The Office of the Provost has almost finished the application process for 28 new faculty positions on track to eventually receive tenure.
After narrowing down the long list of applicants, which initially numbered 40 to 140 candidates for each position, the final interviews are in the works, according to Mary Clark, the interim dean of Academic Affairs.
“These people that I’m interviewing are the future of the University,” Clark said. “Some faculty members remain with us for 35 to 40 years.”
Tenured professors made up approximately 43 percent of AU’s full-time faculty, according to data from the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment from the 2013-2014 academic year. Tenure-track and term professors, which are professors hired on short-term contracts, made up the remaining 15 percent and 42 percent respectively.
The Reference Book also included the average salaries of full-time teaching faculty by status along the tenure track and each school within the University. A fully tenured professor typically made $161,991 per academic year while associate and assistant professors can expect about $106,380 and $88,403 respectively.
The title “assistant professor” comes with an entry-level position on AU’s tenure-line track, as outlined by the Faculty Manual. The tenure track at AU usually lasts for six years, but a professor can request an earlier review as well, according to Clark.
When a professor is tenured, the individual is secure in their position at the University indefinitely, with protected rights to hold unconventional or unpopular beliefs, promoting more critical academic thinking and a more diverse community of thinkers.
When a new faculty member is hired, they are bound by an initial three-year contract, and the professor’s performance is reviewed by the dean of the school or college, the Committee on Faculty Actions and the dean of Academic Affairs in the fall of his or her third year.
If the professor has upheld the University’s standards for tenure-line faculty, the contract is renewed and he or she will be reviewed again for tenure in the fall of his or her sixth year. Once this status is awarded, the title is updated to “associate professor.” After many more years of demonstrating excellence as a teacher and scholar in their field, an associate professor can apply for status as a full professor and become simply known as a professor, according to Clark.
Assistant Professor Nelson Amaral from the Kogod School of Business is currently in his second year along AU’s tenure track. After completing his doctorate degree at the University of Minnesota, Amaral said he is satisfied with his position at AU.
“The Ph.D. is a research degree. As a result, the requirement to publish research aligns nicely with [my] career goals,” Amaral said by email. “In addition, Ph.D.’s pursue work in academia because they enjoy teaching. For this reason, people like me who enjoy both teaching and research [think] schools like AU that place high value on both are a great place to work.”
Typically, tenure-line faculty members teach four courses per year or two each semester according to Clark. Additionally, they must be involved in research, releasing their work in journals or publications, and service. This service can be internal through supporting their department, program or college within the University or external through work with professional associations or the management of journals or publications.
“Tenure-line faculty are responsible for producing a substantial body of work involving new knowledge,” Clark said. “They are passionate about their field and the research they’re doing, and they want to share that with students to spark others’ interest.”
These positions differ from other faculty classifications at AU. If a professor is not tenure-line, they are known as either a term professor or an adjunct professor.
Term faculty have contracts typically for one, two, three or five years that may be renewed at their expiration and have similar interest in teaching, research and service. Adjunct faculty are currently working in the field they teach about and teach students about their experiences through one or two specialized subject courses to supplement their professional careers.
Each year the University typically conducts about 28 tenure-line searches, putting this year on par with past averages, according to Clark. The searches normally cover each school within the University, but there are currently no searches for the Washington College of Law.
“The fact that we have 28 searches for this year suggests that AU is a healthy university,” Clark said. “Other schools are in periods of retrenchment and aren’t hiring new faculty or [are] letting people go. However, this isn’t so at AU. We’re moving forward in a good direction.
