Hi,

I don't have a reference to specific literature, but my feeling is that there is going to be huge variations by institution, by discpline and by geographical location.  For example, I know that some of our Universities in Québec have thresholds in their Professors work conventions  stating the maximum proportion of lecturers or that in my discipline (engineering) one needs to be a senior member of the local professional organization, effectively limiting the possibility of masters or often even PhD students to teach.

This is one of the things I cannot understand - I believe all students should be taught by faculty.

More of an opinion in response to Mr. Demeritt and Ms Van Staden than an objective response to the OP, but I think it is related to the original intent nevertheless.

With regards to Mr. Demeritt view, I think that it needs to be said that the root cause of the tendency for faculty and departments to 'outsource' teaching to lecturer and grad student does not come from the unwillingness of faculty to 'commodify' their knowledge compared to adjunct or to grad students, but rather the 'commodification' of research and education itself.

From my experience and the general information that I gathered around, It is actually the Universities that pressures faculty to do more research and less teaching because it is research grants that bring in big money and prestige to a University rather than the quality of teaching. Therefore, faculty personnel are asked to focus on research rather than teaching as this is where the money is and where there is a possibility for expansion since graduate studies are now perceived as an international market while undergraduate studies are more of a national market.

As to Ms. Van Staden, I somewhat disagree as I think if one intends to pursue an academic career, he is best to start teaching early for at least a couple reasons. First, teaching is a great way of learning and second as getting a faculty position is going to be challenging in many many respects, one is better to try and overcome the challenge of teaching early in its career process. Moreover, I've sometimes found that lecturers where sometimes much closer to the state of mind of their audience than full professors and make the subject more accessible.

Hi!

In nursing, most of the faculty are full-time.  Clinical faculty may be 30% adjunct, but most courses and clinicals at Ashland University are facilitated by regular faculty.  In our Arts and Sciences College, many of the Core or gen ed liberal arts courses may be taught by adjunct (40% or more) because of the demand for such required courses. Of course faculty load and financial accountability can also impact scheduling and use of adjunct faculty.

Several articles have been written about this very important issue. Today almost half of teaching faculty of colleges are adjuncts and colleges exploit the availability of such a knowledge market with very low cost to meet their demands of course teachings, as all colleges and universities main task is to transmit knowledge to students, i.e. teaching.

The tragedy of this culture is that, it abandons the very core vision of education in general and higher education particularly, to investigate and solve problems of society through creating and decimating knowledge. But a higher learning institute can not claim to reach to this goal by utilizing and abusing educators themselves in its own place and collecting money as a business company whose only motive is to maximize profit and minimize cost.

Education is not and should not be treated like business but as a very crafted social structure established to solve problems of humanity including those who are part of the structure. Today many of adjuncts leave in food stamps and are the poor of the poor  and there is no any debilitating spirit to a higher learning institute than to have a teaching faculty leaving in food stamps and letting him/her stand in front of students to teach about knowledge in which that very concept does not serve for themselves, acting like a lying witness to the effectiveness of education but ineffective to them.  

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-plain-sight/poverty-u-many-adjunct-professors-food-stamps-n336596

Dear George,

You have proven the fact by your own observation which is true almost in every university and college. Although the question specifically asks to know the numerical data, what portion of the teaching faculty is adjuncts, but we can also discuss the social dimensions, the virtues of that action with content and indifference to the damaging consequences of such a life to adjunct faculties - a job opted because of lose of alternatives but abusive while profitable for universities and colleges.  

Regarding the question posed, and given my personal experience, I would estimate close to 60% of undergraduate courses are taught by adjunct instructors or graduate students.  I taught for nearly 20 years as an adjunct instructor, but this was NOT my primary employment.  During the day, I worked (and continue to do so) as a technical writer/editor for a U.S. national laboratory; one night a week, I taught advanced writing to "keep my foot in the door," so to speak.  Mr Lakew provides a fairly concise treatise on the travesty of adjunct instructors living on food stamps because they can't get hired full-time by the university.  While this may be true in some instances (see Mr. Lakew's reference article), in my experience, most of the local adjunct instructors are seasoned professionals who choose to teach "on the side."  From my perspective, anyone living on food stamps while they do adjunct work isn't taking full advantage of the opportunities available to them.  Rather, they are teaching one or two classes for minimal pay and no benefits while HOPING a full-time position might open up.  Not the best use of time or opportunity in my opinion.  That said, I see two distinct advantages to adjunct employment IF pursued as a part-time, supplementary teaching position.  First, the university has the benefit of employing quality educators without incurring the overhead expenses associated with health care, vacation, etc. -- those things are typical covered the adjunct's primary employer.  Second, students get the benefit of being taught from a "real world" perspective.  Most full-time faculty pursued their advanced degrees with the sole intent of teaching.  What that means to the students is that they are being taught be someone who has a lot of book learning and very little practical experience outside of internships and laboratory courses.  Often, those full-time faculty don't really know what works beyond the hallowed walls of the institution.  Adjunct instructors who have other, discipline-related primary employment provide a level of insight and application that many full-time faculty just can't provide.  The issue for the university then isn't so much one of economics (though that is an important factor) as it is one of real world familiarity and a desire on the part of the adjunct instructors to keep options open for a potential second career in academia. 

