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news
To tenure or not
to tenure
By Jamillah R. Gabriel
On-line Forty-Niner
Through a series
of teach-ins, the California Faculty Association has made
the public more aware of the ratio between lecturers and tenured
faculty at a majority of the schools in the California State
University system.
Cal State Long Beach has approximately 1,100 lecturers and
900 tenure-track faculty, said Martin Fiebert, Long Beach
chapter president of the CFA and psychology professor.
Some students may wonder what the difference is between lecturers
and tenured, or ranked faculty. A lecturer may be a full-
or part-time employee, usually hired to work for a period
of one or two years.
According to the Faculty Collective Bargaining agreement,
a lecturer position is deemed to be a temporary appointment
that automatically expires at the end of the period for which
the lecturer was hired.
In contrast, tenured faculty, which consists of assistant
professors, associate professors, and professors, are split
into two categories: probationary and tenured. When initially
hired, all ranked faculty members serve a period of probation
of one or more years before receiving tenure, as stated by
the agreement.
During the probation, these positions are considered tenure
track, that is, they are on their way to becoming tenured.
But this happens only after the probationary period has ended.
"All of the ranked positions are tenure track,"
said Irene Wood, academic personnel manager. "If employees
go through all of the reviews, they could become tenured,"
she said.
Tenure is desirable to most faculty members, but lecturers
teach most classes. So how does this affect the students and
the education they receive?
"The system is built around part-time faculty,"
Fiebert said, "and that puts pressure on full-time faculty
to increase their workload."
He noted that part-time lecturers are often excellent teachers,
but other factors come into play which affect the quality
of education. Such factors include the fact that part-time
lecturers are not available to the students on a full-time
basis.
They must often teach overcrowded classes and may not be aware
of faculty policies to advise students the way full-time faculty
can.
These factors may leave students at a disadvantage. Huong
Tranh, a junior majoring in international studies, recalled
that many of her general education classes were overcrowded.
"It was sometimes hard to get any individual help because
there were so many other students who also needed help,"
Tranh said.
Other students did not feel overcrowding was as important
as being able to get in touch with their instructors.
"I could never catch up with my professor," said
Joseph Lansing, a senior economics and business major. "He
had limited office hours, so I found I had to leave messages
on his voicemail quite often."
He further stated that his main concern is that students not
be neglected as a result of the large number of part-time
faculty.
"I hope that administrators realize that our education
should come first," Lansing said.
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