NTTF: UO Document on Policies, Procedures, and Practices - Introduction
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The University of Oregon (UO) sustains a faculty congruent with its standing as a major public research university and as a member of the AAU. The UO expects a commitment to excellence in teaching, research, and service from all of its faculty members and it must embrace the duty of creating faculty appointments that readily permit pursuit of academic excellence. As is the case nationally, the UO makes faculty appointments in two groups—tenure-related faculty and non-tenure track faculty. The purpose of this document is to provide a comprehensive description of
the policies, procedures, and practices that define and affect the appointment and employment of non-tenure track faculty (NTTF) at the University of Oregon.
All non-tenure track faculty, whether involved in instruction or research, are considered to be members of the University of Oregon faculty and will be afforded professional and social standing in the University community commensurate with faculty status and the duties and responsibilities of their appointments. The specific policies, procedures, and practices articulated below are effective July 1, 2007 with the intention of creating transparency and increased consistency in NTTF appointments by the end of the 2007-08 academic year.
The role of non-tenure track faculty (NTTF) in a research university like the UO is a topic of intense discussion across the U.S. The issues are complex, and often perplexing, as universities work through the intersection of missions, costs, status and standing, egalitarian instincts versus academic hierarchy, and many other matters, all of which affect higher education in general and the UO specifically. There are many places in which these issues are discussed. One resource of particular importance is a policy paper produced by the American Association of
University Professors (AAUP): Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession [http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/policydocs/contents/conting-stmt.htm ].1
BACKGROUND. Systematic institutional review of NTTF appointments and employment practices began in AY 2001-02 with the formation of an ad hoc Senate committee charged to look broadly at UO practices and policies for NTTIF.2, 3 In 2002, the ad hoc committee was changed to a permanent standing committee, and this committee conducted a number of open faculty forums and town hall meetings, completed a survey of NTTF, and generated a set of recommendations it passed forward to the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs in 2004-05.4 In January 2005, the Office of Academic Affairs appointed an implementation group of NTTF, deans, senior tenured faculty, and administrative support professionals to examine the Senate recommendations and produce a set of concrete implementation recommendations for academic and administrative review and final action. These implementation recommendations have been discussed and reviewed through multiple iterations by the academic deans, the senior leadership of the University, the standing Senate Committee, and the administrative offices that manage the details of UO appointment processes. This document represents the formalized outcome of this extensive and collaborative process.
ISSUES. There is a set of academic and employment issues that have been at the core of the efforts to examine and improve the professional standing and conditions of employment for NTTF. These have included:
1. Transparency: making the policies, procedures, and practices that define NTTF appointments and conditions of employment more readily transparent to both NTTF and to department heads and others charged with making or supporting those appointments.
2. Consistency: ensuring that NTTF appointments are managed in consistent ways across the schools and colleges of the UO, while recognizing the appropriateness of specific differences in those academic units.
3. Evaluation, promotion, and re-appointment of NTTF: creating a transparent and consistent set of practices in evaluating NTTF along with improved practices in the promotion and re-appointment of NTTF colleagues.
4. Rank and title: bringing consistency and coherence to the assignment of rank and titles to NTTF appointments.
5. Standing: bringing clarity to the standing of faculty holding NTTF appointments in matters of University governance as well as school or college level governance and department or program level governance.
6. Access to resources and opportunities: bringing clarity and transparency to NTTF access to UO faculty resources and opportunities.
7. Salary and compensation: the explicit inclusion of NTTF in salary improvement efforts for the UO.
8. Coordination of school/college efforts with the Office of Academic Affairs:
it is essential that efforts to improve NTTF appointments and conditions of employment in the schools and colleges be coordinated with central efforts to create transparency and consistency across the UO.9. Keeping resource issues in plain sight: it is essential to proceed recognizing the resource issues that shape addressing NTTF matters.
10. Transitions: it is essential that colleagues who currently hold NTTF appointments are held harmless by the changes presented in this document.
STATEMENT ON THE VALUE OF NTTF AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
The University of Oregon employs a significant number of faculty in non-tenure related appointments, primarily, but not exclusively, devoted to instruction. The University affirms the importance to its mission of these appointments and so embraces the following working principles to guide its employment and support of NTTF:
• The University includes and respects NTTF as integral contributors to the instructional and research missions of the institution.
• All NTTF, whether involved in instruction or research are considered to be members of the University of Oregon faculty and should be afforded professional and social standing in the University community commensurate with faculty status and the duties and responsibilities of their employment.
• The University at all levels of leadership is committed to providing positive working conditions for NTTF.
• The University will provide clear written policies and procedures on hiring, terms of employment, evaluation, and professional development of NTTF.
• UO supports the development of best practice recommendations through collaborative efforts between Academic Affairs, schools and colleges, departments, and our NTTF colleagues.
ENDNOTES
- The AAUP policy paper raises one class of issue that is not addressed in this document. The AAUP paper includes recommendations on the proportion of faculty appointments that reasonably can be made as non-tenure track appointments: at most 15% of the total number of faculty appointments for the institution and no more than 25% NTTF for any given academic unit. Current UO practice exceeds this recommendation, and it will be important for the UO to examine this issue and those related to it in the near future. The Academic Affairs committee did offer its advice that bringing UO appointment practices into its own appropriate alignment with the AAUP recommendations represents a worthy goal for a public research university. This plan includes some ideas intended to support this direction.
- The final report of this first Senate committee is found at:
http://www.uoregon.edu/~uosenate/dirsen012/Instr.html. - In its inception the Senate focus was on non-tenure track instructional faculty, hence NTTIF. UO efforts in this area have since expanded to include non-tenure track faculty holding appointments as officers of research, thus the change in acronym to NTTF.
- The recommendations put forward by the Senate committee are found at:
http://www.uoregon.edu/~uosenate/dircom/NTTIF-report15May04.html.
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