By BENJAMIN FELDERSTEIN
Natalie Grant has been second guessed her entire life. Her peers have doubted her. Her potential has been questioned.
Since Grant became an academic adviser at Wichita State in 2001, she knew she wanted to pursue something greater in academics.
In 2007, Grant was hired as an instructor in Wichita State’s School of Social Work, where she began her long journey to fulfill her teaching dreams. While Grant was an instructor, she taught several classes in the Social Work curriculum, as well as studied to earn her doctorate. Now after being hired as an assistant professor in 2011, Grant is well on her way to earning tenure at WSU.
“I have fought hard to prove myself and to achieve,” Grant said. “While it is not something I go into great detail about with students, it does allow me to empathize and understand the processes of growth and achievement.”
Nationally, adjunct teachers are on the rise. David Wright, associate Vice President for Academic data systems at WSU reports that since 2009, adjuncts and non tenure-track staff members have increased by more than 9 percent. Comparatively, tenure and tenure eligible numbers have decreased.
Having been a part of both the tenure and non-tenure side of teaching, Grant acknowledges advantages to both. Each bring different perspectives to the classroom.
“I was kind of groomed onto the tenure track” Grant said. “The University was like, ‘Let’s do this, let’s get your Ph.D.’”
Grant was encouraged by her department chair Linnea Glenmaye to pursue her doctorate. When Glenmaye moved on to work in the Provost’s office, the current chair, Brien Bolin continued pushing Grant toward the tenure track and ultimately worked within the system to solidify Grant’s tenure-track position.
“I have always known that in order to be a professor, I needed a doctorate,” Grant said. “Having been with the University for seven years prior to entering the doctoral program, I had multiple conversations with professors and leaders within the institution. I went through an extensive decision making process as to how I wanted to complete it.”
Grant is the mother of three children, as well as the caretaker of her grandmother. She needed a Ph.D. program that fit into her life.
After a long deliberation period, Grant enrolled in WSU’s Educational Leadership program. This program was the most practical for Grant to continue caring for her family and still pursue her career goals. WSU’s website explains the program as beginning to work in the real world.
Members in the program work with a mentor in order to identify strengths and weaknesses within your desired program. The program is two years long, and is designed to put you in a group that becomes your “learning family” for the duration of the program.
“It gave me all the opportunities I wanted for my education, deepened my knowledge of WSU, and really gave me a much stronger focus on my goals within my career at WSU,” Grant said.
Professor Requirements
In order for an assistant professor to earn tenure at Wichita State, he or she must meet several criteria. It includes a probationary period of seven years, which takes more than just meeting that seven-year mark. Decisions regarding tenure are made on the academic credentials on the candidate hoping to receive tenure.
When a professor or administrator searches to find a job at a university, Glinmaye, who is now WSU’s associate Vice President for academic affairs, said he or she applies for the position with the knowledge of it being a tenure or non-tenure position.
“A new staff member’s offer letter includes whether or not the position is tenure eligible,” Glinmaye said. “It would also include a date for mandatory tenure promotion review.”
During an assistant professor’s sixth year at WSU, he or she has a tenure review period to determine if he or she is upholding the standards of the university and ready to receive promotion and tenure.
Grant said the beginning of the tenure review process provides a confirmation of her life’s goals. It is crucial for her to maintain her position at WSU and remain a leader on campus.
“If I do not receive tenure, I lose my position, my job, everything I have fought to achieve for the last 15 years,” Grant said. “My family would be displaced and a questioning of my path in life would occur.”
Tenure decisions can be made by a variety of entities; specific departments tend to have requirements for tenure-track hires on their own. For example, WSU’s school of social work has an entirely separate set of guidelines for receiving tenure than, say, the business school.
Tenure is not only granted based on a professor’s prior accomplishments. It is given with the idea in mind that the future of the professor’s career will be as bright as his or her past. The hope is that a tenured professor will continue contributing research to the University as well as providing opportunities for scholarship.
“(Tenure) is a badge of honor, it’s a respect thing, it legitimizes you in the institution you are with,” Grant said.
Tenure vs. Adjunct
Both adjunct and part-time professors provide clear advantages to their classrooms. A professor that is either tenured or on the tenure-track has the ability to focus his or her time on either teaching or doing research to further legitimize their university. Meanwhile, adjunct professors have the ability to bring knowledge from outside jobs to increase their students’ knowledge inside the classroom.
