Effective Leadership of Online Adjunct Faculty
Introduction
Post secondary education leaders and administrators are currently facing two separate but interactive trends: the dramatic growth in online education, and the significant increase in adjunct (part-time) faculty. Allen & Seamen (2008) report that in a five year period between 2002 to 2007 the number of students taking at least one online course has more than double to over 3.9 million or 20% of the overall student population. While over the period from 1995 to 2005 the number of adjunct faculty has increased by over sixty percent to 615,000, or 47.6% of instructional faculty in degree granting institutions (National Center for Education Statistics, 2008). Although there are multiple reasons for the growth of adjunct faculty (critical expertise, evenings & weekend availability, real-world perspectives, economic containment), the growth in online education is becoming an increasingly key factor (Lyons, 2007).
The increasing presence and dependence of adjunct faculty are causing education leaders to seek new strategies in overcoming traditional cultural prejudices, and to lever the adjunct faculty’s specialized expertise, flexibility, and passion for sharing real-world perspectives, to maximize institutional effectiveness. This challenge is further exacerbated with the inclusion of online adjunct faculty who are physically separated from the institution. To address this challenge the APLU Sloan National Commission on Online learning (2009) recommends that education administrators need to better understand the characteristics of the online teaching community, understand what motivates them, and use communication strategies that target and engage the online adjunct faculty community.
This paper explores the characteristics of online adjunct faculty and their motivation for teaching, and offers a framework to education administrators for effective leadership and communication to online adjunct faculty. The framework is built on a transformational situational leadership style using an empathetic communication style, and the effective management of people and systems. The principles are built on lessons that have been learned in leading virtual business organization in the service industry. The paper further argues that many of techniques offered for effective online student support are equally applicable to integrating online adjunct faculty into the educational community.
Adjunct Faculty
While there is no uniform definition (Lyons, 2007), adjunct faculty will be defined in this paper as a part-time faculty member who does not hold a full-time or tenured position at a college or university, and is contracted by the institution for course assignments and receive minimal benefits from the institution (Shiffman, 2009). The term “adjunct” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary (2003) means “(a) something joined to or added but not necessary part of it; …….(b) attached in a subordinate or temporary capacity to a staff” (p.15). This definition highlights a temporal and remote nature of the role of adjunct faculty within the education community. However, the adjunct community has silently become a significant and permanent component of the higher education teaching community (Lyons, 2007). This calls for education leaders to develop new strategies for adjunct faculty inclusiveness in order to maximize educational quality for students. The development of these strategies requires educational leaders and administrators to have a greater awareness of adjunct faculty characteristics, motivations, needs and perceptions (APLU Sloan National Commission on Online learning, 2009). This section provides a literature review of these areas.
Adjunct Faculty Growth
The percentage of part-time faculty teaching in degree-granting institutions has grown steadily over the past forty years to now almost fifty percent of teaching staff (Table 1).
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
# of Faculty (000s)
Full time 369 440 450 459 530 551 604 676
Part time 104 188 236 256 295 381 466 615
%Part-time 22% 30% 34% 36% 36% 41% 44% 48%
Table 1: Instructional faculty in degree-granting institutions by employment status
Source: National Center for Education Statistics, (2008)
The growth has been attributed to a number of interrelated factors:
1) Need for specialized “real-world” expertise in a wide range of disciplines in the field (Berry, 1999). Nontraditional or adult students expect faculty to have real-world experience, the ability to be flexible and dynamic, be comfort with learning equality, and be customer-service oriented (Puzzifero & Shelton,2009; Lyons, 2007). According to Puzzifero & Shelton (2009), “adjunct faculty have demonstrated much more potential in adapting to and emulating these qualities than have many traditional campus faculty” (p.1).
2) Greater need for scheduling flexibility to maximize institutional costs – adding or canceling course sections at the last second (Berry, 1999).
3) Declining educational funding coupled with a demand to keep tuition low are leading higher education institutions to increase their use of adjunct faculty who teach “at a fraction of what tenure system faculty earn……. but without the health care and retirement benefits a tenure system faculty member receives”(National Education Association, 2009).
