What are "Adjunct Faculty"?

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Excerpt from:
 Colleges Turning to Part-time Instructors
by Marisa Agha, Press-Enterprise
San Bernardino County, Sunday, Nov 28, 2004, p. B3

…Some higher-education experts see as the professor of the future: a part-time lecturer who doesn’t receive the money, benefits, or other perks of full time, tenured faculty…Susan Meisenhelder…a professor of English at Cal State San Bernardino, praised the work of part-time instructors, but said the students don’t get the same level of engagement from them. “They’re not paid to advise students about the requirements,” Meisenhelder said. “They’re not around to do letters of recommendation.” But Karin Skiba, president of the faculty union at Riverside Community College, said she doesn’t see any negative impact from the part-time instructors’ presence. “I think that they bring a certain freshness, a certain new attitude,” said Skiba… “They’re very eager and fresh.”...The number of part-time faculty has doubled to 45 percent of all faculty nationwide since the early 1970s…

See the full story at:
www.pe.com/breakingnews/local/ stories/PE_News_Local_parttime28.a1d76.html

Adjuncts & Non-class Time:

Regarding non-class time: as an adjunct professor, each semester I sign a legal document for the administration that states: "...we expect that the total time per week, on average, should not exceed 10 to 15 hours....In order to ensure that the part-time character of your employment is maintained, you will be asked to certify your compliance with the maximum hours expectations at the end of the semester." If I teach 2 classes per semester (the typical half-time load), here's how my time breaks down:

  • 15 hours/week is the maximum allowed,
  • divided by 2 classes = 7.5 hours/class/week.
  • Allow for 3 hours/week in class, and
  • 2 hours/class/week for office hours & meeting students
  • That leaves me a scant 2.5 hours/week for making exercises and tests, getting photocopies, grading, and performing the administrative work involved in running a class.
  • Notice that the most time-consuming element, class preparation, isn't even on this list! That's because, technically, I'm using my own material to teach. Prep time comes out of my pocket, not the school's.

What does this mean? It means my classes must run very efficiently. It's one of the reasons I have such an extensive class syllabus and website -- it's more efficient to post answers to questions that I receive repeatedly, and to attempt to be as clear as possible on this website so you can answer most of your questions here. (Remember that you need to check the class website periodically for changes, posted under "Updates" on the main page.)