Provost Hill's Response to the NTT Task Force Report
Dear Colleagues,
I wish to thank the Non-Tenure Track Task Force for their work studying the culture surrounding non-tenure track colleagues at Washington and Lee. The Task Force provided a helpful analysis of the challenges associated with NTT faculty appointments and contextualized W&L NTT faculty numbers in relation to our peers. As Appendix B shows, W&L leads most peers in maintaining a low percentage of NTT faculty. Peer schools depend on NTT faculty at a median rate of 16%. With only 8% of our full-time undergraduate faculty holding NTT appointments, W&L maintains the second lowest overall percentage of NTT faculty at a top 25 liberal arts institution. The Task Force also offers useful guidance to improve the experience of NTT faculty, underscoring that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. I am truly grateful for the array of recommendations provided. We have already begun implementing Task Force recommendations, and I look forward to continuing this work. We remain dedicated to building on our strong foundation of ethical employment and respectful treatment of all our colleagues.
1) Hiring and Retention
We will continue striving to offer multi-year contracts, develop more attractive NTT faculty positions, and begin the hiring process for non-tenure track positions earlier in the year. When feasible, the undergraduate Deans have begun to make these changes by asking Department Heads for two years of course planning. The hiring process is complicated by the process of replacing full year as compared to semester long sabbaticals, which is further complicated by the matter of external funding deadlines and notifications. Still, it is our intention to hire earlier and hire longer where we can.
We have already worked with Human Resources to expand benefits eligibility to undergraduate, part-time faculty under the "Part-Time with Partial Benefits" classification to provide benefits such as health, life, and dental insurance. We are now using eligibility criteria similar to criteria used in the law school for this classification.
We employ, and will continue to make use of, myriad recruiting approaches to encourage a strong, diverse NTT faculty candidate pool. One prong of this approach involves recruiting-in an equitable manner-as broad a pool as possible; therefore, we aim to announce such positions equally for all potential candidates.
Salary analysis for all faculty and staff is a continuous process. We use CUPA-HR data, an industry standard in higher education, to benchmark all faculty salaries, including NTT faculty, against peer institutions. In terms of adjustments, for the 2022-23 academic year, we have raised the base offers and renewals for full-time NTT faculty by 13% on average. We will continue to make adjustments based on both experience and performance, the latter of the two weighing the most.
We will continue to provide written offers of employment that include employment dates, teaching load, and salary. We will also make sure new faculty are aware that their voting status is available in their Workday profile.
Finally, with regard to hiring and retention, the Deans are working to ensure that new NTT hires are assigned a departmental or program "contact person" who will be available to help them navigate the transition to campus.
2) Professional Development and Support
We will continue to support NTT faculty in various professional development opportunities where we can. Full-time, undergraduate NTT Faculty members and longer-serving part-time, NTT faculty are eligible for conference support, and if a full time NTT faculty member is here for more than one year, they are also eligible for summer research funding. Moreover, in conjunction with the Associate Provost for Academic Development and Operations, we will continue to include all new NTT faculty in New Faculty Orientation. The Associate Provosts will also work with the Associate Deans to develop Fall Academy sessions designed specifically for NTT faculty. Finally, I am happy to report that we already provide mentorship and support for NTT faculty. The Associate Deans and Director of the Harte Center hold regular mentoring sessions for NTT and TT colleagues. This program will be meeting more frequently this year, and we hope it will be useful both as a resource and an opportunity to build stronger community among all new faculty.
With regard to resources, we will continue to provide office space for NTT faculty where possible, as well as up-to-date computing technology and software, office supplies, telephone, voicemail, school email, access to photocopying, and library facilities and learning management systems.
The Deans will continue guiding department and program heads to consult with NTT faculty about teaching schedule preferences-as they do with tenure track faculty-while keeping in mind the flexibility necessary to address needs across the department. Heads will also continue supporting NTT faculty to understand the kinds of classrooms available in terms of seating arrangements and audio-visual facilities and help them process requests for what they need. NTT faculty should also be included on the departmental or program website upon their arrival, and their profiles should be updated as needed. Finally, we continue to emphasize to department and programs that they should always include and welcome NTT faculty to discussions, events, and, where appropriate, meetings.
