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First Amendment Studies
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Contingent Faculty and Academic
Freedom in the Twenty-First Century
Stephen A. Smith
Published online: 11 Mar 2015.
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To cite this article: Stephen A. Smith (2015) Contingent Faculty and Academic Freedom in the
Twenty-First Century, First Amendment Studies, 49:1, 27-30, DOI: 10.1080/21689725.2015.1016362
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First Amendment Studies, 2015
Vol. 49, No. 1, 27–30, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21689725.2015.1016362
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Contingent Faculty and Academic
Freedom in the Twenty-First Century
Stephen A. Smith
As we celebrate the centennial of the AAUP’s 1915 Declaration on Academic
Freedom and Tenure, those core principles are still essential, but the changing
administrative regime of higher education institutions has put them at risk. The
dramatic increase in the number and percentage of contingent faculty positions—
those on annual or term contracts rather than tenured or tenure-track appointment—undermines academic freedom in teaching, research, and public service.
Where academic freedom was once fought and secured against specific charges or
external pressures from particular ideological forces, the threat is now more
insidious and structural from within the academy as well as outside interests.
It is beyond the scope of this article to detail the forces and circumstances that
have led to cuts in public funding for public universities and the growing reliance
on private funds with motives and priorities that have often compromised the
mission, priorities, and core academic values of the scholarly enterprise of both
public and private institutions. The increasingly ubiquitous market-driven
education policy and its consequences have been argued quite well by others.1
The point I wish to address is the seismic shift to contingent faculty and the
stagnant or reduced number of tenure and tenure-track faculty. The argument is
always economic exigence rather than any claim that it improves the quality of
education. Administrators resist approving tenure track lines to save money by
hiring contingent faculty with lower salaries and reduced benefits. At the same
time, this alleged policy of scrimping has done nothing to slow the growth of the
number of administrators and their salaries, an obvious point without mentioning
the salaries and contracts of athletic coaches. Only faculty salaries and positions
seem to be fodder in the losing battle to hold down the cost of tuition and fees
for our students.
Contingent appointments have comprised a majority of all faculty positions for
more than a decade. While adjuncts, lecturers, instructors, post-docs, and visiting
faculty members are valuable, even essential, they are not particularly valued by
Stephen Smith (Ph.D., Northwestern) is Professor of Communication at the University of Arkansas. He is a
past President of ACFSME Local 965 and of the Northwest Arkansas Central Labor Council (AFL-CIO).
Correspondence to: Stephen Smith, Department of Communication, University of Arkansas, 417 Kimpel
Hall, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
Ó 2015 National Communication Association
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28
S.A. Smith
their institutions, and of this they are well aware.2 They are often hired without a
serious search; their lower salaries, inadequate office space, and lack of job security
reflect the lack of commitment from the university; and their exclusion from the
governance process further undermines their status.
There is no academic freedom without job security. For contingent faculty, this
is primarily an issue about freedom to teach in their classes, where they are at risk
for non-reappointment on the basis of a single complaint from a student or anyone else. In “at will” employment states, they can be fired on a whim without
cause. After being terminated, one adjunct was denied the right to file a formal
grievance, since she was no longer an employee.3 Such a precarious position is
hardly one that will foster or even allow intellectual creativity in the classroom.
Beyond academic freedom in the classroom, the consequences for the institution
are enormous.4 The high turnover of contingent faculty deprives academic departments of their participation in mentoring new colleagues, peer review of scholarship, and experience on committees for faculty governance. Assignment to
onerous teaching loads makes it difficult for contingent faculty to pursue a longterm research program, contribute to the production of knowledge, and build the
professional publication record necessary for promotion or consideration for a
tenure-track opening.