4) Increasing enrollments especially in online education (Allen & Seaman, 2008; Carnevale, 2004). Allen & Seamen (2008) report that in a five year period between 2002 to 2007 the number of students taking at least one online course has more than double to over 3.9 million or 20% of the overall student population. However many full-time faculty have been resistant to teach online while adjunct faculty have eagerly taken up the challenge (Puzziferro-Schnitzer, 2005). A recent study by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) Sloan National Commission on online learning (2009) found that “part-time faculty are more likely to engage in online learning than their full-time counterparts, with 32.4% of part-time faculty teaching online compared to 22.2% of full-timers” (p.15). This 10% difference accounts for over sixty thousand more adjunct faculty teaching online than full-timers.
Adjunct Faculty Characteristics
Gappa & Leslie (1993) conducted the seminal research on adjunct faculty characteristics. They categorized adjunct faculty into four broad groups:
1) Specialist, experts or professionals – adjunct faculty who are employed full-time outside of their teaching.
2) Freelancers – adjunct faculty who choose to be employed in multiple part-time jobs, including regular college or university teaching assignments.
3) Career enders – adjunct faculty who are approaching the end of their working lives and wish to maintain a connection with a serious intellectual endeavor.
4) Aspiring Academics – adjunct faculty who have just completed (or close to completing) their graduate studies and are looking for experience and network opportunity to gain full-time faculty appointments.
This categorization of adjunct faculty has essentially been accepted in the academic research community although there has been some expansions or sub-categorization: moonlighters (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003) or migrant faculty (Halfond, 2000) –full-time faculty members in one institution teaching part-time in another academic institution; philosophers (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003) – generally liberal arts faculty who are working full time in an area not connected with their original degree and wish to be re-connected.
In a recent study doctoral research study, Shiffman (2009) utilized Gappa & Leslie (1993) adjunct faculty categorizations to gain an understanding of the characteristics, motivation, and job satisfaction factors of online adjunct faculty in two large virtual universities. Of the 697 online adjunct faculty who responded to a survey, Shiffman (2009) found that 43% (or 296) identified themselves as Specialist, 26.7% (or 184) as Freelancers, 8.9% (or 61) as Career Enders, 8.4% (or 58), and 12.9% (or 89) as Other. The “other” category provided an alternative for adjunct faculty who felt they did not fall into the four defined categorization. These findings are in line with other studies which have found that the Specialist category account for approaching half of adjunct faculty (Lyons, 2007; Halfond, 2000).
Adjunct Faculty Motivations
Most adjunct instructors are highly motivated to succeed and derive their principal satisfaction from the intrinsic rewards of teaching. Adjunct faculty have a passion for their chosen fields and can provide a richer perspective and build meaningful connections in students’ minds to the world outside (Lyons, 1999).
Much of the literature on online adjunct faculty motivation supports the view that intrinsic motivators are stronger than extrinsic motivators (Maguire, 2005). Intrinsic motivating factors include a personal motivation to use technology (Schifter, 2000), a feeling of self-gratification and self growth from teaching online (Schroeder, 2008; Rockwell, et al, 1999) and that teaching online provided optimal working conditions, as they were able to “teach” at any time and from any place (Schroeder, 2008).
Shiffman (2009) study of the initial motivation factors and the current satisfiers of online adjunct faculty found that all adjunct categories ranked the top three factors as: (1) the joy of teaching; (2) personal satisfaction; and (3) the flexible work schedule (see Appendix 1), whereas factors such as job security, advancement, and benefits (e.g. insurance) were the three least motivating factors. For aspiring academics, financial compensation for teaching ranked high as a satisfier, though all other adjunct categories ranked it as only a neutral factor.
Adjunct Faculty Demotivations
While extrinsic factors may not be motivators, they can be demotivators, as many adjunct faculty perceive that educational institutions treat them like second-class citizens. “Isolation, frustration, and lack of recognition are common feelings of adjuncts as they feel marginalized in the teaching profession” (Gaillard-Kenney, 2006, p.11). The significant salary disparity between full-time and adjunct faculty further exacerbates the feeling of second-class citizenship (National Education Association, 2009).
A review of online literature indicates that the majority of barriers to teaching on line are in that areas of administrative and technical support (Maguire, 2005). Administrative factors include a lack of inclusion in university issues and policies (Brindley et al.,2002), course and curriculum development (Degeneffe & Offutt, 2008), a lack of recognition of the time required to teach online courses (Coppola et al.,2002), and a lack of distance education training provided by the institution (Schifter, 2000).
