The New Normal, Adjuncts and Part-Time Instructors

To Improve the Academy, 1992

1975

Adjunct (part-time) faculty comprise 35 to 45 percent of the teachers in two-year colleges, yet receive virtually no systematic assistance in professional development. In 1972, Hagerstown Junior College (Maryland) initiated a program of staff development for adjunct faculty to remedy this deficiency. The program is designed to familiarize adjunct faculty with college procedures, to_ensure instruction of equal quality with that provided by regular faculty, and to establish a process of communication between adjunct and regular faculty and staff. Based on a systems model, the program consists of four parts: recruitment, input, processes, and output. In the recruitment phase, media advertisement is used to secure qualified applicants. The input phase begins with providing the new instructor with the Adjunct Faculty Handbook, which outlines college policies and regulations. An Adjunct Faculty Workshop attempts to initiate communication processes with division chairpersons and other college personnel. Extended availability of auxiliary services and their professional staffs as consultants to adjunct faculty during evening hours characterizes the process phase. Evaluation of the output is provided through objective/subjective student and supervisor evaluations of the adjunct faculty member.

Peer Review, 2010

The current challenges that face higher education are multifaceted and well-documented. Shrinking operational budgets, shriveling endowments, and increasing amounts of financial aid needed for students to enroll are the looming crises faced by many colleges. What's more, institutions are challenged to uphold certain technological standards that are costly to install and maintain, and are also confronted by the call for accountability caused by two dimensions - government efforts to extend No Child Left Behind-like policies to higher education, and the rising cost of higher education, which often outpaces the rate of inflation and the increase in the average family income level. Last, for the traditional nonprofit "brick and mortar" institutions, there is growing competitive force coming from the "for-profit" institutions, which offer nontraditional class scheduling and nontraditional modality of instruction. Despite these challenges, there are positive opport...

College Teaching, 2010

The new majority of faculty in today's colleges and universities are part-time, yet sizable gaps exist in the research on their needs, interests, and experiences. Further, the peer-reviewed scholarship is largely quantitative. Principally, it focuses on the utility of the adjunct work force, ...

2020

Funding for this project was provided by Ascendium Education Group and The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. The authors wish to thank Jonathan Iuzzini, Rachel Singer, and Ruanda Garth-McCullough of Achieving the Dream for their partnership on this project. We also thank the representatives of the six participating colleges for their gracious assistance in collecting this data. We are grateful for Nikki Edgecombe's guidance and leadership and Yifeng Luo's assistance with the data.

2020

Though there is a plethora of articles written over the past years on the ordeal adjunct professors go through while teaching in universities and community colleges, very little has been done to salvage the situation . The work adjunct professors do has been oversimplified while institutions that utilize their services save a lot . This article will discuss the impact of adjunct professors in higher education, especially those who teach developmental education courses . It will include information on problems and plight faced by these greatly needed employees, their value to educational institutions across the country, data on the number of full-time versus part-time faculty, the lack of pay and benefits offered to the thousands of adjunct and part-time teachers across the country, the savings their work provides institutions of higher education, the beginnings of collective bargaining for this population of workers, and the need to continue to work to find ways to improve working c...

Christian Education Journal: Research on Educational Ministry, 2012

Adjuncts are a vital part of the academic institution. The institution has a responsibility to provide training, resources, and development for adjuncts. This article considers five general areas regarding adjuncts identified by Richard E. Lyons. Consideration of these areas is needed by institutions in order to provide quality training and development for adjuncts. Practical ideas are shared that are incorporated into each general area.

In 2011, according to a National Center for Education Statistics report, part-time instructional staff in all higher education institutions exceeded full-time faculty members for the first time, accounting for 50% of all instructional staff (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2012). The same report indicates part-time faculty in community colleges exceeds 70% of instructional staff. Perhaps more alarming are the numbers of contingent instructional staff—faculty without long-term employment commitments. According to this measure, nearly 70% of faculty members in all areas of higher education have little-to-no job stability (American Association of University Professors [AAUP], 2013; Schuster & Finklestein, 2006). However, limited research exists on the working experiences of this major sub-population of United States professors. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of part-time contingent community college faculty regarding the assessment processes their institutions implemented. Through interviews, researchers gathered data identifying what 20 part-time contingent faculty professors reported regarding teaching conditions and institutional assessment procedures. Participant interviews revealed two major themes centered on a lack of institutional engagement and meaningful assessment policies or procedures.

Association For Institutional Research, 2004

One important factor neglected in the literature involves an investigation into whether the increased utilization of part-time faculty impacts student retention. Are part-time faculty, who are employed primarily to teach introductory courses, having an adverse affect on student retention? Are universities recognizing and studying the potential issues that might arise when a substantial portion of incoming freshmen receive the majority of their instruction from part-time faculty? This paper presents the results of an ongoing study of the relationship between faculty status and student retention at a comprehensive Midwestern university. Of particular interest is the degree to which first-time full-time freshmen are exposed to part-time faculty and whether there are ways to determine if faculty status, defined here as part-time versus full-time, has a discernable and direct impact on student retention.

International Journal of Higher Education, 2020

This paper attempts to shed more light on the teaching practices of part-time faculty members and their impacts on community college students. It has been found that part-time faculty members employ traditional teaching practices compared to full-time faculty members. These teaching practices have, to varying degrees, negative effects on community college students. It has also been found that some of the compelling factors that hinder part-time faculty from utilizing effective teaching practices are institutional and departmental policies and practices. This paper identifies some gaps in the literature and calls future studies. It delineates a couple of recommendations aiming at improving the teaching practices of part-time faculty as well as their working condition.