Faculty Equity and Educational Excellence: A Petition on Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Working Conditions

RATIONALE FOR THE PETITION

A university is only as good as its commitment to the people carrying out its educational mission. Faculty who are asked to shape minds, advance knowledge, and carry the intellectual life of an institution deserve, in return, the basic conditions that make that work sustainable, conditions to which all faculty have a right.

At OSU, no group of faculty stands further from these sustainable working conditions than our non-tenure-track colleagues: associated faculty and clinical, teaching, and practice faculty who carry a growing share of the university’s teaching while working under some of its least secure conditions. These faculty too often endure low pay and weak job security with no voice at work and no protection of their academic freedom. To be clear: this is not a reflection of ability or commitment. Non-tenure-track faculty bring deep expertise to their teaching, whether through advanced degrees, years of professional practice, or both, along with the same dedication to their students as any of their colleagues. The problem is the system of contingency itself, a structure that isolates faculty from their colleagues, excludes them from governance over their own work, and uses low pay and weak job security to quietly narrow what they feel free to teach and say. These conditions affect not only individual faculty’s sense of security and respect, but also their ability to provide the best education to their students.

The demands set forth in the AAUP-OSU petition Faculty Equity and Educational Excellence: A Petition on Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Working Conditions move us closer to fulfilling these rights among non-tenure-track faculty at OSU.

I. Competitive, Living Wage 

Petition Demand: Institute a university-wide wage floor of $65,000 for all full-time faculty.

AAUP Position: When contingent appointments are used, they should include comparable compensation for comparable work: “The majority of faculty working on contingent appointments do not have professional careers outside of academe, and most teach basic core courses rather than narrow specialties. While a small percentage of part-time faculty are specialists or practitioners of a profession such as law or architecture and teach a class on the side, this situation is the exception rather than the norm. In other words, contingent faculty are ‘real’ faculty, not other professionals who are moonlighting by teaching a course.” — Background Facts on Contingent Faculty Positions

Our Reality & Rationale: According to publicly available data, hundreds of full-time OSU faculty members currently earn less than $65,000 annually. Many of our faculty colleagues are income constrained, struggling to afford basic expenses. In Columbus, the minimum annual living wage for two working adults with two children is roughly $59,000 for each parent, and for a single parent, it is $83,000. Columbus City School teachers with a PhD and zero years teaching experience start at $64,319 and Cincinnati Public Schools teachers start at $63,689. In many departments across the university, faculty wage floors have not increased since fall 2022, but costs for household essentials (housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, and basic technology) in Ohio have been increasing on average 5.6% per year. When prices increase faster than wages, purchasing power decreases and households struggle to make ends meet.

II. Recognition of Excellence

Petition Demand: Guarantee merit pay eligibility for all faculty ranks.

AAUP Position: Faculty in all units deserve to be financially rewarded for consistently excellent performance: “This absence of incentives or rewards for performance speaks bluntly to the marginal status of non-tenure-track faculty within these institutions.” — The Status of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty

“The professional development and scholarly accomplishments of contingent faculty are often viewed as irrelevant or simply ignored.” — Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession

Our Reality & Rationale: Many OSU non-tenure-track faculty are ineligible for systematic annual merit pay increases, despite being consistently evaluated as meeting or exceeding expectations on annual evaluations. Faculty members should not be required to submit annual evaluation dossiers when the system provides no mechanism to reward their excellence, professionalism, and dedication to the OSU community. In defining the purpose of annual review, OSU’s Faculty Annual Review, Post-Tenure Review, and Reappointment Policy states that performance reviews “determine salary increases and other resource allocation” and “define progress toward reappointment and/or promotion.” Yet non-tenure-track faculty are now required to do more work to document their contributions through the updated annual review process instituted in 2026. Without the possibility of merit pay increases, faculty salaries remain stagnant. In fact, given the lack of cost of living adjustments to base pay and the 5.6% annual inflation noted in point I, many non-tenure-track salaries lose value each year.

III. Equitable and Sustainable Workload

Petition Demand: Reduce the 100% teaching workload to a maximum of 21 credit hours per 9-month appointment.