Leadership Challenge
In order to maximize the educational quality and institutional effectiveness, education leaders must learn how to lever, and continue to stimulate, the talents, skills and expertise of this highly motivated adjunct faculty workforce. Lyons (2005) cites research studies that have found that effective institutional initiatives to integrate adjunct faculty requires:
Leadership Styles
Bennis (1990) argued that to survive in the 21st century “leaders are needed to conquer the context – the volatile, turbulent, ambiguous surroundings” (p.44). This is undoubtedly true in the distance education sector where rapidly changing social, economic and technological environments are creating a tremendous demand for change in the education sector. Beaudoin (2007) argues that “the future of distance education is ultimately not so much about enhancing technology or improving pedagogy, but rather about managing change” (p.92). Managing change is the primary role of leadership and thus “the roles of leader/change agent and trainer [have] emerged as the most significant factor for the successful implementation of distance education programs” (p.92). This section reviews leadership literature from the context of managing change in a distance education environment.
Transformational and Transactional
In discussing the appropriate leadership style required to implement change, Beaudoin (2004) confesses to a bias towards a transformational leadership style which has been widely recognized as an effective leadership model to manage change. “Transformational leaders motivate others to do more than they originally intended and often even more than they thought possible” (Avolio and Bass, 2002, p. 1).The components of transformational leadership behaviors include: idealized leadership (leaders behave like role models), inspirational motivation (leaders inspire those around them), intellectual stimulation (simulate innovation and creativity) and individualized consideration (support, encouragement and coaching to followers).
However, Beaudoin (2004) argues that while a transformational style is more effective in a distance education environment, a transactional leadership style is most often found in traditional academia. Transactional leadership “occurs when the leader rewards or disciplines a follower depending on the adequacy of the follower’s performance” (Avolio and Bass, 2002, p. 3). This leadership style maintains the status quo through an exchange process where followers get tangible rewards for carrying out the leader’s orders. Beaudoin (2004) maintains that “although some academic leaders may possess good instincts regarding how best to take advantage of new technology-driven opportunities, they remain handicapped by a persistent preoccupation with the elite trappings of academia, and what they perceive as most important: stressing faculty scholarships, research and grants, prestige” (p.97). The adherence to academic tradition, the resistance of distance education by full-time tenured faculty members (who may be more focused on research than teaching), and transactional academic leaders are all factors that limit many organizations in effectively embracing distance education.
Transformational Leadership in a distance education environment
The transformational leadership is particularly effective in a distance education environment both from the perspective of leading virtual teams and in leading knowledge workers. Moore’s (2005) theory of transactional distance, which maintains that “it is the physical difference that leads to a communication gap, a psychological space of potential misunderstanding between the instructors and the learners that has to be bridged by special teaching techniques” (p.224), is not only relevant in a instructor-learner perspective but is very relevant in a leader-follower (adjunct faculty) relationship. The challenge for instructors to find the most effective learning pedagogy through the manipulation of structure, dialogue and learner autonomy (Gorsky & Caspi, 2005) is equally applicable to leaders and followers.
Kayworth & Leidner (2001) study found that effective virtual teams require a high degree of trust, empathy, empowerment, and mentorship. Transformational leaders express confidence in followers, articulate a clear and appealing vision, empower people to achieve the vision, and lead by example (Yukl, 2002). Zayani (2008) found that transformational leadership style was strongly associated with global virtual team success, with success being defined as (1) the motivation of global virtual team members to exert extra effort; (2) the leader’s effectiveness in interacting with team; and (3) the team member’s satisfaction with the leadership.
Bell-Roundtree (2004) found that transformational leaders will most likely experience higher trends in positive outcomes of knowledge workers’ satisfaction with their job and their job commitment. “Managing knowledge worker job satisfaction is important because these attitudes have been positively related to increased customer support, willingness to exert extra effort, performance, and retention rates and negatively related to employee burnout” (p.114). Adjunct faculty, as knowledge workers, will thus be more likely to provide superior student support, exert more effort in creating an exception learning experience for students, be actively supportive of university initiatives, and remain loyal to the university, if they work in a positive, encouraging and supportive environment.
