The Journal

Issue date: 3/1/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Jeff Curry Linda Pitelka, a professor of history at Maryville University, jots down notes during the Missouri Conference of American Association of University Professors and the Saint Louis Association for Contingent Faculty's meeting in the Library Conference Room at Webster University on Feb. 24.

With adjunct faculty becoming a more present force in the nation's higher education system, two organizations are emerging to care for the future of teaching.


This issue is especially important for Webster students, because the university's St. Louis campuses have 1,076 part-time faculty compared to 178 full-time faculty, according to Webster's PocketFACTS 2006.


"When I came to Webster in 1977, there was essentially no adjunct faculty," said Earl Henry, who serves on the executive council of the Missouri American Association of University Professors. "Everyone was taught by a full-time faculty member."


Henry expressed the need for stability, given the impact a changing faculty has on the teaching profession.


"This isn't just a Webster issue," Henry said. "It's a nationwide issue."


Henry, who is a music professor at Webster, arranged the first joint meeting of the Missouri division of the AAUP and the St. Louis Association for Contingent Faculty Feb. 24 in the Emerson Library.


The AAUP, which was founded in 1915, is designed to promote the college teaching profession, advocating causes that benefit higher educators.


The SLACF, which formed in April 2006, is an organization for contingent, or non-tenured faculty. The meeting was not intended to reach any sort of agreement, but to simply hear concerns and ask questions about the current state of higher education.


Faculty in attendance expressed a variety of concerns, especially the steady rise in the percentages of adjunct faculty over the past few decades.


Universities often spend funds on capital improvements, which creates a need to spend less in other areas, Henry said. Adjunct faculty are paid less than full-time and tenured faculty, and as students' college preferences move toward better campus buildings, many universities are hiring adjuncts. In the process, institutions are enabled to improve and construct campus buildings, among other student accommodations.

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