Ties to the Outside: An Exploration of Faculty Relationships With External Organizations

• In Event: Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Ties to the Outside, Free Speech, and Tenure

Abstract

As financial constraints continue at higher education institutions, faculty work is evolving to include more market-like behaviors to create opportunities to enact research, teaching, and service. This study evaluates the extent to which faculty members pursue relationships with external organizations and the influence of academic discipline on those interactions. I use an embedded case study to analyze how disciplinary differences influence both the number and the nature of external relationships at the University of Pittsburgh and MIT. The findings of this study indicate a similar number of relationships among social sciences/humanities and hard sciences faculty members, reciprocity between faculty members and external organizations, and an expanded conceptualization of faculty work.

Author

• Karley Riffe, University of Georgia