Situational Leadership
Distance education leaders are faced with a radically changing environment which Portugal (2006) argues calls for not only transformational leaders but situational leaders. The challenges come from multiple fronts:
1) A highly competitive global environment in which customers (students) can easily switch from one online university to another.
2) Increasing customer (student) demands for higher quality of education at reduced costs.
3) Redefining the mission beyond the geographical proximity.
4) Shifting the organizational structure from a face-to-face centralized academic setting to a (global) virtual environment.
5) Training, motivating and directing an ever expanding adjunct faculty population.
6) Constantly changing technologies.
These challenges require distance education leaders to “need a variety of skills that are constantly refined and include resource mobilization, needs assessment, fitting technology to needs, program evaluation and accreditation, policy formulation, strategic planning, operationalizing ideas, market analysis, implementing online infrastructure, collaborating with partners, training and support for faculty, and mentoring the next generation of leaders” (Beaudoin, 2002, p. 43).
These diverse challenges calls for situational leaders who seek to find the effective integration of the needs of the followers, and the organizational processes and systems to complete the task or mission (Hersey et al., 2008). Distance Education situational transformational leaders inspire, stimulate, and support their staff including adjunct faculty, and collectively create the organizational process and systems to facilitate a high quality, cost-effective education for students.
Distance Education Leadership Framework
Business Environment
Tait (2004) argues that although education and business have historically not been linked together, there has been a deliberate shift by governments over the past 20 years to “diminish the autonomy of education as an activity which exists for its own sake, and to bend it more closely to serving a purpose, generally economic, of the state” (p.205). Nunam et al. (2000) assert that “universities are moving from scholarly ivory towers to information corporations….this paradigm shift is described as a shift from a culture of production to one of consumption” ( p. 87). This is especially true in the distance education environment where there is a higher degree of competitiveness due to the fact that technology enables access to students anywhere in the world, and students are generally adults who are paying for their education. This competitive nature of education has resulted in “student in ODL [online distance learning] being constructed as the customer” (Tait, 2000, p. 288). Students, as consumers of education, have now started to question the return of investment for their education dollars (Nalewaja, Van Vorhiss, & Falkner, 2004), and are demanding a high quality of education at an affordable price. The shift to a student centric environment has led to the learner being the center of the universe where “teaching no longer drives learning: instead, teaching responds to and supports learning” (Moore & Kearsley, 2005, p.20).
Framework for the effective leadership of online adjunct faculty
The shift in the educational environment to a service industry business context in which serving the needs of the student is the primary objective, requires leaders who are transformational and “provide clear energizing visions and define or redefine the core values and goals of their organization” (Latchem and Hanna, 2001, p.57). The setting of a clear vision and inspiring adjunct faculty to create an enriching educational environment for students is especially important in an online educational service industry, as the online adjunct faculty, who are the point of contact with students, are not visible to management.
The university leadership “defines the vision, mission, goals, and objectives for the institution or program regarding distance learning” (Moore & Kearsley, 2005, p.187). These policies and directions set the tone for facilitating effective student learning in all aspects of the educational experience by committing the organization to support the student (Moore & Kearsley, 2005; Holmberg, 2005). However to quote Bates (2000): “Presidents may dream visions, and vice presidents may design plans, and deans and department heads may try to implement them, but without the support of faculty members nothing will change” (p.95). Thus educational leaders must create an environment in which adjunct faculty members feel inspired to reach the institutional vision and have the skills and support systems to meet the challenges. This environment is created by educational leaders by:
· Hiring, training and retaining excellent, committed, quality adjunct faculty who are student centric, empathic and motivated.
· Providing an effective organizational and systems infrastructure that supports distance education students and faculty.
An effective leadership framework of adjunct faculty in a distance education environment is thus twofold: the situational transformational leadership of adjunct faculty and the management of faculty systems.
Effective Leadership of Adjunct Faculty
In the service industry, the link between customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction has been well established (Heskett et al., 1997). Gudergan et al. (2008) found that the greater the emotional motivation displayed by frontline staff the better the customer service provision. An emotional motivation is stimulated from an inherent desire to do well for the customers and the organization. In distance education, it is thus critical to hire adjunct faculty who are passionate about teaching, and creating an environment in which the faculty feel a positive attachment to the organization and its mission.
