{"id":1848,"date":"2021-10-07T10:05:54","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T16:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.msudenver.edu\/sips\/?p=1848"},"modified":"2021-12-01T20:41:49","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T02:41:49","slug":"sip_14-7_what_your_contingent_faculty_colleagues_wish_you_knew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.msudenver.edu\/sips\/sip_14-7_what_your_contingent_faculty_colleagues_wish_you_knew\/","title":{"rendered":"SIP 14.7 What Your Contingent Faculty Colleagues Wish You Knew"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Thirsty for a Strong Instructional Practice?<\/h3>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/temp.msudenver.edu\/media\/marketingandcommunications\/earlybird\/21-september\/Classroom_0002AM_171012_cc500.jpg\" alt=\"Students listening to a lecture in a classroom.\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Over 50 years ago, MSU Denver (then\u00a0Metropolitan State College of Denver) was founded by courageous temporary teachers who worked their professional jobs and then came to campus to share their experience and knowhow with students.<\/p>\n<p>Today,\u00a0a significant percentage\u00a0of MSU Denver faculty members are\u00a0classified as affiliate or\u00a0contingent\u00a0and hold part-time, lecturer or Category II contracts. These instructors\u00a0join ranks\u00a0with their tenured or tenure-track colleagues\u00a0in departments across campus to\u00a0continue to\u00a0provide students with the excellent\u00a0teaching that has become our\u00a0institutional\u00a0hallmark. At MSU Denver, our affiliate faculty members frequently choose to teach with us for years \u2013 sometimes decades \u2013 and\u00a0many\u00a0spend most\u00a0of their professional lives teaching at night, at 8\u00a0a.m., on Saturdays, between full semesters and online\u00a0to complement the schedules of tenured and tenure-track faculty members.\u00a0Our students\u00a0are indelibly impacted by the talent and dedication of the contingent faculty members they encounter throughout their college careers at MSU Denver.<\/p>\n<h3>Take a SIP of this: what your contingent faculty colleagues wish you knew<\/h3>\n<p>A good deal of the contingent faculty experience is misunderstood by many other\u00a0faculty members, staff members and students across campus, however. Contingent faculty often report feeling different, \u201cless than\u201d and\u00a0\u201cothered\u201d\u00a0as compared with tenured or tenure-track faculty members who have permanent contracts and a clear path toward promotion. Here are a few misunderstandings that impact\u00a0contingent faculty:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The academic job market is so fraught right now that even institutions with highly successful doctoral programs employ affiliates and lecturers who are credentialed,\u00a0have\u00a0master\u2019s\u00a0and terminal\u00a0degrees and\u00a0have been\u00a0vetted and hired through rigorous processes. In other words, contingent faculty members often have the same credentials and level of experience as tenure-track faculty. Yet\u00a0contingent faculty\u00a0members report being referred to as\u00a0\u201cjunior faculty,\u201d \u201cfaculty-in-training\u201d or \u201cnot good enough\u201d to get a tenured position.<\/li>\n<li>Accepting a temporary teaching contract may result from a variety of complex personal and professional reasons. You don\u2019t know what you don\u2019t know about your colleagues\u2019 reasons for accepting contingent employment.<\/li>\n<li>University budgets tend to be nebulous and\/or misunderstood. When a tenure-track line is cut from a departmental budget and replaced with\u00a0funding to hire contingent faculty members, the overarching reasons for this can be misconstrued. Contingent\u00a0faculty members can\u00a0end up taking the blame.\u00a0Sometimes,\u00a0contingent faculty members are\u00a0compared with workers crossing\u00a0picket lines, choosing to\u00a0support\u00a0the administration\u00a0by\u00a0teaching\u00a0more courses for less money and benefits\u00a0instead of\u00a0standing with\u00a0their tenured colleagues. The\u00a0truth is\u00a0that\u00a0everyone suffers when these misaligned metaphors are applied to financial decisions often made under the constraint\u00a0of state budget decisions\u00a0happening above the\u00a0University level.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>So\u00a0what can be done?<\/strong><\/p>\n<h4><em>If you have five minutes:<\/em><\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Introduce yourself and learn an affiliate\u2019s name. While this may seem like a common-sense way to interact with your colleagues, your kindness and inviting demeanor may help to create a more welcoming environment than is typical for contingent faculty members.<\/li>\n<li>Do a quick survey of the spaces in your department and ask yourself if they are welcoming to contingent faculty members. Do contingent faculty members have mailboxes in your main office? If so, are they integrated with those of tenured\/tenure-track faculty members\u00a0or are they separated? Is language used for communications and notices inclusive of all or is\u00a0it directed exclusively toward tenured\/tenure-track faculty members? Do contingent faculty members who don\u2019t have an assigned office have a place in your department to safely store their belongings while they teach? Do contingent faculty members have a space to rest or gather between their classes? If you notice some areas for improvement, contact your department administrative assistant or your chair.