by Kristen Kennedy

Recent figures put the number of contingent faculty working in colleges and universities at 65 percent of the 1.3 million faculty currently teaching in the United States. We generally read this number as an indicator of where we are in that part of the dance called the corporate turn in higher education. And every major education organization in the U.S.—the NEA, AFT, and AAUP—has gone on record to protest the increasing use of term faculty, citing the loss of academic freedom, job security, and the things that make academic culture different from, say, working at Microsoft, among the significant consequences of embracing a consumer model in education.

In all arguments to turn back the tide, it goes without saying that if you possess an advanced degree, and teach in a college or university, you must want a tenure-track job. But what if we suspend that assumption for a moment, to explore whether or not this is, in fact, true? Are there, for example, those among part- and full-time faculty who have not only chosen a temporary faculty position, but are fairly content, even happy, with that choice? The answer is yes. So who are these faculty, and why are they opting out?

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