The pragmatic value of a college education is invaluable to the college-educated individuals themselves and to society. With nearly 21 million undergraduates currently enrolled in more than 4,700 American colleges and universities, the average graduation rate of about 67% has increased little since the 1960s. Of the 1.5 million faculty in today's classrooms, more than 50% are part-time and only about 25%-30% of today's faculty are tenured or in tenure-track positions. Though much scholarship is available on retention theory and the importance of faculty in student success, only minimal "empirical" research is available on the different types of faculty and their respective influence on student success. Since colleges and universities are complex organizations and always faced with changing environmental forces, for pragmatic reasons of survival and mission fulfillment their leaders must be intentional in adapting to their challenging environments and finding the balance between too much stability and too much disorder, or their edge of chaos. Through statistical analyses of student-record level enrollment data of 3,463 freshmen, I identified Gonzaga University's edge of chaos with respect to the influence of adjuncts on freshman-to-sophomore retention. I found that freshmen who took between 20% and 40% of their courses from adjuncts were associated with the highest retention to the second year, whereas freshmen with no adjuncts were associated with the lowest freshman-to-sophomore retention. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]