General FAQs
What do people mean when they use terms like “non-tenure-track,” “adjunct,” or “contingent” faculty? Are there differences?
Yes, there are differences in these terms. Not everyone agrees on how these terms are applied, but we offer an explanation of common terms below.
The terms non-tenure-track faculty and contingent commonly denote both full- and part-time academic staff who are not on the tenure track; they are ineligible to be considered for tenure. It is important to note that this is not a homogeneous group. Individuals may have very different reasons for taking non-tenure-track jobs and the nature of work and working conditions can vary substantially, even on the same campus.
Full-time contingent faculty may be referred to as lecturers, instructors or clinical faculty. Titles and formal classifications may vary by campus and might even differ among the numerous academic units at an institution. They typically work at one institution since they hold full-time appointments.
Part-time faculty are also commonly referred to as adjunct faculty or simply as adjuncts. Depending upon their individual circumstances, some part-time faculty might work only work at one institution. However, they are more likely to have positions at multiple institutions and may aspire to full-time or tenure-track positions.
Although these individuals are not considered for tenure and may not be required or permitted to participate in the full range of teaching, research and service tasks as tenure-track faculty, they are still faculty. The work they do is tremendously important in the teaching and research missions of the institution. On some campuses, contingent faculty may teach a large share of the students enrolled in courses, particularly first-years and sophomores or online students. They are often very committed to their field of study and to ensuring the success of the students they teach.
How many faculty are currently employed off the tenure-track?
In contrast, in 1969, tenured and tenure-track positions made up approximately 78.3 percent of the faculty and non-tenure-track positions comprised about 21.7 percent, as researchers have pointed out. The shift toward a mostly contingent academic workforce in higher education is not a recent phenomenon, but part of a long-term trend. Over time as these changes have occurred, though, institutions have often not considered the implications for the sustainability of the academic workforce or student learning.
For more detailed statistics and analysis, download our report, National Trends for Faculty Composition Over Time.
To determine the composition of faculty at your institution, visit the Modern Language Association’s Academic Workforce Data Center, a searchable tool that displays faculty composition data for all nonprofit institutions in the United States.
How Changing Faculty Trends Affect Student Success
What is responsible for these negative effects on student outcomes?
The negative effects on student outcomes are correlated with the challenges contingent faculty members, particularly part-time faculty, often encounter in their daily work. Institutional and departmental policies and practices frequently constrain the efforts of these instructors:
- Last minute hiring and renewals limit the time faculty members have to prepare for teaching.
- The exclusion of contingent faculty from participation in professional development, including opportunities to receive funding for conferences and workshops held off campus, prevents them from learning about and adopting high-impact practices, new pedagogies, and other innovative strategies to improve the quality of instruction and student learning outcomes.
- When contingent faculty are not permitted and encouraged to participate in curriculum design, their courses may be misaligned with institutional and program goals, problems with the curriculum may persist without being addressed, and faculty expertise is not fully utilized.
These are just a few examples. For more details, download our resources that show the correlations between changing faculty trends and student success.
Do we really know that the rise of part-time faculty is having an adverse effect on student outcomes?
The two phenomena are correlated. A number of studies (Benjamin, 2003; Bettinger & Long, 2010; Eagan & Jaeger, 2008; Ehrenberg & Zhang, 2004; Gross & Goldhaber, 2009; Harrington & Schibik, 2001; Jaeger & Eagan, 2009; Jacoby, 2006) show that growing reliance on non-tenure-track faculty and part-time faculty, in particular, is related to student learning and outcomes. These correlations include:
- Diminished graduation and retention rates
- Decreased transfer from two- to four-year institutions
- Pronounced negative effects of early exposure to part-time faculty
- Reduced faculty-student interaction
Many policies impede the ability of faculty to provide effective instruction that is aligned with departmental and institutional goals for learning outcomes. On many campuses, current policies create conditions wherein these faculty members are inaccessible to students outside of scheduled class time and are not permitted to have a role in decision-making, including decisions about the courses they teach.
For a discussion of how such conditions influence the ability of institutions to maximize the benefits of contingent faculty contributions to student learning, download our resources on student success.
How to Promote Change
There’s not really money available to make meaningful changes in how part-time faculty are supported and compensated, though, right?
One of the greatest challenges that academic leaders voice when they address calls to provide additional support for faculty members, particularly those individuals in contingent positions, is their inability to cover the added expense of providing new programs and services or expanding existing ones. However, many of the ways that colleges could provide additional support for these faculty members are potentially no-cost or low-cost measures that would benefit faculty as well as the students they teach. So, although leaders in higher education do face budgetary constraints and uncertainty over future funding sources, it is a myth that resources are the sole reason that prevents us from ensuring that all our faculty members are adequately supported so they can provide the highest quality of instruction to their students.
A number of institutions have pursued changes to better support contingent faculty. In all of the cases we have studied, investments designed to this group have resulted in continued investment and sometimes even increased funding for such initiatives because campus leaders realized the benefits for faculty and students.
For details on why leaders should, and how campuses can, make changes to support all faculty, download Dispelling the Myths: Locating the Resources Needed to Support Non-Tenure-Track Faculty.
Case studies of institutions that have pursued changes to better support non-tenure-track faculty are also available for download.
But what can I really do to promote change? This seems like a lot to take on!
To begin to address this issue on your campus or within your department, we recommend starting with the five simple steps outlined on our homepage. The Delphi Project offers resources to help you at each stage in the process, from collecting data to facilitating dialogue among different groups in your campus community to building the rationale for change to identifying areas where you can start making strategic changes to better support your faculty.
