Consequently, most women who enter academe after raising their children do so in a part-time or adjunct professor position rather than on the tenure track. In this case, a faculty member leaves one school and goes to another, sometimes with a stop in government or industry along the way. One approach is to leave a tenured position at one institution for a more attractive position elsewhere. In other cases, a faculty member may be refused tenure at one institution and may switch schools to get back on a tenure path. On rare occasions, the institution will reverse the decision and grant tenure.
Some faculty members leave a tenured position for a career outside academe.
Sometimes these individuals later decide to return to academe part-time in a nontenured position. Nontenured faculty positions include consulting professors, research professors, and adjunct professors. While these positions do not have the security of a tenured position, they also do not have the range of responsibilities and commitments of such positions, and for some people this can be very attractive. The vignettes on the following pages explore the journeys of three faculty members, each of whom followed a different route toward or away from tenure. The first is the story of Eve Riskin who followed the accelerated route and received tenure a year early.