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Adjuncts and Tenure; an Improbable Duo
Adjunct professors are every university’s ideal asset. They are cheap to hire, easy to let go
and won’t add to the pesky pile of benefits paperwork in need of filing.
Call them what you want-contingent faculty,adjuncts or part-timers- these professors are
the most vulnerable and have the most insecure teaching position in higher education. They receive
only a couple thousand dollars per course, can be let go at the end of a semester for a myriad of
reasons and do not receive health or retirement benefits. Facts like these constantly haunt part-
timers throughout many semesters, or even years, of teaching without much of a chancefor tenure.
Regardless of these unfortunate conditions experienced by adjuncts, Central Connecticut
State University can’t get enough of them. According to their Officeof Institutional Research and
Assessment, adjunct professors outnumber the full-timers on campus. Last Spring semester, Central
employed 482 part-time professors and 434 full-time professors.
Regardless of these figures, the chance of eventual tenure remains slim. A report by James
Monks titled, “WhoAre the Part-Time Faculty?” published by the American Association of
University Professors, showed that of over 26,000 instructional faculty and staff participants, 65%
of part-time employees claimed they would not prefer a full-time position at their current
university. Overhalf of the adjunct staff answered they wouldrather NOTbe hired by the university
that they currently workfor. Wait a second- if the majority of part-timers are apathetic towards
eventually securing full-time benefits, what’s withall this hype over better treatment of part-timers
if the desire isn’t held by all?
The problem falls in the statistic itself. It fails to acknowledgefactors that would sway
anyone’s mind torejecting a full-time offer;factors that are unseen by the naked eye. As part-

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timers, they often facequite demoralizing and dissuading treatment as mere fill-ins, temps or
placeholders until the next Joe Shmoe is hired. They are constantly under stress of not knowing
whether they will be employed next semester or not, and for what reason. If they need to quit for
unforeseen medical reasons, their name is wiped fromthe university’s booklets without a trace. Job
security is non-existent. The university has no legal obligation to take care of part-timers as they
would a full-time, tenured professor with equal credentials. They often do not have their own desk
or officeforafter-class hours, making relationships with students difficultto uphold when E-mail is
the only viable option. And forget meeting up withstudents at the campus library after class to talk
grades, the adjunct is probably en route to their other job already.
“Wehave fairly decent officespace, albeit it can get cramped at times and there is no space
to meet withstudents in private,” says Jane Hikel, an adjunct professor at Central Connecticut State
University for over 20 years. “That being said, the full-time faculty is not much better off when it
comes to officespace. Most of them have to share their officewith another faculty member and
most of the officesdon't even have a window.”
Regardless of the cramped conditions, Central’s employees seemed generally satisfied with
their experience. Every year,CCSU conductsa College EmployeeSatisfaction Survey. The most
recent summary of the results come from 2010 and prove positive for both adjunct and full-time
professors. Descriptions such as “My supervisor pays attention to what I have to say,” ranked in the
Areasof Strength section. While Areasfor Improvementincludedphrases such as, “Theinstitution
makes sufficientstaff resources available to achieve important objectives.”
Sometimes part-timers are perceived as less capable or less experienced by the students.
Let’s admit it- when the professor’s E-mail reads ‘Adjunct Professor’below their name, youcannot
help but question why he or she has not been hired full time; students are quick to assess their
capabilities and talents withtheir employment status. I’ve read stories of professors across the

