An exploration of adjunct faculty experiences

Adjunct Faculty in Community Colleges: An Academic Administrator's Guide to Recruiting, Supporting, and Retaining Great Teachers Desna L. Wallin (Ed.). Anker Publishing: Bolton, MA. 2005, 227 pages. $39.95, Cloth. ISBN 1-882982-81-9. Reviewed by Clifford P. Harbour.Desna L. Wallin's book, Adjunct Faculty in Community Colleges: An Academic Administrator's Guide to Recruiting, Supporting, and Retaining Great Teachers, provides campus leaders with a new resource to improve institutional practice regarding employment of part-time faculty. This work is an edited volume published by Anker in 2005 and is comprised of 13 chapters written by community college presidents, academic administrators, faculty, and university researchers.Community colleges are facing new challenges in the 21st century because of budgetary constraints, looming retirements in the faculty and leadership ranks, demands for new curricula and delivery modalities, and a student population that is becoming increasingly diverse and complex. These developments mean public two-year institutions must become more efficient and effective in providing educational programs and services to their communities. Many institutions have realized new efficiencies through increased use of adjunct faculty. Wallin's goal in publishing Adjunct Faculty in Community Colleges is to explain how campus leaders can now become more effective in selecting, developing, supporting, and retaining this critical human resource.Wallin has organized the volume in three parts. Pan One presents Wallin's excellent overview of the text, and this overview is supplemented by research reported by university scholars. Akroyd and Caison report on their analysis of recent data from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty. They describe how adjunct faculty compare with their full-time counterparts on factors such as demographics and job satisfaction. This work is complemented by research findings presented by Phillips and Campbell regarding faculty development at Florida's community colleges. Results from these two studies paint a picture of important similarities and differences concerning adjunct faculty and their full-time colleagues.Akroyd and Caison's comparison of adjunct and full time instructors reveals that the two populations are quite similar regarding (a) age, gender, and academic qualifications, and (b) overall job satisfaction. But there are important differences in how these two populations perceive job security, advancement opportunities, and benefits. Adjunct faculty are significantly less satisfied with these aspects of their employment. To date, these lower levels of satisfaction have not significantly affected community colleges. Institutions have been able to replace departing adjuncts with new ones. However, Akroyd and Caison's research suggests practitioners should not overlook the possibility that a dissatisfied adjunct faculty could have serious implications for institutional stability.Phillips and Campbell report on a statewide survey of mathematics and communications faculty at Florida community colleges regarding the value of certain professional development activities. These authors found that adjunct and full-time faculty agreed that new faculty orientation programs were a very valuable professional development activity. However, they differed, for example, on the importance of (a) travel money, (b) on campus workshops, and (c) access to professional development materials in the college library. The first two items were characterized as very valuable by full-time faculty but less so by adjuncts. Conversely, adjuncts regarded access to on campus professional development materials as more valuable than did their full-time counterparts.These two chapters provide a sound introduction to critical similarities and differences to be considered by campus leaders working to improve the selection, development, support, and retention of adjuncts. …

The practice of hiring adjunct instructors was initially considered to be an anomalous event (Todd, 2004). Community college employment of adjunct instructors, however, witnessed a 50% increase during the 1970s (Cain, 1999) and, by 1984, adjunct instructor utilization in community colleges rose dramatically with an additional 80% growth. Over a 33-year period, 1970-2003, the employment of adjunct faculty in the academe increased 422% (Bouton, 2010). With such a strong adjunct presence within the community college, one question came to mind: How do adjunct and fulltime faculty perceive the other? The purpose of this study was to investigate adjunct perceptions of fulltime faculty and, vice versa, fulltime faculty perceptions of adjunct faculty. With an increasing presence of adjunct instructors within the community college environment, it was deemed important to illuminate the experiences and perceptions held by each strata of faculty concerning the “other”. Ethnomethodology was used to conduct this study. Four community college liberal arts fulltime faculty members and four community college liberal arts adjunct faculty members were selected as research participants, utilizing a purposive sampling technique involving four research sites, which were located in the same geographical location within the continental United States. One liberal arts fulltime faculty member and one liberal arts adjunct faculty member who taught in the same field were selected from each of the four sites. Data gathered from semi-structured interviews and institutional artifacts were analyzed to identify emerging themes. From the data analysis,