Another aspect of this issue is the growing trend toward on-line education.  Adjunct instructors, if properly monitored, can work from home with a minimal course load and provide educational opportunities for students that full-time faculty just don't have the time or resources to offer.  At the institution for which I worked, most -- if not all -- on-line instruction and a large portion of the general (i.e., 100-200 series) curriculum is provided by adjunct instructors.  The onus falls to the institution itself to ensure that those instructors have the proper credentials (I would say no less than a Master's degree) and experience to provide the desired quality of education.

Dear Douglass,

Good points and perspective on the composition of adjunct faculty. Indeed adjunct faculties are several kinds and from different walks of experiences, those who do for the sake of additional job from to a main job. There are several people who are full time faculty in one university where they get benefits and bonuses there but have also adjunct teaching bonuses in another college or university with their choice of best arrangement and there are also people who want to  teach online being at home (adjunct) at several places and several courses which is their best preference again. All these people wanted the adjunct posts as complementary. 

But my concern is not to these people of no concern on what they do but to those who have huge concerns and suffer by the circumstances they live under as only adjunct teaching faculty who have terminal degrees and extensive experiences in which the search for full time faculty did not bear results. These people are the majority of what is called the adjunct teaching contingent of a university faculty in which I am one of them for several years.  

Dejenie,

I'm sorry you are one of the few who live under those circumstances, but I'm not sure I agree that your situation is typical of the majority of adjunct instructors.  Most that I am aware of -- again, close to 60% of the total instruction component at the institution where I taught -- are full-time professionals with other companies who teach "on the side," or they are fresh out of school and trying to break in to the teaching world.  Very few, in my experience, have advanced degrees and are still teaching adjunct as their primary employment.

I'm aware of a couple of writers/editors (my area of expertise) who chose to leave the company I work for and pursue teaching as their career.  In one case, the individual was hired by the institution and is doing quite well.  The other individual was not, and chose to return to school in hopes that a PhD would make the difference.  After three years of adjunct teaching and hoping for a full-time position, all opportunities have been granted to other candidates and the individual has returned to our laboratory as a "temporary" employee without benefits.  Unfortunately, that is the reality of many situations.  My only suggestion would be to look elsewhere, even if it means giving up on the dream of teaching as a career.  I know they say "Do what you love and everything will work out," but sometimes you just have to pay the bills.  Economically, it doesn't make sense for advanced and terminal degree professionals to choose adjunct teaching as a primary source of income.  I think that is why most of them choose to work elsewhere.

Douglass,

I do not have the right data regarding how many adjuncts leave in my circumstances, but from reading and participating in such issues at the chronicle of higher education, my understanding is that many of adjuncts are in bad shape. 

You quoted  "do what you love and every thing will work" and that is true, I do love teaching mathematics and that is what I have done throughout my life (from lecturer to associate professor of mathematics), I have very good student evaluations on my teachings right in the place I currently teach as an adjunct, but for reasons I do not know I could not get the full time faculty job throughout America, as if I am banned from the country although I am an American citizen. 

William Guilford,

In his most recent response, it sounds like Mr. Lakew has read a few articles in "Chronicles of Higher Education" that might provide much of the information you are looking for regarding percentages of full-time versus adjunct faculty.  My personal situation might differ from the norm, but I still believe that the majority of adjunct faculty are professionals in related fields who choose to teach on the side -- at least at the undergraduate levels.  I trust (again, personal opinion) that the higher up the course scale (300, 400, 500, graduate series) a student moves, the more exposure they will have to "full-time" faculty.

Best of luck in finding solid answers to your question.

