While tenure remains the most tangible goal for many individuals who forge careers in academia, those who don’t fit into the traditional model are carving enduring careers off the tenure track. Two Carnegie highest research activity institutions (formerly known as research 1)—the University of Southern California (USC) and West Virginia University (WVU)—have given non-tenure-track faculty leadership positions in academic senates and full benefits, including eligibility for promotion.
“[Non-tenure-track faculty] are becoming more and more a huge part of a lot of universities’ brain trusts,” says Dr. Michael Quick, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at USC. “We need to start recognizing and putting into place those pieces that allow them to thrive.”
A new model
While WVU has long had research professors and clinical professors, several years ago the university introduced full-time positions with term contracts of up to three years for teaching professors. At both USC and WVU, teaching faculty have their time allocated at 80 percent teaching and 20 percent service, with some variances. The latest promotion and tenure (P&T) document for WVU allocates for up to 10 percent of time to be spent on research/scholarship and/or service. Tenure-track faculty typically divide their time at 40 percent teaching, 40 percent research and 20 percent service, although research is often the priority.
Both universities have created promotion tracks for teaching faculty. At WVU, they have instructor, assistant, associate and full professor designations. The higher the level, the longer the contracts. Teaching faculty are most heavily used in departments that teach a large number of lower-division undergraduate courses, but they also teach advanced courses.
While there are variances from department to department, Dr. Melanie Page, associate vice president for creative and scholarly activities at WVU, says that, in many departments, teaching faculty are fully integrated, even having a say on tenure decisions. At the university level, teaching faculty have their voices heard on all crucial issues.
“In the latest P&T document that was approved by the Faculty Senate two years ago, it was spelled out very clearly that it is the expectation that they be fully integrated into departmental life,” says Page.