The organizational objective in this process is to attract and hire outstanding adjunct faculty and provide them superior support such that they will contribute to both an excellent student learning environment, and to the institution’s mission and vision. The ability of educational leadership to fully integrate adjunct faculty into the institution’s community, and to train them to be highly effective online instructors is critical to the success of the institution’s mission.
“We contract strangers to spend fifty hours with twenty or more of our precious consumers. Sometimes these part-time faculty, while seasoned in their professions, are novices in the art of constructing and conducting a class. Given the challenge and intricacies of teaching it is remarkable how rarely pedagogical wisdom is shared and cultivated. Students will judge their education by what happens in the classroom, and will emerge as either your program’s apostles or detractors based on that experience……….The quality of teaching should not be a matter of chance, but first and foremost in the minds of those who are responsible for the financial and educational performance of their enterprise” (Halfond, 2000, p.55).
The development of an environment that fosters passionate, energetic and effective adjunct faculty requires a persistent and continuous improvement focus by education leaders on their empathetic communication, recruiting and hiring, training (initial and ongoing), mentoring, networking, management and appraisal practices.
Empathetic Communication
Communication with faculty who are located all over the world requires leaders who can effectively evoke passion, encouragement, stimulate and direct operations through telephone calls email, and other asynchronous and synchronous technologies.
Holmberg (2005) maintains that the empathic approach in all communications “between the parties involved in the teaching –learning process as central to distance education” (p.38). The empathetic communication approach is not only effective for teacher-learner communication but also for distance education leader/administrator and adjunct faculty communication. Empathy describes an emotional appreciation for another’s feeling; empathetic communication invokes a feeling of a personal connection and trust, attributes that are critical in a distance education environment. Friendly and stimulating dialog between the leader and adjunct faculty members (and among adjunct faculty members) on university mission & policies, curriculum development, and teaching best practices provides intellectual stimulation, motivation, and feelings of trust, involvement and a personal relationship between the adjunct faculty member and the university.
Recruiting and Hiring
“Recruiting, hiring and developing adjuncts for a distance education environment is no easy task” (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003, p.1); at the same time, finding high quality candidates are crucial to an institution’s success (Strycker, 2008). Recruiting online adjunct faculty often needs to go beyond the typical faculty recruiting process since many adjuncts are not actively seeking positions. Networking through professional organizations and conferences, university advisory boards, relevant businesses, and current adjunct faculty are excellent sources for candidates. (Green, 2007).
“Good credentials on paper, and ‘brick-and-mortar’ teaching accomplishments, do not necessary translate into a similar level of success online (Six-Daniell et al.,2006, p. 4). In a student centric online environment, administrators should seek out candidates who are subject matter expert, enthusiastic about their subject, technology orientation, well organized, and care about students (Edwards, 2009; Filene, 2005: Rahman, 2001).
Matching needs is a critical component of the hiring process: administrators should use a transformational approach in this first meeting by emphasizing the institution’s vision and commitment to quality and professional development. “Quality instructors will want to teach for institutions that demonstrate a commitment to quality and to employees’ professional development and overall satisfaction” (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003, p.3). A key component of the interview process is to connect the potential adjunct faculty member’s motivation for teaching with the mission and goals of the institution. The resultant outcome is hiring a highly competent online adjunct faculty who is enthusiastic about his/her subject, working with students, and teaching at the educational institution.
Orientation and Initial Training
An online orientation session should immediately follow the hiring process; the purpose should be to acquaint and assimilate (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003). This session should be the first step in making the online adjunct faculty feel welcome and connected to the organization (Green, 2006). Transformational educational leaders need to use this session to enthuse new adjunct faculty members about the institution’s mission, service to students, and academic values. In this context, synchronous video and audio technologies are preferred as this medium contributes to a greater sense of community and intimacy, where the speaker can connect with the audience and provide immediate feedback to questions (Murphy & Laferriere, 2007).
The new adjunct faculty needs to be introduced to a high level of administrative and technical information including “administrative and technical support group contacts, an explanation of administrative procedures, instructional procedures, instructional requirements, technical requirements, technical resources for teaching online, curriculum processes, copyright guidelines, and standards and expectations for distance education instruction” (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003, p.5). However care needs to be taken in assessing the new faculty member’s ability to absorb all this material; providing reference material such as online faculty handbook for administrative material, and ongoing online course work for the pedagogy and technology training is recommended beyond the initial orientation session.
