Use of Adjunct Faculty Rising Dramatically

It is now very common for at least half the courses at community colleges to be taught by adjunct faculty. This is especially the case at schools in metropolitan areas, where qualified part-time instructors are, at least in theory, more readily available.

An excellent treatment of this issue is found in the July 21 issue of the San Antonio Express News (registration). The article is by Melissa Ludwig.

The colleges in the Alamo Community College District have been rapidly expanding their corps of adjuncts. According to the article, usually it takes the form of simply replacing retiring full-timers with part-timers. It is clear that tight budgets are the principal driving force of the upsurge. The article gets right to the heart of problems, pointing out that some adjunct instructors carry heavy loads by commuting from school to school. As a rule, they do not receive benefits such as health insurance and they rarely have offices or the time to meet with students. As one put it, "My car is my office."

As pointed out earlier here, rising gas prices have hit adjunct faculty particularly hard.

From the article:

This spring, Art Settles burned through about $80 a week driving his Ford F-150 truck from Sonterra down to San Antonio College to teach a speech class.

For his effort, he received about $2,200, zero health and retirement benefits and an office he calls “the wide spot in the hall,” essentially a desk, chair and computer that he shares with several other instructors. Settles, a 60-year-old USAA retiree, works as a part-time adjunct instructor at SAC and the University of Texas at San Antonio. Between the two institutions, he typically scrapes together about $17,000 a year.

And:

Since 2000, the [Alamo] district's five colleges — St. Philip's, Palo Alto, Northwest Vista, Northeast Lakeview and San Antonio College — have increased the classroom hours taught by part-time faculty from 40 to 47 percent. Now, administrators are asking them to push that number up to 50 percent.

Northwest Vista and St. Philip's College have already reached that goal, but SAC is below target with 45 percent, and Palo Alto College is just shy at 48 percent.

Chancellor Bruce Leslie said the 50 percent goal is in line with the institution's peers and is necessary to balance the district's budget. A decade ago, state dollars made up 38 percent of the district's budget, but this year composed only 28 percent. Hiring more adjuncts may not be popular, but colleges must find ways to cut costs, Leslie said.

“The state isn't just going to throw us money,” Leslie said. “You have to make choices.”