Michigan State University’s College of Arts & Letters has been selected as a winner of the 2024  Delphi Award for its dedicated work to include non-tenure-track faculty as full partners through its Charting Pathways of Intellectual Leadership (CPIL) initiative. As a winner of this award, the College of Arts & Letters will receive $15,000 to continue its work to support non-tenure-track faculty in promoting student success.

The Delphi Award is presented by the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education, in partnership with the American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U). It is an initiative of the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success at the Pullias Center and an extension of the Delphi Project’s mission to better support non-tenure-track faculty, also called VITAL (Visiting, Instructors, Temporary, Adjuncts, and Lecturers) faculty, while helping create new faculty models for postsecondary institutions to adopt.

The College of Arts & Letters’ Charting Pathways of Intellectual Leadership (CPIL) initiative offers a values-enacted framework and a structured process of evaluation designed to recognize impact and excellence in the work of all members of the academic community as integral to the university’s vital mission. The definition of academic work is expanded to include efforts of other appointment types, including non-tenure system faculty and academic and support staff.

The College of Arts & Letters has been creating policies and practices that foster an everyday workplace environment in which all faculty, students, and staff are empowered to do the work they most want to do.

The Charting Pathways of Intellectual Leadership (CPIL) initiative focuses on the creation of career pathways, leadership opportunities, and promotion categories, as well as professional development including formal mentoring. Informed by the College of Arts & Letters’ Culture of Care, the college’s work also includes faculty voting rights, faculty awards, salary equity, long-term contracts, retirement and remote work agreements, and grant writing support. See the Charting Pathways of Intellectual Leadership (CPIL) in Higher Education video for more information.

“Over the past seven years, we have collaborated across the College of Arts & Letters with our contingent faculty and academic staff partners to enact equitable and inclusive policies and practices that bring professional visibility, respect, and greater job stability.”

Sonja Fritzsche, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and Administration

“Over the past seven years, we have collaborated across the College of Arts & Letters with our contingent faculty and academic staff partners to enact equitable and inclusive policies and practices that bring professional visibility, respect, and greater job stability,” said Sonja Fritzsche, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and Administration. “We are thrilled to be able to share the work we have done guided by Culture of Care and the Charting Pathways of Intellectual Leadership (CPIL) initiatives.

“The College of Arts & Letters acknowledges the pivotal efforts of members of the multi-year College Advisory Council Task Force on Non-Tenure-Track Career Pathways as well as chair and faculty leadership in departments that helped move this important work forward. We are encouraged that these efforts are also finding resonance more broadly across Michigan State University in collaboration with union leadership. These policies and programming can be easily adapted by other institutions.”

The College of Arts & Letters plans to use the $15,000 from the Delphi Award to support future iterations of the college’s Faculty Mentoring Program, which matches mentors and mentees at the college level.

This year, two winners were chosen to receive the Delphi Award from a competitive applicant pool of more than 15 public and private institutions across the country. Joining MSU’s College of Arts & Letters as a 2024 Delphi Award winner is the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In addition, the University of Delaware and San Jacinto College were chosen as finalists.

“Each year, I continue to be impressed by the applicants and the continued efforts to support VITAL faculty within every type of higher education institution in the country. The work of unions to support reforms was especially prevalent among this year’s applicants and winners, showing that unions are a strong advocate and partner for change,” said Professor Adrianna Kezar, Director of the Pullias Center and primary investigator on the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success. 

“The Delphi Award recognizes that student success is dependent on the engagement of all faculty, and it draws attention to the need for colleges and universities to play a leadership role in advancing equity.”

Lynn Pasquerella, American Association of Colleges & Universities President

This is the seventh year the Delphi Award has been presented. As in past years, the Pullias Center’s Delphi Award committee identified winners that represent key, specific changes that they believe should be in place to support higher education non-tenure-track faculty across the country.

“This year’s winners and finalists reflect the full spectrum of approaches for improving working conditions for VITAL faculty,” said KC Culver, the Delphi Project’s Associate Director and an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama. “These approaches include centralized efforts by university administration and more localized work being done at the college level. They also demonstrate that smaller faculty committees and VITAL faculty self-advocacy groups can also affect meaningful change.”

This year’s Delphi Award winners will be honored for their work at the American Association of Colleges & Universities annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 22-25, 2025.

“The Delphi Award recognizes that student success is dependent on the engagement of all faculty, and it draws attention to the need for colleges and universities to play a leadership role in advancing equity,” said Lynn Pasquerella, AAC&U President. “AAC&U congratulates this year’s winners and finalists, and we thank them for their outstanding work.”