Part-time professors becoming prevalent

Friday, Nov. 4, 2005 | 9:12 a.m.

Struggling to keep pace with rapid growth in student enrollment while living within cash-strapped budgets, local universities increasingly are relying on part-time -- lesser paid -- instructors.

More than 70 percent of the faculty at the Community College of Southern Nevada and Nevada State College in Henderson are adjunct or part-time instructors, while at UNLV, nearly half of the faculty instructors are part timers.

Because full-time instructors tend to teach more courses, the numbers translate to part-time faculty teaching about half of all the classes at CCSN and Nevada State and about one-third of all the classes at UNLV, according to data provided by college officials.

Why so many? Pure economics.

Hiring part-time instructors -- whose salary often is only half or less that of a full-time professor's -- is the only way the Southern Nevada campuses can keep up with the exponential expansion of student populations, officials said.

Part timers are paid by the credit hour, and even if they teach a full load of classes, they are still cheaper than hiring full-time professors.

For instance, a part-time professor teaching four English classes at UNLV earns about $22,000 a year, department Chairman Chris Hudgins said. If that same professor was shifted to a full-time, nontenure-track position teaching the same classes, he would make $42,000.

The disparity, common at universities and community colleges nationwide, has the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers crying foul.

Forty-six percent of all U.S. college faculty work part time, according to the Education Department. They also "work for peanuts" when compared with their full-time peers, said Gwendolyn Bradley, who oversees contingent faculty issues for the AAUP.

The two organizations launched a campus-equity campaign this week at institutions across the nation to bring awareness to what they see as the abuse of adjunct instructors.

Locally, this has been a longstanding, hot-button issue, officials said.

"We don't pay them anything," Regent Howard Rosenberg said. "It's an absolute disgrace."

Part-time professors include professionals who teach in areas of their expertise on the side, retired professors who want to keep teaching and instructors trying to cobble together a full-time load by teaching at several institutions.

John Quinn, a former tenured English professor at another university, said he now enjoys being able to just teach his classes and go home without the other research and service responsibilities involved with working full time.

"I think the university is kind of brutal in the way it treats its part-time instructors, but there's a reason for that," Quinn said. "The university has three times as many students as it has faculty to teach."

Most part-time faculty teach introductory courses to meet student needs, said Ray Alden, UNLV executive vice president and provost. All instructors must have a master's degree or higher to teach at UNLV. At CCSN, officials said instructors' degree requirements depend on the subject area.

Although the salary schedules for part-time versus full-time instructors are set by the colleges and the regents in conjunction with the Legislature, it is the Legislature that holds the most power, college officials said. State lawmakers denied a budget request from the regents to increase part-time instructors' salaries in 2003, Alden said.

But, he added, the university has been working to increase the salaries through its own budget. Part-time faculty now receive cost-of-living increases.

UNLV also is working to roll the part-time instructors with doctorate degrees into full-time positions called "faculty-in-residence," Alden said. The university converted about 20 positions last year to increase morale and stability.

About 10 years ago, Alden's predecessor did the reverse, and many full-time positions were shifted to part-time jobs as a way of saving money.

The Legislature mandates, through its funding formula for the community colleges, that at least 40 percent of the faculty be composed of part-time instructors to save money, said Patty Charlton, CCSN's vice president of finance. The college has been forced to hire more adjunct professors to stay within budget, and Nevada State College is similarly stretched, spokesman Spencer Stewart said.

Christina Littlefield can be reached at 259-8813 or at clittle@lasvegassun.com.