The Fort Lewis College Board of Trustees held a meeting Friday, Oct. 17, discussing matters including Philosophy and Political Science Professor Justin McBrayer’s report concerning the retention and composition of FLC’s tenure and non-tenure-track professors.
As the faculty representative on the board, he met with many members of faculty to discuss what they wanted represented at the board, McBrayer said.
“The number one concern on a lot of faculty minds is this question of whether we have enough teachers to do our job, the job we claim to do,” McBrayer said.
This has been an ongoing conversation for years. The composition of the faculty, referring to tenure and non-tenure-track professors, is part of this, he said.
Tenure means a professor is granted due process, the employer must have due cause to terminate an employee and there must be a process in which this is achieved, McBrayer said.
Tenure-track is the presumption that when hired, a professor will achieve a tenure contract within a six years or be terminated after review, he said.
“In simple terms, it prevents arbitrary firing,” he said.
The definition of an adjunct, tenure or non-tenure-track professor, is unclear, McBrayer said.
Part of this matter is that there are different types of faculty that are categorized as the tenure or non-tenure-track, he said. For instance, not all faculty that are tenured are professors.
This affects faculty in terms of what is expected of each type of faculty member, McBrayer said.
Certain tenure and non-tenure-track faculty do not have responsibilities to the college such as service, advising to students and research requirements like other faculty members, which hurts the college, he said.
The primary factor leading to this issue is financial resources, McBrayer said.
By hiring visiting professors and adjunct professors, the college is able to save money, he said.
“Teachers are expensive because they are highly credentialed,” McBrayer said.
“On the administration’s behalf, they are faced with the difficult decisions of how to allocate money,” he said.
Faculty may be receiving a bigger slice of expenditures overall, however that did not result in professors being hired, but rather increased salaries, he said.
As FLC receives less and less funding from the government, it is putting strain on budgets and the college’s finances, John Wells, chairman of the Board of Trustees, said.
“I think there needs to be more of an emphasis on hiring teachers,” McBrayer said.
The board, in conjunction with the administration, and McBrayer agreed with Board Member Matthew Wassam’s idea of working together to solve this issue.
“We, as stakeholders, want a healthy institution,” Wassam said
The overall goal is to support the mission of Fort Lewis College, Wells said.
“I am in higher education because I believe in it,” President Dene Kay Thomas said.
The Independent will cover this subject more in its upcoming print issue, Issue 63.