CONTINGENT APPOINTMENTS AND THE DIMINISHING VOICE, AGENCY, AND PROFESSIONALISM OF WOMEN

Seventy percent of U.S. faculty are off the tenure track (Knapp, Kelly-Reid, and Ginder 2011); yet, academia has largely overlooked the effects of contingent work on women’s careers. For years many non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF)-part-time and full-time faculty who are not eligible for tenure-have worked in higher education under suboptimal conditions: significantly less pay, less respect, less job security, and fewer resources (Baldwin and Chronister 2001; Gappa and Leslie 1993; Gappa, Austin, and Trice 2007; Monks 2007). 1 These inequalities create a dynamic in higher education where three distinct classes of faculty exist: tenured and tenure-track faculty, who have relative prestige full-time NTTF, who have more limited voice; and part-time faculty, who have neither prestige nor a strong voice. Tenure-line faculty tend to be considered professionals whereas non-tenure-line faculty are considered laborers, though they increasingly have similarities in education, academic socialization, and types of work.