Pull up a Chair: Making Room at the Table for Adjunct Faculty

A Historical Shift

Over 15 years ago, Ryesky (2007) discussed the rising shift to using adjunct labor. He noted then that one reason for this shift was to bring in real-world expertise and subject matter experts for the benefit of the students and the university as a whole. While that may have been an original intent, Ryesky made the point that the low cost of adjunct labor is driving the shift. His comment that “trends toward balancing the college budget upon the backs of the adjuncts has led to many inequities between the adjunct faculty and the full-time faculty” echoes as truth today, 15+ years later (p. 130). More recently, others have suggested there are a variety of reasons for the shift in higher education to contingent faculty beyond just the financial benefits to colleges and universities (Alshehri, 2020; Kimmel & Fairchild, 2017; Shulman, 2019). University budget constraints, coupled with the rise in distance learning, are a driving force. Adjunct faculty are paid substantially less than their full-time counterparts, which means savings for universities that are regularly faced with growing budget constraints (Alshehri, 2020; Christopher et al., 2022; Shulman, 2019; Swann et al., 2021).