Adjunct Mathematics Instructor Resources and Support Contributing Toward Job Satisfaction

Abstract

Ongoing need for adjunct instructor support is a critical aspect for institutions to consider. Through research focused on full-time and part-time faculty job satisfaction, a number of practices for supporting faculty and improving job satisfaction have been suggested. In this article, we present an innovative model of instructor resources and supports within a mathematics department. We focus on how these various resources and supports have benefited our part-time adjunct faculty job satisfaction and describe how the supports and challenges experienced by our Precalculus adjunct faculty are related to variables impacting job satisfaction found in literature. We also present some additional factors that were missing in prior studies in literature but were found important for our adjunct instructors’ job satisfaction. Our findings can inform other institutions’ and mathematics departments’ efforts to support their own part-time faculty teaching introductory courses such as Precalculus.