive and will accelerate changes in curriculum and in the students’ higher education opportunities. Most faculty will need to be reassured that their efforts in an increasing external arena will be reflected in the reward system. Departmental Leadership: Departmental chairs, deans, and provosts are serving in an environment that is changing and new skill sets are required. Leaming points out in Academic Leadership that department chairs, in particular, must have a significant array of skills to be successful: • • • • • • • •
goals for the department knowledge of the faculty ability to be a change agent appreciation for all aspects of faculty life—teaching, research, and public service or engagement participation in all the aspects of faculty life to serve as a positive role model honesty and forthrightness fairness in all aspects of administration ability to build consensus through good communication.3
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All of these characteristics apply to deans and other administrators as well. The days of autocratic, dictatorial administrators are gone and must be replaced by administrators who recognize the importance of their roles in maintaining a lively and engaging group of faculty with academic credentials as well as a commitment to both their discipline and the institution. Increasingly, academic administrators are expected to be specialists in personnel and budgetary management as well as noble in their character. Revised policies governing administrative terms and evaluation are also in order in this changing environment. Some departments still operate with a “leader for life,” usually someone who has decided that departmental leadership rather than research productivity will be his or her professional role. In other departments, there is a rotating chair, often unprepared for department leadership and without the leadership and management skills to hire, retain, and promote faculty while simultaneously nurturing them. In Leading Academic Change: Essential Roles for Department Chairs, Ann Lucas argues that chairs cannot merely push paper; they must counsel and reward faculty, provide leadership in planning and curricular development, and model good practices. Lucas advises that such a profile requires chairs who can build learning communities, lead curriculum renewal, and harness technology.4 Often it is the chair’s fault if faculty fail to become engaged in a department. Campuses should have policies on the selection and terms of chairs and evaluation by the faculty and the dean and provide opportunities for professional development to chairs and other academic administrators. Governance: University leaders must be more nimble in every aspect of academic life, including shared governance. No longer can academic program planning take several years. The process must be streamlined, the first step in making academic programs more responsive to change. Planning funds for new programs both in course content and in mode of delivery may be necessary to ensure that academic institutions keep up with the needs of business and industry. At the same time, the role of the faculty in determining curricular and academic policies, while essential, will also need to be adapted to the need for quicker and more flexible decision making. Although we have discussed faculty at individual institutions, many states have large systems that make policy or influence policy on campuses. Frequently, campus critics mumble that system administrators just do not get it—they do not understand the issues being faced on campuses as department chairs attempt to recruit new faculty in an environment of diminishing resources, reduced benefits, and increased public scrutiny. If system offices are to make decisions that affect faculty life, they must
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engage the faculty, chairs, deans, and provosts in the process. The University of North Carolina has developed a number of working groups that help inform the decision-making process. The Innovations in Faculty Work Life Committee brings together faculty and administrators to discuss phased retirement, post-tenure review, employee benefits, and other issues that affect the working lives of faculty. Regular meetings with chief academic officers provide an opportunity to discuss and modify proposed system-wide policies. A system-wide Faculty Assembly uses a committee system to discuss a myriad of issues about faculty life, and this group is joined by system administrators, including the President, when they meet as a whole four times a year. The chair of the Faculty Assembly attends Board of Governors’ meetings and visits campuses throughout the year to meet with faculty groups at the sixteen campuses. Other systemwide meetings have brought together faculty and administrators on such issues as retention, affirmative action “after Michigan,” and the integration of technology on the campuses. Deans of education and arts and sciences have met to discuss how to increase the production of teachers of science and math. The goal of all of these meetings is to ensure the campus voice is heard on issues of the faculty environment. Other systems, such as the University of California, have similar structures. Ellen Switkes describes how policy is made at the system level in her contribution to this chapter. When a governing system is in place, it is easier to organize such meetings and to ensure attendance, but those states with coordinating boards could consider similar structures to improve the policies and environment for faculty. POLICY IMPLICATIONS FOR UNIVERSITY SYSTEMS Ellen S. Switkes The routes to policy development for a university system are more complex than they are for a single campus institution, but system-level policy making parallels campus processes in important ways, including procedures for consultation. For systems, the process of consultation with so many players may result in policies that are more flexible and more carefully thought out in order to accommodate a larger variety of needs and circumstances. The University of California is a ten-campus system with many decentralized functions. Personnel policies, however, are not among the functions that are decentralized. Couple that with a substantial and long-standing tradition of shared governance between the faculty Academic Senate and administration, and the tasks of initiating,
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developing, reviewing, and adopting new personnel policies are very complicated indeed. Here is the process in brief, using the example of developing a set of family-friendly policies. A proposal may arise from any number of agencies: from campus deans, provosts, or chancellors, from informal faculty groups or Senate committees, from reports and task force reviews, or from the UC Office of the President staff itself. In the case of revisions to family-friendly policies, the changes recommended at a major summit on gender equity eventually made their way to the system-level Office of Academic Advancement, which is charged with developing personnel policy for all academic appointees at the University of California. This was followed by preliminary consultation with the head of the Academic Senate and the University Provost, then with several system-wide Academic Senate Committees and the Council of Provosts. Based on all that input, the staff put pen to paper and drafted policy language that was sent for formal review to campuses and to the Academic Senate, with notice to employees and employee organizations. One benefit of a system of campuses with similar missions is that representatives form a community with common interests. At the University of California, campus academic officers meet almost monthly so that colleagues facing similar issues and circumstances can share their experiences. For those developing system-wide policy, this is an ideal opportunity to consult informally about new policy directions. Another bonus for system-wide policy development is the system-wide Academic Senate committee structure. For the new policy aimed at enhancing a family-friendly environment for new faculty parents, early and informal consultation with the system-wide Academic Senate Committees on Academic Personnel and on Faculty Welfare provided immediate feedback on the faculty’s acceptance of new policies, in this case to provide additional teaching relief for birth mothers beyond what is already available for new faculty parents. After all, faculty need to be comfortable with “picking up the teaching slack” for colleagues who have a new baby. Departments also need to address possible overt or inadvertent discrimination in the review process for merit increases and tenure decisions for faculty who make use of family accommodation policies. Early consultation with the system-wide faculty committees provides useful advice about the viability of such programs. Similarly, early consultation with the Council of Provosts ensures that proposed policy will be well received by campus administrations when it is formally reviewed. Sometimes, not all is as smooth as it may sound. Working with the system-level Academic Senate on policy development is further complicated by the academic year cycle of Senate participation.
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Senate committees involved in policy review may have major changes in membership from one year to the next. What seemed like an ideal policy to one group may meet with resistance the following year. For that reason, the system office tries to accomplish reviews of personnel policy by the Senate within one academic year, although that may not always be possible with multiple layers of review and consultation. As anyone who has worked in a system office knows, campus officials often play off of system decisions. Campus administrators can “blame” the system-wide policy as beyond the control of the campus, saying that they would do something if they could, but that the system does not allow it. In some cases, campuses want to keep the policy limited and then ask the system office for exceptions, since it may benefit them to keep the policy and the exception authority narrow. In other cases, campus officials may prefer that a policy be developed at the system level, where the broader constituencies and wider dialogue may mean passage of a policy that would meet opposition on a particular campus. One should multiply the differences of opinions, minor or major objections, and nitpicking found on campuses tenfold in order to understand policy development for a ten-campus system. Trying to reach consensus among this diverse cast of characters is daunting. However, the end product has been through many hands before it is adopted. Theoretically at least, that should ensure carefully formulated and carefully worded policy.
