Although few academics welcome it, the proliferation of short-term, full-time faculty positions — variously framed as visiting or teaching professorships — has become the norm. Nontenure-track positions embrace a wide range of career stages but now represent a simple majority of faculty jobs in higher education. And while these posts have often been framed as temporary waystations on the path to tenured employment, they are increasingly a road to nowhere.
That’s because the tenure-track jobs that are supposed to be the destination simply don’t exist in sufficient numbers. But it’s also because, even when there are tenure-track openings, hiring committees in many fields continue to prefer a well-pedigreed recent Ph.D. as their top choice, over candidates with significant experience off of the tenure track yet are less-elite or older doctorates.
Into that unfriendly territory ventured Dana S. Dunn and Jane S. Halonen, two tenured professors of psychology, who earlier this month laid out the “Dos and Don’ts of a Visiting Professorship.” However well-intentioned, the piece struck a nerve with many current and former visiting faculty members — including some now on the tenure track — for whom a visiting post was not merely a “Plan B” but, as one critic put it, “literally the only thing keeping my career alive.” Others perceived the advice as “condescending” and critical of “‘uppity’ visiting faculty.” As one commenter on X put it, it’s “important for senior faculty to know how badly the social compact of academia is broken, and why contingent faculty are rightfully very angry about the situation.”
To that end, and in the interest of mutual understanding, I offer this companion piece. The original essay looks at how visiting faculty members ought to behave in a department. Mine is on how departments and senior professors ought to behave toward visiting and other nontenure-track instructors.
I have served as a contingent faculty member at three colleges, but the following advice also reflects the experience of many of my colleagues from around the United States and abroad. Some of us have since made it to the tenure track, some are still in the contingent ranks, and many have had to leave academe.
I’m not going to dwell on the salary issue, although the first thing that most nontenure-track hires would ask for is reasonable pay. A 2019-20 list of voluntarily reported pay rates for contingent academics showed wide variation and some shockingly low salaries. The most recent compensation survey by the American Association of University Professors reported average adjunct compensation as $3,874 per course. Union activism in recent years has boosted contingent pay somewhat.
Nevertheless, it is certainly the case that few academic departments in 2024 are flush with cash. It’s also true that most programs would prefer to rely less on contingent labor, and to pay their instructors more, but lack the money to do so. So while contingent pay remains shamefully low, the reality is that departments simply cannot will the money into existence that would fix the problem.
Instead, I will focus on actions that departments and individual tenure-line professors could take — at zero or minimal cost — to extend basic collegiality to their nontenure-track colleagues. Unfortunately, in my experience and that of many of my fellow contingent academics, these steps, while basically free, remain a rarity.
On-board all faculty newcomers in the same way. Does your department host welcome events for new tenure-track hires? Introduce them to the existing faculty and staff? Assign faculty mentors? Consider extending some or all of that welcome to contingent hires, instead of expecting us to arrive, self-orient, and initiate all of our own contacts in the department. On-boarding provides an opportunity both to set expectations as well as shape department culture, reinforcing that nontenure-line hires are colleagues and peers whose role in the department is visible and valued.
Develop a departmental culture that is friendly to nontenure-track faculty members. Working in a department as a contingent hire is frequently akin to being a ghost: unseen and unheard. It is often rare for those on the tenure track to reach out to get to know contingent faculty members. And when we attempt to initiate contact, we are greeted either with silence or with colleagues who can never quite “find the time.” Such behavior reinforces the perception that contingent instructors are “disposable” members of the department. Instead, department leaders might consider reaching out themselves or asking faculty members in the same subfield as a contingent hire to make the first move. Offering to meet over coffee may seem like a small thing, but it demonstrates at least some interest in your contingent colleague as a fellow scholar.
