Image: In a broad survey of master’s and doctoral institutions spanning the decade around the 2008 financial crisis, Jim Hearn and Rachel Burns (PhD 2018) found no evidence that the tenure structure leads to inefficiencies in budget. Current research studies on contingency effects lack a holistic view of organizational costs and financial goals, and they tend to narrowly consider only short-term analyses. The authors address these limits in their longitudinal study. Pulling from IPEDS data between 2003-2014, they focus on financially-stressed public institutions with major research and graduate-level degree programs. Their findings were very clear, “Most striking is the absence of any evidence that increasing (or decreasing) the proportion of non-tenure-track faculty affects institutional financial health.” The results also failed to show any financial harm from a move to contingency hires. They recommend that future research follows potential benefits of alternative revenue streams (such as contract and grants) as more viable and holistically-beneficial approaches to dealing with financial exigency. The article, “Contingent Faculty Employment and Financial Stress in Public Universities” appears online at The Journal of Higher Education site https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2020.1851570 Type of News/Audience: Alumni Research