Collective Bargaining on Campus: Administrators on campuses where faculty are represented by collective bargaining units may face particular challenges in initiating changes in academic policies and in the faculty reward system. Bargaining units introduce another voice into the campus dialogue. In the evolution of policy development, faculty bargaining units and the administration will both need to make concessions so that delays in decision making do not put these campuses at a disadvantage in the increasing competition for faculty. In her contribution to this chapter, Linda Lamwers discusses the advantages and disadvantages for faculty on a unionized campus. FACULTY OF THE FUTURE AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING Linda L. Lamwers Leading an institution with a faculty collective bargaining agreement requires creativity in handling both challenges and opportunities. The fourteen universities within the Pennsylvania State System of
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Higher Education (PaSSHE) share a common faculty Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiated through the System office. West Chester University (WCU) of Pennsylvania is the second largest of the fourteen, enrolling over 12,700 students in baccalaureate and master’s degree programs and employing approximately 500 tenured and tenure-track faculty members. As WCU provost for ten years, I believe that faculty union leadership and management share interests in providing direction for new faculty, leveraging opportunities for professional growth for more senior faculty, and encouraging faculty entrepreneurship. These shared interests can result in special agreements that go beyond the contract language and which, in the long term, benefit both the faculty and the institution. The PaSSHE faculty Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) includes instructional faculty, faculty with specialized administrative responsibilities (such as advising, tutoring, and program directorships), department chairs and assistant chairs, librarians, and athletic program directors. The CBA defines three categories for evaluation: effective teaching and fulfillment of professional responsibilities, continuing scholarly growth, and service to the university and/or community. At WCU, the faculty union and management have collaborated in three specific areas directly impacting faculty evaluations. These areas include departmentally defined Teacher-Scholar model(s) following Boyer, faculty Statements of Expectations, and differential weighting of categories in the tenure/promotion processes. Every academic department has developed at least one “TeacherScholar” model, which articulates what the department values in the three evaluation categories. For example, the biology department might have different models for field scientists, for laboratory scientists, and for science educators. The Teacher-Scholar models define what each unit values in pedagogy (e.g., in teacher education programs, integration of technology and diversity issues are critical for accreditation). The models identify what is valued in continuing scholarly growth and the outlets that demonstrate growth, such as juried art shows, peer-reviewed publications, or continuing education units for licensure. The expectation for campus and off-campus service is also defined, including service on an editorial board or a musical performance for university fundraising events. Finally, the models also define how faculty scholarship is expected to integrate with instruction (or other primary responsibility) and how the three areas should interface. When a faculty member is hired, the new employee, the department chair, and his/her dean develop and sign a Statement of Expectations (SOE), which defines expectations in the three CBA categories mentioned above. At a minimum, SOEs are reviewed and
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revised after a faculty member receives tenure, following promotion, and as a part of his/her five-year CBA-defined review process. The university’s promotion policy includes common standards for each faculty rank in addition to the Teacher-Scholar model and SOE. Starting in year three of a faculty member’s hire, there is the opportunity for individual faculty to modify the CBA-defined weights for teaching/professional responsibility (50 percent), scholarly growth (35 percent), and service (15 percent). There is a shared understanding that a faculty member’s focus may shift at different points in his/her career, and that each faculty member’s talents are unique. Thus, faculty with large external grants would be expected to increase the weight for scholarly growth, while a faculty member serving as chair or developing a new program would increase his/her weight for teaching/professional responsibility. Since fall 2005, the Teacher-Scholar models and SOE with weights are a required part of the faculty’s application for tenure and promotion, informing the deliberations of the University-wide Tenure and Promotion Committee, which makes tenure/promotion recommendations to the President. These documents also form the basis of the CBA five-year post-tenure review process. Taken together, the Teacher-Scholar models, SOE, and weighting of areas of evaluation can provide flexibility for faculty and the institution as needs change. As a public institution with declining state resources, WCU continues to look for ways to increase institutional revenue. Because the collective bargaining agreement sets salaries and salary increases and prohibits individual bargaining, WCU has created incentives for units to become more efficient and entrepreneurial. In the summer school model, any net profit beyond the expected contribution to the university is split between the unit generating the credits and the institution. During the academic year, colleges that exceed their projected student credit hours per available faculty are rewarded with additional funds for professional development and equipment. Departments that identify and serve an off-campus degree population share some of the net revenue. Finally, there is a sharing of indirect costs as an outcome of sponsored research activities. WCU has created a number of incentives for faculty to assist the university to become more entrepreneurial. Collective bargaining has both advantages and disadvantages for attracting and retaining faculty members. Generally, higher salaries at all ranks and more inclusive benefits (such as professional development dollars and guaranteed sabbaticals/leaves) exist at collective bargaining institutions, making such places initially more attractive. Faculty in high demand areas (as business, computer science, engineering) are often hired at advanced ranks due to restricted CBA linkages of salary and rank. Finally the perception of greater faculty advocacy
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and reality of greater protection from the administration in nonrenewal or other personnel actions are advantages in attracting and retaining faculty. On the other side, collective bargaining works against recruiting individuals who want a collegial environment and view unionized campuses as adversarial. Recruiting and hiring experienced/senior faculty is difficult due to CBA requirements concerning time before tenure. Retaining creative and high achieving faculty may be a challenge as they are often unhappy with a lack of merit recognition in salary increases and the restrictive nature of the CBAs. Leading an institution with a collective bargaining agreement requires identification of shared interests, some creativity, and an attitude of “being in it for the long haul” if one is to institutionalize change that will assist the institution in the future.
It is clear that our campuses are in flux, changing the way work is done within departments and colleges. Such change requires that we re-examine all our policies and practices. Academic administrators must develop realistic staffing plans with attention to a critical mass of full-time tenuretrack faculty who will develop connections to the university because of the nurturing environment, the family-friendly policies, the flexibility to adjust to individual needs and strengths, and a reward structure that recognizes the differing contributions of faculty. These plans must also address the appropriate role and contributions of an increasing corps of non-tenure-track faculty. As campuses re-envision their communities and recognize the increasing diversity of those communities, the reward will be improved quality that takes advantage of the many voices and many strengths that will lead our campuses in this century. The contribution to this chapter by Gary Krahenbuhl directs administrators to some ways chairs, deans, and others can sharpen their skills in dealing with new external and internal realities. In his piece, “To Choose Is to Lead,” Kermit Hall addresses ways to alter the faculty rewards system to accommodate new demands on faculty. These contributors exemplify the values, attitudes, and strategies administrators will need to successfully confront the new academic realities inside and outside our institutions. DEPARTMENTAL LEADERSHIP AND FACULTY CAREERS Gary S. Krahenbuhl A popular view held by faculty members in higher education settings is that the administration is a bureaucratic nuisance and little else. Good leadership is almost never fully appreciated, but the capabilities (or lack thereof) of unit heads can be of great importance to
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faculty career satisfaction and productivity. Faculty careers can be lifted, stunted, or unaffected by university leadership. Progressive institutions make concerted efforts to continually build the quality of their administrative teams. Good leadership may go unappreciated, but it makes a huge difference in the life of the faculty. Department leadership is usually selected from within the faculty. In most cases, these faculty members have no experience in dealing with budgetary, supervisory, or personnel issues. Healthy colleges and universities do not leave to chance the professional development of those in leadership roles. In the best settings, college deans devote significant time and attention to improving the talent level of unit heads (typically chairs, directors, heads of departments, and faculty leaders such as the heads of academic senates). Progressive institutions often use administrative retreats as a way to foster professional development. Such retreats typically focus on the handling of important faculty issues such as recruitment, mentoring junior faculty (including the special needs and extraordinary demands placed upon members of protected classes), performance evaluation, post-tenure review, workload responsibilities and assignments, promotion and tenure, and handling difficult personnel issues. Retreats are especially helpful in acquainting unit heads with other university officers who can help them deal with problem faculty members. Noteworthy here are members of the dean’s staff, the affirmative action officer, members of the university’s legal team, and someone from the employee assistance program (if the institution has one). Deans should develop formal evaluation systems that provide feedback about administrative performance. These evaluations should be annual and include input from the faculty and staff of the unit being led, by members of the dean’s staff, and by the dean. They may include self assessments and student assessments where appropriate. The results of such evaluations provide constructive feedback about the leadership abilities of unit heads and can be used as a basis for salary adjustments. Some sort of term limits for unit heads is common, but not universal. Rotation into and out of such leadership roles is healthy. The key is to find a mechanism that allows good leaders to serve longer in such roles and for those who are less effective to be moved out of them more quickly. Systems that a) feature forced rotation on a fixed schedule (four or five years is common) with no opportunity for an extension or b) allow an individual to remain as head of a department in spite of marginal effectiveness can be very costly in terms of faculty productivity and morale. Finally, it is often helpful if large units have positions such as vice/assistant/associate-chair/head. Such positions serve a variety of purposes. They spread the administrative work, but more importantly,
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they provide leadership development opportunities to faculty members. Time spent in such roles often reveals the presence or absence of leadership talent to the individual and to the faculty at large. When a talented individual serves in such a role, a natural system of leadership progression often develops where those who serve effectively as the lead assistant move into the top spot when a term expires. As an academic leader, I always felt sorry for faculty members who were serving under weak unit heads. Sometimes the result was infighting that diverted energies away from education’s higher purposes. Other times it meant that young faculty members were left unattended and failed to progress. On many occasions, it led to an unhealthy climate for student learning. In almost every case, it resulted in lost productivity and poor morale. Faculty time is the most valuable commodity in a university. Maximizing the possibilities for what can be accomplished by the faculty should be a primary concern of any university administrator. Taking steps to ensure that departments have capable leaders helps to ensure that the faculty will be successful individually in their careers and collectively as they contribute to the institution’s mission.
