Adjunct professors are hiding in plain sight - Jonathan Rees, Denver Post

Retail employees, food service workers, call center operators: These, we are told, are the low-paying jobs of the future. Unfortunately, that list would be incomplete without including one of the fastest growing job titles at the business networking site LinkedIn: adjunct professors. Between 2007 and 2011, the number of people describing themselves there this way grew by almost 40 percent. An adjunct professor is a faculty member who teaches on a limited-term contract for less than full time. A lecturer usually works full time, but is paid less than tenure-track faculty and, like an adjunct, is not eligible for tenure. Without tenure, these faculty members can be fired at will. At some schools, adjunct faculty are paid as low as $800/course. Considering the hours it takes to prepare classes and grade, the pay is often less than minimum wage. Teach a full load of courses, and these professors will likely still be eligible for Food Stamps. In many places, faculty are forced to carve out a meager existence teaching at many schools at once, sometimes driving hours between them each day.