Tenured faculty in institutions across the country are facing larger workloads, as many find themselves scarce or even replaced by temporary instructors.

The American Association for University Professors regularly tracks such data and has determined the majority of all new full-time faculty hires nationwide have been off the tenure track since the 1990s.

"The nature of the problem is different at different types of institutions," said John Curtis, AAUP director of research and public policy. "But I think in most cases, most faculty recognize this is not a good situation for a faculty as a whole."

Central Michigan University has begun to experience partial steps in this national trend.

What was once a 349-to-655 ratio in temporary-to-tenured faculty in the fall of 2003 was 417-to-625 last semester, according to data kept by faculty personnel services.

The gap between the number of temporaries and regular faculty decreased by 32 percent, meaning temporary positions have consistently grown over tenured positions that have fluctuated or fallen.

Mark Freed, an English, Language and Literature associate professor, said as regular faculty are replaced by temporaries, there are fewer tenured and tenure-track faculty providing research.

"That, I think, exposes a considerable potential problem," he said.

It is a real concern in maintaining quality education at CMU, Freed said, because it can result in "less to pass on to the students."

Escalating trend

The consistent number of regular faculty in the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow College of Health Professions has not heeded any lesser amounts of research produced, Interim Dean Thomas Masterson said in a November interview.

However, a larger issue could chime in based on how the current trend might escalate. As more students continue to join the popular college, the seemingly unchanging number of regular faculty would be accompanied by more temporaries.

Masterson said he understands that more temporaries over time could have a few consequences, such as burdening workloads on regular faculty.

"I could see that there's a day where that could potentially happen," he said. "There is a danger in having too many temps."

Bob Martin, associate vice provost of Faculty Personnel Services, said tenured faculty service workload is the only thing he sees that be impacted by the increase in temporary faculty.

"Every department has committee work and regular faculty are asked to do service work," he said. "Temporary faculty are not asked to do that, then that service work remains when there are not as many faculty to shoulder the workload."

Management chairman Kevin Love said the amount of required administrative work has expanded for tenures.

With fewer or maintained numbers of regular faculty, he said only around 40 percent his job, that of instruction, is replaced by temporaries.

"If teaching were the only thing that we did, yes, you could make an argument that stand-up teachers are stand-up teachers," Love said. "But that's not what makes a university tick."

Temporary faculty flaws

Nancy White, Faculty Association president, said the increased number of temporaries has put more pressure on regular faculty to carry out curricular activities that temporaries do not.

An effect of this, she said, is less control on the quality of teaching of some temporaries.

"Sometimes, temporary faculty are not involved with things like assessment, program planning and curriculum review," said White, an associate professor of finance and law. "So information does not always get to them in needed changes."

Since she has been a part of the department, she said the number of regular faculty has decreased from seven to four, with an additional person hired for next fall. She does not interact with her temporary colleagues.

It is a problem because of the way the temporary system is set up, White said, and that it would be better if faculty interacted.

Love said part of the problem is there is a shortage of people with doctorate degrees, and in some instances, tenures are replaced by temporaries.

If the 700-plus needed regular positions filled CMU, Martin said, there would be less need for as many temporaries.

"I would anticipate on that hypothesis, that the numbers of at least full-time temporary people would stabilize or go down a little bit," he said.

For the classes that require the expertise of a regular faculty member, Martin said it almost becomes a requirement to place a temporary instructor there in the meantime "if you are having difficulty with the regular faculty search."

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