The word, Adjunct is Latin for accessory. It refers to the teachers and instructors whether in secondary or postsecondary education, whose compensation and/or benefits, even at a prorated proportion do not equal those of full-time contractual or tenure-track faculty ( Underwood, 2003 ).
Published in Chapter:
Adjuncting in Higher Education: Challenges and Recommendations
Copyright: © 2017
|Pages: 20
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-1049-9.ch053
Abstract
How leaders and management culture in higher education thinks about particular events as normal, and expected does not always fit with the experiences of college instructors, particularly the overworked, underpaid exploited contingent instructors teaching in higher education. Whenever people with money have power over people with less money, you have the potential for exploitation. As adult educators and administrators in this context, might there be better ways we can improve or change the way we treat our contingent teaching faculty by developing a better understanding of the issues facing nontenure track, adjunct, or part-time faculty? What is the strategic role of alternative approaches toward the treatment for these instructors? In this chapter, the authors discuss the need to use alternative frameworks as administrators make decisions to cut costs while maintaining education programs. This chapter discusses the motivation behind their exploitation, effect on student success, court cases, and realities for adjuncts, will be explored in this chapter as well as recommendations.