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Following months of protests and meetings with administrators, non-tenure-track faculty members at the University of Iowa won expanded health insurance benefits, dependent coverage and retirement and sick leave, they announced last week, according to The Gazette. As of next month, visiting faculty members with half-time or greater appointments for a year or more are eligible for the same university benefits as full-time university employees. Cheryl Reardon, chief human resources officer, and Kevin Kregel, associate provost for faculty, have reportedly said that these new benefits include health, dental, life and disability insurance, along with retirement programs and sick-leave accrual. They attributed the change to “multiple discussions between [the] administration and fixed-term faculty representatives over the past several months.”
Beyond the scale of coverage for faculty members working off the tenure track, it's notable that the benefits come as the university deals with budgetary concerns that have stalled new campus construction and delayed faculty raises until January, according to The Gazette. Non-tenure-track faculty members at Iowa have not formally unionized, but some identify as "associate members" of Service Employees International Union.
