Use Of Part-Time Instructors Is Pervasive And Problematic

It's no secret that colleges and universities are relying increasingly on part-time instructors or other faculty who are neither tenured nor on track for tenure. But a flurry of recent studies draw troubling conclusions about what kind of impact that is having on the quality of a student's education. A study released today by the American Federation of Teachers, a faculty union, finds that these instructors — dubbed contingent faculty to reflect their limited-term appointments — are pervasive throughout public higher education. Read more at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-12-03-part-time-professors_N.htm

Comments

[Elizabeth]

I've seen this problem in the library school I attend. The majority of our classes are taught by part time faculty who are actually librarians in the library system. On the surface this sounds great - they have real world experience! But they also tend to not have as much time for students and more importantly it means that a class (for example, government documents) is only offered once a year - a problem when your program is only 3 semesters long.