Equity Week: Statewide Events and 2019 AAUP Champion Announced

AAUP Champion Professor Julia Eichelberger, College of Charleston

To help increase awareness of the importance of tenure protections for faculty, the South Carolina AAUP conference (AAUP-SC) coordinates an annual Equity Week of activities on campuses across the state and confers the AAUP Champion Award on individuals or groups whose actions have substantially benefited contingent faculty and furthered the causes of academic freedom and shared institutional governance.

This year, the AAUP-SC recognizes Dr. Julia Eichelberger—Marybelle Higgins Howe Professor of Southern Literature and Director of Southern Studies at the College of Charleston—for her work on behalf of contingent faculty. While serving as a Faculty Administrative Fellow from 2013-2015, Professor Eichelberger exhaustively researched contingent faculty conditions at the College of Charleston, oversaw the creation of an Adjunct Oversight Committee, and drafted a list of best adjunct employment practices for institutions in South Carolina (click for full report).

Professor Eichelberger shared her findings at the Fall 2018 AAUP-SC State Conference on the College of Charleston campus, and her list of “Adjunct Employment Best Practices” appears on the last page of the 2019 AAUP-SC Campus Equity Week report (click title for access to full document).

Since 2001, the Association of American University Professors (AAUP) has designated the last week in October as Campus Equity Week to draw attention to the wide-spread displacement of tenured/tenure-track faculty by contingent contract faculty at US institutions of higher education. This trend reverses decades of progress and leaves an increasing proportion of American academics vulnerable to political and administrative pressures. In addition, increased levels of contingent faculty employment have been linked to increased workloads for tenured/tenure-track faculty and to reductions in student retention and graduation. To download a “Data Snapshot: Contingent Faculty in US Higher Ed,” please visit this link: https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/10112018%20Data%20Snapshot%20Tenure.pdf

For a more localized South Carolina Data Snapshot on Contingent Faculty in our state please see the full 2019 AAUP-SC Campus Equity Report.