1/13/1910:18 AM
NTT Working Group Report
The Charge
"Develop a prioritized list of the most important issues concerning the future of NTT faculty at Rice, the rationale behind the ranking of items, and recommendations. Relevant issues may include NTT job titles, opportunities for promotion, range of responsibilities, employment security, and/or equitable compensation. Since these issues may require extensive work and research, and may therefore require a different kind of committee (e.g. with Human Resources representatives), the list is preliminary to formation of an expanded working group or committee."
Working Group members
Members include all four NTT (non-tenure track) Senate representatives and represent six of the seven academic schools. The Working Group has met a number of times together and with various constituents at Rice to better understand the diversity, contributions, and issues faced by the NTT community. Members are listed here by name, title, affiliation, and length of service as of the next employment anniversary.
Beth Beason-Abmayr, Lecturer, Natural Sciences, 15 yrs
Rachel Buchman, Lecturer, Shepherd School, 11 yrs
Dave Caprette (Chair), Professor in the Practice, Natural Sciences, 26 yrs
Scott Cutler, Professor in the Practice, Engineering, 12 yrs
Jeanne Fischer, Artist Teacher of Piano, Shepherd School, 21 yrs
Kim Kimmey, Lecturer, Jones School, 5 yrs
Jonathan Ludwig, Senior Lecturer, Humanities, 10 yrs
Beverly Mitchell, Lecturer, Social Sciences, 5 yrs
Ann Saterbak, Professor in the Practice, Engineering, 14 yrs
Stanislav Sazykin, Senior Faculty Fellow, Natural Sciences, representing NTT-research, 13 yrs
Executive Summary
NTT faculty are an integral part of the Rice University community. NTT faculty are a small but growing fraction of the overall faculty. NTT faculty are typically more heavily focused on either teaching or research, and thus can complement the strengths of the tenured and tenure-track faculty, who balance both teaching and research. In this report, we identify concerns raised by NTT faculty who are primarily engaged in teaching and make recommendations to address these concerns.
Each of following three recommendations should be addressed by an individual Working Group or sub-committee.
Recommendation 1 – Define career paths for NTT faculty and provide for improved employment security
We recommend that a working group or committee (WG) work with Administration to clearly define career paths for NTT faculty that are modeled after what the WG identifies as the best practices among other institutions. A career path should include replacingthe current timed appointment process(contracts) with more secure employment, such as continued employment with reasonable assurance of continuing, or with a different contractual arrangement such as rolling renewals.
Recommendation 2 – Review how policies are applied towards NTT faculty
We recommend that a second WG, one containing at least one and preferably two well-respected tenured faculty, review Rice Faculty policies as they relate to TT (tenured and tenure-track) and NTT faculty. The WG should make recommendations, where appropriate, to modify policies that needlessly exclude NTT faculty.
Recommendation 3 – Collect data on NTT faculty
We recommend that a WG identify a mechanism with which to maintain an accessible, continuously updated, NTT faculty database in order to collect essential data, to set up and maintain lines of communication among NTT faculty, and to facilitate comparison of how NTT faculty are utilized and compensated at Rice compared with such utilization and compensation at peer institutions.
Recommendations and Rationale
The NTT community is by far the fastest growing part of Rice’s faculty. In 2004, Rice had 477 TT faculty and 61 full time "instructors, lecturers, and others" (NTT faculty) who comprised 11% of full time faculty.[1] A 2011 report had Rice with 504 tenured and tenure-track faculty and 166 full time NTT faculty who then comprised 24% of full time faculty.[2] In November 2012, Human Resources reported a total of 302 NTT teaching faculty, both full- and part-time. When combined with NTT research faculty this number suggests that a high percentage (30%) of current faculty are NTT faculty.
NTT faculty are winning major and minor awards in a variety of student-centered activities including the Brown Teaching Award, Academic Advising Award, Outstanding Faculty Associates and many more. NTT faculty teach courses ranging from core curriculum and labs all the way through specialty courses, utilizing their unique background and experiences. NTT faculty are actively involved in most aspects of Rice activities, including academic advising, curriculum development, serving on University committees, etc.
This working group has three recommendations, each of which should be taken up by a separate WG. The third recommendation is to gather the data needed by the other two WGs.
Recommendation 1 – Define career paths for NTT faculty and provide for improved employment security
We recommend assigning a WG to identify options for the retention and promotion of NTT faculty. The WG’s charge will be to define the NTT career path and work with the Provost's Office and Human Resources to identify suitable options for contract administration, retention and promotion.
