NCCU seeks to aid nontenured faculty

'Clinical' label adds job security

DURHAM -- Next semester, N.C. Central University will begin reclassifying professors who work in clinical settings and have little job security beyond a standard one-year contract.

University officials say instituting a "clinical" faculty designation is a long overdue move that will improve NCCU's ability to recruit and retain faculty members who work in health and law clinics and aren't on the tenure track. Until now, many faculty members who either aren't tenured or on the tenure track have been on year-to-year contracts, an unsettling situation for employer and employee both. The move will bring with it three- or five-year contracts but no pay increase, university officials said.

"If you have a really good person, he has to worry from year to year if he's going to have a contract," said George Wilson, NCCU's faculty chairman. "It gives you more stability and makes sure you keep the people you want to keep."

The move will affect about 20 faculty members at first but will allow NCCU to recruit more widely as it expands several academic areas that will, in the future, rely more heavily on clinicians. The nursing program is making the transition to a full professional school, and the communication disorders department with the School of Education will soon add a doctoral program. In both disciplines, more clinical faculty members will be needed who will work in health clinics and in other in-the-field settings, treating patients and overseeing students.

"They're providing expertise," Provost Beverly Washington Jones said. "They're practitioners. They go out in the field and monitor what our students are doing."

The change will affect some professors at NCCU's law school as well, since some of its faculty members spend most of their time working at law clinics, Jones said.