ABSTRACT
Faculty employment policy at Rowlette College, a small, non-sectarian, private institution, has evolved over 25 years from traditional tenure to multi-year contracts. Rowlette instituted tenure in 1966, began offering rolling contracts in addition to tenure in 1973, and moved to long-term contracts in 1986. Rowlette College, like Scott, is a relative newcomer in American higher education. Rowlette nearly closed several times in its early years because of poor finances. The report found that Rowlette College was among the lowest 5.8 percent of nearly 1,000 institutions in the 1968–1969 American Association of University Professorssurvey on faculty compensation. From the college’s founding until the late 1960s, faculty were employed on one-year contracts. Rowlette College’s board of trustees historically has consisted mainly of business people. In the early days of Rowlette College, many faculty came from a high school background; one professor called the faculty in the 1960s “amateurish.”