The literature supports the need for online training that goes beyond merely learning the technical tools (Palloff & Pratt, 2001). Ko & Rossen (2001) argues that exploring pedagogical issues should be a significant part of online training and should take precedence over technology training. In fact an understanding of Collins & Berge (1996) framework of instructional roles: pedagogical, social, managerial and technical, provides an excellent platform for discussion and training of new online adjunct faculty.
Departmental Integration
Integration within the academic department is critical, as it is the primary point of contact throughout the adjunct faculty’s career at the university. As such the leadership role of the departmental head is critical to the adjunct faculty’s teaching experiences, growth and development, and ultimately their ongoing retention at the university. The departmental head needs to demonstrate the transformational leadership attributes of being enthusiastic and motivating about the institution’s mission and vision, and leading by example. At the same time, (s)he must demonstrate situational leadership attributes in adapting each adjunct faculty member’s integration and training to their respective skills and background, and in being highly supportive and responsive to their specific needs.
There is no stronger and more effective way to connect to and integrate into a department’s life than to pair up new adjunct faculty with experienced faculty in a mentoring program (Baron-Nixon, 2007; Zutter, 2007). The goals and benefits of a mentoring program for adjunct faculty are to:
a) Provide new hires with a deeper understanding of institutional and departmental policies, procedures and culture.
b) Promote professional development and best practices.
c) Increase collegiality.
d) Promote teaching and online classroom management skills.
e) Provide tip for preventing or correcting common mistakes.
f) Improve channels of communication.
The selection of the mentor is a critical leadership decision as the mentor needs to be a model instructor who is passionate about serving students and the institutional mission.
Evaluate, Assess & Develop
Effective leadership of adjunct faculty requires a regular evaluation and assessment of their teaching styles and pedagogy, and developmental feedback for continuous improvement. The effectiveness of this important developmental process is very dependent on the rigorousness of the assessment, and the empathy and quality of the feedback. The evaluation and assessment process must be treated as a teaching development tool to help develop online adjunct faculty members, as opposed to a means of reprimanding and flushing out weak adjunct faculty members.
The adjunct faculty evaluation process should be fully understood by the adjunct faculty member, and referenced in the interview, orientation, and departmental integration process. The assessment should be well defined and consistently applied across all faculty. “There are generally two forms of faculty performance evaluation: the supervisor or administration evaluation and the student evaluation” (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003, p.6).
The ability to appraisal an online adjunct faculty member’s teaching is relatively easy as administrators can access any online classrooms at any time. The assessment process should be defined and clear to online adjunct faculty, and make a systematic assessment of the faculty member’s course syllabus, teaching pedagogy, clarity of instruction, content value, classroom activity, their responsiveness to students, and grading practices.
“We have to make sure our faculty knows, if they have taught before, that they will be monitored much more than they are use to. In a face-to-face environment, they are on an island. But in an online class, everything they do is saved. They have to get use to this. It can be a change for some teachers who want autonomy. But we cannot allow that. We have to make sure standards are upheld.” (Vail, 2006, p.7).
The assessment feedback process requires educational leaders to display three key attributes: commitment, conversation and trust (Tait, 2004). Classroom appraisals are an effective tool for supervisors to demonstrate both a personal and institutional commitment to excellence. An empathetic feedback discussion creates a conversational environment between management and faculty on effective teaching approaches. Positive feedback geared to adjunct faculty self-development builds a trusting relation between management and faculty.
There has been extensive research into college level student evaluations of teaching effectiveness, and “it can be safely stated that student ratings are valid, reliable, and worthwhile means of evaluating teaching” (Wachtel, 1998, p.192). Student ratings feedback can help to improve instruction, increase student learning and achievement, and increase the likelihood that excellence in teaching will be recognized and rewarded. In a study of learner outcomes in an asynchronous distance education environment, Carswell & Venkatesh (2002) found that student perceived that a number of faculty related factors significantly contributed to their learning experiences. These factors included:
a. “The organization of the course: knowing where to find materials, having a clear idea of what is where, when assignments are due.
b. Instructor characteristics: responsiveness, “value added” to textbooks and other material, clear feedback on graded assignments, frequency and nature of interaction with students.
c. Social presence of fellow students and instructor” (p.486).
