Learning to Be a Lawyer from a Lawyer: The Benefits of Adjunct Faculty

Two business communication faculty share the story of teaching a 780-person business writing class. The article discusses the challenges of teaching such a large writing class. Challenges ranged from adopting a hybrid course model to hiring adjunct faculty for help with the task of grading. The article offers lessons learned, and recommends that one proceed with caution when considering a superlarge format for writing instruction. Both theory and experience are used to support this position.

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Adjunct Faculty Perceptions of Participation in Online Collaborative Research Teams

Higher Learning Research Communications ◽

10.18870/hlrc.v9i2.459 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Rita Hartman ◽

Danielle Kearns-Sixsmith ◽

Patricia Akojie ◽

Christa Banton

Keyword(s):

Adjunct Faculty ◽

Personal Growth ◽

Professional Growth ◽

Collaborative Research ◽

Faculty Perceptions ◽

Research Question ◽

Research Teams ◽

Organizational Skills ◽

Part Time Faculty ◽

Inquiry Approach

Career professionals who serve as adjunct faculty at the university level are expected to engage in continual research and publishing to maintain their status as adjunct (part-time) faculty, to be considered for potential advancement, and to qualify for additional compensation. One way of meeting this objective is to participate in online collaborative research projects benefiting from a set of multiple lenses, multiple insights, and a multitude of considerations in regard to design, methodology, data interpretations, and broader reaching implications. A narrative inquiry approach was applied to gain an in-depth understanding of the experiences of adjunct faculty working in online collaborative research teams. Data was gathered through phone interviews where adjunct faculty shared their personal experiences and reflections about working as collaborative researchers in an online environment. Using an inductive process, themes were drawn from the responses of the participants to address the research question. The dominant themes found were organizational skills, interpersonal skills, and personal growth and development. The results of the study led to recommendations for supporting adjunct faculty in online collaborative research for building a sense of scholarly community and expanding opportunities for personal professional growth.

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Clinical Adjunct Nursing Faculty Virtual Mentoring Experience:A Qualitative Study

International Journal of Social Science and Human Research ◽

10.47191/ijsshr/v4-i3-40 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 04 (03) ◽

Author(s):

Jennifer Reyes ◽

Keyword(s):

Nursing Education ◽

Adjunct Faculty ◽

Nursing Faculty ◽

The United States ◽

New Faculty ◽

Virtual Mentoring ◽

School Of Nursing ◽

Qualitative Research Design ◽

Proper Training ◽

Adjunct Nursing Faculty

Nursing and nursing education have been surrounded by discussions of shortages for many years. The United States lacks qualified nurses to care for its aging and increasing acutely ill population. The lack of qualified nurses stems back to several issues, at the forefront, a lack of qualified nurse educators. Due to the demand for skilled and competent nursing faculty, schools of nursing have been utilizing bedside nurses to teach in the clinical setting. While many are experienced bedside nurses, they may not be formally prepared to teach students. Clinical adjunct nursing faculty are also unique because they may never step foot on a college or school of nursing campus, teaching exclusively at the clinical site. This can lead to feelings of stress and lack of support from the other faculty members. It may also make it difficult to help prepare and guide clinical adjunct faculty as they teach and encounter educational issues without proper training. Mentoring is routinely cited as valuable to new faculty transitioning to the education role. The purpose of this study was to explore a new trend in mentoring, virtual mentoring, and determine if it is of value to clinical adjunct nursing faculty. Guided by a basic qualitative research design, eleven clinical adjunct faculty who have experienced virtual mentoring were interviewed in order to gather their perspective of the process and formulate interventions that may enhance the virtual mentoring process for this faculty population.

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Are Adjunct Faculty Exploited: Some Grounds for Skepticism

Journal of Business Ethics ◽

10.1007/s10551-016-3322-4 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 152 (1) ◽

pp. 53-71

Author(s):

Jason Brennan ◽

Phillip Magness

Keyword(s):

Adjunct Faculty

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A Scandalous Misuse of Faculty—Adjuncts

Canons and Contexts ◽

10.1093/oso/9780195055931.003.0015 ◽

1991 ◽

Author(s):

Paul Lauter

Keyword(s):

