This chapter presents a case study to address the question: What are the perceptions of academic program directors and adjunct faculty about institutional and program-specific practices to build community among remote adjunct faculty? A review of literature evidences that part-time faculty have become a substantial component of the delivery of higher education, but there is a need to assess the nature of the relationship between part-time faculty and the institutions they work for. Through a series of telephone interviews, faculty and program directors' perceptions were analyzed to articulate themes associated with defining the nature of community at a college or university and to identify activities or practices at the institutional and program levels that lend themselves to building community. Results suggest that colleges and universities should focus on strategies that build and solidify faculty relationships and focus on the allocation of resources.
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In the United States, colleges and universities have grown dependent on a corps of part-time instructors, or adjunct faculty, as a component of delivering academic programming to students. Between 1975 and 2015, the proportion of part-time faculty in the academic labor force in the United States rose from 24% to 40% (AAUP, 2017). This dynamic is apparent in institutions that have developed educational programming that is both technologically and geographically separated from a main campus or delivery site. Almost 40% of courses taught at institutions represented by the Association of State Colleges and Universities are online or blended courses, and fully one third of those courses are taught by part-time faculty (Magda, 2019). The growth in the dependence of colleges and universities on part-time faculty presents new challenges to organizations in higher education to ensure that this component of the workforce remains engaged and involved in institutional processes. Particularly when it comes to programmatic vitality, currency of the curriculum, and student-faculty relationships, educational institutions must work assertively to ensure remote adjunct faculty are included and involved in institutional planning and development. It is the essence of community-building to ensure that this large part of the academic labor force, an important point of contact with students, feels valued and included.
The growth of distance education as a teaching modality in U.S. postsecondary institutions is evident and well-documented (Ginder, Kelly-Reid, & Mann, 2017; Seaman, Allen, & Seaman, 2018; Wallis, 2018). In contrast with more traditional forms of higher education (e.g., one campus where students, faculty, staff, and administrators gather on-site), with distance education adjunct faculty may be separated from the core or full-time faculty due to the nature of the institution’s educational delivery modalities. Distance education technologies have enabled many colleges and universities to enroll students in online classes who do not have to be in the vicinity of the institution’s primary geographical location(s). This modality also enables the institution to hire instructors from anywhere. Institutions are also opening satellite and remotely located teaching centers with limited staff where part-time faculty may teach. This chapter considers the case of a large private, not-for-profit university with a decentralized and diverse educational delivery model to assess what organizational strategies should be considered for building community among remote adjunct faculty. The case study focuses on those practices developed at the institutional level and those used by academic program directors in a school of professional studies, and it profiles the perceptions of adjunct faculty who teach remotely in a specific academic program to assess the existing levels of institutional and program-specific efforts to build community among remote adjunct faculty.
It is important to have an understanding of the effectiveness of organizational processes in engaging remote adjunct faculty and promoting a sense of community. This study addresses this by interviewing academic program directors to assess whether institutional-level processes engage remote adjunct faculty as a community and to learn what program-specific practices are used to build community. This information may be relevant to understanding instructor-student engagement as to whether having a sense of community is fundamentally important. Having information about faculty attachment to the organization may also inform thinking about how this might influence the instructors’ sense of purpose with respect to their teaching.
Assessing the impact of institutional and program-specific community-building activities is important because it goes to the heart of deciding what resources an organization needs to provide to its remote adjunct faculty. This information may be useful for quantifying, if possible, those elements of organizational behavior that have the most impact on an instructor’s attachment to a university’s community. Organizations might benefit from knowing if faculty community-building efforts are important to a part-time instructor, or whether the tangible rewards (e.g., pay, number of class assignments) may be more relevant. Institutions need to know if the intangible benefits of being a member of a university community (e.g., ability to participate in program strategic planning, course development, value of being appreciated) are worth the efforts of engaging a remote workforce in a community.