In the student centric environment of online education, ‘customer’ feedback is critical to achieving a rewarding learning experience for students and ultimately in achieving the institutional mission of educational excellence.
Ongoing Faculty Training
The initial one-time online faculty training while essential is not sufficient for effective online instructors; they require a variety of experiences and training interactions over time (Yang & Cornelious, 2005). Ongoing professional development that is aligned to the mission and vision of the higher education institutionis the ultimate goal of developing a highly effective workforce (Rodgers et al. 2009). Blodgett’s (2008) research found that online adjunct faculty perceived their primary need for ongoing training included training in course management systems, pedagogical approaches to online teaching (i.e. the use of discussions, constructivist methods, how to assess online students, adult learning theory), university/institution specific student support systems, and instructional design on how to develop an online course.
Continuous training and development contributes to institutional success in three ways: (1) individual development; (2) remedial development identified during the evaluation process; (3) preparation to meet change and future organizational needs (Tait, 2004). In addition, the institution’s effort in helping online adjunct faculty to develop their knowledge and skills not only helps student learning, but creates a tighter bond between the faculty member and the institution.
Faculty Networks
Organizational learning does not just take place in a hierarchical approach but across peer networks (Pahor et al. 2008). However, in an online teaching context, the physical separation and the feeling of isolation of online adjunct faculty can lead to “privatization” of teaching (Eib and Miller, 2006). This “privatization” leads to ineffective teaching practices as online adjunct faculty falls into a rut of delivering the same material in the same way, and lacks the stimulation of new ideas.
Eib & Miller (2006) further notes that “the focus on collegiality and creating a sense of belonging, as well as a formulation of knowledge as a social process, is not new”(p.3). In the traditional face-to-face environment many educational institutions offer onsite faculty meeting and events to stimulate adjunct and full-time faculty collegiality (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003). However in the online environment, the geographical separation and time constraints often prohibit online adjunct faculty from attending faculty meetings (Brindley et al., 2002; Kolbo & Turage, 2002).
Puzziferro & Shelton (2009) suggest frequent contact and communication over virtual synchronous technologies (e.g. skype) is good practice for adjunct faculty involvement and motivation. While synchronous technologies create a sense of community, they require all attendees to be present at the same time, which may be difficult for busy adjunct faculty members, especially if they are living in different time zones (Bates & Poole, 2003). As such online asynchronous networking systems are excellent platforms to accommodate the physical and time constraints of online adjunct faculty, as they are the tools of their learning environment (Eib & Miller, 2006; Scnitzer & Crosby, 2003; Kolbo & Turage, 2002). These networking systems can utilize the institution’s learning management system or utilize commercial social networking systems such as blogs, or Facebook. However, Pahor et al. (2008) research study of organization learning networks found that (1) the participation of the more experienced employees was critical; yet, the more experienced employees felt they had less need to participate; (2) the context in which the learning environment emerges is critically important. As such, there needs to be some form of incentive to get the experienced online faculty members to participate, and the discussion topics need to be established from the bottom-up. Utilizing and rewarding experience employees to act as facilitators in constructivist learning on specific topics of interest to adjunct faculty may be an appropriate methodology.
Broaden Role & Growth
While the primary activity of online adjunct faculty is to engage in teaching, if these faculty are to be fully engaged in the institutional mission, educational leaders must find ways to engage them into the full scope of the institutional life (Baron-Nixon, 2007). This includes having a voice in setting institutional policies, scholarships, course design and development, mentors, and invitations to institutional events.
Maguire (2008) found that online adjunct faculty expressed a desire for greater involvement in the creation of institutional policy. They felt that their close links with students would lead to improving the distance education process through the clarification of current policy and the identification of missing or problematic policy. However, online adjunct faculty members “believed that they do no have the opportunity to be proactive in the process, resigning instead to reacting to policy that they may not learn about until they violate it or make an error”(p.1). This leads to a sense of frustration and lack of ownership of the program by adjunct faculty. Maguire (2008) recommends giving online adjunct faculty representation in policy committees in a variety of areas including curriculum and program policy, student and faculty services, and institutional policies.
