Visiting Faculty

by P.D. Lesko

I WANT TO begin this month's column by expressing my sincere hope that this issue of the magazine finds all of our readers and their families safe and sound. In July and August, I visited New York to meet with marketing representatives from many of the academic and scholarly publishing houses located throughout Manhattan. I feared most, though, for my friends at the Modern Language Association, their new offices located just a few blocks from the site of the disaster. I've been told that the MLA's staff was evacuated without serious injury, and their office building has since been deemed structurally sound.

I also want to talk a bit about this issue of the magazine. When I sent the magazine's staff and free-lance writers out to find out more about visiting faculty in America, I had high hopes that they would come back with some surprises. Jennifer Berkshire reported back to me during the process of writing her feature piece that there just weren't any statistical data out there which would pinpoint the exact number of visiting faculty in this country. We decided, then, that she would collect anecdotal information. My hypothesis in devoting an entire issue to the theme of "Visiting Faculty," was that the numbers of temporary appointments for visiting faculty is steadily rising.

The surprise, of course, is that there really isn't much data being collected. Let me back up a few steps, though, and explain just why I wanted to devote an entire issue of the Adjunct Advocate to the subject of "Visiting Faculty." Many of you out there may have heard that the latest Department of Education figures on the employment of part-time temporary faculty indicate that the adjunct faculty nation stands steady at 43 percent of the American professorate. In other words, the Department of Education reported that the employment numbers as they reflect adjunct faculty employment were holding fast. Good news? I had my doubts based on other indicators within the higher education employment marketplace. For instance, the mathematical associations are reporting banner employment figures.

However, the Modern Language Association, various historical associations and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have all reported flat to minimal growth in the number of tenure-line openings available in their respective disciplines. However, undergraduate enrollment is up, up, up. By the year 2010, the Department of Education predicts there will be over 16,000,000 undergraduates, a 15 percent overall increase from the number of undergraduates enrolled in 2000. So, who's teaching the undergraduates? Are more full-time faculty slots being created? No. There is no statistical data to back up that notion.

I think college and university officials are sick of reading about the exploitation of part-time faculty on the front pages of The New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, etc.... On the other hand, these same administrators are not prepared to forego the convenience and affordability of temporary faculty. The answer? More full-time temporary faculty. Keep in mind that the 43 percent figure I mentioned earlier doesn't include full-time temporary faculty, such as visiting faculty, sabbatical replacement faculty or full-time temporary lecturers.

Thus, this issue of the Adjunct Advocate is devoted to the use of visiting faculty. Are their numbers rising? Who are they? Where are they? What is the life of a visiting faculty member like? Are visiting faculty more satisfied with their jobs than, say, adjunct faculty? What does it take to land a post as a visiting faculty member? We have tried to address these questions and more. My hope is to draw attention to this trend and have it reflected in future studies and research examining the use of temporary faculty in higher education. I want to thank the many visiting faculty who agreed to be interviewed for the features in this issue. I sent out an e-mail message to many of the visiting faculty who are registered users of the magazine's AdjunctNation.com Web page.

The response was overwhelming. These women and men work both in the United States, as well as abroad, in a variety of academic disciplines, and have varying levels of experience in the visiting faculty arena. The one characteristic these visiting faculty have in common is a desire to share with the readers of this magazine their experiences and stories. I have found their extraordinary stories moving and inspirational. I sincerely hope you will, as well.