Part-Time Faculty in Research Universities: Problems and Prospects

Abstract

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Bushwhacking the Ethical High Road: Conflict of Interest in the Practice of Law and Real Life

“…These cutbacks and the changing composition and social organization of college faculties are reflected in increasing class sizes, heavier teaching toads (at least for some tiers or strata of faculty), a poorer fit between professors' expertise and the courses they teach, undeveloped and uncoordinated curricula (when transients carry so much of the teaching load), and higher rates of faculty turnover. Studies of itinerant, part-time faculty-who now constitute more than two-fifths of all college teachers-indicate that they "teach under emphatically substandard conditions"; lack basic equipment and office space to meet with students; find few opportunities or institutional support to engage in research; publish substantially less freq~ently;"~ are isolated from other faculty and rarely evaluated, supervised, or mentored; devote less time to ~tudents"~ because of heavy teaching loads and pressure to find stable full-time jobs; and have little opportunity or incentive to take responsibility for the long-term academic development of their students (American Association of University Professors 1993; Barkume 1996;Foster and Foster 1998;Benjamin 1998;Reichard 1998). The smaller base of remaining full-time faculty encounter heavier burdens in conducting university administration and governance, recruitment, counseling and supervising students, developing and maintaining an integrated curriculum, and the like.…”

“…The smaller base of remaining full-time faculty encounter heavier burdens in conducting university administration and governance, recruitment, counseling and supervising students, developing and maintaining an integrated curriculum, and the like. The result is that their relationships with students and research and publication records are impaired as well and, ultimately, so is the reputation of their university (Reichard 1998, p. 43).…”

The Changing Structure of the Academic Job Market

“…Another concern is that continually employing temporary rather than permanent faculty may gradually shift authority away from faculty members to administrators (Foster and Foster 1998). Even more troubling, there is mounting evidence that such hiring patterns have divided faculty along caste lines (Conference on the Growing Use of Part-Time and Adjunct Faculty 1997), creating a twotier hierarchy in which one group conducts research and a second teaches (Reichard 1998). Whatever its effect, most students of higher education seem to agree that "the distinction between tenure-and nontenure-track appointments should be recognized as an essential category for analyzing the recent history of the academic labor market," and that, in some ways, this distinction has led to a dual labor market (Roemer and Schnitz 1982, 514).…”

Faculty Tiering and Academic Inbreeding: One Institution's Relationships and Realities

“…Although not exclusively part-time professionals, these faculty are often assumed to be less qualified and less productive. This is not the case (Dupree, 1993;Reichard, 1998), nor should they bear the blame for lowering academic standards in higher education (Thompson, 1992). In sum, little research has been done on this relatively new group of second tier faculty, other than to document their existence (Baldwin & Chronister, 1996;Rhoades, 1996;Roemer & Schnitz, 1982;Sommer, 1994).…”