TO CHOOSE IS TO LEAD Kermit L. Hall When asked what constituted the essence of leadership, Napoleon responded: “To choose is to lead.” Those words apply with special force to academic administrators charged with deciding what in their colleagues’ portfolios of activities deserve institutional reward. Diversification and innovation in reward structures have become all the more important given the startling transformation of public higher education. The academy’s future depends increasingly on inter-, cross-, and multi-disciplinary collaborations, ones that are not easily assessed within a single department and in some instances even a college. Moreover, as universities embrace broader social roles, such as promoting economic development and facilitating both urban and rural renewal, the question of who is rewarded and for what becomes all the more important. The characteristics of faculties are changing; they will and must change even more: more women than men now earn doctorates and there is a surge of students from historically under-represented groups and first-time college families. Administrators, in short, have to align their reward systems with changing institutional missions and the concomitant redefinition of faculty success. The ups and downs of funding for public higher education are well known. In such circumstances, pay raises are frequently deferred, a development with often harsh consequences for colleagues who
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achieve once-in-a-career milestones of promotion and tenure in a bad budget year. The failure to provide them with an upward salary adjustment not only damages their morale, but promotes salary compression and general cynicism about the entire reward structure. We addressed these issues at Utah State University, where I served as president for four years, by establishing a university fund drawn from all revenue sources to make sure that the newly promoted and tenured received their financial due. We also instituted an annual salary analysis, one that took account of issues of race, ethnicity, and gender among all faculty and staff. Based on that survey, we distributed, even in the midst of no budget increases, more than $250,000 to inequitably compensated female faculty and staff members. Salaries, promotions, and tenure are the bedrock of the reward system, and their equitable distribution is critical to morale, but rewards can come in all shapes and sizes. Universities do a great deal to recognize individual examples of excellent teaching, but at Utah State we decided to go a step further and reward the faculties of entire departments. We did so through a competitive process that involved evaluation of teaching portfolios by a university committee of students, faculty, staff, and trustees. Those same committee members then took an even bolder step: they actually ranked their colleagues’ teaching based on classroom observations and interviews with students. Two departments were rewarded each year through $25,000 in on-going money, $10,000 in one-time funding, and a special recognition ceremony at the May commencement. Administrators can reward faculty by creating opportunities to acknowledge each other’s successes. At Utah State we developed a program of inaugural lecturers. We asked each newly promoted full professor to “inaugurate” their status by giving a lecture at the president’s residence before an audience of colleagues, students, and interested persons from the community, capped off with a dinner. The inaugural lecturers addressed not just their research, but more importantly the path their careers have followed. They explained why and how they became academics, why they selected their particular fields, and who counted most in their careers. These lectures had the added advantage of reminding the university community of the human face of academic careers. Rewards have to correspond to institutionally valued behaviors. There is an old line that it is more important to measure what you value than value what you can measure. This point becomes particularly telling in the modern public university with its multiple and sometimes conflicting missions of teaching, service, and research. For example, the last two of these, which would seem straightforward, are subject to differing evaluation. Do university service and research, for
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example, also include contributing to state and community economic development? If we propose that faculty become catalysts for economic growth, then administrators should be prepared to reward them for doing so. One measure is the number of patents produced by faculty members, especially at a time when jobs are moving overseas and the number and quality of patents awarded to Americans is declining. The United States’s competitive advantage in the global economy has rested historically on its ability to generate intellectual property, patents, and other expressions of creativity, and to leverage that property by creating companies. However, “academic entrepreneurship,” the patenting, licensing, and commercialization of intellectual property by universities and their faculties, is often honored in the ivory tower of the academy more in word than in deed. Mission statements, for example, might well benefit by adding the words “to invent” to go along with service and research. However, affirming the creative process as a long-term value in the university has to be matched to a meaningful reward system. At Utah State we decided to reward our most inventive faculty by re-writing the tenure and promotion rules to include the development of patents and general “inventiveness.” Simultaneously, we also gave researchers greater control over the indirect costs that they earned through their funded research and made it far easier for them to start up their own companies with the university as a partner. Most importantly, we established that winning patents, being inventive, and developing new companies were valued steps toward promotion, tenure, and increased pay. Napoleon’s words still have force today: the choices we make about rewards shape our ability to lead public universities through the current era of momentous change.
BEST PRACTICES FOR ADMINISTRATORS: SUPPORTING FACULTY IN A NEW ACADEMIC CONTEXT 1. Leaders should not forget what it was like to be a faculty member. Administrators need to understand the subtle shifts of perspective that occur as they move from a faculty role to that of a chair or dean. The administrator who forgets what is was like to be a faculty member does so at his or her own peril. Faculty generally do not have access to the department budget and so can not understand why certain decisions are made about the expenditure of operating funds or renovation funds when salaries have not been addressed. The concept of budgetary lines is something that a good administrator explains. Faculty may not understand the external pressures on institutions that are changing their roles. Good administrators will help faculty understand these forces and how they
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may impact teaching, research, and service. Similarly, chairs are privy to personnel information that informs decision making in ways that are lost on faculty who are not in a position to read promotion and tenure dossiers. Too often, a new chair or dean tends to feel possessive of the new knowledge and forgets that the faculty are disagreeing because they simply do not have all the facts. 2. Campuses should review their faculty development programs. Do development programs focus only on teaching and learning, perhaps with a bit of technology? Or do they provide information on other faculty roles, such as outreach and technology transfer, as well as providing career development and professional growth? Young faculty, in particular, need to understand their role in the academy and the potential for their own future leadership roles. Senior faculty may need opportunities to rethink their professional and personal priorities. Leadership development opportunities may involve participation in national leadership programs, system- or state-wide programs for emerging leaders, or experience as administrative interns on campus. 3. Campuses should review programs to address the individual and personal needs of faculty. Does the campus have an Employee Assistance Program and is the service widely known? Is the director knowledgeable about personal situations such as the death of a spouse or the effect of physical or mental problems? Do faculty know when to visit this office and when to visit an ombuds office? Does the campus have an office that can help faculty and other employees address conflicts among faculty, students, and administrators? These offices help employees feel empowered to address difficult issues. The office staff needs to be neutral and willing to solve problems at the lowest possible administrative level. Employees must trust that the staff are fair and impartial and are seeking consensus and solutions. 4. Campuses should develop a sabbatical or research leave policy. Young faculty need time to do the work to get tenured, and senior faculty need to begin new research directions or complete major projects. These opportunities for reassigned time help keep faculty—and their departments and institutions—vibrant and competitive. Institutional leaders should help the legislature and the governing board understand the need for these and other faculty development programs. Legislators frequently view faculty development as superfluous, and some boards reject sabbaticals because they see the time as “free time,” rather than as a time for rejuvenation of the research process to enrich and energize the faculty member.
