By Peter Schmidt

adjuncts article
Kelvin Ma for The Chronicle Rebecca Dunn, an adjunct assistant professor of biology at Boston College, talks in her office with Fabieny DePina, a first-year student whom she mentors. Advocates for adjuncts say more of them need paid time and office space to meet with their students.
Can a quality education be provided by any college that relies heavily on adjunct instructors it subjects to lousy working conditions?

Some higher-education experts and prominent advocates for adjunct faculty members would like to see accreditors and others who pass judgment on colleges ask questions like that more often.

Those concerned about the conditions of adjuncts argue that the poor environment in which many of them work represents not just a labor concern but also an educational problem, and they hope to persuade college accreditors to more rigorously examine the treatment of adjuncts in institutional reviews. Some are also seeking to bring colleges under market pressures to improve adjuncts’ working conditions by promoting the idea that the level of support institutions give such instructors should be factored into college rankings and prospective students’ decisions on where to apply.

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