At WSU there were 420 adjuncts and non-tenure track teachers at the school in 2010, while that number grew to 442 in 2015 (5.2 percent increase). Meanwhile, tenured professors have fallen off, as there were 407 in 2010 and 392 in 2015 (3.7 percent decrease).
This trend of growing adjunct numbers is consistent at the University of Kansas as well, as tenured professors have dropped from 904 to 879 (2.8 percent decrease) at KU in the past year, and part-time instructor numbers have risen from 509 to 530 (4.1 increase).
According to the Atlantic, the number of full-time-tenured faculty has decreased nationally by nearly 10 percent since 1975 and sits around 18 percent now. Meanwhile, part-time faculty figures are on the rise, growing more than 15 percent in that same time.
Kansas State has 1,088 members of its faculty, with 546 of those members already having tenure, and another 243 are on the tenure track. K-State’s 73 percent is the highest amongst the three major universities in the state of Kansas.
Glenmaye said while adjuncts can be economically beneficial to a university, it is not the driving motive behind the increasing hires.
“I think our hiring practices have been stable over a fairly long period of time,” Glenmaye said. “Departments are hiring adjuncts when either tenured professors cannot teach a class or there is a very specific need to be met.”
Glenmaye continued to say there are times when community professionals are more qualified to teach a course than a tenured faculty member. She also said it is possible that as the number of online classes increase, adjuncts might be hired more to instruct those classes.
On the tenure-track, Grant is doing research to supplement her academic curriculum. Grant has published six articles in the past five years, adding legitimacy to her department and the university.
“We are also scholars that study deeply into our subjects,” Grant said. “We have a much better understanding of the impact and intention of the material because of the research.
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Chairperson at the University of Kansas, Victor Frost, echoes the sentiment that tenured professors are invaluable to their university, as all of their time and energy is put into either their class or the betterment of the institution.
“Being a research-one university, tenured faculty are doing more than just teaching,” Frost said. “They’re involved in research and creating knowledge, which is very often brought into the classroom.”
While KU’s EECS program only has tenured faculty on its staff, Frost acknowledges the value of having part-time professors with constructive jobs as well.
“Anything that brings practical examples into the classroom is a benefit to the students,” Frost said.
Frost said the EECS department has always used tenured faculty. He went on to say that guest lecturers are occasionally brought into classrooms to provide real world cases to the students.
Matt All is an adjunct professor at the KU Law School. He is also the senior vice president of the general counsel at Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Kansas. All teaches insurance law at KU and has taught other classes such as Indian Gaming Law.
KU’s law school had not been teaching insurance law, and Edwin Hecker, the law dean at the time, got in touch with All to begin teaching the class in 2002.
All said that his teaching position has helped with his day jobs as well, crediting the classroom with making him a better lawyer and insurance regulator. He said there is a strong link between what happens in his classroom and what he deals with on a daily basis in the real world.
Especially when it comes to law school, All said that students find there is often a lot more ambiguity and gray-areas outside of the classroom than in the cases they read in textbooks. All has the ability to bring real-life examples of that ambiguity into a teaching environment to give his students a preview of what to expect.
“What I find is that their eyes light up when I talk to them about what being a lawyer is like, and what different types of career paths they can choose,” All said. “I can describe how a legal issue actually manifest itself into a real-life situation.”
While All brings outside instances into the classroom, he admits that it is not the most important part of being an instructor. He said he advises new instructors that “war stories” cannot supplement a real syllabus. Stories and scenarios from day jobs should only be used as supporting material. All said understanding the material you are going to teach is crucial to your success and the success of your students.
“As an adjunct, you have to teach them the basic material and respect that and use your experience and material as a compliment to that,” All said.
The number of adjuncts found at major universities is trending upward around the country. Adjuncts and tenure professors both bring a unique perspective to their classroom that benefits the students in different ways. Glenmaye said that adjuncts and tenure professors are important to making a University run.
“Adjuncts are not being hired in lieu of (tenure professors),” Glenmaye said. “I don’t think there is any sense here at Wichita State that adjuncts are seen as a replacement, they are a compliment.”
Benjamin Felderstein is a University of Kansas senior from Rockville Centre, New York, majoring in journalism.