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5. Campuses and departments should ensure clear policies and practices for promotion and tenure. Are the criteria and expectations understood by everyone? Are phrases such as “future promise” and “collegiality” included in documents without definition or explanation and that make such phrases difficult for new faculty to understand? Do faculty receive continuous feedback on their performance? Are documents reviewed periodically to ensure that the policies are still relevant? Are review committees well prepared to evaluate a broad range of faculty activities? Is the reward system flexible enough to accommodate expectations for new course and program development, e-learning, economic development, and technology transfer, along with the more traditional expectations for teaching, research, creative activity, and institutional service? 6. Administrators should understand the campus culture and ensure its values are reflected in the reward system. If the campus is truly student-centered, how do the reward structures reflect that orientation? How important is community involvement and how is it rewarded? Is innovation in teaching or participation in interdisciplinary teaching and research valued and rewarded? Does the campus nurture the entrepreneurial faculty member? How do colleagues respond to the “new scholarship” of gender, ethnic, or gay studies? 7. Academic leaders should make department chairs aware of their role in faculty development. Many books on administrative leadership focus on department chairs, the academic administrators who are the closest to the faculty. They are still viewed as colleagues who have not yet gone over to the “dark side” of administration. Although institutional leadership is important at all levels, department chairs are the creators of the “immediate” environment of faculty, particularly for new faculty. Chairs can help departments nurture new faculty, helping them become part of the social network of community and collegiality. 8. Leaders should ensure that campus policies are consistent with federal and state laws and fair to faculty, particularly those with families. Do young faculty avoid asking for parental leave or to extend the tenure clock for fear such requests will impact their chances for tenure? Do campus policies ensure continuation of insurance and retirement benefits during leaves? Are there policies in place that provide opportunities for hiring both members of an academic family? Are health insurance and other benefits and partner hiring assistance available for domestic partners as well as married couples? Has the campus done research to support changing state policies and legislation that prohibit extending benefits to anyone but married couples and their dependents? Does the campus have
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policies that provide for shared jobs or part-time tenure without losing benefits? An opportunity to share a job or to be on tenure track for 50 or 75 percent may provide a faculty member with the time to raise a family or care for an aging parent. 9. Leaders should be aware of the subtle forms of racism, sexism, and homophobia that sometimes occur and develop ways to respond to them. Are women systematically excluded from socializing after work or excluded from meetings that are scheduled at times when family responsibilities keep them from attending? Are racist and sexist jokes tolerated? Is “good-natured teasing” actually discriminatory activity? As a dean or provost, do you observe that some departments always seem to recruit from the same group of applicants—whether based on gender, race, graduate institution, or relationships to current faculty? Are you aware of the possible bias of students as you review teaching evaluations for women and minorities? 10. Campuses should perform regular faculty salary studies. Such studies can reveal market differences among disciplines, benchmark with peer institutions, and show whether certain groups—defined by race, gender, age, or discipline—are regularly disadvantaged in compensation actions. 11. Campuses should consider tuition remissions or reduced tuition for family members. Private universities frequently offer this opportunity to all faculty, benefits of which can make a huge difference to faculty with families who want to attend college. Even public institutions can provide some measure of tuition relief for partners and family members. 12. Campuses should provide faculty with assistance for planning and investing for their retirement. More and more public institutions and nearly all private institutions offer a menu of retirement benefits. Frequently, new faculty are not well-informed about the decisions they need to make and their long-term implications. Senior faculty need more specific assistance as they move toward retirement. A range of such services needs to be available and publicized to faculty. 13. Campuses should maintain an up-to-date faculty handbook that addresses these and other policies and programs. Faculty members are not always the best source of information for their colleagues. Faculty handbooks should contain both policies and reference information to assist faculty at all stages of their careers. Such handbooks need to undergo frequent revision as policies are revised, technology expands, and institutional environments change.
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CHAPTER 1 1. The Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac Issue 2005-2006, 20. 2. See the Bibliography for a listing of several such studies. 3. Quoted in Wilson, 2004. 4. Colbeck and Drago, 13. 5. Center for the Education of Women, 2005. 6. The Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac Issue 2005-2006. 7. See www.phdproject.org. 8. Llagas and Snyder, 98. 9. Hune, Asian Pacific Women. 10. The Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac Issue 2005-2006. 11. For a full discussion of this issue of partner hiring, see Wolf-Wendel et al., The Two Body Problem. 12. Togg, 2004. http://chronicle.com/daily/2004/12/2004121002n.htm. 13. Hale, xxii.
CHAPTER 2 1. “Highlights,” Hoffer et al., 2004. 2. Brown, Heath A., 22. 3. Ibid., 29. 4. Ibid., 33. 5. Ibid., 3. 6. Ibid., 5. 7. Ibid., 7.
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8. Ibid., 10–11. 9. Nerad et al., 156. 10. See http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id ⫽ 5383. 11. Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, 7. 12. Ibid., 12. 13. Ibid., 16. 14. Ibid., 36. 15. Ibid., 23. 16. Ibid., 27, 29. 17. Ibid., 34–37. 18. Bensimon et al., 132. 19. Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, 7. 20. Bureau of Labor data available at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecopro. t02.htm. Also available in Marks, SREB Fact Book on Higher Education, 154–155. 21. Without the help of its sponsors, The PhD Project could not accomplish its mission. They are: KPMG Foundation, Graduate Management Admission Council, 140 Colleges and Universities, Citigroup Foundation, Ford Motor Company, AACSB International, AICPA, Merrill Lynch & Co. Foundation, Inc., Abbott Laboratories, State Street Corporation, JPMorgan Chase, Retired KPMG Partner Robert K. Elliott, Goldman, Sachs & Co., Hewlett-Packard Company. 22. Pruitt-Logan and Gaff, 179–180. 23. For additional information on PFF, see Gaff et al. (2000 and 2003), Pruitt-Logan et al. (2002); the PFF website: http://www.preparing-faculty.org/. 24. Nyquist et al., 201. 25. Ibid., 203. 26. Ibid., 204. 27. Ibid., 206. 28. Ibid., 208. 29. Schmidt, 1517–1519. 30. Davis, “Doctors without Orders,” 6. 31. Ibid., 13. 32. Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, 97.
CHAPTER 3 1. Clark, 2005, 3. 2. Rice et al., 2000, 5. 3. Ibid., 7. 4. Ibid., 8. 5. Ibid., 9–11. 6. Ibid., 13. 7. Ibid., 17. 8. Austin and Rice, 1998; Boice, 1998; Menges, and Associates, 1999; et al., 2000; Sorcinelli and Austin, 1992; Tierney and Bensimon, 1996.
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9. Rice et al., 2000, 5. 10. See “Principles of Good Practice: Supporting Early-Career Faculty,” by Mary Deane Sorcinelli in this chapter. 11. A more detailed discussion of this project can be found in Trotman and Brown, 2005. 12. Sorcinelli, 2000, 26. 13. Weaver, 2001. 14. Trotman et al., 2002. 15. Brown and Trotman, 2004. 16. Brown, 2002. 17. Austin, 2002. 18. Bensimon et al., 117–118. 19. Ibid., 128. 20. Ibid., 129. 21. Ibid., 134. 22. Rice and Sorcinelli, 107. 23. Ibid., 107. 24. Rice, 2005, 308. 25. Rice and Sorcinelli, 118. 26. O’Meara, 2005a, 258–259. 27. O’Meara, 2005b, 293. 28. Ibid., 293–300. 29. Trower and Black, 2004b, 3–4 30. See Trower and Black, 2004a, b, and c. 31. Trower and Black, 2004a, 1. 32. Trower and Black, 2004c, 1. 33. Trower and Black, 2004a, 1–2. 34. Trower and Black, 2004b, 3–4. 35. A research project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, sponsored by The Atlantic Philanthropies and The Ford Foundation. See http://www. gse.harvard.edu/~newscholars/ for additional information and research findings. 36. Participating institutions included Brown University, Carleton College, Duke University, Morehouse College, Mount Holyoke College, Oberlin College, Sarah Lawrence College, Smith College, University of Arizona, University of California at Berkeley, University of Illinois, University of Washington. 37. Center for the Education of Women, 2–3. 38. Ibid., 4.
CHAPTER 4 1. Wilson, Robin, 2001. 2. This report can be found at: http://www.northcarolina.edu/content.php/ aa/reports/ntt_faculty/index.htm. 3. Benjamin, 1.
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4. Baldwin and Chronister, 30. 5. Finkelstein and Schuster, 7. 6. Ibid., 7. 7. Gappa and Leslie, 1993; Leslie and Walke, 2001. 8. Gappa and Leslie, 1993, 12. 9. Finkelstein and Schuster, 7. 10. Ibid., 6. 11. AAUP, “2003 Guidelines for Good Practice,” 79. 12. CCCC, 3. 13. Benjamin, 9. 14. Schuster, 21. 15. Townsend, 31. 16. Thompson, 41–44. 17. Gappa et al., 37. 18. Ibid., 37–39. 19. Ibid., 38–39. 20. Reichard, 65–69.
CHAPTER 5 1. Clark, 2005, 2–3. 2. Fogg, 2005. 3. Holden and Hansen, 2001, 150. 4. Ibid., 150. 5. See Licata, 1986; Bland and Bergquist, 1997; Alstete, 2000. 6. Bland et al., 2004, 5. 7. Bland and Bergquist, 95–118. 8. Nesteruk, B5. 9. For more detailed results of the survey of senior faculty, see Bland et al.; Berberet et al., “Late Career Faculty Perceptions.” 10. Bland and Bergquist, 1997. 11. Berberet et al., “Late Career Faculty Perceptions.” 12. Wergin, 2001. 13. Licata and Morreale, 1997; 2003; 2006. 14. Licata and Brown, 27. 15. See N. Douglas Lees’s description of the triggered review process at IUPUI, Licata and Morreale, 2003. 16. Ehrenberg and Sherman, 1984. 17. Ehrenberg, 2004. 18. Ehrenberg, 2002. 19. Ehrenberg, 2005. 20. Ehrenberg, 2000. 21. Clark, 2005; Clark and Ma, 2005. 22. Anderson, 2002.