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country that felt“invisible” at their universities and in their departments. It’s like high school all
over again.
“Iknow of some departments that do not provide part-time faculty with officespace, not
even a shelf to store a book,and part-time faculty are not welcome at department meetings,” says
Hikel. “They obviously consider part-time faculty a necessary evil.”
However,I have had many adjunct professors uphold the highest standards in academia.
One of my first adjunct professors inspired me to claim my minor in Cultural Anthropology. From
there, I noticed how many of the professors in my major’s department are adjuncts and not
tenured. I began to wonder, does it matter? How,if at all, are they different from the full-time
professors?
“A few of my students have actually told me that they think part-time faculty are generally
more dedicated to their students and their discipline,” says Hikel.
Those students hit the nail on the head. Accordingto a study by Northwestern University,
adjunct professors ranked better than those with tenure did. Though at a first glance this shocks the
tenured professors, the reasons could be very simple. Adjuncts are evaluated on their performance
every semester, as are full-time professors. However,unlike tenure-track professors, the adjuncts’
chance of re-hire next semester thrives on the academic success of their students. In other words,
the better the student’s grade the happier and more apt a student willbe to give good remarks
about the professor. Considering part-time employment is soon to outnumber the full-time
positions, these adjuncts know to play the game and be a little more lenient on the students than
those full-time professors “riding in on their broomsticks,” as a (tenured) professor once phrased.
Being the scholars that they are, they plan ahead.

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A good number of adjuncts teach as a side job fromtheir main employer. With full-time
professor positions on a constant decline, it’s a good thing. Another good amount of adjuncts teach
as their main employment and therefore seek workelsewhere in order to make ends meet.
Although many professors teach part-time to engage in professional academics with passion and
interest, Monks’ study stated that 46% of part-timers have a fulltime job, some to compensate for
the lacking income as an adjunct professor.
Unions protest forequal rights and just treatment of professors, withthe adjuncts’
prerogative to equal benefits and opportunities remaining a focus. According to TheChronicleof
HigherEducation,a weekly source of higher education news for faculty,students and professors,
Oakton Community College in Chicago, Ill. has increased its percentage of full-time hires from
adjunct ranks in the last decade. The university’s union pushed for equal employment opportunity.
The union demanded that foreach full-time position open, adjuncts must accountfor at least 25%
of the applicants. Since then, the hire rate of adjuncts to full-time professors jumped from 50% ten
years ago to 65% today.
Some higher education communities, such as Connecticut’s CSU system, do not contractually
allow advancement to a tenure track once youare hired part-time. The CSU union contract does
allow “emergency hires” as full-time replacements in some cases. The “emergency hire” can teach
for no more than a consecutive two-yearstint before the union contract legally must treat them as a
tenure trackhire, at which point they would chose an applicant, usually not the emergency hire, for
a tenure track position.
The teaching experience at Yavapai College in Prescott,Ariz. is a far cry fromthe those at
both Oakton Community College and the four CSU universities. After earning a Ph.D.in medieval
history, adjunct professor at Yavapai College, Melissa Bruninga-Matteau was forcedto resort to
foodstamps to support her and her two children. According to her interview with TheChronicleof

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HigherEducation,Bruninga-Matteau does not understand how she became the prototype of
someone on welfare.
“Ifind it horrifying that someone whostands in front of college classes and teaches is on
welfare,” she stated in Stacey Patton’s article, “The Ph.D.Now Comes With FoodStamps.”
Horrifying, indeed. Whether the reason be legislative cuts in funding, lowercollege
attendance rate or the fear of granting tenure in an uneasy economy, Bruninga-Matteau is one of
many adjuncts withprofessional degrees struggling to support themselves and a family. According
to the American Association of University Professors, full-time professors earn a majority of their
income from their teaching while part-timers earn only about a fifth. Evenif the part-timers teach
as second job, should they be our nation’s new working poor?
With almost half the higher education staff considered adjunct and tuition on the rise,
shouldn’t we reconsider one’s access to a higher income and better benefits in relation to their skill,
and not their title? Shouldn’t adjuncts be worthy of the same benefits that a full-time teacher, one
that is comparably equally or less skilled, receives? This caste system of acknowledging tenured
professors as more valuable than the adjuncts through monetary benefits says a lot about the
capitalist nation of ours. Students should go to school doubt-free that their professors are respected
and valued members of one of the oldest institutions in the world-education. Wecannot justify the
lack of retirement benefits, health insurance or uncertainty of employment on profits and figures.
They teach just the same (if not better) than the wellpaid, tenured, benefit-earning professors in
the next classroom over. If our higher education system does not better take care of their
employees- the very people that teach our children and the generations to come-then whowill?