Resources on Contingent Faculty

Wed May 28 02:58:12 UTC 2014

Hi all,

It's very heartening to see more advocacy for contingent 
anthropologists. I participated in a roundtable on contingent faculty 
(sponsored by the Committee on Labor Relations) at the Chicago meetings 
last year. It was not as well attended as one might have hoped, though 
the input from the attendees was great. One problem is that the people 
most invested in discussions of contingency often cannot make it to the 
AAAs for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it costs 
too much.

So, if it is at all possible, please make your roundtables/sessions 
(whether connected to contingent/NTT advocacy or not) available online 
for those anthropologists who cannot make it to the meetings, for 
example through livestreaming, Skype, livetweeting/liveblogging, 
podcasting, etc.

It would also be useful if the data gathered at the meetings (and from 
other sources) could be collected in one place somehow. Much of the data 
on contingent/NTT faculty are quantitative, and we can add good 
qualitative data to the mix. Currently, though, our efforts are somewhat 
diffuse. Working on collating the data and analyzing it would also 
ensure that advocacy for contingent anthropologists isn't something that 
happens at the meetings and stays at the meetings, so to speak, but 
becomes part of a broader, year-round effort.

Finally, does anyone know if budget cuts are affecting linguistic 
anthropology particularly hard? That is to say, are ling anth faculty 
being retrenched more/replaced less? Or more ling anth courses being 
taught by NTT faculty? Fewer courses being taught? For example, if belts 
are tightened, and fewer ling anth courses are taught, and let's say a 
cultural anthropologist takes over the introductory linguistic 
anthropology course, what happens to the new(ish) linguistic 
anthropology PhDs? Let me say right here that I'm basing this question 
entirely on extremely limited anecdata, but it's made me somewhat 
curious and I was wondering if this is actually a thing or not. Or, if 
it does seem to be a thing, if it's even a new thing.

