October 22, 2018 by Duke Chronicle

The Chronicle

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T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y

MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2018 DUKECHRONICLE.COM

DUKE’S FACULTY IS CHANGING

Some students on financial aid will soon have to pay for health insurance

In a decade, the faculty rank distribution on campus has shifted dramatically away from tenure-track positions.

By Julianna Rennie Staff Reporter

Last month, some families received a letter explaining that Duke University will no longer pay for their student’s health insurance. When junior Daria Patterson-Smith found out about the policy change, she realized that her plans for senior year may be derailed. Patterson-Smith’s family has health insurance through Kaiser Permanente, but their plan is not accepted at Duke. For the past three years, she has been covered by Duke’s student insurance plan, which was part of her financial aid package. But next year, she could have to pay for the student insurance plan out-of-pocket, almost doubling her costs for school. Patterson-Smith’s expected family contribution is about $3,000. She is a resident assistant on East Campus, and she works at a lab for 10 hours a week to pay for tuition. She also has been saving up so that she could live off-campus during her senior year. Now, she may not be able to afford it. Duke requires undergraduate students to either provide proof that they are covered by an approved health insurance plan or purchase its student insurance plan. The student insurance plan costs $3,535 each year and must be paid in full before the fall semester starts, according to the Student Affairs website. In past years, any students receiving need-based financial aid who did not report having approved health insurance coverage were added to the student insurance plan for free. However, starting in the 20192020 academic year, Duke will only cover that cost for students receiving need-based financial aid who have a calculated parent contribution of $0. Alison Rabil, assistant vice provost and director of the Karsh Office of Undergraduate Financial Support, said that the financial aid office hopes most of the affected students can be added back onto their families’ health insurance plans to avoid having to pay for the student insurance plan. She said that the office sent letters home as early as possible to maximize families’ opportunity to figure out the new policy. “We understand that it’s going to be an additional cost to some families,” Rabil said. “For some families, it will be the additional cost of putting them back on your insurance, and for some it will be the additional cost of the Duke insurance. Hopefully, the cost will not be something that the families can’t manage reasonably.” If the cost is prohibitive, then families will have the opportunity to appeal. Rabil added that the financial aid office is still figuring out how the appeals process will work. In the meantime,

ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEENTH YEAR, ISSUE 19

Story by Bre Bradham Editor-In-Chief

Graphics by Jeremy Chen Graphic Design Editor

The composition of faculty rank is radically changing at Duke and at some of its peers. From 2008 to 2017, the number of tenure track faculty at Duke declined by three percent. In contrast, the number of non-tenure track regular rank faculty grew by 66 percent. Non-regular rank faculty increased by 72 percent. This was not an intentional or strategic change, according to a new report presented to Academic Council this week. The pressures—tightened budgets and increased master’s programs—that drove the shift towards non-tenured faculty are not going away: a handful of new master’s programs were approved by Duke last year. “The faculty mix at Duke has unambiguously shifted away from tenure-track faculty toward non-tenure track regular rank faculty, and especially toward non-regular rank faculty,” the report states. The background After a task force on faculty diversity in 2015 noticed that there appeared to be a shift in the rank distribution of nonregular rank faculty, Gavan Fitzsimons, Edward S. & Rose K. Donnell Professor of marketing and psychology, said. Fitzsimons was picked to chair the follow-up ad-hoc committee, which sought to find out if there was a change in the rank distribution. At Duke, there are three categories of faculty rank: tenure track professors, non-tenure track but regular rank, and non-regular rank. Tenure track professors are assistant and associate professors, or full professors who have already gained tenure. They typically split their time between research and teaching, and

some take on service to the University. Non-tenure track but regular rank professors are ones who fall within the scope of regular rank, but not in tenuretrack positions. These are professors of the practice and research faculty. Nonregular rank faculty are adjunct faculty, who are hired on short-term contracts and paid on a per-class basis. If it sounds complicated, that’s because it is. Fitzsimons explained that most other schools don’t distinguish between regular rank and non-tenure track regular rank faculty, further complicating Duke’s academic alphabet soup. We’ll spare you further explanation of the titles associated with each rank, because according to the report produced by Fitzsimon’s committee, Duke uses almost 60 different ones. Here’s what their eight-page report says: the faculty distribution at Duke has shifted dramatically in recent years towards non-tenure track faculty. This is important for Duke for two key reasons: it marks a potential shift away from a research focus, and may impact “the sense of community across campus,” according to the report. The numbers Across the University, the number of tenure track faculty has declined slightly from 2008 to 2017 as the number of non-tenure track regular rank and nonregular rank professors has risen steeply. According to the report, the committee is “convinced that this shift in faculty rank is real, with [tenure track] faculty numbers not growing, while [non-tenure track regular rank] faculty and [non-regular rank] faculty numbers have grown substantially.” By the raw number of faculty at the University-wide level, there are nearly

900 more non-regular rank faculty members now in 2017 than in 2008—a jump from 1,227 to 2,113. The number of non-tenure track regular rank jumped by nearly 800, from 1,160 to 1,930. On the other hand, the number of tenure-track regular rank faculty declined by 60, from 1,730 to 1,670. Duke did not have reliable data for the non-regular rank faculty at Duke before 2008, according to the report. This trend towards non-tenure track faculty is not at all unique to Duke. The report included information about faculty rank distribution changes at peer schools in the Association of American Universities, although most schools do not have the non-tenure track regular rank category and instead lump them in with the non-tenure track category. Some schools have had even more dramatic changes than Duke. Columbia University has had a 161 percent increase in non-tenure track faculty, and a four percent decrease in the tenure-track faculty. The University of Pennsylvania increased its non-tenure track faculty from 155 to 486, a 214 percent increase. On the other hand, Harvard’s percentage of non-tenure track faculty dropped by 55 percent and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology dropped its number of nontenure track faculty by 96 percent—from 220 to eight. What caused the shift? Fitzsimons’ committee spent a year meeting with all of the deans and leadership teams at each school, as well as leadership from the Duke Faculty Union. The resulting report highlighted See FACULTY on Page 12

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