The exclusion of contingent faculty from the governing process also has serious
consequences for academic freedom. In 1994, the American Association of University Professors explicated the integral role of faculty governance for academic freedom,5 and the American Federation of Teachers argued in 2007 that the “greatest
threat to academic freedom today is the subtle removal of many faculty positions
from the tenure track and from engagement with institutional power through
shared governance structures like faculty senates.”6 Judith Areen skillfully develops
the First Amendment perspective and suggests that academic freedom “is not only
about faculty research and teaching; it is also about the freedom of faculties to
govern their institutions in a way that accords with academic values whether they
are approving the curriculum, hiring faculty, or establishing graduation
requirements.”7
Whether by design or default, there now exists a clear class division among the
faculty, and the resulting conflict is of benefit to neither the contingent nor the
tenured faculty. The consequences are real and are realized.8 Dividing the faculty
into two ideological classes “with divergent attitudes about teaching and research
is a recipe for faculty powerlessness overall.”9
Unless we are prepared to accept that exploited labor and the diminution of
academic freedom is now the fundamental nature of higher education, we must
strengthen job security for dedicated contingent academics and thereby bolster
academic freedom for all faculty. The first approach should be to negotiate renewable contracts that echo the parameters for academic freedom afforded tenured
faculty. That can be done only by individual begging for favors or through collective bargaining for a contract, and I believe the latter to be more effective.
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Contingent Faculty and Academic Freedom
29
The impetus for improved contracts must begin on each campus. Unless the
contingent faculty are motivated, dedicated, and articulate in their demands for a
fair contract, success is unlikely. Organizing contingent faculty is not easy. Some
have no interest in securing permanent or full-time employment and are satisfied
with their current annual contract; some have health or retirement benefits from a
second job; many will be fearful about the possibility of being fired for union
activity or blacklisted for other jobs. You can count on organized and wellfinanced opposition from the administration. For those reasons and others, it is
imperative that the tenured faculty be concerned and involved in supporting the
organizing efforts of the contingent faculty.10
The freedom to organize and bargain collectively is a First Amendment right
that must be both exercised and defended. A number of academic associations
and unions are invested in helping provide the tools to develop an organizing
campaign, providing model contract language, and suggesting bargaining
strategies. These include the AAUP One Faculty campaign; Service Employees
International Union (SEIU); United Auto Workers (UAW); American Federation
of Teachers (AFT), Newspaper Guild/Communications Workers (CWA); National
Education Association (NEA); United Steelworkers (USW); American Federation
of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and others have all had
some success in organizing and representing faculty, both adjunct and tenured. An
affiliation with one of these groups will be very helpful and perhaps necessary.
With current adjunct organizing campaigns in 24 states and the District of
Columbia,11 get involved, get experience, get organized, and get a fair contract
that protects academic freedom.
Notes
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
Stanley Aronowitz, The Knowledge Factory: Dismantling the Corporate University and Creating True Higher Learning (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2000); Derek Curtis Bok, Universities
in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher Education (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2003); Christopher Newfield, Unmaking the Public University: The FortyYear Assault on The Middle Class (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011); Henry
A. Giroux, Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2014).
Jennifer McGaha, “Bah, Humbug: 14 Facts Everyone Should Know About College
Adjuncts,” Huffington Post, December 16, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifermcgaha/bah-humbug-14-facts-every_b_6328028.html
Robin Wilson, “Adjuncts Fight Back Over Academic Freedom,” The Chronicle of Higher
Education 55.6 (2008): A1.
American Association of University Professors, “Contingent Appointments and the
Academic Profession,” AAUP Policy Document and Reports, 11th ed. (Baltimore, MD:
John Hopkins University Press, 2014).
American Association of University Professors, “On the Relationship of Faculty
Governance to Academic Freedom,” AAUP Policy Document and Reports, 11th ed.
(Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2014).
Scott Jaschick, “No University Is an Island: Interview with Cary Nelson,” Inside Higher
Education, December 17, 2009. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/12/17/nelson
30
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[7]
S.A. Smith
Judith C. Areen, “Government as Educator: A New Understanding of First Amendment
Protection of Academic Freedom and Governance,” Georgetown Law Journal 97 (2009):
945–1000, 947.
[8] John Warner, “Just Visiting: ASU and Non-tenured Human Shields,” Inside Higher
Education, December 16, 2014. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/asuand-non-tenured-human-shields
[9] Scott Jaschick, “Redefining Academic Freedom,” Inside Higher Education, April 2, 2007.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/02/adjuncts
[10] Cary Nelson, No University is an Island: Saving Academic Freedom (New York, NY: New
York University Press, 2010).
[11] Joe Berry and Helena Worthen, “Wave of Contingent-Faculty Organizing Sweeps onto
Campuses.” LaborNotes, October 8, 2014. http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2014/10/wavecontingent-faculty-organizing-sweeps-campuses