What are pros and cons of having more adjunct or tenured professors from a student’s perspective? Does it impact the student at all? Does it even matter? Our two choices of schools are very different in that one has mostly tenured professors, while the other has a lot of adjunct. The school with a lot of adjuncts seem to tout it as positive. I know a couple of adjuncts, but I’ve never seen any of them help any students get connected in the industry. Maybe it happens more in certain fields than others? The school with mostly tenured professors emphasized the research nature of the school when the question was asked by a visiting parent. Maybe this is better for kids that need find research opportunities? Any personal insights might be helpful.
To help the conversation going too far afield, the two schools are UMD and GW.
Sample of one. My DH felt that the adjuncts who were actually still working in the field were excellent. He thought they knew what was currently going on in the field. Some of the white tower academics hadn’t worked in the field in decades.
Probably depends on what kind of courses are involved. Specialty courses where an industry or other outside perspective is useful, or common courses taught by instructors who come and go?
Some colleges with financial problems hire adjuncts who are then part-timers. Thus, they may not receive all the employment (i.e., expensive to the college) benefits that a full-time professor may receive.
I’m not sure that has any impact on students.
(And also, neither GW nor UMD is experiencing financial problems)
I think it depends- on the discipline, the university (some are terrific employers so the adjunct positions are highly desired- at others, the adjuncts barely make a living with three or four colleges on their schedule), and the actual adjunct.
I did not have any adjuncts as an undergrad but I did in grad school and they were fantastic. My kids had adjuncts in a couple of subjects as undergrads (a creative writing seminar taught by a Pulitzer prize winning novelist-- day job was writing novels, adjunct was teaching a few courses per year; phenomenal teacher). So really can’t generalize.
Some universities do an exceptional job of managing the adjuncts- approving course syllabus, maintaining academic standards and quality control, etc. Others do it as a cost-saving measure and the results are likely uneven.
I think as a rule of thumb, if the subjects your kid is interested in is mostly taught by adjuncts that’s a potential red flag. The History of the Supreme Court taught by a retired federal judge? Likely fantastic. Abnormal Psychology taught by a practicing psychologist who is a profiler for the FBI? Likely fantastic. Introduction to Statistics, Macroeconomics, The Victorian Novel, Shakespearean tragedy? These are core academic subjects where I’d expect faculty (they don’t need to have tenure- they can be an assistant or associate professor, but that’s a fulltime job).
Hence why I listed the universities in question.
Similar off-topic posts would be mentioning the disparity between MIT and Bunker Hill Community College. So let’s all focus on the OP’s college selection question.
If anyone wants to start a new thread on the general topic of adjuncts vs standing faculty, feel free. Otherwise, off-topic posts are subject to deletion.
It’s probably situational. When I was an undergrad I had an adjunct for one class who was a retired department head who taught because he was bored and liked teaching. I remember a couple of other faculty members, near retirement, who discussed moving and picking up an adjunct teaching job after they retired.
I taught as an adjunct (at a CC, but it would have been the same at a U) and many of us were there because we loved teaching. In my case, it was a great part-time job while I was home with small kids - I only taught 1-2 intro classes. I taught when spouse could be home so I never had to cancel because of sick kids. I had office hours directly before/after class, which made it convenient for both me and the students.
In all of those cases, having adjuncts wouldn’t decrease the quality of teaching. It wouldn’t necessarily make it something to advertise as better, but it was definitely selecting for people who wanted to teach. I’ve also seen adjuncting as a way to handle a 2-career couple - one is hired for a higher-prestige job and the other is offered an adjunct position.
Often this person is well qualified and they may choose to make a career out of teaching. While access to research faculty is great, there is also something to be said for having instructors who want to teach and don’t consider it a distraction from their ‘real job’ of running a research program. Not all faculty at this way, but some are.
There are also frustrated and tired people trying to cobble together a career from teaching classes across multiple schools. I would be more concerned about a school filling its teaching roles with these folks - not that they aren’t good teachers, but because they are less present on campus and it gives the appearance of undergrad education being a lower priority at the school.
I think hiring decisions do affect students whether for financial reasons or otherwise. My nephew, who recently graduated from GW, said he had some fantastic adjuncts and some not-so-great ones. Some were simply too busy in their personal lives or private employment to be able to focus on classes, while others did a great job. As others have said, it is a mixed bag.
Some tenured full professors, even “star” faculty, can be awful teachers, especially if forced to teach intro courses. It takes time away from their research or consulting.
I’m going to give an opinion from a completely different perspective. I work in a faculty support role (instructional designer) at a school that has a lot of adjunct instructors, in addition to tenure track and full time lecturers. In my experience, the adjunct instructors are often more motivated to teach, and teach well. They are often more eager to improve their pedagogy and embrace different teaching modalities. They generally are eager for professional development (it is often like pulling teeth to get FT faculty to attend anything). They usually come with real world industry experience, as opposed to many of the full time faculty who have only ever taught.
Just food for thought.
There is ample room for arguing both sides of this question. Issues of fields and majors etc. also come into play.
