by Richard Lyons

EN ROUTE TO presenting a workshop last week, I read the recently published book Ghosts in the Classroom (Camel's Back Books, 2001, ed. Michael Dubson), a collection of essays written by adjunct faculty members. My research told me that essays written almost exclusively by "aspiring academics"--one of four categories of part-timers identified in The Invisible Faculty (Jossey-Bass, 1993, Judith Gappa and David Leslie), who account for fewer than half of adjunct instructors nationwide--skewed the perception readers would likely develop of the overall environment for adjuncts.

But that point did not discount the compelling stories all of these adjunct professors conveyed. Most troubling was the nearly universal sense of isolation within their institutions that the essayists expressed, and that they perceived the primary cause as intentional actions, or lack of actions, by mean-spirited administrators or full-time faculty members.

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