Delphi Award winners share best practices to support non-tenure-track faculty

Harper College and California State University, Dominguez Hills detail the paths they took to improve working conditions and professional development for adjunct faculty on their campuses.

Better opportunities for professional development. Equitable compensation. An inclusive campus culture. These are among the much-needed changes non-tenure-track faculty have called for on many college and university campuses. To help these institutions forge their paths to change, the Pullias Center today published two real-life examples of institutions that have taken transformative steps to support non-tenure-track faculty on their campuses.

Titled “Redesigning teaching evaluations to support professional development for faculty at Harper College” and “Equity for lecturers and counseling faculty at California State University, Dominguez Hills,” these new publications highlight the recent successful efforts these campuses made to significantly improve their faculty policies and culture. The new publications, available for free download from the Pullias Center’s website, were written in collaboration between the Pullias Center and the featured campuses.

“Many colleges and universities recognize the multiple important reasons to better support their non-tenure-track faculty, but don’t know where to start,” said Daniel Scott, a research assistant at the Pullias Center who co-authored the publications. “We provide these example practices so that leaders who want to take action can be inspired and learn from these cases.”

Harper College and CSUDH are winners of the inaugural Delphi Award, an annual $15,000 cash award given to individuals or organizations who have worked to support adjunct, contingent, and non-tenure-track faculty in promoting student success. The award is an initiative of The Delphi Project for the Changing Faculty and Student Success, an effort of the Pullias Center to help create new faculty models and better support faculty off the tenure track to enhance higher education institutions.

“What impressed us about the winners was their inclusion of contingent faculty in the planning process, their systemic approaches to change for faculty and their focus on supporting faculty so faculty can support student success,” said Adrianna Kezar, co-director of the Pullias Center and a co-author of the publications. “We are excited for next year’s applicants and to recognize the good work happening across the country to better support non-tenure track faculty. This year’s winners suggest there are very strong efforts happening that other campuses can learn from.”

Applications for the second annual Delphi Awards will open February 15, 2019. In addition to these new publications, more example best practices are available on the Delphi Project website, along with other tools and resources to support non-tenure-track faculty.

Redesigning teaching evaluations to support professional development for faculty at Harper College

Delphi Award Winner, 2018

Daniel Scott, Adrianna Kezar, Michael Bates

Pullias Center for Higher Education (2019)

This new publication highlights the recent successful efforts Harper College made to significantly improve their faculty policies and culture. Harper College is one of winners of the inaugural Delphi Award, an annual $15,000 cash award given to individuals or organizations who have worked to support adjunct, contingent, and non-tenure-track faculty in promoting student success. The award is an initiative of The Delphi Project for the Changing Faculty and Student Success, an effort of the Pullias Center to help create new faculty models and better support faculty off the tenure track to enhance higher education institutions.

Categories: Delphi Project, Student Success, STEM Reform

adjunct faculty case study Delphi Award 2018 Delphi Award Case Study non-tenure-track faculty stem reform student success
Download 73.45 KB 9744 Downloads

Equity for lecturers and counseling faculty at California State University, Dominguez Hills

Delphi Award Winner, 2018

Daniel Scott, Adrianna Kezar, Kirti Celly, Pamela Robinson

Pullias Center for Higher Education (2019)

This new publication highlights the recent successful efforts California State University, Dominguez Hills made to significantly improve their faculty policies and culture. CSUDH is one of winners of the inaugural Delphi Award, an annual $15,000 cash award given to individuals or organizations who have worked to support adjunct, contingent, and non-tenure-track faculty in promoting student success. The award is an initiative of The Delphi Project for the Changing Faculty and Student Success, an effort of the Pullias Center to help create new faculty models and better support faculty off the tenure track to enhance higher education institutions.

Categories: Delphi Project, Student Success

adjunct faculty case study Delphi Award 2018 Delphi Award Case Study non-tenure-track faculty student success
Download 79.10 KB 10138 Downloads

The Delphi Project has received generous funding from The Spencer Foundation, The Teagle Foundation, The Carnegie Corporation of New York and TIAA-CREF Research Institute.