In academia, there are two different worlds, one inhabited by tenure-track and the other by non-tenure-track faculty. In the first, people encourage faculty to become involved in a series of important reforms that increase student success, completion, and learning. In this first world, people envision faculty simultaneously increasing their…

Over the last generation, the instructional staffing system in U.S. higher education has experienced a significant reduction in the proportion of jobs for full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty members and a dramatic growth in "contingent" instructors--full-time non tenure track, part-time/adjunct faculty and graduate employees.…

A history of the professoriate would not be complete without an account of nontenure-track faculty. Whether these faculty members are referenced using the terms "contingent," "part time," "contract," "adjunct," "clinical," "research," "visiting," "lecturer," or…

This monograph complements volume 36, issue number 4 of ASHE Higher Education Report: "Understanding the New Majority of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty," and focuses on theories applied to study non-tenure-track faculty and philosophical and practical tensions represented in the literature. The chapter "Theories Used to Study and…

This article presents the outcomes from a case at Marquette University (USA), brought by seven Ph.D. adjuncts who had completed their doctoral programs and were currently teaching part-time as they sought full-time positions elsewhere. The case identified a disparity that is happening at many U.S. colleges and universities that increasing rely…

As anyone who has ever defended a thesis or been on a tenure track must know, American institutions of higher education have rigorous and finely calibrated ways of according respect to those who work in them. What they do not have enough of is respect from those beyond their gates. The author argues that the system that created the two-tiered…

The study sought to determine factors that affect faculty decisions regarding their involvement in teaching online distance education courses. A survey was administered to online distance education faculty across the United States to determine those factors that encourage or discourage them from continuing to teach online courses. The factors were…

Maintaining an outstanding system of higher education requires investments in the faculty members who cultivate the human capital upon which our economy's recovery and future growth will depend. Sadly, the record of the last three decades shows that, when measured by the inflation-adjusted salaries paid to college faculty members or by the…

Almost thirty years ago, Justice William Brennan saw clearly that American higher education was coming under the same pressures to "cut costs and increase efficiencies" to which market forces were subjecting businesses. Since Justice Brennan's observation, employers generally have sought to maximize their "flexibility' by creating a…

There is a growing concern among faculty and administrators in higher education institutions that shared governance is being diminished, primarily due to the decline of tenure-track faculty and growth of contingent faculty who have been historically excluded from formal participation in university governance. Although the role of faculty in…

Asserts that academic freedom concerns much more than tenure; for adjuncts and other contingent faculty labor conditions significantly restrict academic freedom in its deepest and most practical sense: the freedom to provide and facilitate the best possible education for students. (EV)

A survey of 105 nontenure-track instructors and research associates identified advantages of adjunct status (flexibility, autonomy, challenge) and disadvantages (lack of advancement, remuneration, and respect). Late-career adjuncts had more positive attitudes and work behaviors. Midcareer adjuncts had the most difficulty balancing work and family.…

The freshmen writing faculty at DePaul University (Illinois) was comprised of 10 female non-tenure track instructors in the spring term of 1990. The core program for freshmen taking the introductory writing course pairs the English course with a history course, thus combining a study of civilization with a study of writing and rhetoric, and…

Discusses Jill Carroll, an adjunct faculty member who thinks the key to success is forgetting about tenure and taking an entrepreneurial approach to getting work. She has written a manual for adjunct professors that encourages them to quit seeing themselves as victims and to deal with the system that exists. (EV)

This article examines the plight of adjunct university faculty and urges new policies to express appreciation for their contributions to the teaching profession. A response from an adjunct faculty member at Hunter College, City University of New York, follows. (one reference) (KM)