AAUP Position: To ensure full compensation for non-classroom teaching labor, the AAUP recommends a preferred teaching load of 18 hours per year (9 hours per week): “Faculty on contingent appointments are typically paid only for the hours they spend in the classroom. While they may be excellent teachers, they are not given adequate institutional support for time spent meeting with students, evaluating student work, and class planning and preparation.” — Background Facts on Contingent Faculty Positions

“The teacher normally spends far less time in the classroom than in preparation, conferences, grading of papers and examinations, and supervision of remedial or advanced student work. Preparation, in particular, is of critical importance, and is probably the most unremitting of these demands; not only preparation for specific classes or conferences, but that more general preparation in the discipline, by keeping up with recent developments and strengthening one’s grasp on older materials, without which the faculty member will soon dwindle into ineffectiveness as scholar and teacher. Moreover, traditional workload formulations are at odds with significant current developments in educa­tion emphasizing independent study, the use of new materials and media, extracurricular and off­-campus educational experiences, and interdisciplinary approaches to problems in contem­porary society.” — AAUP Statement on Faculty Workload

Our Reality & Rationale: Hundreds of OSU non-tenure-track faculty are assigned a 100% teaching workload of 24 credit hours per year, which ignores the vital non-classroom labor required of faculty. This extra-classroom work includes course design, implementation, review and revision; writing student recommendation letters; managing accommodation requests; navigating COAM reports; frequent interactive electronic communication with individual students; mentoring Graduate Teaching Associates; and pursuing professional development. Workload standards should be revised to include the entirety of work done by non-tenure-track faculty.  

IV. Professional Dignity and Respect

Petition Demand: Establish a policy mandating notice of non-reappointment or contract reduction at least 60 days prior to the end of a faculty member’s current contract.

AAUP Position: Timely notice of non-reappointment should be extended to all faculty regardless of length of service: “Because a probationary appointment, even though for a fixed or stated term, carries an expectation of renewal, the faculty member should be explicitly informed of a decision not to renew an appointment, in order that the faculty member may seek a position at another college or university. Such notice should be given at an early date, since a failure to secure another position for the ensuing academic year will deny the faculty member the opportunity to practice their profession.” — Nonreappointment & Full-Time Renewable Term Appointments

“A broad and growing front of research shows that the system of permanently temporary faculty appointments has negative consequences for student learning. Mindful that their working conditions are their students’ learning conditions, many faculty holding contingent appointments struggle to shield students from the consequences of an increasingly unprofessional workplace.” — Tenure and Teaching-Intensive Appointments

“Regardless of the stated term or other provi­sions of any appointments, written notice that a probationary appointment is not to be renewed will be given to the faculty member in advance of the expiration of the appointment as follows: (1) not later than March 1 of the first academic year of service if the appointment expires at the end of that year; or, if a one-year appointment terminates during an academic year, at least three months in advance of its termination; (2) not later than December 15 of the second aca­demic year of service if the appointment expires at the end of that year; or, if an initial two-year appointment terminates during an academic year, at least six months in advance of its ter­mination; (3) at least twelve months before the expiration of an appointment after two or more years of service at the institution.” —Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure

Our Reality & Rationale: There is no university policy on contract renewal, and a constant worry for faculty on term contracts is that their appointments will not be renewed in the next semester or next year due to university or unit aberrations. Some faculty are being notified on too short notice that they no longer have a job or that their contract is being reduced. This anxiety is amplified by an inadequate bureaucratic timeline: faculty are required to submit their annual evaluation dossiers as early as February 15 — a process that asks faculty to set goals against which future performance will be assessed. But the vast majority of non-tenure-track faculty do not receive notification of contract renewal before the annual evaluation dossier submission deadline. These faculty are being asked to describe how their current performance will inform their future work and workload at OSU without knowing if they will, in fact, be employed by OSU in future semesters. 

V. Economic Stability and Career Longevity

Petition Demand: Establish, with limited specific exceptions, a university-wide contract minimum of one year for all full-time faculty, and a contract minimum of three years for faculty with at least five years of service. 

AAUP Position: Non-tenure-track faculty appointments deserve assurance of continuing employment after a reasonable opportunity for successive reviews: “Core or introductory courses, often assigned to faculty members on term appointments, are not transient programmatic needs, and an appointment that extends beyond a reasonable probationary period cannot reasonably be said to constitute a brief institutional association.”  — Academic Due Process for Non-Tenure-Track Full-Time Faculty Members after Seven Years of Service

“The minimal institutional commitment and relatively rapid turnover that characterize appointments of part- and full-time contingent faculty mean that few faculty are available for long-term institutional and curricular planning, for mentoring newer faculty, and for other collegial responsibilities. ... The faculty as a whole is less stable when its members are increasingly unable to support these key academic activities.” — Contingent Employment and the Academic Profession

Our Reality & Rationale: There is no university policy on faculty contract lengths, and too many faculty, whose livelihoods depend on consistent work, are on short-term contracts despite faithfully and satisfactorily serving the university for years. At other universities in Ohio and outside it, faculty contracts have a 1-year minimum.While one-semester contracts are appropriate for appointments that are designed to address transient programmatic needs or to provide temporary replacement, no faculty member should be subjected to the precarity of a succession of one-semester or one-year contracts. Although OSU contracts for associated faculty members can range from one semester to three years, many non-tenure-track faculty who have demonstrated a long-term commitment to their academic careers at OSU remain on one-year contracts indefinitely. Rapid turnover and minimal institutional commitment destabilize the university as a whole. Indefinite contingent employment undermines academic freedom and professional standards.

