Academic blogs are filled with anti-visiting-professor-position vitriol — many with valid concerns about these precarious positions. Nate Silber, for example, discussing his field, German, in which many positions have become visiting ones, writes: “You can choose between having no spouse, living apart from your spouse, or imposing a 100 percent portable career on your spouse. You can choose between having no children, or having children who will never spend longer than three years in any one place — children that you may not see much in any case while you’re teaching 4-4 or more, and publishing madly to keep your CV fresh, and applying for every job that will keep your career going for one more year. You will receive less moving support than tenure-track faculty or none at all, even as you move across the country every other summer.”
That unpleasantness is surely not what hiring departments intend to inflict on their visiting faculty members. But if departments and colleges are not mindful of the underlying pitfalls, those temporary positions can become just one more cycle on the academic hamster wheel before the exhausted hamster simply gives up. (With apologies for comparing highly credentialed academics to rodents.)
In a bleak job market, they can feel exploitative, but there are ways to make them satisfying and productive.
While a never-ending cycle of VAP positions is clearly dreadful, under the right circumstances the positions can be interludes that are mutually beneficial. Here are suggestions for ways that departments and colleges can make the visiting-assistant-professor period as painless as possible, from someone who has held visiting positions at a liberal-arts college and at a research university, then mentored visiting faculty members after transitioning to a tenure-track position.
Treat visitors like equals. To some extent, being a visiting assistant professor is an exercise in humility. “We like you and value your contributions, but only enough to keep you here for a year” is the message many implicitly find within the VAP title. Recognize the insecurity of people whose lives are inherently unstable and bolster their feelings of belonging wherever possible.
Be honest about long-term employment prospects at your institution. Some VAPs tell horror stories about being led to believe that a long-term position would eventually materialize, and how they bent over backward to build programs and serve the college in the hopes that they could remain — only to find that no such position developed, or to find themselves passed over for the position. Institutions should have enough integrity to limit egregiously exploitative behavior, or to appropriately compensate faculty members whose service contributions are substantial.
Include visiting faculty members in orientation and mentoring activities with other new arrivals, while also recognizing the unique needs of visiting assistant professors. Consider facilitating professional-development groups, including writing groups and job-talk/research-presentation circles, or holding academic-career workshops that cover strategies for developing strong job applications.
Support mentorships outside the institution. Where possible, pay fees for professional associations, or consider otherwise supporting early-career faculty development. This is especially important for groups historically marginalized in academe.
Provide access to internal research-funding opportunities, and finance student research assistants. Undergraduate research has been widely recognized for its numerous benefits to students, and allowing visiting faculty members access to these researchers helps everyone. Students gain the opportunity to work with a visiting expert who can supplement the pool of expertise normally available in a department, while receiving individual mentoring that may be hard to come by from tenured professors, especially at larger universities.
Facilitate grant submissions. Some colleges may not be willing to support a grant proposal that is made to an institution, not an individual, if the faculty member will not be there for the duration of the grant. For those of us in fieldwork-oriented disciplines, in which research funding is essential to building our careers, this can be crippling. I urge institutions that hire VAPs to support their grant proposals despite the logistical challenges. The grants will help them land jobs, and usually faculty members can transfer grants to their new institutions. An alternative is to dedicate an internal funding pool to visiting faculty research.
Consider whether duties are setting them up for success. Avoid asking someone to develop five or six new courses to support your university’s unique, groundbreaking curriculum — courses that they will be unable to teach again anywhere else. Asking them to develop a special class is reasonable, but allow them to teach it multiple times. Let them teach introductory courses that can be offered elsewhere. And encourage them to teach a course related to their specialty.
Visiting faculty members are trying to launch careers, and they need time for job searches, writing, and research projects.
Try to keep course loads equivalent to those of permanent faculty members. Visiting faculty members are trying to launch permanent careers, and they need time for job searches, writing, and research projects. Sometimes administrators are willing to substitute a significant service role for an additional course offering. A supportive department chair once arranged for me to organize a series of photo exhibits and photo contests in exchange for a standard teaching load. Later I negotiated an 85-percent contract with reduced salary in exchange for a 2-3 teaching load. Though the extra money would have been nice, the extra time was more important.
Provide formal feedback about teaching effectiveness. Although chairs may not be required to formally evaluate visiting faculty members, they or other department members should still take the time to visit their classes and offer written feedback. Any document that attests to teaching effectiveness and offers suggestions for improvement will be welcomed and can become an important contribution to a professional portfolio.
Recognize how complicated your visitors’ lives may be, particularly when families are involved. Early-career academics don’t have it easy. They are trying to land permanent positions; trying to publish and build their professional reputations; and trying to do a good job at whatever you hired them to do. If they have moved with children, they are probably also occupied with finding good school placements and helping their children adjust to a new setting, arranging playdates or helping with homework, and possibly arranging for therapeutic services. If they have left families behind, they will be constantly on the go, traveling whenever possible.
Wherever possible, universities should try to provide resources for visiting faculty members to make some of this a little easier. These resources can include making sure they have full access to health benefits; offering salaries that will enable them to attend to their probably enormous student loans; reimbursing moving expenses; and providing conference travel resources at the same level as for other faculty members.
In addition, universities should provide their visitors with professional headshots, website profiles, and business cards. The universities should publish announcements about any accomplishments worth sharing, including major grants, publications, or other honors, and generally promote with pride the work of visiting faculty members.
These approaches will help universities in multiple ways. A better-supported visiting assistant professor will be more effective in his or her teaching role and contribute to the institution’s mission, and will inspire more-satisfied students. A harried, underpaid, and undervalued VAP, on the other hand, may not be the greatest teacher. Academe is a small world, and visiting faculty members have long memories. An institution that leaves them with positive impressions is looking out for its own self-interest as well.
