If a Bassett Hound can learn to wakeboard, higher education institutions can learn to value and support adjunct faculty in ways that lead to a one faculty culture that ensures student success!
As Webb, Wong, and Hubball from University of British Columbia commented “Research-intensive universities around the world are increasingly drawing upon leading practitioners in professional fields as adjunct faculty to deliver high quality student learning experiences in diverse undergraduate and graduate program contexts.” It is high time U.S. higher education administrators and full-time faculty recognized the adjunct’s worth as deliverers of quality student learning and the need for supporting them.
This annotated bibliography is the result of research conducted for an independent study in the Masters of Adult Learning program at Empire State College during the summer of 2015. The investigation centered around the professional development needs of adjunct faculty to best support the institutional aims of successful student learning. The goal was to understand the professional development preferences of adjunct faculty in order to develop library educational programs aimed at the faculty as adult learners, teaching them the practices and resources necessary to ensure the students they teach receive appropriate information to make best use of library resources and understand the research process.
I chose to limit this annotated bibliography, in the most part, to articles or information newer than 2010 due to the very comprehensive annotated bibliography done by Robert Pankin and Carla Weiss in 2011 covering the years 1977 – 2010 (citation provided below). My interest areas included best practices in development programs, campus integration, factors in the adjunct lifestyle, and working environment. Questions I tried to answer included: What are the best practices for managing adjuncts? How are the various learning styles addressed? What theories from andragogy can be applied to teaching/training adjuncts to be successful college professors? The research has been an interesting, and often contradictory, journey. While some programs have begun to support adjuncts in a variety of ways, I have found little research around the actual teaching of adjuncts to teach or how adjuncts best learn the skills they need for teaching.
I hope that this compilation of 2010 and forward articles, with a couple of older jewels tossed in, will be of use to those managing adjunct programs, or those advocating for such programs!
Pankin, Robert and Weiss, Carla, “Part-time Faculty in Higher Education: A Selected Annotated Bibliography” (2011). SociologyDepartment Faculty Publications. Paper 1. http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/sociology_fac/1
Supporting Adjuncts in Higher Education 