Faculty Status, Tenure, and Professional Identity: A Pilot Study of Academic Librarians in New England

Abstract

Faculty status, tenure, and professional identity have been long-lasting issues for academic librarians for nearly forty years, yet there is little agreement on the benefits of faculty status. This paper examines faculty status and tenure for academic librarians and presents the results of a survey inquiry into professional identity, current and expected roles, views on faculty status and tenure, and personnel status of academic librarians in the New England area. The study affirms that 45 percent of the respondents have some combination of faculty status, tenure status, and faculty plus tenure status, and that 65 percent of academic librarians do not have tenure. While all academic librarians perceive strong professional development support, only those with faculty status and tenure (and librarians involved with new and emerging areas of study) see themselves having more career advancement and development opportunities. This research concludes that librarians’ professional identities are closely matched with five traditional roles. Four new or emerging roles, which may be referred to as “educator,” “teacher,” “information professional,” and “facilitator of learning,” reveal significant differences across personnel status.

Academic Instruction Librarians’ Teacher Identity Development Through Participation in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

“…In fact, two interviewees specifically said they did not see themselves as teachers. This finding supported previous research studies that found that librarians who serve in the role of instructor do not necessarily view themselves as an educator (Freedman, 2014;Houtman, 2010). In this study, participants indicated their view of themselves as a teacher was influenced by the situation in which they conducted their instruction.…”

“…This finding indicates that how others in the community view librarians or how an individual views the global definition of teacher has a greater impact on teacher identity than does the institution's categorization of librarians. Furthermore, the lack of clarity concerning the role of a librarian is underscored by this finding (Freedman, 2014).…”

“…The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) may be a vehicle through which academic librarians develop a cohesive identity. Previous research has shown that a professional identity is missing from the field of librarianship (Davis, Lundstrom, & Martin, 2011;Freedman, 2014;Walter, 2008). Often, librarians are viewed as caretakers of resources.…”

“…However, the responsibility of instruction is only one of the many roles librarians must adopt. The traditional job functions of collection manager and reference work remain a requirement for many academic librarians working today, and library schools still teach those traditional skills (Freedman, 2014;Westbrock & Fabian, 2010). Therefore, academic librarians struggle with their professional identity due to the numerous roles they must fulfill.…”

“…Therefore, academic librarians struggle with their professional identity due to the numerous roles they must fulfill. Librarians use the services they provide as a marker of their professional identity and altering their professional persona is difficult because librarians are connected to their traditional work responsibilities (Freedman, 2014;Hicks, 2016;Zai, 2014). As a result, the adopted career characteristics of librarians does not always include the role of teacher, despite the fact that teaching is an important requirement for many academic librarians' jobs (Austin & Bhandol, 2013;Wheeler & McKinney, 2015).…”