by P.D. Lesko

In putting together this issue of the magazine, I have learned that colleges worldwide rely on mass numbers of adjunct and temporary faculty. It is not just a trend anymore; it is a fact of academic life worldwide. Adjunct faculty in Canada, for instance, represent fully half of the teaching faculty. In South America, adjunct faculty comprise well over 60 percent of the professoriate. Universities in Asia and Africa rely heavily both on part-time faculty, as well as limited-term and/ or contract faculty. In Africa, the problem is brain drain (too few Ph.D.s to fill available tenure-line slots). In Australia, 45 percent of the college faculty are adjunct.

To a certain extent, this issue of the magazine goes about addressing the question of whether there really is "life on other planets," so to speak. The resounding answer to that question is that, indeed, adjunct faculty in America have colleagues on every continent in the world. The use of adjunct faculty, and of course the overuse of temporary labor in academe is a global issue, and one which requires more time and attention than even a magazine devoted to adjunct faculty issues can give it.

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