A Self-Study of Contingent Faculty and their Impact on Undergraduate STEM Education at a Research-Intensive Institution

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This project aims to serve the national interest by addressing contingent faculty labor equity to improve STEM education. Contingent faculty comprise 69.5% of higher education instructional faculty nationwide. They include both part-time and full-time faculty who are appointed off the tenure track. Contingent faculty play a critical role in undergraduate STEM education and hold great potential for advancing student success as well as institutional commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Transforming faculty labor conditions to better support contingent faculty, particularly at research-intensive institutions, is critical for educating an increasingly diverse population and providing equitable STEM education. This Capacity Building project will offer a model self-study of the role of contingent faculty within university structures. The study has potential to deepen and transform current understandings of faculty roles at the university. Project outcomes include: (i) identifying a replicable set of institutional changes that enhance STEM education; (ii) revealing institutional models and best practices for achieving equitable STEM educational outcomes with a diverse faculty workforce; and (iii) identifying a theory of change that will be generalizable to similar research-intensive institutions.The goal of this project is to use a grounded theory approach to identify how research-intensive institutions can transform organizational structures, processes, and policies to ensure that contingent faculty enhance STEM education, educational equity, and institutional reputation. As the project’s scope focuses on systemic, transformational change, the project team will consist of both tenured and contingent STEM faculty, upper administration, and staff who support undergraduate teaching and learning. The project will conduct a self-study that employs a mixed method approach, including institutional data analysis and surveys, interviews, and focus groups with faculty and administrators, to understand how the labor conditions of contingent faculty affect STEM education. The project will engage in four key activities: 1) an assessment of the institutional and individual factors at the proposing institution that affect contingent faculty labor conditions and perceptions; 2) an analysis of the impact of contingent faculty labor conditions on STEM teaching and learning at the proposing institution; 3) identification of a theory of change that provides a framework for interventions and institutional transformation of the contingent faculty role at research-intensive institutions; and 4) identification of and collaboration with an institutional partner to build upon the foundation laid through the self-study. This project will yield new information on how contingent faculty agency and integration in research-intensive institutions affect STEM outcomes and address a gap in understanding of the institutional processes, structures, resources, and policies necessary to ensure that contingent faculty enhance STEM education. Focus on the research-intensive context will advance understanding of the impact of contingent faculty on student learning to an institutional type that has received less attention in the literature despite a critical role in preparation of the professional STEM labor force. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.