USC’s Pullias Center for Higher Education Announces 2021 Delphi Award Winners
University of Denver and Worcester Polytechnic Institute Selected for Prestigious Award for Their Work Transforming Support for Contingent Faculty
The Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education, in partnership with the Association for American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) has selected two winners of the Delphi Award for 2021. The University of Denver (DU) and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) will each receive $15,000 cash awards to continue their work to support adjunct, contingent, and/or non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF) in promoting student success. In addition, the University of Michigan is acknowledged as a Delphi Award finalist for their successful work toward supporting non-tenure-track faculty.
“This year’s winners showcase another set of bold and important changes that other institutions should model,” stated Professor Adrianna Kezar, Director of the Pullias Center and primary investigator on the Delphi Project. “This Award is aimed at recognizing exemplary work occurring. We wish we could highlight even more institutions as there are excellent efforts emerging in support of NTTF.”
As in past years, the Pullias Center has identified winners that represent key changes that they believe should be happening across the country. “DU is making across-the-board changes in a systemic way that creates real culture change. And WPI is making one major change around hiring and contracts that is transformational and reversing the contingency trends,” noted Kezar.
This is the fourth year for The Delphi Award, an initiative of the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success at the Pullias Center. The Award, funded by a grant from the Teagle Foundation, is an extension of the Delphi Project’s mission to better support faculty off the tenure track while helping create new faculty models for postsecondary institutions to adopt. The USC Pullias Center for Higher Education has worked in partnership with the Association of American Colleges & Universities on the Delphi Project since the project’s inception in 2012, developing reports and resources, collecting models and conducting research and advocacy on this issue.
Instructional faculty in American higher education is mostly comprised of non-tenure-track positions responsible for teaching the vast majority of college and university classes. These instructors are typically hired on shorter notice, on short term contracts, and lower pay than tenured or tenure-track faculty, while being offered little or no orientation, mentoring or professional development. The result is many of these instructors are often tasked with balancing heavy teaching loads at multiple institutions despite limited time to prepare courses and limited support to improve their curriculum design or pedagogy. These factors have been shown by Delphi Project research to correlate with lower student success rates.
The Delphi Award winners will officially be honored for their work as part of the AAC&U’s annual meeting on January 19-21, 2022. “The Delphi Award recognizes that student success is dependent on the engagement of all faculty, and it draws attention to the need for colleges and universities to play a leadership role in advancing equity,” said AAC&U President Lynn Pasquerella. “AAC&U congratulates this year’s winners and finalists — and we thank them for their outstanding work.”
University of Denver, a private institution built on exploration through research and collaboration among educators, students, and local and global communities, received the Award this year for their exemplary work supporting NTTF. Their work ultimately resulted in transforming the lives of over 200 full-time lecturers, giving them full-time status with renewable contracts and pathways to promotion, a defined role in university governance and a pathway to professional advancement and formal promotion.
DU began their process in 2015, when the Board of Trustees at the University approved a new Advancement, Promotion and Tenure document developed by the Faculty Senate. This document created a new line of non-tenure-track full-time faculty, which DU’s faculty handbook refers to as Teaching and Professional Faculty, and led to the transformative changes.
“DU saw an example of culture change through long-term planning, review of data and cross campus leadership,” noted Pullias’ Kezar. DU’s leadership recognized the importance of the work to better supporting NTTF and truly including and engaging them.
DU’s Provost and Executive Vice President Mary Clark noted that this work was personal to her, stating “Having started as a non-tenure-track faculty member, I am exceptionally proud of what the University of Denver has done to support the professional aspirations of all of our faculty.” Campus leaders expressed appreciation for the recognition and highlighted what they considered noteworthy in their work. “This Award highlights our work to institutionalize a culture that recognizes, supports and celebrates the contributions of faculty off the tenure track and the ways in which the organization is changing and continuing to evolve,” noted Laura Sponsler, Clinical Associate Professor. DU now has expanded programming, new governance structures, and improved data collection and analytics to serve and continue to institutionalize a culture of respect and support for teaching and professional faculty.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a private research university in Massachusetts, has also been selected as a 2021 Delphi Award recipient for their work creating a new tenure track exclusively for teaching faculty and providing more job security in terms of long-term contracts for remaining NTTF.
Over a period of 11 years, WPI made systemic changes to better respect, recognize and support faculty off the tenure track, motivated by the realization that teaching faculty and other contingent faculty were becoming more numerous at, and more critical to, the institution. The addition in 2012 of formal titles, lines and criteria for promotion and short-term contracts began the long process of improving the lives and experiences of NTTF. In 2018, WPI assembled a task force to brainstorm ideas for further systemic improvements. Ultimately, the process resulted in a new tenure track for teaching faculty with appropriate criteria (based primarily on teaching), longer-term contracts for the remaining full-time NTTF with clear conditions for reappointment and protections against retaliation, and full inclusion in faculty governance for all secured full-time NTTF.
Prof. Mark Richman, WPI’s Secretary of the Faculty, noted “The Delphi Award showcases our success in reversing the erosion of tenure. It will magnify the effect of our experience beyond our campus by providing not just hope but also specific guidance to others who are determined and inspired to protect academic freedom for all faculty.”
The lessons of working together across the institution to make such pervasive changes was described by WPI Professor Kris Boudreau, Chair, Committee on Governance, “All constituencies saw that creating a tenure path for teaching faculty and providing security and participation in governance for our remaining contingent faculty were in the best interests of our students and the whole institution.”
Prof. Tanja Dominko, WPI’s previous Secretary of the Faculty, expressed her hope for other institutions: “In these days of diminished faculty involvement in the setting of academic priorities, WPI’s Delphi award demonstrates the importance of strong faculty governance and the power of tenured, tenure track, and non-tenure-track faculty to drive profound institutional change.”
As in previous years, a Delphi Award finalist was selected for their standout work on behalf of non-tenure-track faculty. The University of Michigan was honored this year for their work creating better supports for lecturers off the tenure track. The final product was a professional development program exclusively for lecturers known as the Inclusive Teaching Program for Lecturers. In focusing on lecturers, the University of Michigan ensured that inclusive and equity-focused teaching practices are embedded in classrooms across the institution and that lecturers off the tenure track are well prepared to enact such practices in their respective classrooms. Their exemplary work supporting lecturers included professional development, developing a theory of action, strategic partnerships and feedback loops. “With all the important racial equity work that needs to happen on our campuses, it is noteworthy that University of Michigan included lecturers in this process,” stated Kezar.
More information on the status of non-tenure-track faculty can be found in the 2019 report State of the Faculty from the Pullias Center. Additional tools and resources from the Pullias Center and The Delphi Project to assist campuses in supporting non-tenure-track faculty include Departmental Cultures and Non-Tenure-Track Faculty: A Self-Assessment Tool for Departments Non-Tenure-Track Faculty on our Campus: A Guide for Campus Task Forces to Better Understand Faculty Working Conditions and the Necessity of Change. Additionally, case studies of 2020 projects from award winners Louisiana State University and Northcentral University, and finalist Lehigh Valley Association for Independent Colleges, are also available on the Pullias Center website.