No one familiar with the circumstances of today’s community college would deny the essential role fulfilled by the adjunct faculty.  Those who teach in the community college on a part-time basis often draw on the great amount of expertise and experience in their backgrounds to enrich the college’s academic life.  Almost all observers would agree that the adjunct faculty is vital to any college’s mission, necessary for comprehensive course offerings, and, for students, a valuable complement to the college’s full-time faculty. 

Yet for those of us who are involved with community colleges, there is also a great deal of serious thought given to the growing imbalance between the full-time faculty and the adjunct faculty in the number of instructional hours taught by both groups.  Full-time instructors, especially in the smaller colleges in our system, are faced with a greater load of committee assignments, academic advising, and responsibilities for student organizations as enrollment increases while the number of those who are available for these tasks remains constant or even declines.

From the adjunct faculty’s viewpoint, low salaries and the lack of employment-related benefits often compel them to consider community college teaching as a temporary expedient to more gainful employment.  To aggravate these economic issues, many part-time instructors also feel that they are not truly integrated into the college community and are not adequately recognized for their efforts.

I believe that there is an alternative method to address these problems.  I propose that the Virginia Community College System establish a new category of employment for adjunct faculty to be known as permanent part-time.  The permanent part-time faculty will teach three courses per semester for sixty percent of the salary normally earned if one is hired on a full-time basis.  These permanent part-timers would also receive as the other part of their compensation package sixty percent of the cost of one major benefit, either health insurance or a retirement contribution, at the faculty member’s discretion.  In addition to their teaching load, the permanent part-time faculty member would also be responsible for six hours per week that could be used for office hours, academic advising, committee work, or advising student clubs.

While this proposal is not intended to be a comprehensive solution to all of the major challenges embedded in the use of the adjunct faculty, I believe that it offers clear advantages, both to the instructor and the colleges.

For those adjuncts who choose to pursue permanent part-time status, the economic benefits are straightforward.  This new employment status will also give many adjuncts a greater sense of permanency in their employment and, thus, evoke a stronger commitment to their colleges.  Stronger ties between the individual and the college will be reinforced because the part-timer will be able to make many contributions to the college community other than his or her teaching.  The net result is that the part-timer will be much more firmly integrated into the college’s total environment than is currently the case.

The colleges will have an enhanced ability to retain quality adjuncts.  This consequence is especially important in those subject areas, or perhaps even in geographic areas, where finding qualified adjuncts is a difficult task.  Similarly, the permanent part-time faculty will allow academic administrators more certainty in planning their semesters.  By having a new group of faculty available, the colleges will also gain more flexibility in assigning the administrative work done by the faculty.

The creation of a permanent part-time faculty is a modest step in the right direction that I believe we should take.  It is not a miracle cure for all the problems experienced by the adjuncts nor for the difficulties that our colleges face in relying so greatly on the adjunct faculty to meet the college’s needs.  But establishing this category of faculty employment adds some new and interesting ways for our community colleges to grow stronger by recognizing and rewarding the critical role of the adjunct faculty.