Priority registration deadline approaching for non-tenure-track faculty virtual conference

With support from the Office of the Provost, two Eberly College of Arts and Sciences faculty members will launch the University’s first virtual conference focused specifically on the experiences of non-tenure-track faculty.

Service Professor Nathalie Singh-Corcoran and Teaching Professor Lisa DiBartolomeo are set to host “Hills and Hollers: The Challenges and Kinship of Academic Life off the Tenure Track” June 29-30. 

Interested participants from WVU are encouraged to register by Thursday (June 15), the priority deadline, for $25. Students from any institution can register for $15. For all others, general priority registration before Thursday (June 15) will be $30. Participants registering after June 15 will pay $40. 

This virtual conference aims to facilitate connections among non-tenure-track faculty, promote best practices, identify areas of concern and provide guidelines for improving work cultures. The two-day event will include panel discussions, roundtables, networking sessions and a keynote presentation by Adrianna Kezar, a national expert on change, governance and leadership in higher education.

“We recognize that often faculty who are not on the tenure track lack networks of support and mentorship, as well as opportunities to learn from one another’s experiences with campus organizing and advocacy,” DiBartolomeo said. “Nathalie and I have helped build an on-campus group over the course of many years and felt it was time to reach out to a larger audience. Folks at a variety of institutions are raising their voices, getting noticed for their achievements and advocating for their colleagues. This conference offers a way to lift up all the great work being done.”

DiBartolomeo also highlighted the affordability and accessibility of the “Hills and Hollers” conference. The conference sessions mirror typical opportunities for interaction at a traditional, face-to-face conference coupled with the ease and low cost of virtual delivery.

“Making this conference affordable was among our priorities, and we are hoping that graduate students will participate as well, since many of them will consider non-tenure-track positions when they graduate”, she said. “The sessions for ‘Hills and Hollers’ will help them start to navigate that world.”

Kezar’s keynote presentation, “The Future Landscape for Contingent Faculty,” will be free and open to the entire WVU community. Her address will kick off the conference at noon, Thursday, June 29, and a link will be provided closer to the event date. Kezar is director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California. The center annually recognizes important achievements among contingent faculty, and the conference will include some of the awardees for the past year from Skidmore College. 

“The Provost’s Office has generously underwritten the conference and we appreciate its support in this important work,” Singh-Corcoran said. “We couldn’t have done it without this help and funding.”