Assign offices by actual seniority, not by rank. By policy or custom, many departments assign offices by seniority — but only apply that standard to tenure-line faculty members. The result: Brand-new, tenure-track hires can and frequently do boot long-serving contingent faculty members out of preferred offices. Of course permanent tenure-line faculty members are far more likely to accrue seniority within a department. But allowing contingents — especially long-standing ones — to keep their offices is a way of communicating that we are colleagues, rather than an inferior class of academic. If you absolutely must relocate a contingent faculty member to a different office, at least be sure to actually notify that person of the move. Being shifted into a new office without notification over summer or winter break is a common complaint among contingent faculty members — and a wholly unnecessary snub. And it should go without saying that a contingent instructor should, in fact, get an assigned office (if at all possible) and yet frequently does not.
Give us a nameplate on our office door like everyone else. Nameplates of this sort are common in many departments, and inexpensive; they can be ordered for just a few dollars. If having one’s name on an office door is standard for tenure-line professors, it should be standard for contingent faculty members. And if you hand out nameplates as a matter of course for new tenure-line hires, do the same for contingent ones. After all, we are teaching, and interacting with, your students; it is in the department’s interest to offer all of its faculty members the same level of professionalism implied by an office with a name on the door.
Equally promote the achievements of your faculty members. Many departments have newsletters, websites, or social-media accounts that celebrate the publications, teaching awards, and other achievements of their faculty members. Solicit such news from visiting and other contingent faculty members in the same way that you would from those on the tenure track, and offer the same amount of promotion. First, nontenure-trackers in your department may still be competing for permanent academic positions and can well use the promotion and exposure. And second, you should never treat people as an “ugly secret,” burying their successes to protect you from embarrassment over your program’s overreliance on contingent instructors.
Consider contingent faculty for any teaching, research, or service awards. Even more so than tenure-line professors, whose positions are relatively secure, contingent faculty members facing a difficult job market can benefit greatly from awards which recognize their contributions and which they can tout in job materials. If these awards are not department-controlled, despair not: Informal commendations can be useful as well. If your contingent faculty instructor is an exceptional teacher, the department might, for instance, consider recognizing them for that in the department newsletter or in an email, either of which they could then include in a teaching portfolio as evidence of teaching effectiveness.
Invite us to departmental events and make sure we know we are invited. Often enough, contingent faculty members will read announcements on the department listserv for a meeting or an event that we are ineligible to attend, such as those intended only for tenured or tenure-track professors. So when there are events — especially social gatherings — that are open to contingent instructors, be explicit in the invitation. Reaching out to directly include us contributes to the sense that we are your valued colleagues.
Open departmental travel funds to contingent instructors and make sure we know we are eligible. It’s tempting to assume that your contingent hires will take the initiative and ask for what they need, such as travel money from the department to attend a conference. But people who are precariously employed may be reticent about making any such requests, fearful of making a bad impression. Every department should make clear that contingent faculty members are as welcome to apply for these funds as their tenure-track counterparts — even if you do not have enough money to grant every request.
Make “courtesy interviews” a standard practice. Say your department secures the money to fill a tenure-track position, and you already have a visiting assistant professor teaching in that same field. Grant that contingent hire a courtesy interview. It may, of course, turn out that your contingent colleague is a poor fit. At the very least, you already know that their teaching skills are up to department standards (or surely, they would not be teaching), which is more than you can say about any other candidate at the beginning of a search. By all means, be clear that this is not indicative of an “inside track” to the job. Most contingent academics are already aware that it is rare for departments to hire their own contingents for permanent positions. Even so, a courtesy interview is an opportunity to communicate that, regardless of the outcome of the search, the department has noticed, appreciated, and valued their work. (And if there’s bad news, meet informally with your contingent faculty member to share that they are out of the running and provide useful feedback for their future applications.)
Above all, do not assume that contingent positions are just an exercise in “paying dues,” much less some kind of professional hazing. That system, if it ever existed, is long dead in most fields. For many, very likely most, of your department’s nontenure-track faculty members, the experience of being a contingent colleague is the only experience they will ever have in your field. This will be your only chance to treat us with collegiality, and a failure to do so will reflect far more on you and your department than on us. We have a strong network, too, and have contacts among both the tenured and the untenured ranks.
Poor treatment reflects poorly on the department. But treating your contingent colleagues with collegiality and basic humanity just might work out to everyone’s advantage.