3) Governance
A task force will be appointed to update the faculty handbook and will be charged, in part, to consider the several recommendations from the NTT Task Force listed in the report.
4) NTT Faculty Evaluation
With regard to the NTT Faculty Evaluation process, there has been some question as to how to "close the loop" when it comes to work required of the departmental annual reviews. The Deans will continue to message to department heads that NTT annual reviews are to be submitted to the appropriate Dean to be added to all faculty files.
Appendix A
We offer the following breakdown of non-tenure track (NTT) faculty into subgroups. The tables below include raw numbers, credit hours taught, as well as average years of service. The data represents a snapshot of the various units on campus as of November 1, 2021.
Table 1: NTT Faculty Breakdown
| Affiliation | NTT Faculty | Part-Time | Full-Time | Voting | Continuing |
| College | 51 | 22 (43%) | 29 (57%) | 25 (49%) | 8 (16%) |
| Law School | 52 | 43 (83%) | 9 (17% | 7 (13%) | 4 (8%) |
| Music | 18 | 18 (100%) | 0 (0%) | 1 (6%) | 0 (0%) |
| P.E. & Athletics | 29 | 0 (0%) | 29 (100%) | 29 (100%) | 29 (100%) |
| Provost | 2 | 0 (0%) | 2 (100%) | 2 (100%) | 1 (50%) |
| Library | 8 | 0 (0%) | 8 (100%) | 8 (100%) | 8 (100%) |
| Williams School | 9 | 0 (0%) | 9 (100%) | 4 (44%) | 2 (22%) |
| Total | 169* | 83 (49%) | 86* (51%) | 76 (45%) | 50 (30%) |
| This table shows the breakdown of NTT faculty by academic affiliation, including the total number of faculty and the number (and percentage) of faculty in four critical sub-categories: part-time faculty, full-time faculty, voting faculty, and continuing faculty. Full-time Undergraduate faculty teach at least five courses per academic year and have other administrative responsibilities. Law faculty in the Full-time category teach an average of ten credit hours per academic year and devote substantial time to other administrative duties. Please note that we separated out the P.E. and Athletics, Music, and Library colleagues given their special employment circumstances. They are not double counted in the College statistics. *These numbers include postdocs and exclude vacant positions and administrators. |
| Affiliation | Avg Part-Time Service Length (yrs) | Avg Full-Time Service Length (yrs) | Avg Part-Time Credit Hours |
| College | 3.5 | 3.9 | 6.5 |
| Law School | 3.2 | 4 | 4.3 |
| Music | 4.6 | n/a | n/a* |
| P.E. & Athletics | n/a | 9.2 | n/a |
| Provost | n/a | 5.5 | n/a |
| Library | n/a | 8.3 | n/a |
| Williams School | n/a | 1.1 | n/a |
|
This table shows select other NTT statistics relevant to the report. *The Per Credit Hours for part-time faculty is an average across faculty paid on a per credit basis. Music instructors whose compensation is based on the number of students taught, are excluded from the per credit hours average. |
Appendix B
2019-20 AAUP NTT Percentage Data
| School | % NTT Faculty |
| Grinnell | 7% |
| Harvey Mudd | 8% |
| Washington and Lee | 8% |
| Swarthmore | 9% |
| Claremont McKenna | 10% |
| Pomona | 10% |
| Williams | 13% |
| Middlebury | 13% |
| Carleton | 15% |
| Hamilton | 15% |
| Bowdoin | 15% |
| Vassar | 15% |
| Colby | 17% |
| Smith | 20% |
| Davidson | 22% |
| Colgate | 23% |
| Bates | 23% |
| Amherst | 23% |
| Macalester | 23% |
| Haverford | 24% |
| University of Richmond | 27% |
| Wesleyan | 29% |
| Wellesley | 31% |
| Barnard | 35% |
| Median | 16% |
|
Using the AAUP definition of NTT faculty, these percentages represent all undergraduate full-time NTT faculty not replacing a faculty member on paid leave (sabbatical replacement). This excludes law, athletics, and library faculty. |