Perceptions of the other: Voices of adjunct and fulltime community college faculty

Abstract

The practice of hiring adjunct instructors was initially considered to be an anomalous event (Todd, 2004). Community college employment of adjunct instructors, however, witnessed a 50% increase during the 1970s (Cain, 1999) and, by 1984, adjunct instructor utilization in community colleges rose dramatically with an additional 80% growth. Over a 33-year period, 1970-2003, the employment of adjunct faculty in the academe increased 422% (Bouton, 2010). With such a strong adjunct presence within the community college, one question came to mind: How do adjunct and fulltime faculty perceive the other? The purpose of this study was to investigate adjunct perceptions of fulltime faculty and, vice versa, fulltime faculty perceptions of adjunct faculty. With an increasing presence of adjunct instructors within the community college environment, it was deemed important to illuminate the experiences and perceptions held by each strata of faculty concerning the “other”. Ethnomethodology was used to conduct this study. Four community college liberal arts fulltime faculty members and four community college liberal arts adjunct faculty members were selected as research participants, utilizing a purposive sampling technique involving four research sites, which were located in the same geographical location within the continental United States. One liberal arts fulltime faculty member and one liberal arts adjunct faculty member who taught in the same field were selected from each of the four sites. Data gathered from semi-structured interviews and institutional artifacts were analyzed to identify emerging themes. From the data analysis,