Best,
Lavanya

-----------
Lavanya Murali Proctor
twitter.com/anthrocharya

On 5/26/14 8:04 PM, Nathaniel Dumas wrote:
> Hi Bill (and all),
>
> I am especially glad this session is going to be proposed too, as one of
> the things that many of us queer scholars also often discuss is that we
> also have to deal with is the restriction of LGBTQ rights in different
> states (esp. when it comes to family law and shaping the kinds of families
> we 'can' raise when government is involved), issues of our physical and
> emotional safety in the local area outside of the university (especially if
> one is also a queer person of color), and other issues that many non-queer
> scholars often take for granted in negotiating a professional life in the
> academy. Couple this with being contingent faculty and you have a whole
> other can of worms. I am so glad we are finally taking on in understanding
> the multiple ways that vulnerability in academia is constructed in this new
> labor market, and I hope this too will be a part of the future SLA
> mentoring initiatives in this new market.
>
> Take care,
> Nate
>
>
> On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 1:37 PM, William Leap <wlm at american.edu> wrote:
>
>> Laura (et al.) this is fabulous news.  There is also (we trust) the
>> following round table , to be sponsored by the Committee on Labor
>> Relations and AQA, , on this year's program.
>>
>> Contingent faculty narratives from queer identified (a broad category,
>> that)  faculty graduate students,   students teaching and serving as
>> t.a.'s while enrolled in grad programs, motivate this session. Working in
>> solidarity to build larger strategies of support and intervention is of
>> course ideal.
>>
>>
>> Roundtable: Queerness as Vulnerability in Academe
>> Organizers:  Karen Brodkin (UCLA), Christa Craven (Wooster), Matt Korn
>> (Texas State) and William Leap (American)
>>   The 2013 AAA Resolution on Contingent and Part-Time Academic Labor calls
>> attention to the particular vulnerabilities facing LGBTQ graduate
>> teaching/research assistants, visiting faculty, term and temporary
>> faculty, and faculty seeking tenure in the current labor market.  While
>> explicit denials of opportunity on the basis of sexuality and/or gender
>> expression may be rare, there are academic venues that exclude research
>> interests in sexuality from domains of ?real? scholarship and use gender
>> conformity to justify hiring/ reappointment and other distributions of
>> resources.  We cannot resolve such conditions in this roundtable. But we
>> will engage a public discussion of these issues, framed against the Final
>> Report    of the AAA Commission on LGBTQ Issues in Anthropology (COLGIA
>> 1999 ).  This roundtable session brings  queer faculty and graduate
>> students together with  labor activists familiar with on-campus
>> faculty/student   organizing, and other allies  to consider whether the
>> seemingly ?gay-friendly? popular climate extends to queer academics in
>> higher education. Opening remarks from several panelists will be followed
>> by  comments and discussion from the audience. Questions we will consider
>> include:    What are the particular vulnerabilities of LGBTQ grad students
>> and visiting or junior faculty?  How do LGBTQ-related vulnerabilities
>> intersect with vulnerabilities that have been widely documented concerning
>> race, class and gender (see Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of
>> Race and Class for Women in Academia)?  Our goals are (1) to consider
>> queerness as a site of vulnerability in the anthropological labor market,
>> and, (2) to begin developing strategies that will mobilize AAA resources
>> on behalf of queer anthropologists in moments of vulnerability.
>>
>> Wlm L. Leap
>> Professor, Department of Anthropology, American University, Washington DC
>> 20016
>> Co-editor, Journal of Language and Sexuality
>> http://www.benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/jls
>>
>> "It is not very hard to silence us, but that is not because we cannot
>> speak."    --  a Bengali villager once remarked to Nobel prize winning
>> economist  Amartya Sen  (The Argumentative Indian, Picador Books, 2005:
>> xiii)
>>
>> "Don't be a drag, just be a queen."  Lady Gaga
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From:   "Miller, Laura" <millerlau at UMSL.EDU>
>> To:     LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG,
>> Date:   05/26/2014 03:55 PM
>> Subject:        Re: Resources on Contingent Faculty
>> Sent by:        Linguistic Anthropology Discussion Group
>> <LINGANTH at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>> Following up on Nate and Judy's notes, there will be a Roundtable session
>> sponsored by the Committee on Gender Equity in Anthropology at the
>> American Anthropological Association in December. Below is the abstract
>> for the session.  We are especially interested in the range of experiences
>> within anthropology that the audience and the participants will share.
>> best,
>> Laura
>>
>>
>> "The Feminization of Contingency: Sex, Race, and Class in the Academy"
>>
>> While  a concern of the AAUP for many decades, adjunct-ification and its
>> effects on higher education have recently taken center stage as a hot
>> issue in academia, the media, and even the US Senate. The AAUP (2005)
>> estimates that 2/3 of academic employment now occurs off the tenure track.
>> Adjunct-ification encompasses a variety of contingent positions including
>> adjuncts, lecturers, renewable professors, visiting assistant professors,
