Deconstructing faculty status: research and assumptions

Abstract

Arguments for faculty status have traditionally been based upon a comparative model: librarians want their roles to be compared to those of faculty, not administrators. The author of this article, however, finds almost no empirical research on the status, roles, and benefits of faculty, librarians, and administrators to support this model. She posits several alternative approaches to the faculty status issue.Approximately half of all librarians currently employed by U.S. colleges and universities possess "faculty status." 1 Such librarians have been accorded a status equivalent to teaching faculty in terms of rights (notably tenure and participation in governance) and responsibilities (notably research and publishing). The advantages and disadvantages of faculty status have been debated in academic librarianship for years. Indeed, the issue is almost a professional obsession. College & Research Libraries published two nearly identical reviews of the literature on the subject in consecutive issues in 1987. 2 Taken together, these writings reveal a concept or model of faculty status that is built on a series of logically connected assumptions. The basic assumptions are (1) that teaching faculty have certain roles and benefits, (2) that administrators or other college staff do not have these roles and benefits, and (3) that librarians who are not considered faculty will be considered administrators or staff and thus will not have these roles or benefits. For example, a librarian without faculty status will not be viewed as having an educational role and will not possess tenure.The validity of these assumptions could be tested by comparing librarians with and librarians without faculty status: if those with faculty status had the specified roles and benefits and those without did not, then the assumed model is supported.Research on faculty status in general is relatively sparse compared with the volume of opinion pieces (what should be done) and personal narratives (how we do it where I work). Moreover, research has not explicitly addressed this underlying model; neither has it considered questions lying outside the model.The purpose of this review of research in librarianship and higher education is to critically examine each of the component role and benefit elements of the faculty status model to determine if its assumptions and logical connections are supported by empirical findings. A conclusion outlines the implications of the research results---and lack of results--and suggests alternative approaches to the faculty status issue.

Job Satisfaction of Canadian University Librarians: A National Survey

“…These findings seem to support authors such as Rachel Applegate, who have argued that the pursuit of faculty status for academic librarians has been based on a set of incorrent assumptions about who librarians are and what they should be doing within insitutions of higher education. 28 However, the situation may not be so clear-cut because other factors also appear to affect the satisfaction equation.…”

Framing Librarianship in the Academy: An Analysis Using Bolman and Deal’s Model of Organizations

“…Upon review of the empirical literature on the topic, Applegate stated that, while the paucity of relevant literature made it difficult to draw conclusions regarding faculty librarians' job satisfaction versus that of nonfaculty academic librarians, librarians with faculty status may be less satisfied in key areas. 38 Bruce Kingma and Gillian M. McCombs cautioned that librarians with faculty status may be less productive in the areas traditionally associated with academic librarianship because their attention is necessarily diverted to other functions inside the academy. 39 Also of concern is the possibility of faculty academic librarians being consigned to what Danielle Hoggan terms "nominal" faculty status.…”

Academic Librarians’ Changing Perceptions of Faculty Status and Tenure

“…4 Because of this, though the question of tenure and faculty status in libraries has a long history in academic literature, much of that literature has been opinion-based or even anecdotal. 5 The authors sought to fill a gap in this conversation by surveying academic librarians at different levels in their careers to discern their actual perceptions of faculty status and then compare how these views morph over time in the profession. The present study is important because it uncovers the changing opinions of academic librarians in relation to tenure.…”