Faculty Survey

The College of Natural Science is conducting a survey of the faculty. It was somewhat interesting to look at the questions and to gauge my own reactions to them. The survey focused primarily on the relationships between the faculty member and the department -- and the college. And then dealt with effort spent on research, teaching, and service.

Beyond answering the questions, I pointed out the two things that I've been raising with the University for the past 10 years. First, that the survey itself demonstrated the ambivalent relationship the University has with non-tenure-system faculty: the list of faculty ranks did not even include my rank "Senior Lecturer II" (among the 10 or 15 that were there) -- I just had to pick "full-time lecturer". Many faculty would argue that becoming a lecturer is having failed -- and this attitude pervades a whole range of micro-aggressions that the administration practices upon non-tenure-system faculty. The most important of these is the lack of support for on-going professional development. While tenure-system faculty get a sabbatical every seven years, non-tenure-system get a sabbatical, well, never. And the institutional support for non-tenure-system faculty to attend conferences or training is practically non-existent. This perhaps made sense when non-tenure-system faculty were purely short-term appointments, but when they work for 15 or 20 years in the same position, it would benefit the institution to make a strong commitment to helping these faculty stay current and retrain.

I pointed out one other thing too. The survey discussed the relationship with the department and college (and, to a lesser extent, the University as a whole), but it did not mention the faculty union as a source of community. The union has been really important to me in terms of getting to know colleagues from across the institution and thinking about scholarship from a broader perspective. And for making really tremendous gains over 10 years to improve the circumstances for non-tenure-system faculty. Go UMassMSP!