<\/li>\n<li>Think through the terms used in your\u00a0department,\u00a0college or school for people in different academic roles. Why do we use the terms \u201ctenured,\u201d \u201ctenure-track,\u201d \u201cCategory 2\u201d and \u201caffiliate\u201d? Are there people-centered\u00a0terms such as \u201cteaching faculty\u201d that could be used to refer to all, while saving other vocabulary to describe contract scope and\u00a0length?<\/li>\n<li>Educate yourself on the national, regional, local\u00a0and institutional\u00a0pay for contingent faculty members. You may be surprised to learn about your colleagues\u2019 contract conditions \u2013 they may not have health benefits attached to their contracts, for instance, or they may not be\u00a0eligible to receive\u00a0situation-specific\u00a0compensation\u00a0or bonus money like their tenured or tenure-track colleagues.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4><em>If you\u00a0have\u00a030 minutes:<\/em><\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Get to know contingent\u00a0colleagues in your department and throughout campus.\u00a0Invite them for coffee.<\/li>\n<li>Ask\u00a0your contingent colleagues\u00a0if they would like support and, if so, how you could best\u00a0offer that.<\/li>\n<li>Ask your chair how the budgeting process for contingent faculty members works in your\u00a0department. You may be surprised to learn that the class of 30 taught by a contingent colleague is economically floating your smaller class of 15, for example.<\/li>\n<li>Ask your\u00a0contingent\u00a0faculty\u00a0members whether and how\u00a0they would like to contribute to department, college or University committees and events. Some contingent faculty members like to engage in\u00a0our\u00a0community in a variety of ways; others decline because of personal or financial considerations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4><em>If you have an hour:<\/em><\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Teach\u00a0a\u00a0contingent faculty\u00a0member\u2019s\u00a0class. Did you know that some departments at MSU Denver have the unofficial\u00a0cultural\u00a0norm\u00a0that\u00a0non-tenure-track faculty\u00a0members are expected to pay one another for covering\u00a0classes? Tenured\u00a0and tenure-track\u00a0faculty members cover\u00a0one another\u2019s\u00a0classes\u00a0routinely, and while some colleagues may exchange classes or reciprocate with small gift cards and gestures, there is not an expectation of\u00a0compensation.\u00a0Make\u00a0this practice a cultural norm for\u00a0<em>all <\/em>faculty members in your department.<\/li>\n<li>Support equitable paid professional development for affiliates and lecturers. Hold your department and college accountable for offering paid opportunities to attend conferences, workshops, trainings, meetings and colloquiums. Paid professional development for contingent faculty members demonstrates our mutual investment in teaching and recognizes our colleagues&#8217; scholarship.<\/li>\n<li>Advocate for longer contracts. Prior to the pandemic, MSU Denver offered contingent faculty members semester-to-semester contracts, yearly contracts and three-year contracts. Beginning in 2020,\u00a0most\u00a0multiyear contracts were\u00a0amended to be renewable on a year-to-year basis only.\u00a0The insecurity and instability of constantly having to reapply for one\u2019s job can take a professional and emotional toll on these\u00a0valuable members of\u00a0our\u00a0teaching community.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Still thirsty?<\/h4>\n<p>Check out the <a href=\"https:\/\/pullias.usc.edu\/delphi\/award\/\">Delphi Award winners<\/a>. This award, offered through the Pullias Center at the University of Southern California, recognizes institutions that have made important changes to how they support their non-tenure-track faculty members. They have case studies from winning institutions posted on the award website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thirsty for a Strong Instructional Practice? Over 50 years ago, MSU Denver (then\u00a0Metropolitan State College of Denver) was founded by courageous temporary teachers who worked their professional jobs and then came to campus to share their experience and knowhow with students. Today,\u00a0a significant percentage\u00a0of MSU Denver faculty members are\u00a0classified as affiliate or\u00a0contingent\u00a0and hold part-time, lecturer &hellip; <\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link btn\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.msudenver.edu\/sips\/sip_14-7_what_your_contingent_faculty_colleagues_wish_you_knew\/\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[651,648,647,655,650,654,649,653,652],"class_list":["post-1848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sip-post","tag-academic-job-market","tag-adjunct-faculty","tag-contingent-faculty","tag-delphi-award","tag-full-time-faculty","tag-non-tenured-faculty","tag-temporary-teachers","tag-tenure","tag-unofficial-cultural-norm","item-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.msudenver.edu\/sips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.msudenver.edu\/sips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.msudenver.edu\/sips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.msudenver.edu\/sips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.msudenver.edu\/sips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.msudenver.edu\/sips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.msudenver.edu\/sips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.msudenver.edu\/sips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.msudenver.edu\/sips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}