Are you on the tenure track?  Or, are you considered a "contingent faculty" member?  The statistics are scary: In 2005, 68% of the professoriate were NOT on the tenure track.  In today's podcast, Jason and I discuss an AAUO Online letter he received on October 22, 2007 from the American Association of University Professors in addition to a related article from the NY Times about the decline of the tenure track.

AAUP Online Snippet:
This message celebrates an anniversary: a year ago the AAUP adopted its most detailed and specific set of recommended institutional regulations governing part-time faculty positions. That action followed upon an extensive series of AAUP reports about the changing state of faculty appointments. The reports themselves, the first appearing in 1980, were written in response to thirty years of gradually increasing use of contingent faculty throughout American higher education.

In 1975, tenured and tenure-track faculty together constituted 57 percent of faculty nationwide. By 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, that combined group had been whittled down to merely 32 percent. Contingent faculty had meanwhile grown from 43 percent to 68 percent of the professoriate. You can help us raise awareness of these dramatic changes by printing out a bar graph recording them  and putting it on your office door. 

The term “contingent faculty� itself reflects our awareness that several groups of teachers—including part-timers, full-timers off the tenure-track, and graduate employees who teach well beyond the needs of their own training—endure overlapping forms of exploitation and present comparable risks to higher education. We have warned repeatedly that the excessive employment of faculty without job security would eventually undermine both academic freedom and shared governance. That time has arrived. When most faculty are at risk of summary dismissal, the freedom for faculty to speak forthrightly is diminished. And faculty control over the curriculum is also undercut.

AAUP Website: www.aaup.org

The New York Times article information:

Have you ever felt like an imposter?  Surprisingly, the majority of us have at one time or another in our professional career and is the primary theme of this episode.

Articles cited:

Your Not Fooling Anyone by John Gravois
The Faculty section, Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 9, 2007 issue

A Class Traitor in Academe by Thomas H. Benton
An Academic in America column, Careers Section, Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 9, 2007 issue

Should I Move On?
Ms. Mentor Column, Careers Section, Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 9, 2007 issue

This week's Fight Song

Until next time, we'll see you around the academy!

In this week's podcast, Jason and I discuss how much is too much when being revealing (of information).
"Between You and Me," by David D. Perlmutter
Chronicle Careers, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 2nd issue
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i10/10c00201.htm

I then get worked up about the Point of View article by Daniel Grant and Jason calms me down and helps me see other perspectives.  See if you can hear, midway through this conversation, when my agitation suddenly disappeared.
"How Educated Must an Artist Be?" by Daniel Grant
Point of View, The Chronicle Review, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 2nd issue
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i10/10b02401.htm

This week's fight song is courtesy of
http://fightmusic.com/

 In Podcast #14, Jason and I discuss two items--

"How am I doing?" From the Faculty section of the October 26, 2007 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i09/09a01001.htm

Animal-Rights Militants Vandalize UCLA Researcher's House

Chronicle Article: http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/10/548n.htm

UCLA information on vandalism: http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/targeted-ucla-scientist-speaks-40153.aspx