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23. Ehrenberg, 2003. 24. Schieber, 2005. 25. Ehrenberg, 2000. 26. Leslie and Janson, 2005b. 27. Pencavel, 2005. 28. Dorfman, 21. 29. Ibid., 22. 30. Ibid., 25, 26. 31. Keefe, 65–66. 32. See Switkes, 2001; Pencavel, 2005. 33. Switkes, 106. 34. Ibid., 107. 35. Ibid., 120. 36. Ibid., 121. 37. Keefe, 76. 38. Ibid., 67. 39. Brown, 2004; Allen, Steven G., 2005; Leslie and Janson, 2005. 40. See Leslie and Janson, 2005, 245; Allen, Steven G., 2005, 204–206. 41. For fuller reports on survey results, see Allen, Steven G., 2005; Brown, 2004. 42. Leslie and Janson, 2005b, 241.
CHAPTER 6 1. Kennedy, 15. 2. Ibid., 268. 3. Leaming, 1998, 1–14. 4. Lucas, 2000, 1–30.
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Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education: http://www.hispanicoutlook.com MIT: Report on the Status of Women Faculty: An Overview of Reports from the Schools of Architecture and Planning; Engineering; Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; and the Sloan School of Management (2002): http://web.mit.edu/faculty/reports/overview.html National Association For Equal Opportunity in Higher Education: http:// www.nafeo.org/ National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges: http://www. nasulgc.org/ National Science Foundation ADVANCE Program: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/ pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id ⫽ 5383 National Teaching & Learning Forum: http://www.ntlf.com/ The PhD Project: http://www.phdproject.org The Preparing Future Faculty Program: http://preparing-faculty.org/ Princeton University: Report of the Task Force on the Status of Women Faculty in the Natural Sciences and Engineering at Princeton (2003): http://www. princeton.edu/pr/reports/sciencetf/sciencetf-9-19-03.pdf Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: http://www.podnetwork.org The Society for College and University Planning: www.scup.org/phe.htm SREB-State Doctoral Scholars Program: http://www.sreb.org/programs/dsp/ dspindex.asp Stanford University, Report of the Provost’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women Faculty (2004): http://www.stanford.edu/dept/provost/ womenfacultyreport/PACSWF.pdf Tomorrow’s Professor: http://ctl.stanford.edu/Tomprof/index.shtml University of California Berkeley: Faculty Climate Survey (2004): http://evcp. chance.berkeley.edu/documents/Reports/CampusClimateSurvey2004_files/ frame.htm University of California: Mason, Mary Ann, Angelica Stacy, and Marc Goulden. “Report on the University of California Work and Family Survey: Developing New Initiatives for a Family Friendly Package.” 2004. http:// ucfamilyedge.berkeley.edu/uc%20family%20friendly.ppt University of Michigan Faculty Work-Life Study (1999): http://www.umich. edu/~cew/PDFs/pubs/fwlsreport.pdf; http://www.umich.edu/~cew/PDFs/ pubs/advance.pdf; http://www.umich.edu/~cew/PDFs/pubs/fwlsexecsum.pdf University of Michigan: The Institute for Research on Women and Gender NSF ADVANCE Project (2002): http://www.umich.edu/~advproj/index.html University of Pennsylvania: Gender Equity Committee (2000): http://www. upenn.edu/almanac/v48pdf/011204/GenderEquity.pdf University of Wisconsin Study of Faculty Worklife (2003): http://wiseli.engr. wisc.edu/Products/facultyversion.pdf Women in Higher Education: www.wihe.com
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Abraham, Ansley A., 37–38 Academic career paths: flexibility in creation of, 68–69 Academic Duty: Kennedy, Donald, 145 Academic model: established, 2 Accountability: in the new academic environment, 146 Administrators: best practices for, 158–161; improving working conditions for new faculty, 78 Adult development theory: latecareer faculty, 111–113 ADVANCE program: National Science Foundation, 33–34 Affirmative action, 1, 27–29 African Americans: faculty, 22–24; PhDs, 34 Aging of the professoriate, 109 Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate: National Science Foundation, 35 American Anthropological Association, 10 American Association of Colleges and Universities: Preparing Future Faculty, 41
American Association of University Professors (AAUP): assisting faculty approaching retirement, 121; trend for contingent faculty, 92, 97 Americans with Disabilities Act, 14, 16 Anzaldúa, Gloria, 5 Asian Americans, 6 Associated New American Colleges (ANAC): survey of older faculty, 113–114 Austin, Ann E., 56–59, 103 Balancing work and family: campus community, 60–61; department and institution help with, 85; early career faculty, 79–81 Baldwin and Chronister: Teaching Without Tenure: Policies and Practices for a New Era, 89 Benjamin, Ernst, 90 Berberet, Jerry, 113–116 Bias-related harassment, 29 Black Issues in Higher Education: 34 Bland, Carole J. and colleagues, 111; and William H. Bequist, 112
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Boyer, Ernest: Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, 41, 72, 146 Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, 25 Business schools: minority faculty, 5 Campus community: balancing work and family, 60–61; environment, for faculty, 2 Career development workshops, 2 Carnegie Foundation: Initiative on the Doctorate, 42 Center for Education of Women: University of Michigan: family-friendly policies, 80 Chavez, Linda, 5 Chicano, 6 2005 Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac, 5 Clark, Robert L., 54, 109, 110, 122–125 Class issues: in a diverse faculty, 2 Climate issues, 2 Coalition for Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE), 59, 76 Collective bargaining: faculty of the future, 151–154; PaSSHE, 151–152; on university campuses, 151 Collegiality: in early-career faculty success, 68, 78; fostering for women and minorities, 71; non-tenure-track faculty, 106 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), 97 Contingent faculty, 92–95 Contracts and workload: non-tenure track faculty, 101–102 Córdova, France A., 7–9 Council of Graduate Schools (CGS): award for Innovation in Promoting an Inclusive Graduate Community, 35;
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Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 1986-2004, 32; Preparing Future Faculty, 41, 43, 45 Curriculum: diversity in, 30 Davis, Geoff, 48 Daycare facilities on campus, 61 Demographics, 1–30 Departmental leadership, 154–156, 156–158; academic environment, 147 Department chairs: in faculty development, 160; importance of support from, 61–62; important role of, 69 DePauw, Karen P., 11–14 Dependent care leave: for early-career faculty, 80 Disabilities: in a diverse faculty, 2, 17 Discrimination, 29 Diverse faculty: best practices in recruiting and retaining, 29–30; class, 2; disabilities, 2; environment needed for, 1; ethnicity in, 1–2; gender in 1–2; high standards of performance, 2; points of view, 2; sexuality, 2; valuing, 21–22. See also Faculty of color Diversity and the PhD: Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, 34–35 Doctoral education: trends, 32–33 Dore, Timothy, 35 Dorfman, Lorraine T., 125 Doyle, Mary, 137–139 Early-career faculty: an overloaded plate, 78; best practices for support, 82–86; concerns and expectations, 55–59; creating workplace satisfaction, 75–79; defining what counts, 72–74; expectations and needs, 53–86;
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five criteria for success, 66–69; principles of good practice, 66; sample annual plan for first year, 69–71; trends in higher education, 54–55 Economics: changes in environment for higher education, 135–136, 144–145; non-tenure-track faculty, 96 Ehrenberg, Ronald G., 119–121; “Survey of Changes in Faculty Retirement Policies,” 124 Employment assistance: for earlycareer faculty, 80 Enhancing the Postdoctoral Experience for Scientists and Engineers: NAS, 49 Entrepreneurship: university culture, 139–141 Ethnicity: in a diverse faculty, 1–2 Faculty: best practices for administrators, 158–161; demographic profile, 109–111; departmental leadership and careers, 154–156, 156–158; disabilities, 14–15; early-career (see Earlycareer faculty); generation gap, 137–139; internal politics and competition, 61–62; latecareer satisfaction, 109–132; meeting supply, 31–51; minority, 5; non-tenure-track (see Non-tenure-track faculty); traditional versus nontraditional, 2 Faculty development programs, 159 Faculty governance: non-tenure track faculty, 103 Faculty handbook, 161 Faculty of color, 4–5, 22–29, 34–36 Faculty of the future, 41–46; best practices for institutions, 50–51; finding and supporting, 49–50
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Family: definition, 19–21 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), 80 Family-friendly policies, 80–81 Family leave: for early-career faculty, 80 Federal and state laws: campus policies, 160–161 Finkelstein, Martin J., 90–91 Flexible work schedules, 61 Ford Foundation fellowships: minority doctoral students, 35 Fowler, Shelli B., 11–14 Functional development: late-career faculty, 112 Gaff, Jerry G., 43–46 Gappa, Judith M., 94, 103 Gappa and Leslie: The Invisible Faculty: Improving the Status of Parttimers in Higher Education, 89 Gates Foundation Millenium Scholars: minority doctoral students, 35 Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender faculty, 9–10 Gay and Lesbian Review, 10 GEAR UP, 5 Gender differences: creating workplace satisfaction and, 75; in a diverse faculty, 1–2; postsecondary education, 3 Gender-identified fields, 33–34 Golde, Chris, 35 Governance: academic environment, 148–149; for university sytems, 149–151 Graduate enrollment: meeting faculty supply, 31–51; minority, 32; non-US temporary visa holders, 32–33; trends, 32–33; women, 33 Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 1986-2004: Council of Graduate Schools, 32
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Hall, Kermit L., 156–158 Harvard: tenuring women, 3 Health and retirement benefits, 122–125 Heeding New Voices project, 55–56, 59 Hiring patterns: non-tenure-track faculty, 89–95 Hispanics: faculty, 5; PhDs, 34 Hispanic-serving institutions, 29 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), 24–27, 29 Historically white institutions (HWIs), 22–24, 29 Howard-Vital, Michelle R., 22–24 Hune, Shirley, 6
