When Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans on August 29, 2005, it damaged not only the city and the campuses of its 11 accredited, non-profit four- and two-year universities, but also the careers of their part-time faculty, who numbered more than 1,300. Almost a year after the disaster, part-timers who survived the hurricane are still struggling to rebuild their careers and lives.

Tulane University, with a pre-Katrina enrollment of approximately 13,000, has instituted sweeping changes in its use of part-time faculty since the hurricane struck. In 2004, Peterson’s 4-Year College Guide reported that 442 of Tulane’s 962 faculty members (or 46 percent) were part-time. By September 30, 2005, a month after the disaster, the New Orleans Times-Picayune was reporting that Tulane had terminated all of its part-time faculty who were not eligible for benefits, as well as all of its part-time faculty who had been hired after May 1, 2005 and were eligible for benefits. A December 25, 2005 report in the Philadelphia Inquirer cited Tulane’s plans to cut 200 part-time and adjunct faculty in order to mitigate the burden of $200 million in Katrina-recovery costs.

Tulane’s Renewal Plan, released last December in response to the devastation wrought by Katrina, sets forth the university’s goal to reduce its use of part-time faculty post-Katrina: “In order to improve students’ learning experiences, most undergraduate courses will be taught by full-time faculty. Rather than use adjunct or part-time faculty as in the past, Tulane is recommending that current faculty be supplemented with ‘Professors of Practice’ where needed. These will be full-time, non-tenured faculty members whose primary assignment is instruction….”

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