Roger G. Baldwin

Teaching without Tenure: Policies and Practices for a New Era.

The growing use of full-time non-tenure-track faculty represents a controversial change in the pattern of staffing colleges and universities. Teaching without Tenure provides the first comprehensive examination of this important phenomenon. Examining the issue from the perspectives of both institutions and faculty members, Roger G. Baldwin and Jay L. Chronister offer a systematic look at who non-tenure-track faculty are, the roles they play in higher education, and the policies that control the terms and conditions of their employment. Teaching without Tenure utilizes findings from a national study of full-time non-tenure-track faculty, including survey data, policy analysis findings, and information gathered from site visits with faculty and administrators at a cross-section of four-year colleges and universities across the United States. This timely study emerges in an environment in which many constituents of higher education have begun to question the feasibility of retaining the academic tenure system in its present form. Baldwin and Chronister discuss the internal and external factors influencing an institutions decision to hire non-tenure-track faculty and make recommendations for policies and practices that can support the work and career development of faculty in these positions. Designed to assist faculty, academic leaders, and institutions, Teaching without Tenure examines developments challenging the status quo in the American academic profession and offers guidance as higher education moves into an uncertain future.

Faculty in the Middle Years: Illuminating an Overlooked Phase of Academic Life

This explanatory study employs developmental theory and NSOPF-99 data to illuminate the middle years of faculty life, an ill-defined and largely unexamined portion of the academic career. The studys findings suggest that the middle years of faculty life have distinctive attributes, pose speical challenges, and deserve systematic investigation by scholars. The study lays a foundation for research needed to fill a gap in our knowledge and understanding of the faculty life cycle.

Full-time Women Faculty Off the Tenure Track: Profile and Practice

Women are overrepresented in the growing number and proportion of full-time non-tenure-track faculty. Data from NSOPF-93, institutional surveys, and interviews show these women clustered in the lowest faculty ranks and in traditionally female disciplines. They carry heavier teaching loads than their male colleagues, are paid less, and have fewer opportunities for advancement. Full-time non-tenure-track women with a doctorate are the least satisfied of all faculty. These findings suggest substantive institutional changes in politics and practices dealing with non-tenure-track faculty.

Contingent Faculty as Teachers What We Know; What We Need to Know

Contingent faculty (full-time and part-time) who are not eligible for tenure or permanent employment provide a large portion of the instruction in U.S. higher education institutions, especially at the undergraduate level. However, in spite of the important functions contingent faculty perform, we know relatively little about their teaching practices or their impact on the educational environment of colleges and universities. This article uses data from the 2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF-04) to determine if contingent faculty (full-time and part-time) and “permanent” (tenured and tenure-eligible) faculty differ in their use of subject-centered and learning-centered teaching strategies. Holland’s academic environments model was also used to examine the subject-centered and learning-centered teaching practices of permanent and contingent faculty within broad academic areas. Findings indicate that the teaching practices of part-time contingent faculty differ in important ways from their other faculty colleagues. In contrast, the teaching practices of full-time contingent faculty more closely parallel those of their tenured and tenure-eligible colleagues. Based on these findings, implications for policy, practice, and additional research on this growing segment of the U.S. professoriate are included.

Mapping the Terrain of Mid-Career Faculty at a Research University: Implications for Faculty and Academic Leaders

The authors are all at Michigan State University, where Roger Baldwin is a professor of higher education administration, Deborah DeZure is the assistant provost for the Faculty and Organizational Development (F&OD) program, Allyn Shaw is the assistant director of leadership development programs at F&OD, and Kristin Moretto is a doctoral candidate in the higher education administration program. The results of this study were presented at the 2007 annual conference of the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) network, where it won a Robert J. Menges Award for outstanding research in faculty development.

Toward Greater Understanding of Faculty Research Collaboration

This article, based on interviews with eighteen active collaborators in the field of higher education, provides two perspectives to enhance knowledge about the process and dynamics through which faculty collaborate to conduct research: (1) metaphors to describe faculty collaboration to conduct research; and (2) an emerging grounded theory, which is useful for understanding and analyzing faculty research collaboration. The article also suggests appropriate directions for further research on faculty collaboration.

Full-time Non-tenure-track Faculty: Current Status, Condition, and Attitudes

Abstract: The early stages of faculty careers are viewed as times of considerable stress and uncertainty. This study identifies similarities and differences in the perceptions of careers and work environment between untenured tenure-track faculty and the non-tenure-track faculty colleagues. The findings indicate that although both cohorts of faculty face uncertain careers, the non-tenure-track faculty are the most pessimistic and have less positive feelings about their work environment.

Academic Advising in Baccalaureate Distance Education Programs.

Abstract This study analyzed current academic advising practices of distance education programs. The following practices were analyzed: advisor‐student communication, delivery systems, support or reference materials, required occasions for academic advising, group advising, and evaluation. A survey was used to collect data that yielded descriptive statistics on advising practices in distance education. Institutions selected for the sample had at least one baccalaureate degree program available at a distance using electronic delivery of instruction. Frequently reported advising practices included communicating by telephone, using faculty advisors, and providing advisors with academic planning worksheets. The study concludes with recommendations for implementing academic advising into distance education programs.

Destination Unknown: An Exploratory Study of Full-Time Faculty Off the Tenure Track.

A variety of recent books and reports (Astin, Korn, and Dey 1991; Bowen and Schuster, 1986; Carnegie Foundation, 1989; Bowen and Sosa, 1989; Lynton and Elman, 1987; National Center for Education Statistics, 1990) has focused attention on the condition of the American academic profession. Several of these reports discuss the difficulties many institutions of higher education are likely to encounter as they try to maintain faculties qualified to meet the education demands of the twenty-first century. In response to staffing challenges, many higher education institutions with tenure systems have chosen to hire more non-tenure-track (NTT) professors. Many persons hired in this status work full-time and perform most of the same functions as other faculty members. To an outside observer, their role is often indistinguishable from that of a person hired on the tenure track (TT). However, the majority of non-tenuretrack appointments come with the explicit understanding that they are temporary. Eventually, the person hired in this capacity will be required to leave the institution and seek employment elsewhere, in or out of higher education. Colleges and universities derive substantial benefits from hiring non-tenuretrack faculty. Temporary professors enable an institution to preserve flexibility in a period of financial constraint; they help to stretch limited resources; and they make it easier for colteges to respond rapidly to shifting market forces and enrollment patterns. Non-tenure-track positions may be appealing to some academics as weil. Some individuals choose to remain off the tenure track for a variety of reasons. A non-tenure-track appointment may impose fewer demands for scholarship,

The Academic Profession in Search of Itself

The scholarly community looks inward in three recent books on the academic profession. Together the volumes consider the professoriate’s current state and future prospects. Implicitly they raise questions about the narrow definition of proper academic life that pervades all sectors of higher education. This essay review highlights issues critical to the vitality of a diverse academic work force.