Ohio University’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, or OU-AAUP, is seeing positive progress regarding extended contracts being offered to instructional faculty.
On Feb. 14, OU-AAUP held “Ask Day” where faculty collectively sent requests to university chairs, directors and deans asking for five-year contracts to become available for those who are eligible.
Kyle Butler, an instructional faculty coordinator for OU-AAUP and an associate professor in the Ohio Program of Intensive English, said they have seen encouraging statements and positive commitments after the movement, but is “keeping an eye on what the follow-through is going to be.”
“If nothing else, at this point what we’ve already seen is that the campus-wide discourse on this issue has shifted greatly,” Butler said. “Before we did this collective action of ‘Ask Day,’ the general tone of the discussion around multi-year contracts for instructional faculty was either, ‘What is that? What are you talking about?’ or … ‘We can’t do that.’”
According to the faculty handbook, a faculty member should be offered a five-year contract based on their performance, desire to continue in their position and need within the department or on a regional campus.
In regard to instructional faculty and budget, Carly Leatherwood, a university spokesperson, said deans follow the processes outlined in the handbook.
A resolution was passed that, if signed by Executive Vice President and Provost Elizabeth Sayrs, would work to make five-year contracts commonplace, as Butler said in a previous Post report that offering these contracts is “incredibly rare.”
Sayrs has 60 days from the time the resolution was passed by Faculty Senate to sign the resolution.
“I think that this is a good opportunity for the administration to signal that it's ready to make a commitment to the instructional faculty,” Butler said. “I think it's a way to signal that instructional faculty are valued members of the OU team.”
He said this will affect students in that the role of instructional faculty itself is very student-focused.
Joe McLaughlin, vice president of OU-AAUP, said the contracts are going to help instructional faculty feel a greater sense of job security and a greater sense of commitment to OU.
“(Having) people who have a greater sense of job security and can spend their time focused on their teaching, and not being constantly worried about whether or not they're going to have a job next year, is going to produce better teaching,” McLaughlin said.
With many faculty still recovering from the round of layoffs in 2020, offering five-year contracts is one way the university will be able to show its commitment to its staff and make an investment in the people it employs, McLaughlin said.
“I lost a lot of my colleagues in May of 2020,” Butler said. “May 15th, 2020 is a day I don't think I'll ever forget, in my career and in my life. I think it's gonna take a long time for us to recover from something like that.”
