A Working Model for Contingent Faculty
By Robert Samuels
Copy edited by Karen P. Peirce. Designed by Mike Palmquist.
In A Working Model for Contingent Faculty, Robert Samuels offers an outline of fair and effective practices for improving the working conditions of faculty in precarious positions. Drawing on more than twenty years of union activism and university teaching, Samuels examines programs, policies, and practices that work for non-tenure-track faculty in the University of California system. His detailed analysis of facts on the ground offers a foundation upon which faculty in contingent positions can build arguments for improved working conditions. Throughout the book, Samuels focuses on the central issues of academic freedom, job security, compensation, shared governance, evaluation and promotion, benefits, and dispute resolution as well as critical but less often addressed concerns such as funding for professional development family leave policies, technology training, and summer teaching. A Working Model, as a result, offers resources that can support progress well beyond the University of California system.
Table of Contents
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Chapter 2. Effective Practices and Policies for Contingent Faculty
Chapter 3. Organizing for Change
Chapter 4. Countering Prejudices
Chapter 5. Tenure for the Contingent?
Chapter 6. Conclusion: Fighting for a Democratic Workplace at the Gig Academy
About the Author
Robert Samuels teaches writing at the University of California Santa Barbara. He is the author of 18 books, including Teaching Writing, Rhetoric, and Reason at the Globalizing University and The Politics of Writing Studies. He is the former president of UC-AFT, a union representing contingent faculty in the University of California system.
Publication Information: Samuels, Robert. (2023). A Working Model for Contingent Faculty. The WAC Clearinghouse; University Press of Colorado. https://doi.org/10.37514/PRA-B.2022.1763
Digital Publication Date: January 2, 2023
Print Publication Date: September 2023
ISBN: 978-1-64215-176-3 (PDF) | 978-1-64215-177-0 (ePub) | 978-1-64642-396-5 (pbk.)
DOI: 10.37514/PRA-B.2023.1763
Contact Information:
Robert Samuels: bobsamuels_us@yahoo.com
Precarity & Contingency
Series Editors: Seth Kahn, West Chester University, and Sue Doe, Colorado State University
This book is available in whole and in part in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF). It is also available in a low-cost print edition from our publishing partner, the University Press of Colorado.
Copyright © 2023 Robert Samuels. This work as a whole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License. Assignments in the book are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. 78 pages, with notes and bibliographies. This book is available in print from University Press of Colorado as well as from any online or brick-and-mortar bookstore. Available in digital formats for no charge on this page at the WAC Clearinghouse. You may view this book. You may print personal copies of this book. You may link to this page. You may not reproduce this book on another website. For permission requests and other questions, such as creating a translation, please contact the copyright holder.