Iowa Academe
Spring 1998
Scholars
decry growing use of part-timers.
Thompson proposes
solution to part-time crisis.
From the president. Warren
Zemke, President
Spring meeting set.
Scholars decry growing use of part-timers.
Heads of ten professional organizations issued a statement in November calling for decreased reliance on part-time and adjunct faculty. Citing statistics that indicate an alarming growth in the number of part-time and non-tenure-track appointments in higher education, the joint statement urges administrators and faculty who are "concerned about the quality of education" to join in attacking the problem.
According to the statement, one reason for the increased use of part-time and adjunct faculty is to save costs. However, an excessive reliance on these types of appointments risks "imposing far more serious costs on students and their families. The threats to student access to faculty, cohesive curricular development and implementation, the intellectual community, and faculty governance—the fundamental bases for educational quality—require our immediate attention."
After describing the enormity of the problem and the advantages and disadvantages of using part-time faculty, the 18-page statement sets forth a number of specific recommendations for administrators and faculty who wish to address the issue.
Originating in September at the Conference on the Growing Use of Part-Time and Adjunct Faculty, the statement received endorsements by leaders of the American Historical Association, the American Mathematical Society, the American Philosophical Association, the American Political Science Associa-tion, the American Sociological Association, the Modern Language Association, the National Council of Teachers in English, the Organization of American Historians, the Community College Humanities Association, and the AAUP.
Karen Thompson participated both in the conference and in the drafting of the statement, which is reprinted in the January/February issue of Academe.
Thompson proposes solution to part-time crisis.
The keynote speaker at the fall meeting of the Iowa Conference brought a dire warning to about 40 attendees.
According to Karen Thompson, a part-timer herself and chair of AAUP’s Committee G on Part-time and Non-Tenure-Track Appointments, "the growing ranks of part-time faculty threaten to extinguish altogether the shrinking numbers of tenure-track faculty in the profession."
Thompson backed up her claim with some alarming statistics:
•40-50% of undergraduate courses are now being taught by part-time faculty,
•43% of all faculty nationwide hold part-time appointments,
•between 1975 and 1993 the number of non-tenure-track appointments increased by 88%,
•the proportion of tenured faculty in higher education today is only 25%.
If the rate of growth in part-time and non-tenure-track appointments continues at the current rate, Thompson said, the academic profession as we know it will be extinct by the year 2030. "By allowing this trend to continue we insure the further decline of quality in higher education," she said.
After distributing the blame for the crisis fairly equally among part-time faculty, tenured faculty, administrators, and legislators, Thompson suggested a partial solution: pro-rata compensation for part-time and non-tenure track faculty. Only by paying part-timers at the same rate as regular faculty, Thompson said, can we "prevent part-timers from serving as a cheap labor force, prevent full-timers from being devalued, and prevent shortsighted administrators from taking advantage."
If, in addition to giving them equivalent pay, we treat part-timers as professionals, give them access to grievance policies, and initiate a system of censure or accreditation to support standards, we might have the whole solution, Thompson said. These measures have already been proposed by a number of professional groups, including the AAUP.
Thompson closed with a call to action. In order to fight this growing crisis, all
faculty—part-time, full-time, tenure-track, and non-tenure-track—must work
together, ally themselves with constituencies on and off campus, and persist in a struggle
the purpose of which is nothing less than "saving the profession and protecting the
future of higher education."
The Iowa Conference of the AAUP is a relatively small conference of about 360 members. In an effort to increase our numbers and our strength within the Association, we have scheduled our spring conference meeting for Davenport on Saturday, April 18.
Why Davenport? In its immediate vicinity there are four Iowa institutions: St. Ambrose University, Teikyo Marycrest University, Palmer College of Chiropractic, and Scott Community College.
Together these four schools have less than 10 percent of the state-wide membership and only one of its dozen chapters (Marycrest). Of late, there have been too many requests for help from our colleagues in Davenport. They need to be energized and to recognize that the conference can be of vital assistance.
The focus of the spring meeting will be on strategies for recruiting new members and building strong chapters. The keynote speaker is Iris Molotsky, director of membership development from the national office in Washington, D.C. We also expect to hear from John Hopper, the effervescent chair of the Assembly of State Conferences (ASC).
It is the ASC that spear-headed the drive that resulted in the October 1996 national Committee A Workshop. (Our Iowa delegate was Ruth Caldwell from Luther College. See the winter 1996-7 edition of Iowa Academe.) One outcome of that workshop was the Committee A handbook, designed to give advice to chapters and conferences on how to assist colleagues whose academic freedom or tenure have been jeopardized.
It is the ASC that instituted awards for outstanding chapter and conference newsletters. Last year Iowa Academe received one of these awards along with a $100 check (see Kathryn Henry's article in the fall 1997 issue). And it is the ASC that provided invaluable grants to the Iowa Conference to assist us in bringing outstanding speakers to our meetings: Seton Hall law professor Linda Fisher (who spoke on academic sexual harassment policies at Iowa State in October 1996) and Rutgers professor Karen Thompson (who spoke about part-time issues at our last meeting).
Finally, there will be some business as usual at the spring conference meeting. We have to elect a new vice president and secretary, and determine who our national delegate to the June 1998 annual meeting will be.
For all of you who live within two hours driving time of Davenport, the spring meeting
is too big an opportunity to miss! It should draw representatives from every chapter in
eastern Iowa as well as members from chapterless campuses who have wondered what it takes
to start an AAUP chapter at their institutions. I hope to see some of you on April 18!
The spring meeting of the Iowa Conference will take place on the campus of St. Ambrose University in Davenport on Saturday, April 18.
The meeting will focus on membership and chapter development. Iris Molotsky, AAUP’s director of membership development, and John Hopper, chair of the Association of State Conferences will speak on those topics. Registration is free and begins at 9:00 a.m.