Accreditation Standards Should Include Treatment of Adjuncts, Report Says

The growing number of part-time faculty members is lowering the quality of education at many colleges and needs to be addressed by accreditors, says a new report from the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, which is holding its annual meeting here this week.

The group represents 3,000 accredited institutions, recognizes some 60 accrediting organizations, and advocates for “self-regulation of academic quality through accreditation.”

The council’s report says the evidence “affirms that there is a lack of institutional support for non-tenure-track faculty” that is “compromising the quality of teaching and learning.”

That non-tenure-track faculty members are a majority at institutions in all sectors of higher education is well established, the report says. In 1969 nearly 80 percent of faculty members were in full-time, tenure-track positions. But by 2009 that proportion had fallen to less than 34 percent, it says, citing figures from the National Center for Education Statistics and the American Federation of Teachers.

The problem is not just the growing number of part-time, adjunct faculty members but the poor working conditions many of them experience, which can have a negative effect on instruction and learning, says the report.

Those conditions include last-minute hiring decisions that leave part-time faculty members with a lack of time to prepare for their courses. Non-tenure-track faculty members also face a lack of professional development, exclusion from curriculum design, and little access to office space and staff support, the report says.

“These conditions are problematic, but so are inequitable compensation, job insecurity, the denial of health-care benefits and retirement plans … and a lack of respect for non-tenure-track faculty from tenured faculty and administrators on many campuses,” it adds.

In order to improve students’ learning, accreditors need to consider the amount of support that institutions provide for their adjunct faculty members, and perhaps create new standards for their working conditions, including guidelines for professional development and mentoring and requirements for institutions to develop policies for their compensation, evaluation, and retention, the report says.

The paper is a result of a July meeting held by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation in partnership with the Delphi Project for Changing Faculty on Student Success.