Abstract
We report the results of a pilot study that offers the field of technical and professional communication its first look at material working conditions of contingent faculty, such as course loads, compensation, and professional support. Findings include that contingent faculty are more enduring with stable full-time, multi-year contracts; they carry a substantial teaching loads; and the majority are satisfied and happy in their present position, but half would prefer to be working on the tenure track.
Keywords contingent faculty, labor, academic programs
| American Association of University Professors. (2013). The inclusion in governance of faculty holding contingent appointments. Washington, DC: Author. Google Scholar | |
| American Association of University Professors (n.d.) Background facts on contingent faculty, Washington, DC: AuthorRetrieved from http://www.aaup.org/issues/contingency/background-facts. Google Scholar | |
| American Federation of Teachers (2009) The American academic: The state of higher education workforce 1997–2007, Washington, DC: American Federation of TeachersRetrieved from http://www.aftface.org/storage/face/documents/ameracad_report_97-07for_web.pdf. Google Scholar | |
| Baker, T. L. (1994) Doing social research, 2nd ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Google Scholar | |
| Baldwin, R. G., Wawrzynski, M. R. (2011) Contingent faculty as teachers: What we know; what we need to know. American Behavioral Scientist 55(11): 1485–1509. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Bartholomae, D. (2010) Teaching on and off the tenure track: Highlights from the ADE survey of staffing patterns in English. Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 11(1): 7–32. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Berk, R. (2006) Thirteen strategies to measure college teaching: A consumer’s guide to rating scale construction, assessment, and decision making for faculty, administrators, and clinicians, Sterling, VA: Stylus. Google Scholar | |
| Bettinger, E., Long, B. (2004) Do college instructors matter? The effects of adjuncts on students’ interests and success. Review of Economics and Statistics 92: 3. Google Scholar | |
| Bousquet, M., Scott, T., Parascondola, L. (2004) Tenured bosses and disposable teachers, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Cargile Cook, K, & Meloncon, L. (2011). Unpublished raw data: The job market in TPC. Google Scholar | |
| Coalition on the Academic Workforce. (2012). A portrait of part-time faculty members: A summary of findings on part-time faculty respondents to the coalition on the academic workforce survey of contingent faculty members and instructors. Retrieved from http://www.academicworkforce.org/Research_reports.html. Google Scholar | |
| Committee on Contingent Labor (2011) Professional employment practices for non-faculty members: Recommendations and evaluative questions, New York, NY: Modern Language AssociationRetrieved from http://www.mla.org/pdf/clip_stmt_final_may11.pdf. Google Scholar | |
| Charlton, J., Rose, S. K. (2009) Twenty more years in the WPA’s progress. WPA: Writing Program Administration 33(1–2): 114–145. Google Scholar | |
| Curtis, J., Jacobe, M. F. (2006) Consequences: An increasingly contingent faculty, Washington, DC: American Association of University Professors. Google Scholar | |
| Davis, M. T. (2001) Shaping the future of our profession. Technical Communication 48(2): 139–144. Google Scholar | ISI | |
| Ehrenberg, R. L., Zhang, L. (2004) Do tenured and non-tenure track faculty matter?, Washington, DC: National Bureau of Economic Research. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Feldman, K. A. (2007) Identifying exemplary teachers and teaching: Evidence from student ratings. In: Perry, R. P., Smart, J. C. (eds) The scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education: An evidence-based approach, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, pp. 93–129. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Hoeller, K. (2014a) Equality for contingent faculty: Overcoming the two-tier system, Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Hoeller, K. (2014b) The academic labor system of faculty apartheid. In: Hoeller, K. (eds) Euquality for contingent faculty: Overcoming the two-tier system, Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, pp. 116–155. Google Scholar | |
| Jaeger, A. J., Eagan, M. K. (2009) Unintended consequences: Examining the effect of part-time faculty members on associate’s degree completion. Community College Review 36(3): 167–194. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
| Jaeger, A. J., Eagan, M. K. (2010) Examining retention and faculty use in the state system of public higher education. Educational Policy 20(10): 1–31. Google Scholar | |
| Johnson, I. Y. (2011) Contingent instructors and student outcomes: An artifact or a fact? Research in Higher Education 52: 761–785. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| June, A. W. (2012). How universities treat adjuncts limits their effectiveness in the classroom, report says. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/Adjuncts-Working-Conditions/133918/. Google Scholar | |
| Jones, N., Savage, G., Yu, H. (2014) Editorial: Tracking our progress: Diversity in technical and professional communication programs. Programmatic Perspectives 6(1): 132–152. Google Scholar | |
