Inclusive Collegiality and Nontenure-Track Faculty

Book excerpt: This book focuses on the status and work of full-time non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF) whose ranks are increasing as tenure track faculty (TTF) make up a smaller percentage of the professoriate. NTTF experience highly uneven and conditional access to collegiality, are often excluded from decision-making spaces, and receive limited respect from their TTF colleagues because of outdated notions that link perceived expertise almost exclusively to scholarship. The result is often a sub-class of faculty marginalized in their departments, which reduces the inclusion of diverse voices in academic governance, professional relationships, and student learning. Given these implications, the authors ask, how can departments, institutions, and the profession do more to engage NTTF as full and active colleagues? The limited access of NTTF to the rights and responsibilities of collegiality harms institutional success in several ways. Given the full-time nature of their work and the heavy (but not exclusive) focus on instruction, NTTF are likely to be on campus as much or more than TTF, and thus be engaged with students, colleagues, and administrators in ways that more closely resemble TTF than part-time faculty. Their limited access to collegial spaces makes it harder for them to do their jobs by restricting access to information and input into decision-making. Moreover, since the greatest growth among women faculty and faculty of color is in NTTF roles, their exclusion from collegiality and decision-making negates the very diversity the profession claims to seek. Finally, colleges and universities face financial, curricular, and organizational challenges which require broad input, although the burden of governance is falling on fewer shoulders as the percentage of TTF declines and NTTF are excluded from these spaces.Ultimately, NTTF must be engaged as partners and colleagues in supporting institutional health. This book – the fruit of extensive data collection at two institutions over a five-year period – describes lessons learned from and benefits experienced by departments that have successfully supported and engaged NTTF as colleagues. Drawing on their research data and analysis of “healthy” departments that integrate NTTF, the authors identify the practices, policies, and approaches that support NTTF inclusion, shape a more positive workplace environment, improve morale, satisfaction, and commitment, and fully leverage the expertise of NTTF and the valuable human capital they represent. The authors argue that this more inclusive collegiality improves governance, supports institutional success, and serves diverse institutional missions. Though primarily addressed to institutional leaders, department chairs, tenure-line faculty, and leaders in the academic profession, it is hoped that the findings will be useful to NTTF who are engaged as advocates for and partners in the change process required to address the evolving structure of the university faculty.