adjunct professor

noun

1. a professor employed by a college or university for a specific purpose or length of time and often part-time.

Word History and Origins

Origin of adjunct professor¹

First recorded in 1820–30

Example Sentences

He’s an associate research scientist and adjunct professor at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering.

From MIT Technology Review

Monika Bleszynski is a research scientist and adjunct professor at the University of Denver.

From Popular-Science

“People born after 1980 have just experienced lower rates of economic growth in their early adult years than anybody had seen in the 20th century,” says labor economist Gray Kimbrough, an adjunct professor at American University in Washington.

From Quartz

Bedi has also taught applied fact-finding as an adjunct professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville, in addition to teaching classes at the Poynter Institute.

From ProPublica

He also was a visiting adjunct professor of architecture at Catholic University for eight years until 2018, a member of the Bethesda Downtown Design Advisory Panel and an adviser to the Rockville Pike and Town Center urban design review committee.

From Washington Post

“They got letters,” says Simo Muir, adjunct professor of Jewish Studies at Helsinki University.

From The Daily Beast

Lorenza is currently an adjunct professor of Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication.

From The Daily Beast

He is an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in New York.

From The Daily Beast

He is a contributing editor of Playboy and an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

From The Daily Beast

I can live on my own and work three hours a week as an adjunct professor.

From The Daily Beast

Between these travel periods he acted for two years as adjunct professor of English at the University of Kansas.

From Project Gutenberg

More About Adjunct Professor

What does adjunct professor mean?

An adjunct professor is a college or university professor whose employment is temporary or part-time.

Adjunct professor (often shortened to simply adjunct)  is typically used to indicate that a professor does not have tenure or is not eligible for tenure. Tenure is a status granted to some professors (after they reach a certain amount of experience) that makes their position essentially permanent. Due to the temporary or part-time status of adjunct professors, this title sometimes carries a connotation that associates it with the difficulties of being in such a position, such as job insecurity and lack of benefits.

Example: My math professor is an adjunct professor so he might not be here next semester.

Where does adjunct professor come from?

The term adjunct professor was first recorded around the 1820s. Adjunct comes from the Latin word adjunctus, meaning “attached” or “associated.” In this sense, an adjunct professor can be thought of as a temporary attachment, rather than a permanent addition, to the teaching staff of a college or university.

The role of adjunct professors is similar to that of associate or assistant professors with the exception that adjuncts are not eligible for tenure. Tenure-track professors are usually employed full-time for a probationary period (often several years) before they receive tenure. Adjunct professors, on the other hand, often work part-time and without the possibility of gaining tenure. Many professors begin their teaching careers as adjunct professors before they’re able to get full-time teaching positions.

The trend of hiring professors for part-time work, rather than for full contracts that could lead to tenure, has increased since the 1970s. The difficulty of gaining tenure can make it difficult for adjunct professors to earn a living by teaching, especially since their workload may be comparable to their tenured colleagues but does not result in the same compensation or benefits.

Did you know ... ?

What are some words that often get used in discussing adjunct professor?

 

• tenure
• contract
• semester
• higher education

What are some words adjunct professor may be commonly confused with?

 

• assistant professor
• associate professor
• lecturer

How is adjunct professor used in real life?

The term adjunct professor often brings to mind the temporary nature of the position.

I reached my major goals for 2019. I know I should be planning for 2020, but I honestly want to relax & just freestyle it for a little while. One goal is to become an adjunct professor in a STEM related field!

— Dr. Ronald Gatewood, Ph.D💻⌨️ (@ProfessorTECH_) December 28, 2019

Great Workshop. SO glad to have attended. The speaker who is a research associate at Harvard University and also an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst did a great job. pic.twitter.com/CgnI0etvte

— Amo Aduragbemi (@AmoAduragbemi) December 26, 2019

My ten-year challenge:

– MS Public Health
– Masters in Translation Studies
– 5 years as adjunct professor at 2 universities
– Working on PhD in Translation & Language Sciences with a focus on health communication

What a decade! :)#AcademicTwitter #phdchat #AcademicChatter

— Amy Dara Hochberg (@YogaWithAmyDara) December 22, 2019

 

 

Try using adjunct professor!

Is adjunct professor used correctly in the following sentence?

I was granted tenure after serving as an adjunct professor for seven years.