Brown has more permanent, tenure-track professors as a percentage of its faculty than do many other universities, while more schools across the country are hiring more part-time faculty members, reports the American Association of University Professors.
The AAUP report, released in December, tracked growth among U.S. universities in contingent faculty appointments - part-time positions limited to a single course for a single semester or non-tenure full-time fixed-term positions. The data were collected in the fall of 2005.
Only 18.3 percent of full-time Brown faculty are not tenured or on the tenure track, compared to 45.4 percent at Harvard and 33.5 percent at Yale. Part-time faculty constitute 14.3 percent of Brown faculty members, while Harvard's faculty is 20.5 percent part-time, and Yale's is 25.3 percent.
Though Brown fares better than Harvard and Yale in contingent faculty numbers, at the University of Pennsylvania only 2.4 percent of the faculty are not on a tenure-track. Part-time faculty make up 14.1 percent of Penn professors - unusually low among the 2,600 U.S. colleges and universities listed in the report.
John Curtis, director of research and public policy for the AAUP and author of the report, said he believes hiring more part-time professors endangers academic freedom.
"They are afraid of doing anything controversial, which means that they are not going to be exposing students to the full range of ideas surrounding issues," he said.
Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra P'07 said the vast majority of professors hired through the Plan for Academic Enrichment are tenure-track faculty expected to have a long-term impact on the University.
Such tenured appointments are subject to approval by the University's tenure, promotions and appointments committee, Vohra said. Non-tenure faculty such as visiting professors and lecturers are nominated by their departments and approved by the dean of the faculty.
Brown, like other universities, primarily hires part-time faculty as writing or foreign language instructors. Curtis said this tendency has generated a growing group of people teaching on term contracts that are continually renewed - but without tenure.
The AAUP report argued that since many non-tenure faculty members are hired at the discretion of a single administrator, they become beholden to that individual for continued employment.
"Often the only way they evaluate teachers are based upon student evaluations," Curtis said, adding that these are only partial indicators of a teacher's abilities. "Really the judgment as to whether or not someone should be hired in the first place is a professional judgment that needs to be made by peers."
Vohra said part-time faculty can apply for permanent positions at the University. But part-time faculty must compete with applicants across the country and, increasingly, on an international level.
"This puts part-time faculty in an unfortunate position; they often hold several teaching jobs to make ends meet. This leaves no time for scholarship," he said, noting they must compete with applicants straight out of graduate school. "People in regular tenure positions have time and resources to devote regular time to scholarship."
Carol DeBoer-Langworthy, a visiting lecturer in English who teaches expository writing classes, told The Herald that completing independent scholarship without tenure is difficult, though Brown has allowed her access to research facilities and exposure to a vibrant intellectual community.
"My research time comes out of my own time," she wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. "I am full-time; when starting out and part-time, there was more time, which allowed me to turn my dissertation into a published volume. Adjuncts work just as hard as 'real' professors."
Vohra said that despite the drawbacks of contingent faculty positions, tenured teaching positions are not the best fit for all departments. "There are a small number of areas where it is more reasonable to look for people with a professional background, such as accounting, visual art and expository writing. These people do not necessarily see an academic career as involving full-time research and teaching and lead other, professional lives," he said.
Part-time faculty can also be hired to fill "special needs" - existing gaps in departmental offerings, often due to faculty on leave, Vohra said. "This type of hiring is inevitable," he said.
The AAUP report criticized such hiring, citing a lack of time to prepare course materials due to short notice that often means these faculty cannot select the textbooks or syllabus used in the class.
The report also argued that large numbers of contingent faculty, who are less likely to remain at one institution, leave many students without faculty relationships that could yield recommendations for scholarship funding or study abroad applications.
Brown has increased its number of lecturers by roughly six or seven people over the past five years, Vohra said. "It is a small number and not indicative of a change in policy. A change in our policy has not happened and is not going to happen."
Curtis said part-time positions now have a stigma attached to them. "If you are already there in a particular department in a part-time capacity in a non-tenure track position, it is almost a situation of familiarity breeds contempt - somehow you are not taken as seriously," he said.
"What we are arguing is not that the contingent faculty members themselves are somehow less able, that they are not good teachers or that they are not good scholars," he said. "It is the position that they are put into, the structure of their employment itself, that makes it difficult for them to do their job."
Curtis said the AAUP report, which he co-authored, is not intended as a specific policy recommendation for universities. Instead, he said he hopes the report and its accompanying data show the trend toward more contingent faculty and will attract attention.
"We want to stimulate discussion about what the trends have been and whether there is a need for change," he said.
