Dear President Frederick and Provost Wutoh:

Howard University’s core aim is “to forward the development of scholars and professionals who drive change and engage in scholarship that provides solutions to contemporary global problems, particularly issues impacting the African Diaspora.”

As our university transforms in the twenty-first century, we must articulate how its values should be implemented, particularly with respect to its core mission of scholarship and teaching. As tenured and tenure-track faculty, it is our obligation to ensure that all faculty receive the fair compensation and stable employment required to provide students with teaching and mentorship of the highest caliber.

Non-tenure-track lecturers and adjunct faculty teach about 2,000 courses per year to Howard University students. The overwhelming majority of Howard non-tenure-track and adjunct faculty, including people who studied and have taught at Howard for a decade or more, work on a succession of term-to-term or year-to-year contracts, with no security. Our departments depend heavily on the work of these colleagues. Therefore, we fully understand how much is lost—in terms of quality teaching, experience, and service—when such faculty are removed because of factors like the seven-year rule, or when they leave due to the insecurity produced by temporary contracts. It is not only the non-tenure-track faculty themselves who lose by such policies, but the University as well.

The majority of non-tenure-track full-time Lecturers have terminal degrees, and many are active professionally in their fields. Despite their credentials, these faculty members are paid, on average, less than $50,000 per year. Adjunct faculty are paid as little as $4,000 per course: less than 2/3 of what the already underpaid full-time Lecturer receives on a per course basis. Even as they have become integral partners in educating our students, they continue to be treated as a class apart.

These conditions facing non-tenure-track faculty stand in direct conflict with our shared mission as Howard University educators, and with the commitment to students that mission entails:

• “provid[ing] an educational experience of exceptional quality at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels to students of high academic standing and potential, with emphasis on educational opportunities for Black students.”

• “…the University is dedicated to attracting and sustaining a cadre of faculty who are, through their teaching, research and service, committed to the development of distinguished, historically aware, and compassionate graduates and to the discovery of solutions to human problems in the United States and throughout the world.”

Howard University can make a different choice in its policies toward these faculty members—one more consistent with our mission and commitment to students, and to the Black community and African Diaspora writ large. Until our administration seizes the opportunity before it, we will support our non-tenure-track colleagues in their efforts toward achieving a just and equitable contract.

Sincerely,
Marcus Alfred, Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Nikole Hannah-Jones, Professor, Department of Department of Media, Journalism and Film
Greg Carr, Associate Professor, Department of Afro American Studies
Guericke C. Royal, Associate Professor, Department of Music
Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie, Professor & Director of Graduate Studies, Department of History
Rodney D. Green, Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics
Sankar Sitaraman, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics
Joshua Myers, Associate Professor, Department of Afro-American Studies
Krista Johnson, Associate Professor, Department of African Studies
Rachel Watson, Associate Professor, Department of English
Emily Blank, Associate Professor, Department of Economics
Mali Collins, Assistant Professor, Department of English
James Thomas Jackson, Associate Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Marc Singer, Professor, Department of English
Curdella Forbes, Professor, Department of English
Jean Bailey, Ph.D. , Professor, Department of Human Development and Psychoeducational Studies (HDPES)
Mercedes V. Tibbits, Professor, Department of World Languages and Cultures
Haydar Kurban, Professor, Department of Economics
David F. Green Jr., Associate Professor, Department of English
Mario Beatty, Associate Professor, Department of Afro-American Studies
Sheshalatha Reddy, Associate Professor, Department of English
Elisa Oh, Associate Professor, Department of English
Fatimah L.C. Jackson, Professor, Department of Biology
Christopher Shinn, Associate Professor, Department of English
Christopher Gunderson, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology
Eleanor King, Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology
Muneer Abbas, Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology
Sosanya Jones, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
John Harkless, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry
Jennifer Williams, Assistant Professor, Department of English
Alexander Tulin, Associate Professor, Department of English
Alla Tovares, Associate Professor, Department of English
Oyonumo E. Ntekim, Associate Professor, Department of Nutritional Sciences
Chimène Castor, Associate Professor, Department of Nutritional Sciences
John Tharakan, Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering
Sonya Smith, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Lynne Kelly, Associate Professor, Department of Finance & International Business
Dr. Nicole Jenkins, Department of Sociology and Criminology
Sam Hopkins, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics
Matthew Bruckner, Associate Professor, School of Law
Seanta Cleveland , Professor , Department of Human, Health, Performance and Leisure Studies
Tristan Hubsch, Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Legand L. Burge III, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Daryl Harris, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
Xiping Zhan, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Frances Gateward, Professor, Department of Communications, Culture and Media Studies
Joseph L. Wilkins, Assistant Professor, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
Celeste Malone, Associate Professor, Department of Human Development and Psychoeducational Studies (HDPES)
Rao Khan, Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Galina G. Talanova, Associate Professor, Department of Department of Chemistry
N. FRÉDÉRIC PIERRE, Assistant Professor, Department of History
Hakim M. Rashid, Professor, Department of Human Development and Psychoeducational Studies
Hua Zhao, Professor, Department of Chemistry
Assya Pascalev, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Studies
Hassan Ashktorab, Professor, Department of Medicine
Valencia Perry, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders
Stanley Andrisse, Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology and Biophysics
 Francois Ramaroson, Professor, Department of Mathematics
Paul Peart, Professor, Department of Mathematics
Danielle Payton, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy
Courtney J. Robinson, Associate Professor, Department of Biology
Cynthia L. Morton, Associate Professor, Department of Media Journalism & Film
Xingting Wang, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics