Guest commentary: The adjunct philanthropist
By Gerhard Apfelthaler & Kelly Kimball
Not too long ago, a respected British newspaper called adjunct professors the “fast food workers of the academic world.”
Adjuncts, so the argument, are being exploited by institutions of higher education through teaching loads with long hours, low pay, and a lack of benefits.
In the United States, adjunct instructors make up an increasing proportion of the faculty at universities.
Their share has risen from only 25% of the academic workforce in 1975 to about 40% today.
And as a congressional report has shown, close to 90% of them teach at more than one institution to make ends meet.
When taken together, adjunct professors, teaching assistants, and non-tenure track faculty today account for about 75% of the instructional staff at U.S. colleges and universities.
In this context, the conversation around the use of adjunct instructors has been reduced to the criticism of the commoditization of higher education, the exploitation of adjuncts as a cheaper alternative to full-time professors and resulting career challenges for young academics.
However, as is so often the case, there are two sides to the story.
Without intending to discredit the very real plight of many adjunct instructors, particularly freshly minted graduates from Ph. D. programs who are barred from entering the promised land of full-time tenure-track positions, there are other good reasons for colleges and universities to employ adjunct instructors, particularly in majors and programs that are vocational in nature.
Especially in business schools, adjunct instructors are not career academics, but active and highly skilled professionals who augment the educational experience for students.
They bring application and current practices to the classrooms, create relevancy, and build bridges between industry and academia that benefit both.
And sometimes they bring even more.
Over the last two years, one of our adjunct professors, a highly successful serial entrepreneur, went above and beyond.
Teaching MBA courses in Entrepreneurship, he has taught students how to craft business models and create compelling pitch presentations; he has mentored them during countless hours outside of the classroom; for many of them, he has opened doors to internships, permanent placements, and networking opportunities.
But it didn’t end there.
He brought some of the most impressive guest speakers to his class — from a four-time Grammy Award winner-turned-tech entrepreneur to an advocate against gender bias in the world of startups and venture capital to the founder of one of the most successful movie production companies in Hollywood.
More than once, the adjunct professor picked up the bill for their travel and accommodation.
Recognizing that many students are struggling to make ends meet, he catered dinner for the students each and every week of the term, and he bought each of them about a dozen books that should be on any entrepreneur’s bookshelf.
Could there be even more? Yes, there could.
During the last Spring Term, the adjunct instructor decided to inspire students to high performance by issuing a “doing good by doing well” challenge: If all students in the course achieved a grade of A, he pledged to make a high five-figure donation to a scholarship fund benefitting students with an interest in Entrepreneurship.
Students not only felt inspired to excel in the class but through this initiative, they were also allowed to pay it forward by thinking beyond grades and degrees and developing a mindset of engaging with the greater good.
As the end of the term neared, things were close, but other students rallied around those who were struggling ultimately everyone achieved their goal of the highest possible grade.
The instructor made his generous donation — not in his own name, but in the name of the students, which meant more to them than their own high grades.
Of course, the situation of many traditional adjunct instructors in higher education needs to be addressed, and not every adjunct professor has the wherewithal to match our adjunct professor’s level of giving back by becoming an adjunct philanthropist. However, wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone who had the capacity would seek out similar opportunities in higher education?
The kind of engagement we have is a clear win-win-win for the adjunct professor, the students, the institution, and – ultimately – the society we live in.
Gerhard Apfelthaler is the dean of the School of Management at California Lutheran University.
Kelly Kimball is a serial entrepreneur, co-founder of the technology company Vitu, and adjunct professor at California Lutheran University.
