Among community colleges nationally, the number of part-time contingent faculty members fell from 187,520 in fall 2019 to 165,322 in fall 2020, a decrease of 11.8 percent, according to data from the AAUP. Meanwhile, U.S. Department of Education data show the number of part-time faculty members in the California Community Colleges system dropped from 27,094 to 24,298 between fall 2019 and fall 2020, a loss of almost 2,800 instructors.
“Anecdotally, when I talk with community colleges around the country and districts and so forth, they tell me the contingent faculty are really being hammered the last couple years,” said Glenn Colby, Senior Researcher at the AAUP. Adjuncts already wrestle with job uncertainty every term, but especially when there are enrollment declines.
“People are burned out after two years of just being in constant crisis mode, putting out one fire after another,” he said. They’ve had to “take on extra workloads,” including covering for laid-off colleagues on committees and running academic programs with fewer people.