SUMMARYApproximately 28% of the total occupational therapy (OT) faculty in higher education are adjunct faculty members. Adjunct faculty (i.e., faculty who teach a course or part of a course) have been used in higher education to maintain quality educational experiences while providing positive community connections and educational resources with first-hand experience. In occupational therapy, practitioners often assume adjunct faculty responsibilities, thereby significantly increasing professional workloads. Despite added effort, there are several benefits to adjunct teaching. However, there are equally as many challenges.Objectives of this article were to describe rewards and challenges of adjunct teaching and suggest strategies for successfully negotiating adjunct roles. The article summarizes findings from needs assessments undertaken to develop adjunct faculty programs. Results are relevant to practitioners with both clinical and teaching roles, and to their supervisors and peers.

The focus of this study was to develop an orientation program that would assist adjunct faculty to gain specific competencies to facilitate an online course. The orientation curriculum employed a set of guiding questions that focused on the intellectual, cognitive, and applicable skills adjunct faculty would need to facilitate an online course. To evaluate the effectiveness of the orientation curriculum design, a critical incident questionnaire (CIQ) was employed. The data indicated that adjunct faculty members (a) had problems navigating the learning management system (LMS) and other technologies used in the orientation, (b) were surprised by the depth and extent of the interactions that took place between instructor–student and student–student, and (c) were also surprised by the similarities between distance online education and traditional face-to-face facilitation processes. Faculty members also made a recommendation for higher education institutions to routinely provide orientation programs and provide ongoing professional development for all faculty types.

Adjunct faculty members are an increasingly more significant percentage of instructors at institutions of higher learning. In addition to this rise, adjunct instructors have reported feelings of marginalization and disrespect from their full-time colleagues and their administrations. The following study represents an interpretive phenomenological analysis of the lived experience of adjunct faculty members at a private, religious institution. The study utilizes self-determination theory as its theoretical lens. Semi-structured interviews with various adjunct instructors identified themes associated with their feelings toward their marginalization and the lack of support structures. The interviews also demonstrated that the diversity of faculty member demographics produced equally diverse experiences. Recommendations from this study include the institution of equitable policies recorded in an adjunct faculty member handbook, production of an adjunct faculty member advancement structure, and professional development opportunities. Future research in the areas of STEM adjunct faculty members, the interaction of full-time and adjunct faculty members, and how adjunct faculty members experience employment across multiple universities would contribute significantly to the understanding of this critical instructional force.--Author's abstract

This dissertation study deems faculty development critical to meeting challenges associated with retirement, potential professor shortages, increasing adjunct populations, unprepared faculty, and accreditation standards in the community college. The study centers on seeking a current, in-depth understanding of faculty development at Metro Community College (a pseudonym). The participants in this qualitative study consisted of adjunct and full-time faculty members and administrators who communicated their perceptions of faculty development. The analysis discovered faculty member types (progressive and hobbyist adjunct and proactive, active, and reactive full-time faculty) who invest themselves in development differently depending on their position and inclination to participate. Faculty members generally indicated a desire for collegiality and collaboration, self-direction, and individualized approaches to development whereas administrators exhibited a greater interest in meeting accreditation standards and ensuring institutional recognition. The study also discovered a need to consider development initiatives for adjunct faculty members. The dissertation proposes an improved partnership between the adjunct and full-time faculty and the administration.

This study examined how adjunct faculty understand and apply learner-centered pedagogy and the institutional factors that impact their capacity to learn and apply learner-centered teaching. Adult Learning Theory provided the theoretical framework for the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven adjuncts from the College of Arts and Sciences at a private, four-year university in New England. The transcripts were analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) and four major findings emerged from the analytic process: (a) the participants demonstrated a limited understanding of the principles of learner-centered pedagogy; (b) the participants demonstrated a limited use of learner-centered instructional practices; (c) institutional factors impacted their capacity to learn and apply learner-centered teaching; and (d) the participants were characterized by adjunct types that reflected the unique needs and interests of each cohort relative to teaching and learning. These findings were examined within the context of the framework of Adult Learning Theory and situated within the extant literature. They suggest opportunities for enhancing adjuncts' understanding and application of learner-centered pedagogy to enhance their teaching effectiveness and to improve student learning outcomes.--Author's abstract

