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RESOURCES
FOR HIGHER
EDUCATION
Newsletters:
Supporting Faculty Work – More than ‘Being Nice’
Madison, Wis.—October 23— Supporting faculty is more than being “nice to faculty,” say the authors of a new book on faculty work. It’s about having appropriate support for faculty so they’re in the position to do their best work.
In an October 23 online seminar, the authors of the recently published book Rethinking Faculty Work: Higher Education’s Strategic Imperative (Jossey Bass, 2007) spoke about their research on the changing higher education workplace and what those changes mean when we talk about supporting faculty.
Today only 27 percent of all new faculty appointments are to tenure-track positions, said Andrea Trice, an independent consultant to colleges and universities and previous Purdue University faculty member. Among new full-time appointments, only 56 percent are to tenure-track positions. Despite this, “many institutions, though, continue to focus most of their energy, most of their resources, on the tenure-track faculty” only, Trice said, leaving fixed-term and contract-renewable faculty without the resources they need.
Co-author Judith Gappa, a recently retired professor of higher education administration from Purdue University, noted, “Frequently these faculty have few if any benefits, their salaries tend to be lower, and they have little access … to support services or professional development and even to office space, so it’s a rather poverty-stricken existence” for many non-tenure-track faculty.
But because non-tenure-track faculty make up such a large portion of the faculty, a critical question facing higher education today is “How can we ensure that the talents of the full range of faculty members are supported and addressed, and how do we ensure that our universities benefit from this full range of talent?” said co-author Ann E. Austin, a professor of higher, adult and lifelong education at Michigan State University.
During the seminar, which was moderated by Maryellen Weimer, editor of The Teaching Professor newsletter, the co-authors shared several innovative strategies used at different institutions to support fixed-term and contract-renewable faculty.
If you missed this live seminar and would like to order a transcript or CD of the event, please visit our online catalog.
Magna Publications is a leading publisher of newsletters and other information products in the higher education segment. Magna also manages onsite and online conferences on topics of interest to higher education.
For more information please contact David Burns, Publisher, Magna Publications, Inc., at 608-227-8109, or dburns@magnapubs.com.
