New survey: non-TT faculty issues

Last month, I began a new series on the rights of non-tenure-track philosophers. My aim in this series is to learn more about the issues that non-TT members of the profession face, the relative importance of those issues to them, what might be done to address those issues, who ought to address those issues and how (such as the APA), and finally, which issues ought to be considered rights of non-TT faculty.

In the first entry in the series, I held an open discussion on the question, "non-TT faculty, what do you take to be important professional issues you face that you would like to see addressed in some way?". I personally learned a lot from the discussion, and put together the following list of issues that commenters identified as important issues to them:

• Absolute deprivation (e.g. poor pay and/or benefits)
• Relative deprivation (less pay, benefits, and/or job security than similarly qualified individuals)
• Lack of job-security (e.g. year-to-year or semester-by-semester contracts)
• Lack of opportunities for promotion
• Lack of union representation
• Never feeling like you belong (always feeling like a 'visitor' in your own department/institution)
• Being treated as a second-class citizen at work
• Lack of respect in the discipline of academic philosophy (e.g. only people with tenure-track jobs matter)
• Unjust inequity (unequal pay for equal work)
• Lack of academic freedom

I have now put together this informal survey to elicit how important these different issues are to non-tenure track , as well as to solicit non-tenure track people's opinions on which issues the American Philosophical Association (APA) should do more to address. If you are a non-tenure-track member of the profession (e.g. working as an adjunct, postdoc, lecturer, VAP, etc.), please consider filling out the survey. Although it is only an informal survey, not a formal study, my hope is that the answers respondents give to it will be illuminating for further discussion in this series. Please only fill out the survey if you have worked or are working in the above non-tenure-stream capacities. Please do not fill out the survey if you have only worked as a graduate teaching assistant or graduate student instructor in your MA or PhD program while in graduate school. While I think the professional issues that graduate students face are important (and indeed, I hope to do a series on the rights of graduate students in the near future!), I would like for this series to focus squarely on non-tenure-stream members of the profession beyond their work in their own graduate program. Many thanks in advance to everyone who takes the time to fill out the survey!

Comments

[Amanda]

Marcus I'm not sure if someone who is/was a postdoc should fill this out. The normal path for persons at elite schools is to have a prestigious postdoc out of grad school before moving on to their cushy, permanent, position. They don't seem like the crowd that should be filling this out. I don't feel like I'm the right person to fill it out either. I am not from an elite place, just a decent place. Anyway I had a research postdoc before a TT job and I'm not sure if I am the best person to fill out this kind of survey.

Just my thoughts but I'm open to being convinced otherwise. There might be some "postdocs" now that are really renewable VAPs and that might make more sense.

I think it's great that this survey is being done! Is there a place where participants can write in specific comments? That seems like it might result in some useful information.

[Marcus Arvan]

Hey Amanda: thanks for the feedback. Yeah, it was difficult to decide exactly who should take the survey, but I figured it would be better to be more inclusive. I can always dive into the data and determine whether postdocs answer the items substantially differently. If they do, I will be sure to highlight that if and when I present the survey results. I thought about having a place for people to comment in the survey, but decided it might be best to leave that for the comment thread in the post where I present the results!

[a philosopher]

"There might be some "postdocs" now that are really renewable VAPs and that might make more sense."

I think there are quite a few of these now.

Also, while there are a few high-prestige postdocs that top-5 students go to before taking their all-but-guaranteed cushy job at Princeton, there are a lot of genuine research postdocs that don't carry that prestige and are filled with more run-of-the-mill people who are sweating out the job market. That, I sort of assume, was your (Amanda's) position.

Having done both a VAP and one of these low-prestige postdocs myself, I think the issues faced by people in these situations are similar.

[Amanda]

I see, thanks Marcus.

[Amanda]

I mean, yeah, my postdoc was not the NYU Bersoff, that's for sure. But I was paid well and had no teaching responsibilities, and I felt welcome and respected. And yes, me and others in my position were dealing with the job market which was stressful and time consuming.

I guess really why I see my position as different isn't so much how I was treated while I was there, but more of the length of time. I think it is a different thing when someone is making a long-term job out of a short-term position. Because in that situation, (1) They are in a position orignally meant to be temporary but it isn't, so clearly the needs of temp versus permanent people are different, and (2) It is one thing being treated like outsiders when you kind of are an outsider, i.e. just someone there a year or 2 and not invested in the community, versus some lecturers and VAPs who have been there years, bought a home, put down roots in the community, etc.

I think the needs of both short and long term non-TT are important, but that they likely have different needs and that treating someone a certain way for a short time is not the same as doing it for a long time.

Still, I think the results will be meaningful as it is and I look forward to learning from them.