| Kezar, A., & Eaton, J. (2014). An examination of the changing faculty: Ensuring institutional quality and achieving desired student learning outcomes. CHEA Washington, DC. Google Scholar | |
| Kezar, A., Maxey, D. (2012) The changing faculty and student success, Los Angeles, CA: University of Southern California and The Delphi Project. Google Scholar | |
| Kezar, A., Sam, C. (2011) Understanding non-tenure track faculty: New assumptions and theories for conceptualizing behavior. American Behavioral Scientist 55(11): 1419–1442. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Knapp, L. G., Kelly-Reid, J. E., & Ginder, S. A. (2010). Employees in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2009, and Salaries of Full-Time Instructional Staff, 2009–10 (NCES 2011-150). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Google Scholar | |
| Lawrence, H., Galle, W. (2011) Tenure, status, and workload: Fundamental issues among business communication faculty. J Bus Comm 48(3): 319–343. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
| Levin, J. S., Shaker, G. G. (2011) The hybrid and dualistic identity of full-time non-tenure-track faculty. American Behavioral Scientist 55(11): 1461–1484. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Levin, J. S., Shaker, G. G., Wagoner, R. (2011) Post neoliberalism: The professional identify of faculty off the tenure-track. In: Kempner, K., Marginson, S., Ordorika, I., Pusser, B. (eds) Universities and the public sphere: Knowledge creation and state building in the era of globalization, New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 197–217. Google Scholar | |
| Maid, B., D’Angelo, B. (2013) What do you do when the ground beneath your feet shifts? In: Cargile Cook, K., Grant-Davie, K. (eds) In Online education 2.0: Evolving, adapting, and reinventing online technical communication, Amityville, NY: Baywood. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Meloncon, L. (2009) Master’s programs in technical communication: A current overview. Technical Communication 56(2): 137–148. Google Scholar | ISI | |
| Meloncon, L. (2011). Unpublished raw data. A survey of TPC administrators. Google Scholar | |
| Meloncon, L. (2012) The rise of academic programs: A call for collaboration. Intercom 59(7): 13–15. Google Scholar | |
| Meloncon, L. (2014) Curricular challenges of emphasis degrees in technical and professional communication. In: Bridgeford, T., Kitalong, K. S., Williamson, B. (eds) Sharing our intellectual traces: Narrative reflections from administrators of professional, technical, and scientific, communication program, Amityville, NY: Baywood, pp. 179–200. Google Scholar | |
| Meloncon, L., England, P. (2011) The current status of contingent faculty in technical and professional communication. College English 73(4): 396–408. Google Scholar | ISI | |
| Miller, S. (1991) Textual carnivals: The politics of composition, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Moser, R. P. (2014) Organizing the new faculty majority: The struggle to achieve equality for contingent faculty, revive our unions, and democratize higher education. In: Hoeller, K. (eds) Equality for contingent faculty: Overcoming the two-tier system, Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, pp. 77–115. Google Scholar | |
| Mueller, B., Mandernach, B. J., Sanderson, K. (2013) Adjunct versus full-time faculty: Comparison of student outcomes in the online classroom. Journal of online learning and teaching 9(3): 341–352. Google Scholar | |
| Polit, D. F., Beck, C. T., Hungler, B. P. (2001) Essentials of nursing research: Methods, appraisal, and utilization, 5th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, Williams, & Wilkins. Google Scholar | |
| Reevy, G., Deason, G. (2014) Predictors of depression, stress, and anxiety among non-tenure track faculty. Frontiers in Psychology 5(Article 701): 1–17. Google Scholar | Medline | |
| Rentz, K., Debs, M. B., Meloncon, L. (2010) Getting an invitation to the English table and whether or not to accept it. Technical Communication Quarterly 19(3): 281–299. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Schell, E. (1998) Gypsy academics and mother-teachers: Gender, contingent labor, and writing instruction, Plymouth, NH: Boynton/Cook. Google Scholar | |
| Scott, T. (2009) Dangerous writing: Understanding the political economy of composition, Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Sonner, B. S. (2000) A is for adjunct: Examining grade inflation in higher education. Journal of Education for Business 76: 5–8. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Street, S., Maisto, M., Merves, E., & Rhoades, G. (2012). Who is professor “Staff,” and how can this person teach so many classes? Washington, DC: Center for the Future of Higher Education. Google Scholar | |
| Thompson, K. (2003) Contingent faculty and student learning: Welcome to the strativersity. New Directions for Higher Education 123: 41–47. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| van Teijligen, E., Hundley, V. (2002) The importance of pilot studies. Nursing Standards 16(40): 33–36. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Waltman, J., Hollenshead, C., August, L., Miller, J., Bergom, I. (2010) Contingent faculty in a tenure track world, Ann Arbor, MI: Center for the Education of Women. Google Scholar | |
| Yeats, D., Thompson, I. (2010) Mapping technical and professional communication: A summary and survey of academic locations for programs. Technical communication quarterly 19(3): 225. Google Scholar | Crossref |

