DeKALB – The University said it intends to offer longer contracts to some instructional faculty and add a service component to their responsibilities at a Faculty Senate meeting Wednesday.
INSTRUCTIONAL FACULTY CONTRACT PROPOSAL
Bárbara González, vice provost for Faculty Affairs, said the university is considering creating a pathway for instructors to have longer contracts and more responsibilities.
Instructors are generally required to renew their contracts on a yearly basis and do not have a service requirement, which could include mentoring students or contributing to academic committees.
Tenured faculty, on the other hand, have responsibilities outside of teaching such as research, publication and service.
Gonzalez said the longer contracts would make the instructors teaching professors or professors in practice.
“They will be non-tenure track faculty, so the same as our instructors, but they would have potentially longer contracts and be part of the university community in the sense that they would have some service component on top of their teaching component,” Gonzalez said.
The new employment conditions will have to be negotiated with the University Professionals of Illinois (UPI) union, according to Gonzalez.
Gonzalez said specifics such as contract length are still unknown.
“I cannot tell you the details of what that would look like because it does have to be negotiated,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez asked the Faculty Senate to work on promotional and evaluation criteria for the new instructor positions.
There will be assistant teaching professor, associate teaching professor and teaching professor, according to Gonzalez.
George Slotsve, an economics professor, raised concerns about the implications of this new proposal.
“If I read between the lines, you’re going to replace tenured faculty with non-tenured faculty. What it sounds like to me is that you’re now looking at replacement, removing tenured faculty lines, and you’ll be more flexible by not having tenured individuals teaching so you can move them around the university,” Slotsve said. “Whether you say it’s true or not, this is what I see down the road.”
Gonzalez responded by reiterating the purpose of the measure.
“The intent is to replace temporary instructors with teaching faculty. We want to give temporary instructors permanency in the university,” Gonzalez said. “It’s exactly the opposite of that. If we want to keep being a research university, we cannot replace tenured track lines with teaching lines.”
Lisa Woods, legal writing and academic success program instructor with the College of Law, said being on multiple committees and a mentor to students at NIU illustrates that instructional faculty already do the jobs that are being proposed for the new faculty category.
“For me, this isn’t just a job that is temporary and transient, but it is something that I would like to be my long-term career,” Woods said.
NIU Executive Vice President and Provost Laurie Elish-Piper clarified the intention of the proposal.
“Some instructors would be transitioned into teaching professor roles in areas where we know we have consistent, long-term needs,” Elish-Piper said. “For instruction, they would bring professional expertise, maybe they have additional credentials that align with the professional area, but all instructors would not be expected to become professors in practice.”
2025-26 FACULTY SENATE ELECTION
Emily McKee, an associate anthropology professor, called for the nomination of Faculty Senate president to serve in the 2025-26 academic year. She explained that nominations for the office will be taken from the Faculty Senate floor during the March 26 meeting and elections will be held at the April 23 meeting.
Three tenured faculty members and three instructors were also selected by lot drawing to serve on the 2025-26 student grievance panel.
McKee, music professor Greg Beyer and assistant professor of special education Lisa Liberty were drawn from among tenured faculty members. Kinesiology and physical education instructor Victoria Books, business instructor Brian Bender, and journalism instructor Jason Akst were also drawn.
The next Faculty Senate meeting will be at 3 p.m. on March 26 in the Altgeld Hall Auditorium.
