by Debi Lemieur

Historically, part-time faculty at Temple University have been ignored and even silenced. Also known as adjuncts, they teach one third of the undergraduate courses on Temple’s campuses and comprise nearly half of the faculty. Until last year, they were not welcome in the Faculty Senate and even now are not permitted to vote in that body meant to be representative of Temple’s faculty. In contrast, TAUP, the union representing faculty and librarians at Temple, has represented adjuncts since the 2017 contract addendum. The Senate should not delay their inclusion any longer than they have already.

There are many different types of adjunct faculty members. Some are professional people, particularly in schools like Pharmacy or Law, who have full time practices outside of academia and only want to be on campus to teach one or two courses specific to their area of expertise. But a larger group of adjunct faculty consist of long-serving educators in some of our non-professional programs on campus as well as recent PhDs hopeful for full time employment in higher education, swelling the ranks of adjunct faculties across America.

To make enough money to support their families, many of these adjunct faculty members teach at several universities, leading peripatetic lives dashing from a class at Temple to another class across the city. This places extraordinary demands on the lives of these educators, compromising time with their families or their own research pursuits.

Most adjuncts would prefer to work as full-time faculty at Temple. But too often they find themselves stigmatized as “adjuncts” and overlooked when full-time positions are offered. Sometimes the person Temple decides to hire has less experience in the classroom than the adjunct professor who is already here doing the job. This is how many adjunct faculty members end up working in these part-time positions for years, creating “long-term adjuncts” who have taught in departments and programs at Temple University for five, ten, or more years.

Many adjuncts are as invested in their work at Temple as their full-time colleagues, but are not respected in the same way. Often, they are not given a voice in the departments and colleges where they work. Many Collegiate Assemblies do not even invite adjunct faculty members to their meetings or allow adjuncts a voice in their decisions. To ignore experienced faculty, who have logged numerous hours in the classroom and in one-on-one meetings with students, is a dereliction of Temple’s responsibility to provide quality education to our students.

Like the Collegiate Assemblies, Temple’s Faculty Senate has historically excluded adjunct faculty members. This is not only a matter of exclusion. It’s also about the lack of representation in this body for nearly half the faculty. Of course, there have been full-time faculty representatives who have spoken up for adjuncts in meetings for the full Senate as well as in the Senate Steering Committee meetings. While many of us have appreciated these efforts, it is not the same as having adjuncts represent themselves.

At the end of 2021, I began trying to change this situation, writing to Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, who was then president of the Senate. I asked if she would be open to including adjuncts as full members of the Faculty Senate. Dr. Williams-Witherspoon responded by assuring me that in the fall of 2021 the Senate had removed language in the bylaws explicitly defining membership for “full-time faculty.” This paved the way for full participation in the Senate by adjunct faculty members. She also told me that there was a Faculty Senate Committee for adjunct faculty but that it had not yet met. No one had shown any interest in becoming involved in such a committee. Perhaps the formation of this committee had not be fully advertised to adjunct faculty? I know that I had never heard of it.

I wrote to her several more times, seeking information on how I could become a member of this adjunct committee in the Faculty Senate. Finally, in November 2022, she suggested that I apply to the Faculty Senate for membership in this committee, which I did. I was also asking, at that time, that adjunct faculty members be included in mailings sent out by the Faculty Senate so that adjuncts would know when meetings would be held so that they could attend. Dr. Williams-Witherspoon told me that the Senate did not have a list of adjunct email addresses and could not include adjuncts in their mailings or their invitations. It seemed to me that the Senate could acquire these email address with a little effort.

In September 2022, I formally applied to join the Faculty Senate Committee on Adjunct Constituency Concerns. My application was approved and my name was placed on the website as being the one member of this non-functioning committee. 

Later that academic years, I noticed two other names had been added to the membership of this committee. Both names were those of full-time faculty members, one tenured and one non-tenured. I was still the only adjunct listed as being a member of the Committee on Adjunct Constituency Concerns. At the time, I did know that at least two other adjunct faculty members had applied to be included on that committee. Their applications seem to have been lost in transit. 

