Paula Patch, lecturer in English, discussed the role of composition and rhetoric faculty who work off the tenure track
Paula Patch, lecturer in English, participated in a panel about the academic job market at the 2015 Conference on College Composition and Communication Annual Convention in Tampa, Florida, March 18-21. In her presentation, “Rethinking the Dichotomy: When Off the Tenure Track is the Best Place to Be,” Patch described various misrepresentations of and misconceptions about permanent non-tenure track faculty positions in rhetoric and composition, and pointed out ways non-tenure track and tenure-track positions could be complementary, rather than competing, academic career paths.
The session, titled Gendered Risks and Rewards in The New Job Market(s): Changing Positions, Changing Locations, was sponsored by the CCCC Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession and focused on the state of the academic job market in composition and rhetoric, particularly the types of work available to recent graduates, with the goal of making visible the lived experiences of this wide range of positions.