It is understood that not all adjunct faculty seek a full-time position with an institution, nor do they necessarily look for ways to engage with an institution beyond teaching for compensation. This chapter is not intended to explore either of these perspectives, but rather focuses on deepening the engagement of those adjunct faculty interested in collaboration and professional development with the institution or program they serve. Full-time faculty and program leadership are vital to creating conditions to enhance the relationship between adjunct faculty and their academic programs. This chapter offers a first-person account of one academic program leader's reflective journey to support adjunct faculty in a criminal justice program. This chapter shares some techniques used by the author to organize a digital workspace that positions adjunct faculty to engage or participate with the institution and program on their terms. This chapter also offers some proven practices as examples for creating community among adjunct faculty and the institution or program they serve.

Assess Your Adjuncts to Improve Student Learning

In this personal narrative, Danny describes his experiences as a tenure-track faculty member who also served as an adjunct faculty member at his former institution for 6 years—teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses year around. He explores the opportunities and challenges of being an adjunct faculty member while also relaying tips and strategies toward success for individuals interested in becoming an adjunct faculty member.

This study examined how undergraduate students from historically underrepresented populations who participated in the research site's precollegiate access program prior to their first semester at a small, private women's university made sense of their success in college. Transcripts were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Examination of four themes in the context of the research question generated four discrete findings: perseverance and grit override certain pre-entry attributes; key institutional experiences impact student success; confidence and self-efficacy play a dominant role in a student's understanding of their own success; and engagement in precollegiate access programs set a solid foundation for a student's ultimate persistence at the institution. These findings were considered among extant literature on student persistence and retention as well as on the efficacy of precollegiate access programs. The study findings were situated in the theoretical framework, Tinto's Theory of Student Departure, and suggest that to be successful, students must have adequate precollege preparation or have previously developed skills related to perseverance and grit to overcome early obstacles to college success. During their college experiences, students must have opportunities to develop significant relationships with faculty and support staff on campus and engage in certain out-of-classroom experiences (social and experiential learning) to experience the significant personal growth cited as a success factor here. The opportunity to engage in a bridge, or precollegiate access program, allows at-risk and underrepresented students to establish a solid foundation for success and enables meaningful access to a college education. Keywords: college student success, precollegiate access programs, institutional experiences, personal growth, pre-entry attributes.--Author's abstract

The dependence of one being on another, and the notion that the way things are is not the way they had to be, are core topics of contingency, and they inspire this chapter's intervention in discourse about supporting adjunct (or contingent) faculty. Instead of accepting the current institution-adjunct faculty relationship as an inevitable consequence of the contingency of the adjunct role, this essay suggests a means for putting contingency in service of adjunct faculty support. Literature scholars argue that literary techniques offer models for leveraging contingency toward productive ends. Accordingly, this essay draws on the concept of dialogism in literary and learning theory. Dialogism challenges the relationship between something given and something contingent and suggests that the interplay between the two entities reshapes interlocutors' understanding of the world. Therefore, it could be a theoretical catalyst for institutions to define adjunct faculty support practices that employ the developmental potential of contingency toward improving the adjunct faculty experience.

