Like the rest of higher education, elite universities have grown increasingly reliant on non-tenure-track faculty members. Leaders of those institutions are frequently unaware of the role played by adjuncts or how they have come to make up a larger share of the teaching force. The causes for this shift — while related to money — go far beyond the savings from hiring off the tenure track, and the blame may need to be shared by senior professors and graduate student unions. At the most celebrated institutions of higher education in the United States, the teaching quality of the adjuncts is many times better than that of those on the tenure tack.
These are among the conclusions of Off-Track Profs: Nontenured Teachers in Higher Education, being released this week by the MIT Press. Amid the growing literature of research about adjuncts, this book is different in some key ways that are likely to make some of it controversial, and may also make it influential. The focus of the book is on elite research universities, ten of which gave data and access to senior administrators so that the authors (themselves administrators) could examine the issues.
While the book is consistent with many of the recent studies of adjuncts in documenting their growing use and many cases of abuse, the tone is notably different, as are some conclusions. While the book sees the treatment of adjuncts as a real issue both for the adjuncts and their institutions, it suggests that there is much blame to share — and that this situation did not arise from the actions of administrators looking to cut costs. And while much of the research about adjuncts has come from unions or groups sympathetic to unions, this book is decidedly not.