by Richard Lyons

AS AN INSTRUCTIONAL leader reading this first Adjunct Advocate column on managing adjunct faculty, your decision-making probably long ago outgrew the cost-savings consideration often cited as the sole advantage of using part-time instructors. You realize as well that part-time instructors also have the potential to:

• Leverage their rich backgrounds to teach highly specialized courses for which there is a growing demand from student/clients;
• Energize your curricula with their passion for their chosen fields - often exceeding that of full-time faculty - fostering in students' minds richer, more current linkages to the world outside;
• Enable scheduling of additional course sections, at times and places not considered desirable by many full-timers, thus increasing your total enrollment;
• Provide you flexibility and risk reduction in decision making;
• Provide linkages to a wide array of community resources that might otherwise be impossible to cultivate;
• Enable you to audition potential full-time faculty, under more favorable conditions than traditional hiring procedures permit.

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