Whereas TT faculty have a clearly defined path for either being promoted or exited from Rice, the career path for long term NTT faculty is much less defined and is not implemented consistently across schools. Although some NTT faculty are hired to fill specific short term teaching needs, nearly 40% of NTT faculty have been at Rice for over 5 years and 27% for over 10 years (Appendix -Table 1). Current NTT contract administration procedures were established when there were far fewer NTT and most were hired for specific assignments. As of November 2012, nearly two-thirds of the 302 NTT faculty had less than a year remaining on their contracts. It appears that most contracts are not renewed until very close to the expiration date (Appendix - Table 2). This situation is detrimental to the morale of career NTT faculty. Furthermore, inconsistent policies toward part time and temporary faculty are hard on people financially.
Advantages of retaining career faculty include consistency in teaching and systematic improvement of courses taught by the same person. Career NTT faculty can and do develop working relationships with TT faculty that promote quality teaching, research, and scholarship. Career faculty who are familiar with courses, undergraduate programs, and the advising process can and do serve as effective major and divisional advisors. Some NTT faculty are industry experts who make significant and unique contributions to the Jones School, the Shepherd School and the School of Engineering. Career faculty are available to students requesting letters of recommendation.
We suggest that Rice would be better served with a clearly defined career path for NTT where short contracts are given to incoming NTT faculty coupled with periodic reviews. After a specified period of time, the faculty member will have either earned a promotion or be notified that the contract will not be renewed. Employees who have proven their value to Rice might be rewarded with continuous employment contracts (similar to staff positions at Rice) or set to automatically renew on a rolling basis. We suggest that following a probationary period, termination of a career NTT faculty member should require a positive action rather than simply allowing a contract to expire. We do not recommend a guarantee of lifetime employment as with TT faculty.
Recommendation 2 – Review how policies are applied towards NTT faculty
The root of many of Rice’s faculty policies were established in the days when NTT faculty were far fewer in number and when most had very limited responsibilities. A number of policies not related to academic tenure may needlessly differentiate NTT from TT faculty.For example, only recently have NTT faculty become eligible to receive the Brown Teaching Award.
The phrase “Contingent Faculty” is used in many places including AAUP as a synonym for NTT faculty, yet more often than not at Rice the phrase is inappropriate. Rice does employ a relatively small number of faculty who are hired for a specific need; however many serve key roles for much longer terms. Treating the diverse population of NTT faculty as a homogeneous and mostly contingent group has led to policies that are not always in Rice University's best interest.
We recommend that a second WG, one containing at least one and preferably two well-respected tenured faculty, review Rice Faculty policies as they relate to TT, NTT career path faculty, and NTT faculty who do not meet the definition of "career NTT faculty." Where appropriate, recommendations will be made to modify these policies to better address the current makeup of Rice’s faculty.
Recommendation 3 – Collect data on NTT faculty
It has been difficult to obtain up to date data on NTT faculty including contact information, department affiliations, etc. For example, it took a significant effort in the 2011/12 academic year just to determine the names of people eligible to vote for NTT-teaching representatives to the Faculty Senate. In order to make informed suggestions, the WGs that address recommendations one and two will need much more than just a list of names, titles, and email addresses. We recommend that a WG identify a mechanism with which to maintain an accessible, continuously updated, NTT faculty database in order to collect essential data, to set up and maintain lines of communication among NTT faculty, and to facilitate comparison between NTT at Rice and at peer institutions. Along with this, we need to gather aggregated data by school regarding compensation, utilization and promotion of NTT faculty.
Appendix – Data Tables
All data were provided by Human Resources. Data include 21 visiting faculty. Research faculty (approximately 20) were not provided in the database.
Table 1. Longevity of employment among NTT faculty in fall 2012.
Years of continuous employment1 / Nov 2012Number of faculty / % Benefits-eligible
< 1 / 70 / 54
1-2 / 33 / 64
2-3 / 28 / 43
3-5 / 56 / 52
5-10 / 33 / 64
> 10 / 82 / 71
1calculated from the difference between data release date and current hire date
Table 2. Length of time remaining on NTT contracts in November 2012.
Remaining contract length1 (yrs)1 / Nov 2012Number of faculty / % Benefits-eligible
< 1 / 192 / 40
> 1 / 32 / 88
Not reported / 78 / 96
1Remaining contract length refers to the difference between job end date and data release date. Not reported indicates that the job end date field was left blank. In many cases the department or school keeps track of contract length and does not report an end date to Human Resources.
1
[1] Faculty Facts and Distinctions 2004 (
[2] Rice Faculty: Appointments and Positions (