review, 117–119; transition to retirement, 116–117; vitality and institutional mission enhancement, 114–116 Latino/Latina, 6 Lea, Russ, 139–141 Leadership: departmental, 154–156, 156–158 Leading Academic Change: Essential Roles for Department Chairs: Lucas, Ann, 148 Leslie, David W., 92–95, 130 Licata, Christine M., 117–118 Lucas, Ann: Leading Academic Change: Essential Roles for Department Chairs, 148
Initiative 200, 1 Initiative on the Doctorate: Carnegie Foundation, 42 Innovation: university culture, 139–141 Instructional quality: non-tenuretrack faculty, 98–99 Internationalization: university environment, 141–144 Internship programs: for faculty, 30
Ma, Jennifer, 46–48 Mahoney, Carolyn R., 24–27 Mawhiney, Barbara, 1, 27–29 McConeghy, Patrick M., 19–21 McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Professoriate, 35 Mentoring programs, 2; in earlycareer faculty success, 66–69, 78; for faculty, 30 Michigan State University, 19–21 “Midlife in Academe”: Nesteruk, Jeffrey, 112 Milano, Bernard J., 39–41 Minority faculty: business schools, 5; fostering collegiality for, 71; at historically white institutions, 22–24 Minority graduate enrollment, 32, 34 Minority support programs, 35 Modern Language Association, 10 Modified duties: for early-career faculty, 80 Moody, JoAnn: Faculty Diversity: Problems and Solutions, 30
Joint appointments for faculty, 2 Kennedy, Donald: Academic Duty, 145 Kirwan, William, 21 KPMG Foundation: The PhD Project, 5, 35, 39–41 Krahenbuhl, Gary S., 154–156 Lamwers, Linda L., 151–154 Late-career faculty: best practices for supporting, 131–132; functional development, 112; organizational development, 112; perceptions, motivations, and attitudes, 113; personal development, 112; post-tenure
National Academy of Sciences: Committee on Science,
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Engineering, and Public Policy, report, 49 National Institutes of Health’s Minority Research Infrastructure Support Program (M-RISP), 5 National Science Foundation (NSF): ADVANCE program, 33–34; Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate, 35; 2003 Survey of Earned Doctorates, 32 National Study of Post-Secondary Faculty: 1999 (NSOPF:99), 87, 92, 122; 2004 (NSOPF:04), 87 Native Americans, 6 Nesteruk, Jeffrey: “Midlife in Academe,” 112 New academic environment, 133–161; internal, 145–146; reward system, 146–158 Non-tenure-track faculty, 87–107; appointments for faculty work, consequences, 95–98; best practices, 106–107; contingent faculty, 92–95; contracts and workload, 101–102; costs for administrative time, 96; effects on instructional quality, 98–99; faculty governance, 103; hiring patterns, 89–95; improving working conditions, 100; performance evaluation, 103; salaries and benefits, 101; University of North Carolina (UNC), Summary Report on Campus Focus Groups 2001, 100–104; work environment, 102–103 O’Meara, Kerri Ann, 73 Organizational development activities: late-career faculty, 112
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Partner hiring, 11–14, 17–18, 19–21, 30 Paths to the Professoriate: Wulff, Austin and Associates, 42 Peacock, Kenneth, 143–144 Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PaSSHE): collective bargaining, 151–152 Performance expectations: clarification of, 83; evaluation of nontenure-track faculty, 103 Performance feedback: unclear, 56 Personal development: late-career faculty, 112 Pew Charitable Trusts, 41–42 Points of view: in a diverse faculty, 1–2 Policy development: university systems, 149–151 Postdoctoral scholars: best practices for institutions, 50–51; broadening the preparation, 46–49; meeting faculty supply, 31–51 Post-tenure review, 117–119 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978), 81 Preparing Future Faculty (PFF): AAC&U and CGS, 41–45 Principles of Good Practice: Supporting Early-Career Faculty, 66 Professional development: late-career faculty, 111–113; resources, 84 Professional expectations: definition before recruitment, 82–83 Promotion: recognition of diversity issues, 30 Proposition 209, 1 Quality of life: early-career faculty, 78 Racial differences: among faculty, 75–76 Racial Diversity, 21 Recruitment: diverse faculty, 29–30
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Reduced appointment: for earlycareer faculty, 80 Re-envisioning the PhD: University of Washington , 41–42, 45–46 Relocation: department and institution help with, 85–86 Rendon, Laura, 5 Research goals: early-career faculty, 69–70 Research leave policy, 159 Research universities: increased postdoctoral appointments, 46–48 Retention: diverse faculty, 29–30 Retirement: assisting faculty, 121–130; planning, 161; senior faculty transition to, 116–117 Reward system: academic environment, 146–158 Rice, R. Eugene: Heeding New Voices project, 55; multiple forms of scholarship, 73 Rodriguez, Richard, 5 Sabbatical policy, 159 Salaries and benefits: non-tenuretrack faculty, 101; studies, 161 Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate: Boyer, Ernest, 41, 72, 146 Schuster, Jack H., 90–91 Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM): women in, 33–34 Senior colleagues: importance of support from, 61–62 Service goals: early-career faculty, 70–71 Sexual harassment, 27–29 Sexuality: in a diverse faculty, 2 Sigma Xi survey: postdoctoral appointees, 48 Sloan Foundation: Minority PhD Program, 35 Social changes: environment for higher education, 134–135
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Sorcinelli, Mary Deane: Heeding New Voices project, 55; Principles of Good Practice for Supporting Early Career Faculty, 65–66; multiple forms of scholarship, 73 Southern Regional Education Board SREB-State Doctoral Scholars Program, 5, 35, 37–38 Stephan, Paula E., 46–48 Summer research grants, 2 Summers, Lawrence, 3 Supreme Court: diversity in education, 1 “Survey of Changes in Faculty Retirement Policies”: Ehrenberg, Ronald G., 121 2003 Survey of Earned Doctorates, 32, 34 Switkes, Ellen S., 149–151 Takaki, Ronald, 6 Teacher-Scholar model, 152 Teaching goals: early-career faculty, 70 Teaching Without Tenure: Policies and Practices for a New Era: Baldwin and Chronister, 89 Technological changes: environment for higher education, 136–137 Ten Principles of Good Practice for Encouraging Multiple Forms of Scholarship, 73–74 Tenure: moving target, 63; recognition of diversity issues, 30; unclear and ambiguous guidelines, 63; vague, unclear, shifting expectations, 56 Tenure and promotion: policies: rethinking, 2; workshops, 2 Tenure and review process: clear criteria for early-career faculty, 68, 78; clear policies and practices, 160; demystification,
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71–72; dissatisfaction and satisfaction, 63–64; flawed aspects of, 56; head start on, 65; lack of feedback on progress, 64; reliance on alternate sources of information, 64 Tenure-clock extension: for earlycareer faculty, 80 The Invisible Faculty: Improving the Status of Part-times in Higher Education: Gappa and Leslie, 89 The PhD Project: KPMG Foundation, 5, 35, 39–41 The Study of New Scholars, 76–77, 79 TIAA-CREF Institute: interviews with UNC faculty, 59; survey of senior faculty, 113 Tribal colleges, 29 Trice, Andrea G., 103 Trotman, Caroll-Ann, 66–69 Trower, Cathy A., 75, 76–79 Tuition remissions, 161 Turner, Caroline: Diversifying the Faculty: A Guidebook for Search Committees, 30 University administrators: improving working conditions for new faculty, 78–79 University chancellorship, 7–9 University culture: innovation and entrepreneurship, 139–141 University of California, 7–9; Voluntary Early Retirement Programs, 126; policy development, 149–151 University of Chicago, 23 University of North Carolina (UNC): interviews with faculty, 59–69;
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Committee on Non-Tenure Faculty, 88; Summary Report on Campus Focus Groups 2001, 100–104; phased retirement program, 127–128 University policies: lack of information or confusion, 60 University of Washington: Reenvisioning the PhD, 41–42 Upward Bound, 5 Valian, Virginia: Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women, 3–4 Virginia Tech, 11–14 Voluntary Early Retirement Incentive Programs (VERIPs), 126 Wilkins, Wendy K., 19–21 Willis, Rachel A., 15–17 Women: fostering collegiality for, 71; graduate enrollment, 33; in non-traditional fields, 33–34; in post-secondary education, 3. See also Gender differences Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation: Diversity and the PhD, 34–35, 37; The Responsive PhD, 42 Work environment: non-tenure track faculty, 102–103; positive: in early-career faculty success, 68 Work-family policies, 61 Working conditions: college administrators making improvement in, 78; non-tenure-track faculty, 100 Wulff, Austin, and Associates: Paths to the Professoriate, 42
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
THE AUTHORS GRETCHEN M. BATAILLE has served as Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs for the sixteen-campus University of North Carolina since 2000 and is a Professor of English and American Studies at UNC at Chapel Hill. She has served as an academic administrator at Arizona State University, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Washington State University. During 2005–06, she served as Interim Chancellor at the North Carolina School of the Arts, the “public conservatory” for the University of North Carolina. She is a noted scholar in the field of Native American literature and the author or editor of eleven books. Bataille has served on the boards for the UNC Press, the Research Triangle Institute, the North Carolina Humanities Council, and the Center for International Business Education and Research. In her role as vice chair of The College Board, she addresses issues of the changing environment in education at all levels. BETSY E. BROWN has served as Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs for the University of North Carolina since 2001. She is responsible for system-wide coordination of international programs, leadership development (directing the UNC Leadership Institute), and faculty support, including post-tenure review, phased retirement, and a wide range