ATHE Presidential Address Patricia Ybarra (bio) Our section devoted to content from ATHE 2015 in Montreal begins with Patricia Ybarra’s presidential address. The speech, delivered on August 1, 2015, to a crowded ballroom at the tail end of the Annual Membership Meeting, set the tone not only for her presidency, but also the theme of next year’s conference, “Bodies at Work: Performance, Labor, and ATHE at 30.” Notably, this speech was posted on the ATHE website over much of the fall of 2015, and Theatre Topics’ editorial staff has chosen to archive it as important ephemera. We thank Patti for sharing her important thoughts on academic labor across these various venues. —G.A. When sitting down to write this speech I started where I often do with my students when thinking through a concept that we think is familiar, but is not. In this case, the word whose definition is in question is adjunct. According to Webster’s online dictionary (2015), an adjunct is: 1: Something joined or added to another thing, but not essentially a part of it; 2a: a word or word group that qualifies or completes the meaning of another word or other words and is not itself a main structural element in its sentence; 2b: an adverb or adverbial phrase (heartily in “They ate heartily” or at noon in “We left at noon”) attached to the verb of a clause especially to express a relation of time, place, frequency, degree, or manner. The third definition finally comes to issues in our profession: “An associate or assistant of another or an adjunct faculty member at a college or university.” We are then directed to the second definition if we are interested in adjunct professor: “Added or joined in order to be used with something; added to a teaching staff for only a short time or in a lower position than other staff; [or] added or joined as an accompanying object or circumstance.” The second definition elaborates on this, suggesting that an adjunct is “attached in a subordinate or temporary capacity to a staff.” Webster’s also offers some synonyms as food for thought: “Helper, adjutant, aid, aide, apprentice, assistant, coadjutor, deputy, helpmate, helpmeet, lieutenant, mate, sidekick.” How we journey from adjunct as a term defining grammar, emergent in the late 1580s, to one that in the twenty-first century is primarily used to define labor relations and subordination is hard to trace. It is not hard to recognize, however, adjunct today is a synonym for the contingent laborer in the university, who is often subordinated for no good reason because, in fact, they are essential to education in the United States. I have heard from association members who hate this term contingent, in part because it seemingly slights the very present and permanent contribution these scholars, artists, and teachers are making to the field, to their schools, and perhaps most importantly, to their students. I employ this term not to undermine these contributions, but rather to point out how institutions have made the livelihood of their employees and students contingent, because many institutions have convinced themselves that the only way they can survive in a market economy is to place their employees lives in contingency in order to meet the bottom line. And that is not acceptable. The bitter irony one encounters when looking at the definition of adjunct is that adjunct faculty members are no longer hired “for a short term or in a temporary capacity as staff,” but as a permanent part of the university—forever. [End Page 1] Today, fewer than a quarter of university faculty are full-time tenure and tenure-track members; over 40 percent of instructors are part-time instructors, many of whom receive limited or no benefits usually accorded to full-time tenured, tenure-track, or contract professionals—meaning that what was meant to be temporary is permanent. We are being asked to normalize being contingent: living subject to chance and perpetually dependent on conditions out of our control. Precariousness is being institutionalized. And it effects all of us, even tenured and tenure-track faculty, who are thought to be the lucky ones. I point here to the...

This project broadened course offerings on bicycle and pedestrian transportation by redesigning and expanding an existing, three credit undergraduate/graduate course into a five-credit course that includes an applied lab component. The course was open to graduate and undergraduate students in planning and engineering programs. The PI (Lynn Weigand, Ph.D., adjunct faculty) and Mia Birk, adjunct faculty course instructor, developed the course with the following learning objectives: learn principles of bicycle and pedestrian facility design; understand integration of bicycle and pedestrian facilities within the right-of-way; understand basic transportation research and data collection methods; and apply course content through project work. The lecture course was taught by the PI and the lab was taught by adjunct faculty member Mia Birk. The new course was developed and taught as a project-based course that focused on improving bicycle and pedestrian connects to the Portland State University campus. Students worked in teams to develop a problem statement, identify project stakeholders, recommend a public involvement process, develop evaluation criteria and alternative solutions, evaluate alternatives and select a preferred alternative, and create a package of recommendations in the form of a grant application, including cost estimates and implementation strategies. The course received excellent reviews from the students, who felt it was useful to apply the principles of bicycle and pedestrian design and planning to a real project environment. The resulting curriculum expands the course content on bicycle and pedestrian travel, includes more academic literature and research, and provides the opportunity for students to participate in project-based learning. It provides a model for future course expansion on related transportation planning and policy topics. In addition, the curriculum can be shared and adapted for use in the planning and landscape architecture departments at the University of Oregon and the engineering department at Oregon State University.

Adjunct faculty can offer enrichment to the engineering program by bringing practical experience and by introducing relevant industrial applications and problems to the classroom. The industrial perspective of adjunct faculty often manifests itself through an emphasis on communication and presentation skills, and concern for customer needs. Students observing these attributes come away with a better appreciation for the demands of the engineering workplace. Frequently the adjunct faculty member can also provide important linkages for developing industrial affiliate programs, co-op activities and employment opportunities for graduates. This paper offers suggestions relating to the recruitment, support, and evaluation of adjunct faculty, and explores options for forging closer links between industry and academe, via adjunct appointments.