Additional Feedback on Increasing Tenure-Eligible Positions at Northern Arizona University DRAFT Principles and Guidelines for Conversion of NTT Lines to TT for Spring 2018

NTT Faculty Senate Council

  1. The proposed model is not the only model for conversion.
  2. Many other models exist and should be considered.
  3. The AAUP provides guidance on best practices for conversion that were developed by a joint subcommittee of the Association’s Committee on Contingent Faculty and the Profession and Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure (Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession, 2003). These suggestions are not well-reflected in the proposed model.Six notable suggestions include the following:
  4. Consider the end result desired. Different profiles of tenurable positions, with varied emphases given to teaching, research, and serve as integral parts of faculty work, might suit the mission and work of different departments, programs, or institutions. Each department program, or institution should consider which profiles best fit its long-term needs (p. 179).
  5. Some faculty may be eligible for tenure as specialists, as clinical instructors, or in other positions that vary from conventional faculty ranks of assistant, associate, and full professor (p. 179).
  6. Faculty may determine that, during a period of transition, individuals currently holding teaching-only positions or other positions not presently recognized as tenurable may be “grandfathered” into tenured or tenurable positions (p. 180).
  7. Experienced, effective, and qualified faculty members currently holding contingent appointments should be encouraged to apply for the new tenure-track positions (p. 181)
  8. In the selection and appointment process, faculty and administrators should recognize the value of continuity in teaching and familiarity with the institution’s programs as desirable criteria (p. 181).
  9. Contingent faculty members should be given fair and careful consideration when new tenure-eligible positions are created, and their experience and accomplishments should be taken into account. Certainly, faculty charged with the selection of new colleagues should scrupulously avoid discrimination against applicants in contingent positions (p. 181).
  10. The proposed model fails to recognize the benefits of alternative conversion procedures that would transition current, appropriately qualified (based on unit criteria), and highly-performing NTT faculty to TT roles.
  11. One such benefit includes conservation of resources both in terms of expenditures for job searches and loss of course coverage. If departments are allowed to determine the job profiles of new TT positions (see point a above), departments (and their students) may not face the deleterious effects of needing to increase class sizes (or take other steps) in order to make up for lost teaching resources (see Increasing Tenure-Eligible Positions at Northern Arizona University DRAFT Principles and Guidelines for Conversion of NTT Lines to TT for Spring 2018, under “Guidelines” bullet one, p. 2).
  12. The proposed model fails to acknowledge the following:
  13. In some departments at NAU (e.g., English), advertised job descriptions for NTT and TT positions include identical qualifications and NTT/TT applicant pools are equivalent. In other departments, applicants in NTT pools are also applicants for TT positions at other institutions (e.g., Psychological Sciences), and/or NTT at NAU have been TT faculty at other institutions (e.g., Psychological Sciences). We maintain that units are best qualified to decide whether national searches result in the best candidate for a TT position. This allows for the flexibility needed to accommodate the wide range of criteria and circumstances involved in NTT searches and hires, which a one-size-fits-all policy cannot do.
  14. The distinction in job expectations between NTT and TT/tenured faculty is generally one additional taught course per semester. The proposed model does not explain how this difference is “crucial” rather than minor, given that most TT/tenured faculty still devote more than half of their Statement of Expectations to teaching.
  15. There is a problematic fine line between, on the one hand, the claim that “no individual will be terminated . . . from an NTT [position] solely to create an opportunity for a TT position” and, on the other hand, the practice of terminating an NTT [position] based on changes to “functions served by that individual” or “university needs” (when that need is for more TT).
  16. There is precedent at NAU for individuals in NTT lines to be appointed to TT lines despite the HR principles alluded to in the proposed model.

6.The proposed model was not developed through a process of shared governance. As a result, duly-constituted faculty bodies along with contingent faculty representatives (including the members of the Faculty Senate) were not given the time or opportunity to bring the proposed model to their constituents for feedback.