Fewer Iowa university students being taught by tenured faculty

IOWA CITY — Twenty years ago, most undergraduate credit hours at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and University of Northern Iowa were taught by tenured or tenure-track faculty — topping 55 percent at UI, 56 percent at ISU, and 72 percent at UNI.

Today, those percentages have dwindled — with faculty who either hold the indefinite appointment or are on track to teaching 29.6 percent of undergrad credit hours at UI, 38.6 percent at Iowa State, and 56.5 percent at UNI.

At the same time, the percent of non-tenure-track faculty instruction at the undergraduate level has surged between 2004 and 2024 from 23 percent to 60 percent at UI; 30 percent to 52 percent at Iowa State; and 27 percent to 43 percent at UNI, according to a recent Board of Regents report.

Even over the last two years, all three campuses have seen measurable losses in total tenure and tenure-track instruction — like from 38 percent in 2022 to 32 percent at UI, including not just undergraduates but graduate and professional student instruction.

“The increase in credit hours taught by non-tenure track faculty from fall 2022 to fall 2024 continues the trend of the last several years, and mirrors changes at similar institutions across the country,” according to the board report, which ties the drop in tenure instruction to an overall drop in tenured faculty on the campuses.

“These trends reflect changes in faculty appointments at many universities, with tenure track faculty representing a decreasing percentage and non-tenure track faculty an increasing percentage of total faculty.”

Where 63 percent of the 5,637 total faculty across all three universities in 2013 had tenure or were on a tenure track, just over half at 51 percent were in that tenure/tenure-track group in the most recent 2024-25 academic year, according to a board report.

And while Iowa State and UNI still report a majority of faculty is either tenured or tenure-track, the University of Iowa now is at 44 percent in that category — compared to 52 percent a decade ago.

Some of the UI faculty changes relate to its health care operations and growing need for clinical faculty who fall into the non-tenure-track category — which now accounts for 58 percent of the UI faculty, compared to 48 percent a decade ago.

And some of the Iowa State and UNI shifts in tenure appointments, according to the board report, are meant to allow for “flexibility with changes in enrollment.”

‘You’re fired’

Unlike contingent faculty, tenured faculty have more security — in that they can only be terminated for cause or under “extraordinary circumstances such as financial exigency and program discontinuation.”

Academic freedom is the undergirding principle of tenure — meant to protect faculty free thought and inquiry. And all three of Iowa’s public universities require faculty to endure yearslong review processes to achieve it.

Still, the American Association of University Professors earlier this year published a report that found — like at Iowa’s public universities — the U.S. academic workforce has shifted from mostly full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty to mostly contingent faculty who are ineligible for tenure.

And the AAUP, in that report, raised concerns.

“The ever-increasing reliance on faculty members holding contingent appointments and graduate student employees — all of whom have less job security, remuneration, and institutional support — weakens academic freedom, faculty governance, and the integrity of faculty work,” according to the AAUP.

But conservative lawmakers in Iowa — including several who’ve proposed bills to eliminate the tenure system altogether — long have criticized it as protecting bad professors and preventing warranted firings.

“In the real world, if you mess up, and you mess up that bad, you're fired,” Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Orange City, said in 2021 when he proposed a tenure-elimination bill. “You get canned. It's going to be hard to get another job … I understand what some of you guys are making arguments for. But good professors aren't going to be fired.”

Classroom time

Waning tenured faculty numbers aren’t the only explanation for the drop in their time in the classroom, according to the board’s faculty activities report.

Where UI tenured and tenure-track faculty a decade ago spent an average of 20.70 hours a week on student instruction, that’s dipped to 18.6 hours in the most recent report. Time spent specifically on classroom teaching and instruction has dropped from an average of 10 hours a week for UI tenured and tenure-track professors a decade ago to eight hours in the most recent report.

Iowa State has seen a similar decline, while UNI has remained static.

And UI and ISU tenured and tenure-track faculty report an overall dip in average total hours worked every week — from 57 a decade ago to 55 at Iowa State and 54 at Iowa. Those UNI faculty still average 52 hours a week, according to the most recent report.

Still, according to the report, “Faculty members at all three institutions report working far more than 40 hours per week, on average.“

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com