A record number of people are depending on federally financed food assistance. Food-stamp use increased from an average monthly caseload of 17 million in 2000 to 44 million people in 2011, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Web site. Last year, one in six people--almost 50 million Americans, or 15 percent of the population--received…

In a tight job market, visiting professorships can be appealing way stations for new Ph.D.'s while they search for permanent posts. Unlike adjunct positions, which are often renewed semester by semester, visiting professorships are set by annual or even multiyear contracts, with most capped at three years. The visiting jobs often come with health…

When professors in positions that offer no chance of earning tenure begin to stack the faculty, campus dynamics start to change. Growing numbers of adjuncts make themselves more visible. They push for roles in governance, better pay and working conditions, and recognition for work well done. And they do so at institutions where tenured faculty,…

Allison G. Armentrout, an adjunct instructor at Stark State College, does not get paid by the hour. She earns $4,600 to teach two English composition courses. But now she carefully tracks how many hours she works on an electronic time sheet. During a recent week, she spent three hours preparing for her lectures, close to six hours in the…

Energized by his fellow adjunct professors who had gathered for a national meeting last month in Washington, District of Columbia, Joshua A. Boldt flew home to Athens, Georgia, opened his laptop, and created a Google document. On his personal blog, the writing instructor implored colleagues to contribute to the publicly editable spreadsheet,…

Graduate education in the humanities is in crisis. Every aspect, from the most specific details of the curriculum to the broadest questions about its purpose, is in crisis. It is a seamless garment of crisis: If one pulls on any one thread, the entire thing unravels. It is therefore exceptionally difficult to discuss any one aspect of graduate…

Can a quality education be provided by any college that relies heavily on adjunct instructors it subjects to lousy working conditions? Some higher-education experts and prominent advocates for adjunct faculty members would like to see accreditors and others who pass judgment on colleges ask questions like that more often. Those concerned about the…

Faculty pay has been battered by the deepening national recession, but one cannot tell that from the American Association of University Professors' new annual report on the economic status of the profession. The average salary of a full-time faculty member rose 3.4% in 2008-2009, it says, a rate well above inflation. That would be good news, but…

According to best estimates, some 800,000 faculty members, close to two-thirds of the total nationwide, are adjunct, "contingent," or "lecturer." The severity of their plight, rapidly worsening in today's economic crisis, intersects the interrelated domains of human rights, fair employment, and the future of higher education. In those areas where…

Adjuncting is the way of the future. In 20 years, there won't exist more than a handful of tenured professors. Universities want cheap, cheap labor, as much of it as they can get. While many lament that state of affairs, the author embraces it and invites other graduate students and newly minted untouchables to do the same. The writer shares how…

In this article, the authors discuss how the historians' job market is perennially rocky. The history profession had its "golden age" in the 1950s and early 1960s when a generation born in the demographic trench of the Depression entered the market just as the first of the baby boomers began to swell college enrollments. But that moment was…

The cost of gasoline has made the art of juggling two or more teaching jobs at different institutions all the more difficult for many adjunct faculty members, as continuing price hikes at the nation's gasoline stations cut into salaries that often do not cover living expenses to begin with. These new pressures are particularly evident in…

While some presidents are almost as overpaid as their basketball coaches, most campus administrators are not. Instead they work hard at complex and demanding positions and are often paid less than managers with comparable responsibilities in other lines of work. Assessments of compensation typically invoke criteria of fairness and performance.…

The author had been trying, and failing, for years to land a tenure-track position in English. She had a few interviews over the years, but she knew she had been typecast as an adjunct. Administrators seemed to believe that men and women under 40 were better teachers: more creative, more energetic, more attractive. And attractiveness counts among…

Steven Bitterman was fired by his school after he offended his students for telling them that they could easily appreciate the biblical story of Adam and Eve if they considered it a myth. Several adjunct and full-time professors who work off the tenure track have been fired after saying something, as Mr. Bitterman did, that offended students or…