Welcome
Contingent Talk is a series of four podcasts about precarious academic labor that is part of the College Art Association's ongoing CAA Conversations podcast initiative. The producer is Sarah M. Dreller, PhD, a historian of modern art and architecture with over 20 years of experience as a part-time professor/mentor. The project can be found on social media with #CAAConversations and #ContingentTalk.
Following the CAA Conversations model, each episode of Contingent Talk features a wide-ranging discussion between two colleagues about a specific aspect of contingent teaching and postsecondary arts education in the United States today. Everyone who participated in this series has . . .
Listen to the 3-minute preview episode on SoundCloud now: Welcome to Contingent Talk
How Arts Professionals Contribute as Contingent Faculty
Maggie Guggenheimer
Ellen Oh
Ethical Approaches to Managing Contingent Faculty
David Rifkind, PhD
Carmenita Higginbotham, PhD
Contingent Faculty Unions Behind the Scenes
Sarita K. Heer, PhD
Jason Grunebaum
Contingency, a little context (and some reflections, too)
Sarah M. Dreller, PhD
February 2019
In American academia, the term "contingent faculty" refers to anyone who teaches college classes without a firm commitment from their institutional employer. Contingents include full-time professors with short-term contracts, part-time instructors (usually called "adjuncts"), and graduate students who teach as part of their academic training.
According to analysis compiled by the American Association of University Professors Research Office in March 2017, over 70% of everyone teaching in higher education today is categorized as contingent. That's a 15% increase since 1975 -- enough to firmly shift higher education into the gig economy. For more about this statistic . . .