Douglass,

You are correct in the case of your encounters that most people you know including yourself that work as adjuncts have full time jobs somewhere and there are people I know  who have full time faculty posts in another universities or full time jobs in another profession. 

But my point is different from those cases, it is about cases similar to the person I have attached in my earlier comments, an adjunct leaving in poverty for the reason the person outlined in the video. 

You probably have seen my profile here in RG or you can just type my name in google and know better about me.  I have a PhD degree in mathematics here in America from the University of Arkansas in 2000 and taught for six years being an assistant professor of mathematics at one of the campuses of the university and later as associate professor of mathematics at a university in the state of Virginia until 2010. It is after that  things changed to an irreversible direction for reasons I do not know. I could not get a full time faculty employments of anywhere in the land of America  except an adjunct teaching in a college.

Before I came to America to peruse my doctoral studies, I have been a lecturer of mathematics at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia for several years.

I have  a total of more than 26 years of teaching and doing research in mathematics and there is no reason why some one like me can not retire with the job he grew up with and loves the most  after that many years of service. Besides there is no reason for someone to be forced to abandon the field he/she loved the most  and worked throughout his/her life just by denying employment in that field while mathematics is the field that needs mathematicians the most in America, in every university, college,  neighborhood to teach. 

I do defer your assessments the case which I am a part  but appreciate your wishes of good luck.  

Anecdotal input and Context: My perspective is that from a small all undergraduate school (2000 total) and a 17 yr window. There are currently 14tenure/tenure track faculty in my department, Biology, about to 'lose' one to retirement with replacement not approved.     I think that analysis of the question is further complicated by semantics. For example-- we have never had an adjunct in my department. We have a lecturer (non-tenure 3yr contracts, supposedly no responsibilities other than teaching) that has been here as long as I have (and whom we hope stays on and on), we have an 'F5' (our normal load is 5 courses, F5 teaches 3 and directs our math and science tutoring center. non-tenure,3yr contract-- hope he's here for rest of my career also), we have had 5 'teaching post-docs' who were here through external funding to research and teach-- with a load of 2 but then 'gone' after that year), and we have had three visiting assistant professors who have had semester by semester contracts (sounds like adjunct but we don't have adjuncts). Surveys of the roles would not count any of these individuals as adjuncts. Semantics.     Except for the lecturer all of these 'other positions' have become part of our department within the past 9 years and are critical to our ability to serve our majors and others within the college.   

I echo a previous contributor who mentioned other confounding variables such as disciplines. Music departments, as examples, often have adjuncts to support student lessons for particular instruments or types of ensembles (flute choir, jazz band, baroque quartet) and, at some institutions, the community. These may be a historical expectation, cost saving, and/or because teaching is only one of the positions these individuals hold. 

Our Dean is very interested in this trend. I would love  to know what is out there and what you find. And it would be good to hear from you again friend.

Additional point about the difficulty with semantics-- I know this because I am on a faculty committee that has been trying to collect this information from ourselves and our 'peer institutions'. We started by using college handbooks as the 'official roles and titles' and found that an external person (ie a work-study student) came up with a very different number here at Davidson than faculty members did. (We are small enough that the committee is familiar with pretty much every faculty member on campus). Made me cautious about external analysis of other institutions.

I would agree with Karen that semantics might prove to be a problem, even more so if a global tendency is to be devised. Differing nomenclatures between institutions in a single geographic area may already be hard to deal with, it can only get worst when different academic cultures (british, french, american, german, etc) and languages are dealt with.

To draw general conclusions, I guess that one would need to deal with individual disciplines in given regions and then aggregate results.

Going back to the main question, I've dug up a few documents and primary sources that may be useful. Here are a few links to primary or linking to primary sources for the US (some are relatively easily reachable so you may already have found them by yourself) :

http://agb.org/trusteeship/2013/5/changing-academic-workforce

http://www.aaup.org/issues/contingent-faculty-positions/resources-contingent-appointments

https://contingentfacultystudy.wordpress.com/

http://cehs.unl.edu/documents/edadmin/students/AdjunctFacultyAssessment.pdf

http://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2007/01/cover-expansion.aspx

And some links to data for Quebec province in Canada (in french but graphs should be  easy to interpret.

http://www.cedit.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/R_Universit%C3%A9s_VF.pdf

http://www.fneeq.qc.ca/fr/universites/publications/Carnet-universitaire/Printemps2014-special-forum/Pages-8-9-10-Carnets-printemps-2014-sp-forum-2014-05-07-final-2.pdf

best regards