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What's the Buzz on .... Tenure-Track and Temporary Faculty Hires
A recent article in the STAR suggested that there is a mystery about
why SSU would hire new tenure-track faculty when there are temporary faculty
available to teach classes. Those readers who were here last year will
remember that it was an exciting time of more tenure-track searches being
carried out than the campus had done in decades. Department faculty were
thrilled to be able to hire new tenure-track colleagues and willingly
served on the search committees. Students in many departments attended
presentations by the finalist candidates and gave their feedback to the
faculty committees. The searches were successful and the University has
35 new tenure-track faculty starting this year.
The new tenure-track faculty are in a probationary period (or track) towards
permanency (or tenure). It is tenured and tenure-track faculty who are
responsible for the short- and long-term planning in a department including
curriculum development, hiring and evaluation of colleagues. It has long
been a goal of the California Faculty Association and the CSU campuses
to increase tenure-track hiring. Last year the CSU and the CFA agreed
to carry out a combined total of 1200 tenure-track searches on the 23
campuses. Sonoma was assigned to do 39 of those searches; a few searches
were cancelled because of the restricted budget, but Sonoma was successful
in hiring 35...a better success rate than most CSU campuses indicating
the solid reputation of Sonoma State University.
Sonoma State has 297 tenured and tenure-track faculty in Fall 2003. Several
of them are not teaching full time; some work part-time through an early
retirement program, some are given time to serve as department chairs,
take sabbatical leaves, work on an externally-funded grants, chair a standing
committee of the Academic Senate, and so forth. Adding up just the time
spent in teaching or library assignment, the equivalent would be 275.88
full time tenured and tenure-track faculty out of the total of 297. The
35 new faculty did not increase these totals by 35, of course. Several
of them replaced faculty who retired or resigned so there is a net increase
of 18 full-time equivalent faculty compared to Fall 2002.
And what of the temporary faculty? The net increase in full-time tenured/tenure-track
faculty of 18 undoubtedly reduced or eliminated the work of more than
18 temporary faculty since most temporary faculty are part-time. Temporary
faculty provide the University with flexibility and the possibility of
making a quick response to shifts in student interests and needs. They
also provide special skills needed in some departments and serve to replace
permanent faculty who are on leave. And some of the temporary faculty
choose to apply and are hired by faculty search committees into the tenure-track;
6 of the 35 new tenure-track faculty were temporary faculty in the previous
year. Budget cuts, plus the new tenure-track faculty, meant many temporary
faculty lost some or all of the work they’d had last year.
This fall SSU has 259 part-time temporary faculty teaching a full-time
equivalent of 94.13, compared to 344 part-time temporary faculty and full-time
equivalent temporary faculty of 132.3 in Fall 2002. The very nature of
temporary appointments, however, is that they are temporary. Needs change
and even with a tight budget, 25 new temporary faculty were hired in Fall
2003 who had not taught for us before or not for some years. Why? Some
existing temporary faculty declined offers, the department needed someone
in their specialty areas because of the absence of a permanent faculty
member, new temporary faculty were needed to supervise student teachers
in a specific geographical area, or for other reasons.
The University anticipates being able to do only one tenure-track search
for 04/05 because of budget constraints, but will continue to search for
new tenure-track faculty once the budget situation stabilizes for all
the reasons stated above.
slk,11/3/03