It’s a goal McKay Coble has been working toward for more than two decades.
And today, that goal — giving fixed-term faculty the recognition they deserve — will come up for a vote at the Faculty Council.
“There are some issues that find you, but this became a mission for me,” Coble said.
The proposed resolution would create a three-tiered ranking system for fixed-term faculty, including the titles of lecturer, senior lecturer, and master lecturer.
Coble, a former fixed-term faculty member herself whose chairmanship ends in June, has seen the project grow from a simple task force in the early 1990s into the powerful, policy-making fixed-term faculty committee.
“Fixed term faculty on this campus have always known they had a tremendous advocate with McKay as chair,” said Jean DeSaix, the committee’s chairwoman and a senior lecturer in the biology department.
Also the chairwoman of the dramatic art department, Coble said the assumption that fixed-term faculty only teach is not valid.
“Many of our fixed-term colleagues are superior scholars and researchers and have devoted their lives to teaching, researching and serving Carolina,” she said. “We should recognize that.”
Unlike tenured professors, fixed-term faculty work under contracts that must be renewed annually or every few years.