But (ducking my head a little) I would say that in general, a highly tenure-eligible faculty (tenured and tenure-track) is better than one that relies a lot on adjuncts, all things being equal.
Tenure-eligible faculty have a long-term commitment to the institution. They have institutional memory that adjuncts coming in and out just can’t acquire (though there are long-term adjuncts).
Tenured faculty also have power over how their fields are taught and represented at an institution that adjuncts don’t have. Tenured faculty can’t be (easily) fired, so they aren’t beholden to the short-term whims of the latest crop of administrators (whose entire job, it can seem, is to have short-term whims).
Tenured faculty can say “we are Psychology, or Art History, or Economics, or Biology, at this institution. What we decide to teach and how to teach it responds to developments in our fields, nationally and internationally, not to some administrator’s latest bright idea.”
There are are also publication and service requirements for tenure-eligible faculty that adjuncts expressly don’t have, which respectively connect them to their fields and to the institution better. Adjuncts aren’t expected to publish anything. In many cases they don’t have time. And they tend not to serve on committees.
If I were qualifying this in any way, I’d say my preference for a highly tenured faculty pertains mostly to what I’d consider the more “academic” fields, not as strongly to preprofessional ones.
@ DcMdVaMom From my perspective as a recent student (taking one class) and the parent of an adjunct, I would hypothetically prefer a school with full-time faculty, tenured and non-tenured, and perhaps with some part-timers mixed in who have something else important going on in whatever area of study is relevant.
In other words, without the exploitation of adjuncts who have to take several jobs at different schools, having the stability of full-time (including tenured) professors, and the input from current activity in the field in question.
Given the choice between 90% adjuncts and 90% tenured I personally would go with the latter though. But yeah, it depends on the field. Not sure if you want to let us know the field of study.
She seems pretty sure she wants to try a pre-med/business combination. She’s keeping her plans flexible, but depending on how her gpa, mcat studies, and research opportunities go, she might commit to one major. I’ve been relaying everyone’s thoughts to her, and it is helping her decide. I could probably just give her what I think, but I feel like there’s a wealth of insight on here for both of us to learn from. So thank you everyone.
In fairness, Dr. Sean Maguire in the Psych department seemed to really connect well with his students at Bunker Hill CC… 
So, we’re really talking about the difference between adjunct and tenure-track (not just tenured, because in most cases, assistant professors are very likely to be promoted to associates and given tenure).
Generally speaking, you don’t want too many adjunct professors – even though many of them might be brilliant scholars and outstanding teachers (the job market is really a beast). the presence of too many adjuncts suggests possible budget problems and also will translate into some instability and inconsistency for the undergraduate experience. Adjunct professors are often stretched, teaching too many classes on different campuses, so they’re not able to devote the time to their students that professors with stable appointments would. They also can’t count on having a job from term to term, so it’s difficult for students who are seeking out mentors to rely on them. Adjuncts are also able to take fewer risks (because their jobs are not as secure) and might not have the resources or time to invest in keeping courses up-to-date or to experiment with new content or teaching strategies. All of that is easier to do with time, resources, and job security.
However – the exceptions could be adjuncts who are teaching in pre-professional majors and also are working in their fields – they could bring valuable experience to their courses and often have some kind of clinical teaching title.
A middle ground would be visiting faculty, who are often on multi-year contracts. They have more stability and presence than adjuncts and can maintain a more stable presence in their departments. Depending on timing, they might be able to stick around long enough to develop more meaningful mentoring relationships with their students.
It’s true that not all tenured/tenure-track professors are star teachers (and that too many Ph.D. programs don’t focus on teaching as a craft). But I think that the trope about research-focused faculty who can’t be bothered to teach is heavily exaggerated. Most faculty are committed teachers and see teaching as connected to their scholarship, not just an annoying task to be tolerated in between time in the lab, field, or archive. I know a lot of professors at just about every type of school possible (Ivies to community colleges), and pretty much every one is committed to and invested in teaching.
I’m sure adjuncts can be great - and often time will have that direct industry experience.
But when colleges market themselves, they don’t highlight the use of adjuncts. They do highlight that 100% of their classes or 95% or whatever are taught by tenure track faculty or full profs (not grad students).
So that tells me the societal implication is that having adjuncts isn’t good.
Again, that doesn’t mean it’s factually true but schools are trying to persuade you to give them your money - and having adjuncts is not good for that image.
The OP asked
Does it impact the student at all? Does it even matter?
My D and her husband both attended UMD and graduated in 2018 and I’ve had many discussions with them about UMD.
This particular subject never came up. They’ve discussed different teaching and grading methods that some had, but not whether they were Adjunct or Tenured. I know that my D was very interactive with certain Professors, but not because they were Tenured or not. She probably didn’t even know.
They are both doing very well with jobs in there respective fields of interest.
My opinion is that most students do not really care if a Professor is Tenured or not. They do care about how good they are at teaching the subject matter. And how they Grade.
Adjuncts and non-tenured faculty may grade more leniently because student reviews are better, and those reviews can affect hiring. Seriously.
Another issue is how much teaching is done by grad students.