Vote Yes for A&S CTP Faculty Representation
The OSU College of Arts & Sciences tenure-track faculty have now received ballots to vote on whether to permit Clinical, Teaching, and Practice (CTP) faculty to vote, run, and be elected to Faculty Council representative seats. AAUP-OSU called for this vote through our non-tenure-track working conditions petition and strongly endorses a “yes” vote on the question. The College of Arts & Sciences has released this useful FAQ sheet if you have more questions about the vote. It clarifies that this will provide CTP faculty an opportunity to run in Faculty Council representation elections. CTP faculty representatives will still need to be elected to these positions by a vote of tenure-track and CTP faculty.
As AAUP explains in its report on Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession, shared governance is weakened when contingent faculty are excluded because it “undermine[s] the collegial atmosphere of academic institutions and hamper[s] the effectiveness of academic decision-making.” CTP faculty are responsible for teaching a large proportion of our courses, and they contribute unique knowledge from which the university can benefit. CTP faculty should have the opportunity to participate in shared governance of the university by contributing their expertise and having a voice in matters that affect them as much as other faculty. Arts & Sciences stands alone as the only college at OSU that has not yet voted in favor of giving CTP the right to vote and provide faculty representation in Faculty Council. Other colleges have benefited from CTP participation for some time, spreading this service responsibility across all faculty.
To be clear: we do NOT see giving voting rights to CTP faculty as an erosion of tenure. What erodes tenure is administrators hiring more CTP faculty as a cheaper, more controllable substitute for tenure-track faculty lines. Doing so is easier when CTP faculty have less voice in shared governance. By advocating that CTP faculty participate in shared governance, we are not condoning administrative efforts to undermine wages and working conditions. On the contrary: we are saying we are one faculty and we stand together against those efforts.
All tenure-track faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences should have already received a ballot in their OSU email inbox. Please cast your vote in favor of CTP representation so that Dean Horn can reach a quorum and Arts & Sciences CTP faculty can receive the right to participate in OSU shared governance. Administrators, staff, undergraduate, and graduate students all have representation in University Senate. We must move toward ensuring all faculty have representation too.
If you have not yet, please also sign the AAUP-OSU Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Working Conditions Petition, which calls for several additional policy changes for faculty lecturers as well as CTP faculty.