>> and a host of new terminologies to signal new labor configurations. Even
>> though some positions off the tenure track may incorporate better pay and
>> conditions, contingency as the new norm signals important problems for
>> stability, student-outcomes, academic freedom, and mobility.
>> Adjunct-ification also poses troubling concerns for tenure-track faculty
>> and the university as a whole.
>>
>> Recent research links the rise in contingency with sharpening trends that
>> further exclude women, LBGTQ individuals, ethnic/racial minorities, and
>> those from working class backgrounds from the tenure track. Women earn
>> more than 50% of PhDs, but are 10-15% more likely than men to occupy
>> contingent positions (AAUP 2005; Finley 2009). Finley (2009) calls this a
>> ?glass wall? versus a glass ceiling since many women never gain the
>> opportunity to even step on the academic ladder. Additionally, Mary Ann
>> Mason (2011) argues that women with children are disproportionately
>> represented in contingent roles, whereas men with children are highly
>> concentrated in the upper echelons of academia (even more than their
>> single and childless counterparts). To achieve a holistic understanding of
>> gender equity, Mason (2011) urges scholars to examine now only the career
>> gap, but also the gap in desired family formation between men and women.
>> Finley (2009) argues that the ?feminization of contingency? over time
>> further devalues women?s work and confines them to low pay, low-status
>> work, insecurity, and immobility. Moreover, the proportion of
>> African-Americans in non-tenure track positions is 50% higher than whites
>> (McMillan Cottom 2014). Commentators highlight how adjunct-ification
>> generates a two-tier system that exposes vast class differences between
>> high status tenure track faculty and their ?second-tier? counterparts.
>> This has been particularly striking in the media storms that erupted over
>> the death of Margaret Mary Vojtko and over revelations of adjuncts on food
>> stamps. Yet there has been less attention to the fact that individuals
>> from working  class backgrounds have long been excluded from the tenure
>> track and how rising adjunct-ification further entrenches this exclusion.
>> However, there has been little discussion, research, and analysis of how
>> these trends are unfolding in anthropology, a discipline historically
>> committed to combatting sexism, racism, and class inequality. This
>> roundtable brings together contingent faculty from different backgrounds
>> and experiences (including non-US) cross-disciplinary tenured advocates,
>> and union advocates to engage these issues within anthropology, across the
>> university context, and in the public sphere.
>>
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Linguistic Anthropology Discussion Group
>> [LINGANTH at listserv.linguistlist.org] on behalf of Nathaniel Dumas
>> [nadumas at UCSC.EDU]
>> Sent: Monday, May 26, 2014 11:15 AM
>> To: LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>> Subject: Re: Resources on Contingent Faculty
>>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>>
>>
>>
>> I hope all is well. In light of my last email and some of the responses I
>> have received offline, I want to emphasize the complexity of the issue of
>> contingent faculty, particularly in the realm of the heterogeneity of this
>> category (i.e., non-academic professionals who teach on occasion, retiring
>> professionals, those aspiring for tenure-track positions, freelancers,
>> involuntary versus voluntary contingent faculty, full-time versus
>> part-time). Many times the debates on this issue tend to focus solely on
>> contracts and benefits, when, in fact, this is not an issue for all
>> contingent faculty in this category, or at least not to the same extent.
>> At
>> the same time, the exclusive focus on contracts and benefits for those
>> aspiring towards tenure-track positions also erases the other important
>> aspects that shape the non-tenure track (NTT) experience. These often
>> non-discussed aspects (i.e., full access to professional development
>> resources, participation in governance when appropriate,
>> systemically-implemented mentorship) are often pointed out in the
>> literature and can also be implemented with low to no costs.
>>
>>
>>
>> Yet researchers on NTT issues point out that these other aspects are often
>> not pursued because of the stereotypes that many, whether explicitly or
>> implicitly and not informed by empirical research, reproduce about NTT
>> faculty in daily practices and experiences within the three-tiered faculty
>> system. These stereotypes are also not trivial in the long-run, for they
>> play a huge role in hiring decisions for tenure-track positions, as
>> pointed
>> out in an earlier study from 1998 on contingent academic labor and
>> ?accumulated deficit.? (Also, it is difficult to get quality empirical
>> research on NTT faculty for a variety of reasons, including (a) the fact
>> that because NTT faculty lack job security and the same kind of academic
>> freedom, many will be hesitant to speak fully about their experiences with
>> those in power to renew or cancel their contracts without due process and
>> (b) many universities make it difficult, if not impossible, to collect
>> public information for researchers on how many NTT faculty are present on
>> a
>> campus at any given time, in part to avoid damaging PR.) Another common
>> issue pointed out is that much NTT reform will not be pursued or
>> challenged
