Saturday, August 9, 2014

Here’s just one reason why someone might reconsider adjunct teaching

At the community college where my wife Elaine taught for a number of years, eight adjunct faculty have just learned that some or all of their fall classes have been canceled. They have received this news three weeks before the fall semester begins.

Adjunct is a strange term: what’s adjunct is supplemental, not essential. Yet so-called adjunct faculty are now a substantial majority of college faculty. A more accurate term: contingent faculty. As the AAUP says, such faculty serve “in insecure, unsupported positions with little job security and few protections for academic freedom.” See the previous paragraph.

Related reading
The Adjunct Project (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

[The reasons for the cancellations: budget cuts, declining enrollment.]

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