Imagine teaching English as an adjunct professor for five years, working towards becoming a tenured professor. When your time comes consideration, you wait anxiously to see if you are finally to be chosen for tenure … and get passed right on by. You may believe it will be just one more year of waiting, but the truth is, this guaranteed job may never come. Unfortunately, this is an increasingly common occurrence throughout campuses across the nation.

Why is this happening? What happened to professors having increased job security and benefits as a function of the amount of time they taught? According to Inside Higher Education , many universities are using a conversion strategy, which limits the number of adjunct professors eligible for tenure, as opposed to a typical tenure track strategy, in which professors have a much better chance of eventually making tenure. By only considering a few candidates, universities are attempting to save money in this time of economic distress. While the universities see this new tenure plan as logical and innovative, adjunct professors and their supporters strongly disagree.

How can university officials justify to their adjunct professors that they will not be making tenure? The blame falls on the activity outside of the classroom, especially at highly intensive research universities, such as Cornell. They believe that if a professor does very little research or makes few scholarly contributions to the academic environment, then they do not deserve to be considered for tenure. However, think about the life of an adjunct professor: shuttling from one campus to the next to teach a class or two before rushing off to the next one. Where, in this hectic daily schedule, do university officials see the time or opportunity for adjunct professors to perform research?

It has been argued that tenure is beneficial to the university as a whole because it gives employees a sense of interconnectedness and citizenship to the university, which increases morale of the entire professional staff, regardless of where each person falls in the teaching hierarchy that has been established. By decreasing the amount of tenured positions, universities may also be decreasing the loyalty of their employees.

Various groups, such as the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, are proposing reforms for the tenure policies regarding adjunct professors at universities. However, this is a time of economic downturn, and universities are forced to evaluate what is necessary in order to pass through the struggle. It remains to be seen if universities will improve tenure programs or wait until a better time to face the issue.