Adjunct Faculty ◽

Full Time ◽

Full Load ◽

Part Time Faculty ◽

Political Interests ◽

Tenure Decision ◽

Part Time ◽

New Varieties ◽

College Managers ◽

Time Faculty

While increasing attention began to be focused a decade ago on the scandalous misuse of part-time or “adjunct” faculty in colleges, their use has persistently spread. In fact, new varieties of “temporary” positions continue to be invented by college managers. “Part-time” faculty now include some who teach what amounts to a full load, but who are paid on a credit hour or per course basis, others who scramble for one or two courses each term and are paid flat rates, as well as a few whose salaries and benefits are prorated fractions of those of a full-timer. But there are now many “off-tenure” full-time appointments as well: “lecturers,” whose contracts are renewed every year or two but who may remain in their positions, without tenure, indefinitely; “nontenure-track” instructors and assistant professors, who may stay at an institution for four, six or more years but who, at the point of a tenure decision, must move on; “replacement” appointments, who fill lines for a year or two and then migrate to similar positions elsewhere. I shall use the term “adjunct faculty” or “adjuncts” to describe this quite varied group of individuals, for while the word is not precisely appropriate in all cases, its dictionary definition calls attention to the fact that such faculty, while “joined or added” to the institution, are in critical ways “not essentially a part of it.” Handwringing over the plight of adjuncts has brought no relief, and even most union contracts have so far been marginally helpful. That should be no surprise, for the exploitation of adjuncts serves a number of crucial interests of college managers and of those to whom they report. It is important to identify these interests more clearly if the abuse of this large number of our colleagues is ever to be brought under control, much less halted. For the exploitation of adjuncts is not a function of managerial nastiness, nor is it—any more than was the War on Vietnam—an unfortunate product of historical “accidents.” Rather, it is rooted in a particular conception of college management designed to serve historically distinctive social and political interests.

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Commitment among adjunct faculty

Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education ◽

10.1108/jarhe-04-2019-0079 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (5) ◽

pp. 1209-1220

Author(s):

Heidi Reeder

Keyword(s):

Adjunct Faculty ◽

Self Efficacy ◽

Design Methodology ◽

Predictive Power ◽

Adjunct Instructors ◽

Content Type ◽

Part Time ◽

Time Position ◽

The Stability ◽

Practical Implications

PurposeWithout the stability of tenure, adjunct faculty have few barriers to leave their position. The purpose of this article is to understand the variables that predict commitment among adjunct instructors.Design/methodology/approachThis paper statistically analyzed data from a survey completed by adjunct instructors at two 4-year universities. The survey included scales on commitment, satisfaction, investments, alternatives and the psychological concepts of grit and self-efficacy. In addition, a qualitative analysis was conducted on supplemental open-ended questions that allowed participants to describe the basis of their commitment.FindingsSatisfaction and investments were the main predictors of commitment and those together accounted for just over 50 percent of the variance. Grit and self-efficacy did not correlate with commitment, but did correlate with satisfaction and investments.Practical implicationsGiven the predictive power of satisfaction to explain commitment, understanding the specific rewards and costs experienced by this population can give administrators ideas for making the part-time position more appealing. Similarly, given the predictive power of investments, administrators might consider identifying avenues for adjunct faculty to contribute to the department and university in a meaningful and rewarding way.Originality/valueUniversities are increasingly dependent on adjunct instructors, so it is worthwhile to understand the experience of such faculty. This is best done through research, rather than relying on assumptions, stereotype or anecdotes.

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The Ambivalent Role of Experiential Learning in American Legal Education and the Problem of Legal Culture

German Law Journal ◽

10.1017/s2071832200001358 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 10 (6-7) ◽

pp. 815-822 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

David M. Siegel

Keyword(s):

Experiential Learning ◽

Adjunct Faculty ◽

Legal Education ◽

Legal Culture ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Skills Development ◽

Recent Criticism ◽

Full Time ◽

Experiential Techniques

Recent criticism of American legal education has focused on its being theory-driven rather than practice driven, which either produces or reinforces a divide or gap between theory and practice. Yet two features of American legal education expressly draw upon experiential learning, one directly by sending students into experiential learning situations (legal clinics) and the other indirectly by bringing instructors who are engaged full-time in active practice into the classroom (i.e. adjunct faculty). If skills development is a feature of American legal education, to what degree can, or should, this be transplanted to other systems of legal education? Are American experiential techniques of legal education meaningful elsewhere?

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