Contingent Faculty Roundtable

2024 AAR & SBL Roundtable: Cultivating Agency as Full-time contingent Faculty

Institutions of higher education across the nation are increasing the hire of full-time contingency colleagues. The presence of contingent faculty in institutions has been enriching the curriculum in some contexts while disrupting the curriculum in other contexts. This conversation is a gathering to discuss the multilayered experience of being a full-time contingent person in theological education. Participants are invited to connect with other full-time contingency colleagues for conversations concerning the teaching life. Central to the conversation will be an exploration of identity formation, scholarship development, and improving the teaching life. This roundtable will include small groups and plenary discussions as well as shared meals.

We will grapple with such questions as:

• What does it mean to have a fulfilling career as a full-time contingent scholar?
• In what ways can networking enrich and bolster full-time contingency faculty?
• What opportunities for writing, publishing, and service might be attended to when you are a contingent faculty?
• What is good citizenship for contingency faculty? And how do those expectations shape the role, responsibilities, and authority of a contingency faculty colleague?
• What habits and practices enrich teaching life when one is a full-time contingent person?

Goals

• To discuss identity formation, scholarship development, and improving teaching habits and practices
• To understand our teaching lives in the context of our institutions and the changing landscape of higher education
• To reflect on practices that help contingent faculty flourish in light of the precarity of being full-time contingent faculty

Participant Eligibility

• Continuing term, and/or full-time contingency faculty teaching in seminaries, divinity schools, or theological institutions
• Has taught a minimum of 2 years in the fields of religion and/or theology
• Job description or contract that is at least 50% inclusive of teaching responsibilities 
• Teaching in accredited theological institution in the United States, Puerto Rico, or Canada 
• Doctoral degree awarded by the time of session
• Institutional support and personal commitment to participate fully in pre-conference session 

RSVP is required. Participants will be selected on a first come first serve basis. Each participant will be provided with a stipend of $1000 to defray the costs of meeting attendance. Participants must RSVP and receive a letter of agreement from the Wabash Center that confirms full participation to receive the stipend. After you complete the registration form, the Wabash Center will send required financial documentation that must be completed.

For international colleagues, please be reminded that if you are employed by a school through an H-1B visa arrangement, you are not eligible to receive stipends. The Wabash Center, as an agency other than your sponsoring institution, cannot by law provide you a stipend. For preservation of legal H-1B status, H-1B workers should not accept any offer of honoraria or consultation fees. Stipends, honoraria, and consultation fees paid by an employer other than the entity that sponsored the H-1B petition constitute illegal employment under USCIS regulations. With the stipulation of ineligibility for the stipend, colleagues who are holders of H-1B visas are welcome to make application and, if selected, fully participate in the programming of the Wabash Center.

RSVP here.