Over-reliance on adjunct faculty risky, studies say
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By MARY BETH MARKLEIN
USA Today
It's no secret that colleges and universities are relying increasingly on part-time instructors or other faculty who are neither tenured nor on track for tenure.
But a flurry of studies draw troubling conclusions about what kind of effect that has on the quality of a student's education.
A study released last week by the American Federation of Teachers, a faculty union, finds that such instructors — dubbed "contingent faculty" to reflect their limited-term appointments — are pervasive throughout public higher education. Not only do they teach many undergraduate courses, but they're also teaching "significant percentages" of classes and students across multiple disciplines.
Meanwhile, other recent studies suggest that over-reliance on these instructors can erode the quality of education for many students. And a report soon to be released by the Modern Language Association is expected to raise concerns about what it calls a "rapidly accelerating trend" toward the use of part-timers in English and foreign-language departments nationwide.
The use of adjuncts is particularly robust at community colleges, where, the AFT study found, 57.5 percent of undergraduate courses in 2003 were taught by contingent faculty. That figure was 38.4 percent at public four-year schools that offer bachelor's and master's degrees, and 41.8 percent at public doctorate-granting universities.
The reports stress that contingent faculty are not the problem; rather, they argue that universities fail to provide adequate resources to support them.
"Part-time faculty, in particular, are miserably compensated and often have to teach at several institutions to patch together a living," says AFT president Randi Weingarten. Such an arrangement "shortchanges students who may not have their professors as available as they would otherwise be."
Last month, researchers similarly linked education quality with academic staffing:
When adjuncts accounted for a substantial share of instructors, full-time professors devoted significantly fewer hours to preparing for class and advising students. Author Paul Umbach, an associate professor at N.C. State, says full-time faculty at schools where part-time ranks are growing may feel less secure in their job, which "translates into lower levels of commitment and performance."
Colleges typically say they hire contingent faculty to handle enrollment fluctuations, offer special expertise or fill gaps when full-timers are unavailable.
It's not clear how state budget cuts will affect academic staffing at public universities. Arizona State University, for example, recently said it was ending contracts with about 200 adjuncts. But over time, colleges may turn to more part-time faculty as a hedge against uncertainty.
"Universities are going to be reluctant to (hire full-timers) until they're reasonably certain they'll have secure funding," says David Shulenburger of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, a nonprofit representing most large public institutions.
