The traditional academic track may be in jeopardy.
A new study from Inside Higher Ed shows that colleges are relying more on temporary teachers and less on professors with the lifetime job security of tenure.
Tenure gives permanent status to professors who distinguish themselves through their university contributions by teaching or researching, according to UF’s Office of the Provost website.
Out of the top 1,081 college and university leaders responsible for hiring and evaluating faculty, 65 percent said they rely significantly on faculty that are not on track to receive tenure, according to the 2013 Inside Higher Ed Survey of College and University Chief Academic Officers.
Although UF has lost the absolute number of tenured faculty over time, it has maintained the ratio of tenured to nontenured faculty pretty well, said Associate Provost for Academic Affairs Angel Kwolek-Folland.
In 2011, the university employed 1,719 tenured regular faculty.
Over the past decade, the percentage of regular faculty on tenure out of the total university faculty has remained above 80 percent, according to UF’s Office of Institutional Planning and Research website.
Lawrence W. Kenny, a professor in the Warrington College of Business Administration, said he’s been a UF tenured professor since 1980.
Kenny said hiring more temporary faculty gives a university latitude to hire and fire if a degree or field becomes less marketable.
“The university’s really hurting now,” he said. “Half a dozen years with no raises and people are leaving.”
Kwolek-Folland said it’s primarily a financial issue. Tenured faculty might earn up to $25 million during their time at the university, she said.
Kwolek-Folland said planning out funding 20 years in advance is a large financial commitment for any university. Paying a faculty member to teach without making the financial commitment to tenure provides more flexibility, she said.
Kenny said the economic pressures facing state legislatures has taken much of the funding away from research, which can be cut without many people noticing.
“Some may not make it back to the quality that they had before,” Kenny said.
At UF, every department has had to make cuts in the past three to four years, Kwolek-Folland said. However, she said the emphasis on research at UF has allowed the university to retain a large population of tenured faculty.
