Instructional faculty organize “Ask Day”, adding pressure to a resolution calling for multi-year contracts

Ohio University’s instructional faculty sent requests Monday to university department chairs, directors and deans to extend five-year contracts to them in what they are referring to as “Ask Day,” according to a press release.

Ask Day comes after a resolution calling for instructional faculty multi-year contracts passed during a Faculty Senate meeting on Feb. 7. The event was organized by Ohio U’s chapter of the American Association for University Professors (OU-AAUP), spearheaded by its Instructional Faculty Representative Kyle Butler. Butler is an associate professor of instruction at Ohio U in the Ohio Program of Intensive English and does outreach work within the OU-AAUP.

“A small group of us who are regulars at the weekly meeting, we’ve been noticing this issue come up again and again among the instructional faculty,” Butler said. “A general feeling of concern about job security, especially with the layoffs that have happened in recent years, but then also a lot of people who have gone through the promotion process.”

Ask Day resulted from a collective effort involving instructional faculty across the university’s departments both on the Athens campus as well as regional campuses. Tenured professors and some department heads who supported the resolution made requests to their department heads and deans as well.

“Instructional faculty are professors whose primary responsibility is teaching, rather than research or creative activity,” the press release read. “They are not eligible for tenure, and they are generally employed on year-to-year contracts.”

The Faculty Handbook currently includes multi-year contracts for instructional faculty, however, they are often overlooked during the renewal process in favor of one-year-long contracts. This is strongly in part due to the language used in the handbook, a problem the OU-AAUP hopes to amend if the resolution is signed by Provost Elizabeth Sayrs.

“If you look at the language that we changed, there were two crucial things there,” Butler said. “One was the word ‘should’. It says instructional faculty should be offered a five-year contract which feels more like a suggestion than an obligation. So one change we made was changing the word should to ‘will.’”

The resolution would also change the conditions necessary for multi-year contracts. Currently, multi-year contracts are available based on what each department requires from its instructional faculty. Should the resolution pass, it would allow more flexibility for instructional faculty around departmental desires. While the decision ultimately falls on Sayrs to make the changes official, Ask Day allowed faculty to let their voices be heard.

“Instructional faculty making the case for themselves point out that, in addition to demonstrating teaching excellence, many take on leadership roles in their departments, advise and mentor students, develop curriculum and programming, secure external grant funding, enable opportunities for students to work with professionals outside the university, and publish research in leading academic journals,” the press release said.

Butler said the resolution will seek to benefit not only the instructional faculty who would receive new multi-year contracts but also the students they have influenced and formed relationships with through their teaching.

“In the end, it all comes back to the students,” Butler said in the press release. “Instructional faculty are on the front line in the classroom with the students. When the university makes a commitment to its instructional faculty, it makes a commitment to its students.”