Inclusion of Part-Time Faculty for the Benefit of Faculty and Students

The new majority of faculty in today's colleges and universities are part-time, yet sizable gaps exist in the research on their needs, interests, and experiences. Further, the peer-reviewed scholarship is largely quantitative. Principally, it focuses on the utility of the adjunct work force, comparisons between part-time and full-time faculty, and personal, institutional, or systemic stressors related to institutional reliance on a part-time workforce. The purpose of this study is to ascertain, through qualitative inquiry, the experiences of part-time faculty at a mid-sized, comprehensive public university. Data from 85 participants were coded, analyzed, and integrated into three core themes. The first, receiving outreach, speaks to inconsistent outreach, messaging, and communication from and across the institution. Mentoring was identified as a prevailing sub-theme and a plausible method of mitigating extant disconnects. The second core theme, navigating challenges, classified the teaching quandaries revealed by this cadre: student engagement and learning, quality of work-life interaction, and community disconnect. The third theme, developing skills, reflected part-time faculty members' needs and interests related to cultivating additional knowledge required for advancing university teaching. While responses are localized, their meanings may be transferred to other campuses through the incremental adoption of programs, services, and advocacy efforts.