adjunct professor

noun

1. a professor employed by a college or university for a specific purpose or length of time and often part-time.

Word History and Origins

Origin of adjunct professor¹

First recorded in 1820–30

Example Sentences

"This is it. These upcoming negotiations in Busan are our one chance to come together as a planet and fix this problem," said Dr. Douglas McCauley, Professor at UC Santa Barbara, Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley.

From Science Daily

“Those early kind of signals can be helpful for understanding the progression of the fungus, of where it’s getting to,” said Winifred Frick, chief scientist at Bat Conservation International and an adjunct professor in ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz.

From Los Angeles Times

Mead Valley, a majority Latino community of about 20,500 people, already has 2,000 square feet of warehouses per person, including existing and approved warehouses and those under environmental review, according to a data analysis by Susan Phillips, director of the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability at Pitzer College, and Mike McCarthy, an adjunct professor and data scientist at the college.

From Los Angeles Times

Gerald Cook, an adjunct professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, is a former commercial pilot and flight operations manager who flew for Spirit from 1999 to 2010.

From Slate

Getting enough rest is an important factor in school success, said Alvord, adjunct professor at George Washington University’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

From Los Angeles Times

More About Adjunct Professor

What does adjunct professor mean?

An adjunct professor is a college or university professor whose employment is temporary or part-time.

Adjunct professor (often shortened to simply adjunct)  is typically used to indicate that a professor does not have tenure or is not eligible for tenure. Tenure is a status granted to some professors (after they reach a certain amount of experience) that makes their position essentially permanent. Due to the temporary or part-time status of adjunct professors, this title sometimes carries a connotation that associates it with the difficulties of being in such a position, such as job insecurity and lack of benefits.

Example: My math professor is an adjunct professor so he might not be here next semester.

Where does adjunct professor come from?

The term adjunct professor was first recorded around the 1820s. Adjunct comes from the Latin word adjunctus, meaning “attached” or “associated.” In this sense, an adjunct professor can be thought of as a temporary attachment, rather than a permanent addition, to the teaching staff of a college or university.

The role of adjunct professors is similar to that of associate or assistant professors with the exception that adjuncts are not eligible for tenure. Tenure-track professors are usually employed full-time for a probationary period (often several years) before they receive tenure. Adjunct professors, on the other hand, often work part-time and without the possibility of gaining tenure. Many professors begin their teaching careers as adjunct professors before they’re able to get full-time teaching positions.

The trend of hiring professors for part-time work, rather than for full contracts that could lead to tenure, has increased since the 1970s. The difficulty of gaining tenure can make it difficult for adjunct professors to earn a living by teaching, especially since their workload may be comparable to their tenured colleagues but does not result in the same compensation or benefits.

Did you know ... ?

What are some words that often get used in discussing adjunct professor?

 

• tenure
• contract
• semester
• higher education

What are some words adjunct professor may be commonly confused with?

 

• assistant professor
• associate professor
• lecturer

How is adjunct professor used in real life?

The term adjunct professor often brings to mind the temporary nature of the position.

I reached my major goals for 2019. I know I should be planning for 2020, but I honestly want to relax & just freestyle it for a little while. One goal is to become an adjunct professor in a STEM related field!

— Dr. Ronald Gatewood, Ph.D💻⌨️ (@ProfessorTECH_) December 28, 2019

Great Workshop. SO glad to have attended. The speaker who is a research associate at Harvard University and also an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst did a great job. pic.twitter.com/CgnI0etvte

— Amo Aduragbemi (@AmoAduragbemi) December 26, 2019

My ten-year challenge:

– MS Public Health
– Masters in Translation Studies
– 5 years as adjunct professor at 2 universities
– Working on PhD in Translation & Language Sciences with a focus on health communication

What a decade! :)#AcademicTwitter #phdchat #AcademicChatter

— Amy Dara Hochberg (@YogaWithAmyDara) December 22, 2019

 

 

Try using adjunct professor!

Is adjunct professor used correctly in the following sentence?

I was granted tenure after serving as an adjunct professor for seven years.