>> repeatedly for quite some time because most operate under the idea that
>> NTT
>> issues are really not that central in the workings of university life.
>> There exists is no incentive to take NTT issues seriously or, after a
>> policy fix, to monitor them on an ongoing basis as conditions within and
>> beyond the university change. Many times we implement a policy and then,
>> over time or when an economic crisis happens, remove it or slowly reduce
>> its efficacy because it never really became part of the institutional and
>> department cultures, but something to be tolerated temporarily.
>>
>>
>>
>> I?m glad we are having this discussion on the LINGANTH listserv, as this
>> will become a major issue of mentoring for many rising linguistic
>> anthropologists seeking to continue their work in this new academic market
>> in varying capacities. I also hope this will become a central part of the
>> SLA?s initiatives for mentoring scholars within the three-tier faculty
>> system.
>>
>>
>>
>> Have a great holiday weekend!
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Nate
>>
>>
>> On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 9:09 PM, Nathaniel Dumas <nadumas at ucsc.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> I hear you Judy. Are you familiar with the other policies, practices,
>> and
>>> values that other universities are taking towards NTT faculty? Also,
>> have
>>> you read up on the recent research on NTT faculty conducted also by NTT
>>> faculty alongside TT faculty? (For instance, this is a feature of the
>> Kezar
>>> volume). The new things coming up in the research is that, when it comes
>> to
>>> NTT faculty, while contracts and benefits are important, there are other
>>> issues to consider in the process (e.g., fairness and equity in the
>> hiring
>>> process, participation in department governance, full professional
>>> development and access to development for all NTT hires). However, these
>>> other issues often get erased or downplayed but play equally important
>>> roles in the achieving of the mission statement of universities and
>>> departments, and many times NTT faculty are afraid to speak up on these
>>> issues because they often still lack job security and cannot exercise
>>> academic freedom in the same way.
>>>
>>> Hope you're having a great weekend!
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Nate
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sunday, May 25, 2014, Judy Pine <Judy.Pine at wwu.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>> My university seems to be fighting a rear guard action, holding firm to
>> a
>>>> minimal number of NTT and a majority of T/TT positions while also
>> covering
>>>> our NTT in our union contract and providing benefits, etc in a very
>>>> generous fashion relative to other institutions.  I hate the defeatist
>> tone
>>>> of moving to the new normal, and would love to see more universities
>>>> joining western Washington university in pushing back against the
>>>> dismantling of the professoriate.
>>>>
>>>> Can we please include something like that in our own response?
>>>>
>>>> Judy Pine
>>>>
>>>> Sent using OWA for iPad
>>>> ________________________________________
>>>> From: Linguistic Anthropology Discussion Group <
>>>> LINGANTH at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Nathaniel Dumas <
>>>> nadumas at UCSC.EDU>
>>>> Sent: Friday, May 23, 2014 6:08:24 PM
>>>> To: LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>>>> Subject: Resources on Contingent Faculty
>>>>
>>>> Dear Colleagues,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I hope all is well. In the spirit of the recent AAA resolution on
>>>> contingent faculty issues, I wanted to pass on two relatively new
>>>> resources
>>>> to those of you seeking to expand your knowledge on the contingent
>> faculty
>>>> issue in higher education?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Kezar, Adrianna (ed.) 2012. Embracing Non-Tenure Track Faculty:
>> Changing
>>>> Campuses for the New Faculty Majority. New York: Routledge.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hoeller, Keith (ed.) 2014. Equality for Contingent Faculty: Overcoming
>> the
>>>> Two-Tier System. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I will also be conducting another workshop this year on contingent
>> faculty
>>>> issues at the Conference of Ford Fellows in September and would be
>> happy
>>>> to
>>>> share my materials upon request. It really is quite a complicated issue
>>>> and
>>>> is often quite difficult to discern amidst blogs, anecdotes, brief
>>>> recurring articles in the Chronicle, and the newly-released
>> congressional
>>>> reports. In this vein, I offer these resources to you all in the spirit
>> of
>>>> generosity, especially since this is the market characterized by
>> growing
>>>> numbers of contingent positions at a rate more rapid than tenure-track
>>>> positions without the widespread complementary changes in policy that
>>>> reflect this new trend.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Nate
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Nathaniel Dumas
>>>> Research Associate, Department of Anthropology
>>>> University of Santa Cruz
>>>> nadumas at ucsc.edu
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Nathaniel Dumas
>>> Research Associate, Department of Anthropology
>>> University of Santa Cruz
>>> nadumas at ucsc.edu
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Nathaniel Dumas
>> Research Associate, Department of Anthropology
>> University of Santa Cruz
>> nadumas at ucsc.edu
>>
>
>