OU is not the only university experiencing a decline in the number of Group I faculty.
While the student population at Ohio University is rising, the amount of tenure-track faculty is declining.
The importance of tenure, or permanent job contracts for professors, became a topic of debate at the Faculty Senate meeting Monday night.
Group I, or tenure-track, employees are faculty members who have reached the highest promotions. Group II faculty members are primarily instructional faculty, dedicated to teaching courses at OU.
“Personally, I think having a high percentage of Group I faculty adds a lot of value to the institution,” Associate Provost for Faculty and Academic Planning Howard Dewald said. “Historically, it has worked out the best to have faculty that are teaching their students scholarship on top of their normal lessons.”
At the Faculty Senate meeting Monday night, faculty approved a resolution that would increase the number of non-tenure-track faculty senators to 10. The increase of representatives at Faculty Senate would still be disproportional to the number of Group II faculty at the university, Faculty Senate Chair Beth Quitslund said.
Faculty members discussed the implications of increasing the powers of non-tenure-track faculty at the senate meeting. Quitslund wasn’t the only professor worried about the decline of tenure on a national scale.
The decline became apparent about four years ago and could have been caused by the economic recession in 2008, Dewald said. The total number of Group I faculty decreased 7 percent from 2008 to 2014, according to the OU Fact Book.
Dewald said it's difficult for the university to replace tenured faculty when they resign, retire or die because the hiring process sometimes can take years.
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The university has made efforts to fix the decline by showing opportunities to professors who potentially could work at OU and become a part of the Higher Education Recruitment Consortium. The consortium helps place tenure-track faculty at the university and nearby colleges, Dewald said.
The amount of tenure-track faculty in each college at OU heavily depends on the enrollment in that college, so there have been some colleges, such as the Patton College of Education and the College of Business, that have experienced a growth in Group I faculty, according to the university Fact Book.
The number of Group I faculty in Patton College increased 53 percent from 2008 to 2014, and the number in the College of Business increased 5.9 percent in that time.
Having a solid core of Group I faculty is beneficial because the faculty members are able to interact with undergraduate and graduate students in many different ways, Dewald said.
"The number of Group I faculty members is absolutely down,” Dewald said. “There is no doubt about that, but it’s a process of balancing how many faculty members should be in Group I and how many should be in Group II or the other groups.”
Tenure also is important to maintain a level of shared governance at the university. The experiences Group I faculty offer students are very valuable as well, Faculty Senate Chair Beth Quitslund said.
“These experiences are shown to be most effective for improving students’ lives and earnings after they graduate,” Quitslund said. “We have fabulous members of Group II faculty. What Group I brings to the table is research and research mentorship.”
Unlike Group I, Group II faculty are non-tenure-track and are not required to contribute to the university through extensive research in their area of study.
“I would feel more comfortable with this decline if I was certain the institution had a strategy for reaching the optimal mix of tenure and non-tenure-track faculty, and if I felt confident about the security of tenure as a part of higher institutions in the United States,” Quitslund said.
Group I and Group II faculty make up the majority of professors at OU. While the number of Group I faculty has been declining, the number of Group II faculty has risen, Dewald said.
“My concern is that tenure is rapidly decreasing across the nation and here,” Professor of English Sherrie Gradin said at the Monday meeting. “I don’t have an objection to Group II having as much of a voice and franchisement as Group I. When you equate Group II as if they were Group I faculty, however, that gives the message to the Board of Trustees, the president, the provost and anybody else that tenure doesn’t matter.”
Gradin said when she was in college, it was difficult to propose women’s studies programs until women started getting tenure, because until then, they didn’t have an institutional voice.
“I think we should be looking very seriously into tenuring our Group II faculty and clinical faculty,” Joe McLaughlin, associate professor of English, said at the meeting. “It seems to me that we are handing over the major privilege that comes with tenure and the foundation of shared governance.”
@KyraCobbie
kc036114@ohio.edu