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of faculty policies and programs. She is co-editor, with Christine M. Licata, of Post-Tenure Faculty Review and Renewal: Reporting Results and Shaping Policy (Anker Press, 2004). With Jerry Berberet and Carole Bland, she was principal investigator for a survey of senior faculty members and phased retirement participants at campuses of the University of North Carolina, the University of Minnesota, and Associated New American Colleges, supported by the TIAA-CREF Institute. She is currently involved in a research project with Carroll-Ann Trotman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, exploring the expectations, perceptions, and concerns of early- and mid-career faculty within the University of North Carolina system on issues related to faculty recruitment and retention (also supported by the TIAA-CREF Institute). Prior to coming to the University of North Carolina, Brown worked as a faculty member or administrator at Penn State University, Queens College, and Winthrop University. THE CONTRIBUTORS ANSLEY A. ABRAHAM is Director of the Southern Regional Education Board State Doctoral Scholars Program in Atlanta, Georgia. The program has served over 600 scholars at eighty-three institutions in twentynine states, maintaining a retention/graduation rate of almost 90 percent, and producing almost 300 graduates. Dr. Abraham earned his PhD in sociology (with an emphasis on sociology of education and race/ethnic relations) from Florida State University. He was previously a program specialist in the Florida State Department of Education and a management analyst in the Florida Governor’s Office. ANN E. AUSTIN is a Professor in the Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education (HALE) Program at Michigan State University. Her research concerns faculty careers and professional development, teaching and learning in higher education, and organizational change and transformation in higher education. She was a Fulbright Fellow in South Africa (1998), the 2001–2002 President of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), and is currently Co-P.I. of a National Science Foundation Center preparing future faculty in STEM fields. In 1998, she was named one of the forty “Young Leaders of the American Academy” by Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning. JERRY BERBERET is a TIAA-CREF Institute Fellow and has served as the founding director of the Associated New American Colleges (ANAC) since 1995. He has collaborated with the Carnegie Foundation for the
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Advancement of Teaching, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Minnesota in national surveys of the professoriate at various stages of the faculty career, with support from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the TIAA-CREF Institute. His most recent book (with Linda McMillin) is A New Academic Compact: Revisioning the Relationship between Faculty and Their Institutions (Anker Press, 2002). ROBERT L. CLARK is Professor of Economics and Business Management at North Carolina State University. He has conducted research examining retirement decisions, the choice between defined benefit and defined contribution plans, the impact of pension conversions to defined contribution and cash balance plans, the role of information and communications on 401(k) contributions, government regulation of pensions, and Social Security. He served as chair of the 2003 Technical Panel on Assumptions and Methods for Social Security and was also a member of the 1994 Technical Panel on Trends and Issues on Retirement Savings for the Advisory Council to Social Security. Clark was a visiting scholar at the TIAA-CREF Institute 2003–2004 and is currently serving as the Institute’s Director of Research. He is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, a Fellow of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development and the Center for Demographic Studies at Duke University. FRANCE A. CÓRDOVA, Chancellor of the University of California, Riverside, is an internationally renowned astrophysicist who previously served as Chief Scientist of NASA. She has received NASA’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal. Previously Córdova was Vice Chancellor for Research and Professor of Physics at UC Santa Barbara. In 2000 she was named a Kilby Laureate, an honor named after the 2000 winner of the Nobel Prize for his invention of the microchip. KAREN P. DEPAUW is Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate School at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a professor in the Departments of Sociology and Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise. Before coming to Virginia Tech, she served twenty-two years on the faculty at Washington State University and held several administrative positions, most recently as Dean of the Graduate School. MARY DOYLE is Vice President of Information Systems and Vice Provost for Administration at Washington State University, reporting to the President and the Provost. She oversees IT planning, infrastructure, telecommunications, classroom technology, administrative systems,
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student computing, public broadcasting, and state-wide interactive instructional video. She is active in EDUCAUSE, Northwest Academic Computing Consortium, Internet2, and the Society for College and University Planning. RONALD G. EHRENBERG is the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics at Cornell University, Director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. From 1995 to 1998, he served as Vice President for Academic Programs, Planning and Budgeting at Cornell. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and the National Academy of Social Insurance, an Associate of the National Academies, and a fellow of the Society of Labor Economists. SHELLI B. FOWLER’s research and teaching have focused on African American literature, critical pedagogy, ethnic studies, and rhetoric/composition. She is co-editor of the book, Included in English Studies: Learning Climates That Cultivate Racial and Ethnic Diversity (AAHE, 2002). At Virginia Tech, she is the Director of the Graduate Education Development Institute (GEDI) in Learning Technologies and Associate Professor of English. JERRY G. GAFF is Senior Scholar at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Through his research, writing, speaking, consulting, and directing action projects, he has provided leadership for four separate national movements to improve higher education: experimental colleges, faculty development, curriculum reform, and preparing future faculty. From 1993–2003 he directed the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program that awarded grants to support the development of PFF programs at twenty-three doctoral universities, through partnerships with disciplinary societies in eleven fields in forty-four departments. KERMIT L. HALL is President of the University at Albany in the State University of New York and former President of Utah State University. He also has served as Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at North Carolina State University and Dean of the College of Humanities and Executive Dean of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences at The Ohio State University. Hall has published widely in American legal history, and he has held fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the American Bar Foundation, and the Fulbright-Hayes Program. The
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American Library Association bestowed the James Madison Award on him in 1999 for his service on the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of both the American Council on Education and the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. MICHELLE R. HOWARD-VITAL has served in higher education for thirty years. Her experience includes serving as Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of North Carolina, Vice Chancellor for Public Service and Associate Provost at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Associate Vice President for Academic Programs and Dean of University College at Edinboro University, Dean of Continuing Education and Non-Traditional Degree Programs at Chicago State University, Project Coordinator for Early Outreach Programs at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Howard-Vital has published, provided leadership as the principal investigator on numerous grants, and presented at national conferences on issues of faculty satisfaction. In 2001, the Governor of North Carolina appointed her to the State Board of Education. In 2004, she was appointed to the national Specialty Area Studies Board of NCATE. GARY S. KRAHENBUHL spent thirty-eight years in higher education, twenty-seven of those in various administrative roles at Arizona State University including Center Director, Department Chair, Associate Dean, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Senior Vice President in charge of coordinating four campuses. He served as President of three national professional organizations, including the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences (with 580 member colleges and universities) and the Council for the Arts and Sciences in Urban Universities. He is the author of a recent book on academic leadership, Building the Academic Deanship (ACE/Praeger, 2004). In retirement, Krahenbuhl is serving as the Founding Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Arizona Academy of Arts, Sciences and Technology and is active both as a speaker at national meetings and as a consultant on university campuses. LINDA L. LAMWERS has been Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost at West Chester University of Pennsylvania since 1995 and was Acting President of West Chester University for a semester. Prior to WCU, Lamwers was an American Council on Education Fellow, and a
