What is an Adjunct Professor?
An adjunct professor is a part-time professor who is hired on a contractual basis, rather than being given tenure and a permanent position. Many universities have chosen to hire large numbers of adjunct faculty because they are flexible and cheaper to maintain than traditional full time faculty members. Just like regular faculty, an adjunct professor must fulfill basic educational requirements before he or she can teach, and many adjunct professors are very well educated, talented people. For a university, there are a number of advantages to hiring an adjunct professor. Because an adjunct professor is viewed as temporary, for example, a university can hire a part timer for a single semester to expand its course offerings or to meet student demand for a program which does not have enough staff. Because adjunct professors do not have tenure or other rights, a university can also easily get rid of a professor who does not perform to the university’s standard: all the school has to do is d
