Contingent workers are those individuals without any expectation of long-term or continuous employment within an organization. Within the field of higher education, contingent workers include part-time adjuncts and full-time nontenure-track faculty members. The use of contingent faculty has increased over the years, particularly within the field of higher education. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics analyst Steven Hipple, 25 percent of the contingent workers holding advanced degrees in 1999 were college or university instructors. The 2009 Almanac of the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that in 2007, 51 percent of faculty members were full-time compared with 49 percent categorized as part-time.

The use of part-time adjuncts has been a common and long-standing practice among universities; however, in recent years many universities have increased the ...