While tenure-track faculty begin their careers with some sense of what they will teach, what they will earn, and how they will be promoted, lecturers are not allowed such assurances. In the early days, lecturers in the English Department at the University of Nevada Reno (UNR) taught basic composition courses, four per semester unless they were doing something else in the way of service. Now the teaching load varies. Many faculty members, ignoring the fact that most lecturers have gotten good at teaching writing, expect them to jump at a chance to teach literature. Whereas lecturers used to be evaluated primarily in teaching, now they are expected to publish. Lecturers' lack of certainty about their positions is exacerbated by promises of more equitable pay (current average is 20K a year), but as yet the money has not arrived. This uncertainty and inequity could be eliminated by development of a tenure procedure for lecturers. Tenure would not preclude the stipulation that a lecturer's primary task is teaching, not research. It would change nothing but the unfairness of the present system. (SAM)