Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard Supports Non-Tenure Track Faculty

Non-tenure track faculty are the backbone of Harvard’s teaching mission. The university should recognize that.

For many of us in the divestment movement, non-tenure track (NTT) faculty have made all the difference both in our experiences back on campus and especially now, in trying times as we have transitioned to online learning. Harvard can, and should, recognize the essential role that NTT faculty play in the Harvard community. Yet right now, the university is failing to support them at this critical moment. Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard stands in full solidarity with Harvard’s NTT faculty and endorses the petition they have put forward calling for a one-year extension on appointments for all NTT faculty.

Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard (FFDH) is a coalition of students, alumni, and community members seeking to end Harvard’s complicity in the climate crisis.

Harvard has already taken some steps to recognize the burden that this crisis poses to graduate students and tenure-track faculty, making accommodations such as extensions to tenure clocks, bridge-year funding for dissertations, and more. However, the university has as of yet refused to take similar steps for NTT faculty. This refusal means that in the midst of an economic crisis, an already limited academic job market, and a pandemic that has significantly disrupted the life circumstances of many faculty, many will be losing their jobs (and their healthcare) at the end of this academic term.

In fall 2019, 53% of all undergraduate enrollments at Harvard were taught by NTT faculty: in many ways, they serve as the university’s pedagogical backbone. And in the time of COVID-19, when students have faced new academic and personal challenges, NTT faculty have continued to go above and beyond what is expected in making themselves available to us as both professional and personal resources.

However, Harvard has long treated these faculty like they’re disposable: due to a time cap system employed by the FAS, most NTT faculty are automatically fired when their appointments expire, no matter their contribution to university life. Now more than ever, Harvard must do better. In the short term, Harvard should recognize the exceptional circumstances, extending all current NTT faculty contracts through the 2020–2021 academic year. And in the long term, Harvard should rethink the time cap system that limits the ability of some of its top scholars to remain a part of the Harvard community.

To join FFDH in supporting NTT faculty’s call for protections, we are urging all of our peers and supporters to take the following steps:

1. Sign the petition if you haven’t done so already.
2. Send this petition to Harvard affiliates to sign as well.
3. Send an email to Dean Gay (fasdean@fas.harvard.edu) and President Bacow (president@harvard.edu) demanding that NTT faculty’s “clocks” be extended for one year. This should include people whose “time is up” at the end of this fiscal year (June 30, 2020) due to FAS’s time caps.