VI. Academic Freedom and Inclusion

Petition Demand: Institute a university-wide policy that welcomes and extends the right to all faculty to attend and participate in and, when appropriate, vote at faculty meetings at the disciplinary, departmental, programmatic, divisional, and college levels.

AAUP Position: Non-tenure-track faculty should be included in both departmental and institutional decision-making: “Faculty in contingent positions, though they may teach the majority of some types of courses, are often cut out of department and institution-wide planning. The knowledge that they have about their students and the strengths and weaknesses of the courses they teach is not taken into consideration.” —— Background Facts on Contingent Faculty Positions

“Contingent faculty, both part and full time, are constantly confronted with reminders of their lack of status in the academic community. Contingent faculty have fewer opportunities to interact with their tenured or tenure-track colleagues in faculty governance, professional development, and scholarly pursuits. This isolation promotes divisions and distinctions that undermine the collegial nature of the academic community.” — Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession

“The socioeconomic divide between tenure-stream and contingent faculty also contributes to a lack of community feeling and takes a serious toll on the mental health and well-being of contingent faculty.” — Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession

Our Reality & Rationale: In many units across campus, non-tenure-track faculty are not routinely invited to meetings where critical pedagogical, curricular, and administrative decisions are discussed despite their relevant expertise and the significant impact these decisions have on their work. Non-tenure-track faculty spend more time in the classroom and with students than tenure-track faculty, so the unit is best served when they participate in decision-making. They also deserve input into administrative decisions that affect their work.

VII. Participation in Shared Governance

Petition Demand: Call for a vote of the Arts & Sciences College tenure track faculty to propose eligibility of its clinical/teaching/practice faculty for election to the University Senate.

AAUP Position: Non-tenure-track faculty appointments should include inclusion in institutional governance structures: “Institutional policies should define as ‘faculty’ and include in governance bodies at all levels individuals whose appointments consist primarily of teaching or research activities conducted at a professional level. These include (1) tenured faculty, (2) tenure-track faculty, (3) full- and part-time non-tenure-track teachers, (4) graduate-student employees and postdoctoral fellows who are primarily teachers or researchers, and (5) librarians who participate substantially in the process of teaching or research.” — The Inclusion in Governance of Faculty Members Holding Contingent Appointments: Recommendations

“Faculty governance is weakened . . . by the exclusion of contingent faculty from governance activities.” — Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession

Our Reality & Rationale: To our knowledge, the College of Arts & Sciences is the lone exception on campus that has failed to hold a vote to include clinical/teaching/practice faculty in University Senate. Faculty who focus on teaching and clinical work contribute unique knowledge from which the university can benefit. Non-tenure-track faculty should have the opportunity to participate in shared governance of the university.

These rights are not in conflict with OSU's mission; they are what that mission requires. It is the faculty who create the knowledge OSU claims credit for, who educate the diverse student body OSU calls its future leaders, and who carry out the community engagement OSU points to as evidence of its values in action. None of that happens without all faculty, tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure-track alike, being able to do their jobs well, which is exactly what OSU's stated values already commit the university to supporting. Non-tenure-track faculty carry a defining share of this work, and today they stand furthest from having what they need to do it well. When they are paid fairly, given sustainable workloads, and trusted with a voice in their own governance, OSU's students are better prepared to lead, and its communities are better served.

The rights and rationales here emerge from AAUP-OSU’s 2026 NTT OSU Labor Conditions Report and are in alignment with Ohio State’s Shared Values, the AFT Position on Contingency, as well as the following AAUP reports: Mission Statement; AAUP Core Principles; Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession; The Inclusion In Governance of Faculty Members Holding Contingent Appointments: Recommendations; Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure; Statement on Faculty Workload; Nonreappointment & Full-Time Renewable Term Appointments; Preliminary Findings- AAUP 2025-26 Compensation Survey; Tenure and Teaching- Intensive Appointments.

We encourage NTT AAUP-OSU Faculty to utilize AAUP Resources on Contingent Positions.