Legal Tender or Counterfeit Currency: Organizing a Conference off the Tenure Track

Abstract

Beyond the intrinsic value of scholarship, publication also serves as cultural currency within academia and a means for purchasing advancement. For non-tenure-track faculty, however, this relationship is less clear. This case study, focused on a regional conference chaired by non-tenure-track faculty, complicates this relationship, asking whether such a conference offers legal tender or counterfeit currency in today's academic marketplace.