Faculty: Adjunct and Contingent

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2011

Type of Work

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Wyatt-Nichol, H. (2011). Faculty: Adjunct and Contingent. Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World. Sage Publications, 505-506.

Rights

Abstract

Contingent workers are those individuals without any expectation of long-term or continuous employment within an organization. Within the field of higher education, contingent workers include part-time adjuncts and full-time nontenure-track faculty members, The use of contingent faculty has increased over the years, particularly within the field of higher education. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics analyst Steven Hipple, 25 percent of the contingent workers holding advanced degrees in 1999 were college or university instructors. The 2009 Almanac of the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that in 2007, 51 percent of faculty members were full-time compared with 49 percent categorized as part-time.