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faculty member and administrator at St. Cloud State University. With the exception of her ACE fellowship year at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, Lamwers’s experience has been at universities with collective bargaining. RUSS LEA has been the Vice President for Research and Sponsored Programs for the University of North Carolina since April 2001. For six years prior to his recent appointment, he served as Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at North Carolina State University. In his current position, Lea serves as the chief research officer for the sixteencampus University of North Carolina. Lea is a Professor of Forestry with an appointment at North Carolina State University specializing in forested wetland ecology. He serves on editorial boards for the Restoration Ecology Journal and Environmental Science and Policy Journal. He serves on the boards of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, the Institute for Transportation Research and Education (ITRE), the Small Business Technology Development Center (SBTDC), Microcomputing Center of North Carolina (MCNC), and the Center for Transportation and Environment (CTE). DAVID W. LESLIE serves as the Chancellor Professor of Education at the College of William and Mary. He was named an “Alumni Fellow” of the Pennsylvania State University in 2000 and received the Association for the Study of Higher Education’s Research Achievement Award in 2002. He has served on the faculties of the University of Virginia, University of Illinois, and Florida State University. He is co-author (with Judith M. Gappa) of The Invisible Faculty, and has written extensively on issues related to part-time and non-tenure-track faculty. His recent research on non-tenure-track faculty and phased retirement is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. JENNIFER MA is a Senior Research Fellow with the TIAA-CREF Institute. She conducts research on issues related to the economics of higher education including saving for college, the impact of financial aid on college access and choice, the long-term consequences of attending college, and trends in the academic labor market. In addition to her research responsibilities, she oversees the annual TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award and manages the TIAA-CREF Institute’s Research Grant Program. She is also editor of Research Dialogue, a TIAA-CREF Institute publication.
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CAROLYN R. MAHONEY is President of Lincoln University of Missouri, having assumed this position in February 2005. Prior to assuming this post, she served as Dean, School of Mathematics, Science and Technology, and then as Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Elizabeth City State University in northeastern North Carolina. President Mahoney spent the decade of the 1990s as Founding Faculty at California State University, San Marcos. She also has served on the mathematics faculty at Denison University. BARBARA MAWHINEY has been the Director, Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action at Arizona State University since 1989. She has been responsible for affirmative action programs in higher education since 1980. She taught both women’s studies and minority studies at the university level in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Most of her professional presentations from the local to national level have focused on issues of harassment as well as the importance of and how to achieve diversity in the academy. PATRICK M. MCCONEGHY, a faculty member in German at Michigan State University since 1977, headed the curriculum subgroup on a university-wide task force on gay/lesbian issues in 1990. Since 1993 he has served in the dean’s office in the College of Arts and Letters, ten years as Associate Dean for graduate studies, diversity, budget, personnel, and since July 2004 as Acting Dean. He is active in the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences, presenting on outreach and engagement. BERNARD J. MILANO, President of the KPMG Foundation and the KPMG Disaster Relief Fund, is a founder of The PhD Project, a program that has helped increase the number of minority business professors 130 percent in just ten years. He also created a program to help HBCU business schools gain AACSB accreditation. Milano serves on President Bush’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He is a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Points of Light Foundation and is also a past President of Beta Alpha Psi. He also serves on the Board and Executive Committee of Students in Free Enterprise, the Board of Beta Gamma Sigma, and on several university advisory boards, serving as chair of the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Dean’s Executive Advisory Board, External Advisory Board of the Pennsylvania State University Department of Accounting, and Chair of the Board of Governors of the Ramapo College Foundation. Milano is also President of the Episcopal Church (US) Foundation.
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KENNETH PEACOCK is Chancellor at Appalachian State University. He came to higher education from Price Waterhouse and has taught at the University of Virginia and at Appalachian State. After serving as Dean of the College of Business at Appalachian State University, he was appointed Interim Provost before being named Chancellor in 2004. He developed the Holland Fellows Program with Fudan University in Shanghai and has expanded student and faculty international activities at ASU. PAULA E. STEPHAN is Professor of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University. Her research interests focus on the careers of scientists and engineers and the process by which knowledge moves across institutional boundaries. She has served on several National Research Council committees and currently is serving a three-year term as a member of the Social, Behavioral and Economic Advisory Committee, National Science Foundation. She is an active participant in the Science and Engineering Workforce Project, National Bureau of Economic Research. ELLEN S. SWITKES is Assistant Vice President for Academic Advancement at the University of California, Office of the President in Oakland, California. She oversees the development and interpretation of academic personnel policy for faculty and other academic appointees at the University of California’s ten campuses. Specific responsibilities include faculty compensation, health science practice plans, sabbatical leaves, grievance and layoff policies, and policy for academic collective bargaining. Some projects of note include a policy to extend the tenure clock for new mothers and fathers, and policy revisions for access to faculty records and dismissal of incompetent faculty. In the affirmative action area, Switkes oversees programs and policies for faculty and graduate students that promote equal opportunity and gender equity, including programs designed to increase academic diversity at the University of California through innovative approaches to curriculum and research. CARROLL-ANN TROTMAN is currently Professor in the Department of Orthodontics and Associate Dean at the School of Dentistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also directs the orthodontic component of the Cleft Lip and Palate Program at the University of North Carolina, and has served as an American Council on Education Fellow. Prior to her appointment at the University of North Carolina, Dr. Trotman was an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan. She
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maintains active research programs in the areas of craniofacial growth and function, facial animation, and outcomes assessment for facial surgical treatments. In addition, she has conducted research into faculty development in academic dentistry and serves as Co-Principal Investigator with Betsy E. Brown for a TIAA-CREF Institute-funded project to study earlycareer faculty. CATHY A. TROWER became a research associate at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education after earning her doctorate in 1996. There, she has studied faculty employment issues, policy, and practices and produced an edited volume, Faculty Appointment Policy: Standard Practices and Unusual Arrangements (Anker Publishing, 1999), book chapters, and articles. She is currently Principal Investigator on the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education research project, an outgrowth of a pilot project, The Study of New Scholars. Its primary purpose is to make the academy a more attractive and equitable place for new faculty. Trower was formerly a faculty member and senior-level administrator at The Johns Hopkins University. WENDY K. WILKINS, having completed six years as Dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University, is currently Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science. Prior to joining MSU, she served as Associate Dean for Academic Personnel in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (1994–98) and Chair of the Department of English (1990–94) at Arizona State University. She has also been on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts, the University of Washington, and several institutions in Mexico, including El Colegio de México. RACHEL A. WILLIS is a faculty member in American Studies and Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has focused her research, public service, and teaching on various aspects of access to work including improving access to education, technology, and the workplace. In recent years, Willis has focused on the impact of differences in three linked dimensions: socioeconomic circumstances, barriers for students with physical disabilities, and the increasing role of digital technologies in higher education.
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