I convened a meeting on April 19, 2023, with the other two members of this committee, whom I had invited to meet with me using my personal Zoom account. Following that meeting, I wrote again to the president of the Faculty Senate, who was now Dr. Shohreh Amini, seeking a meeting to clarify adjunct participation in the Senate and in this new Committee on Adjunct Constituency Concerns.

In my letter to Dr. Amini, I asked for a meeting where we could discuss these issues.  This meeting took place on July 27, 2023. Dr. Amini was joined by Rick Ridall and Mike Bognanno from the Faculty Senate. Adjuncts were represented by myself, Loryn Hilferty, Greg Wolmart, and John Schultz. By the time of this meeting, two more adjuncts (David Lee and Loryn Hilferty) had applied for membership on the Faculty Senate Committee for Adjunct Constituency Concerns and were accepted. 

We discussed the absurdity of having an Adjunct Committee led by a tenured faculty member. We asked that an adjunct be permitted to Chair this committee. Dr. Shohreh expressed concern that any adjunct who was Chair could leave Temple due to other opportunities or if their contract was not renewed. To insure stability in this committee, Dr. Amini felt that a full-time faculty member whose job at Temple was less precarious than an adjunct, should chair the committee. We compromised and all agreed to have the committee led by two “Co-Chairs,” one who would be a full-time faculty member and one who would be an adjunct. 

We also addressed the make-up of the committee, noting that proportionately it ought to have more adjunct faculty members than full-time faculty members. We felt that representation should be proportional. This suggestion was approved and the Committee on Adjunct Constituency Concerns was broadened to include up to six adjunct members and limited to two full time members. 

On October 31, 2023, David Lee and I met with the Faculty Senate Steering Committee, seeking broader representation for adjuncts within the Faculty Senate. Specifically, we were asking:

• to formalize the decisions made about membership and leadership of the Committee on Adjunct Constituency Concerns (at least six adjuncts, only two full-time members, and one Co-Chair must be an adjunct)
• and that an adjunct faculty member be permitted to join the Faculty Senate Steering Committee to represent adjunct faculty at Temple University.

On November 20, 2023 we received our answers. 

• The Committee of Adjunct Constituency Concerns will have Co-Chairs, one of whom will be an adjunct.
• There will be six adjunct members of the Committee on Adjunct Constituency Concerns.
• An adjunct will not be included as a member of the Faculty Senate Steering Committee since the current structure of the Steering Committee is based on representation of each college rather than classification of faculty members.

Since then, the Committee on Adjunct Constituency Concerns has been working to serve adjunct faculty members by providing access to resources and information. We have also hosted informal get togethers. Our main way of communicating with adjunct faculty has been through the Canvas site, Adjunct Commons, which is a site available to all adjuncts at Temple University. On this site, the Faculty Senate Committee on Adjunct Constituency Concerns has advertised awards available to adjunct faculty as well as offering other resources like an open Suggestion Box where we solicit adjunct faculty input on any issue that is of concern. 

The current Co-Chairs of the Faculty Senate Committee on Adjunct Constituency Concerns are Debi Lemieur (adjunct faculty) and Jay Lunden (NTT faculty). There are four other adjuncts on this committee currently: David Lee and Loryn Hilferty, and two who just joined in March 2024, Bradley Pearson and Judith Garriga. Wendy Cheesman is the other NTT on the committee.

Although we have not succeeded in winning a vote in the Faculty Senate for adjuncts nor in winning true representation on the Faculty Senate Steering Committee, the Faculty Senate Committee on Adjunct Constituency Concerns is an important step forward for more comprehensive inclusion of part-time faculty.

Temple University is becoming more and more reliant on adjunct faculty. These faculty members must have a voice in the shared governance structures of the university. They need to be acknowledged and listened to with respect in any group that claims to represent faculty at Temple University. We are taking steps to assure that that happens in the Faculty Senate.