Smith (2007) discusses the systems approach at the Rio Salado community college in which adjunct faculty are used almost exclusively to accomplish its mission, vision, and purposes. In noting the increasing numbers of “professional adjuncts” (adjunct faculty who chose to hold several part-time teaching and consulting jobs), Rio Salado use online adjunct faculty as faculty chairs who relieve the educational administrators in routine and mundane tasks. These tasks include instructional leadership, content and curriculum development, text book selection, new faculty mentoring, supervising and evaluating, and college-wide system projects.
Educational leaders should advocate and support adjunct faculty in continuous learning and scholarship (Puzziferro & Shelton, 2009). “If part-time faculty are to provide students with the same well-rounded education expected from full-time faculty, and if, as has been suggested, the quality of education rises with scholarship activity, then part-time faculty – like their full-time colleagues – should be expected to engage in scholarship” (Baron-Nixon, 2007, p.93). This support should include financial assistance in attending & presenting at conferences, support services in obtaining research grants, graduate studies tuition remission for continuous professional growth (Puzziferro & Shelton, 2009; Baron-Nixon, 2007; Askeland, 2008).
Online learning is credited in the literature for encouraging a move towards constructivist pedagogy and learning equity. However, the shift to equality is not only at the learning level, the shift to distance education also creates a flattening of the organization structures in which the virtual team members are empowered. The role of educational leaders like the instructor shifts from being the autocratic leader to the facilitator, and the adjunct faculty member needs to feel connected, involved, and equipped with the knowledge and skills to fulfill the goals and vision of the institution.
Management of Faculty Support Systems
Moore & Kearsley (2005) argue that the education system is in the middle of a Copernican revolution where the student is the center of the universe. In this new virtual world, the educational administrator’s role shift from worry about physical classroom scheduling and logistics to establishing a comprehensive student services system to support the distance learner (Moore & Kearsley, 2005; Brindley, Walti, Zawacki-Richter, 2004). However, while there has been an abundance of literature written on effective learning environments for students, there has been little literature on effective online faculty support. Although Puzziferro & Shelton (2009) argue that “if you are involved in faculty support and development, every time you read those articles, you should replace the word student with faculty. In many ways online adjunct faculty are exactly the same as online students” (p. 11). Ultimately, “excellent, committed, quality instructors are retained by excellent, committed, quality faculty support” (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003, p.2).
From an online adjunct faculty member’s viewpoint, the key systems that educational leaders need to manage are:
1. Online learning management environment
2. Course development and teaching process
3. Management and protection of online resources
4. Technical support
5. Administrative support
6. Student support services
Online learning management environment
The quality and functionality of the classroom are a critical component of any instructor’s success. In an online environment, the virtual learning management system framework and its functionality is critical to the success of an online adjunct faculty member. Bates & Poole (2005) suggests the selection of the appropriate technology should be based upon a systematic holistic approach known as the SECTIONS model. This model is based on an understanding of the following criteria:
· Students – the appropriateness of the technology for the student population.
· Ease of use and reliability – how easy is it for students and teachers to use.
· Costs – the cost structure of the technology: cost/student.
· Teaching and learning – best technology to support required learning needs.
· Interactivity – the type of interaction that the technology enables.
· Organization – the organization requirements and barriers to be removed to successfully use this technology.
· Novelty – how new is this technology.
· Speed – how fast courses can be mounted and technology changed.
Asynchronous Learning Management Systems (LMS) are generally favored in the current distance education environment as they provide multi-tasking adult learners the flexibility to participate in the class at any time and any place (Moore & Kearsley, 2005). In addition, asynchronous systems provide students time to provide deeper thinking, well-researched responses. However, as distance education progresses and broadband technologies become more prevalent, multimedia learning offers a number of advantages. Multimedia learning uses the combination of two or more, linear or nonlinear, communication mediums (including text, graphics, static images, audio and video) that are integrated in one multi-sensory learning environment in order to facilitate the effective transfer of pedagogical knowledge (Bates, 2005).
The advantages of multimedia are that these technologies are designed to incorporate different learning styles and allow learners to explore new domains of knowledge by following their own learning paths and style. The integration of multiple media also facilitates a deeper level of learner understanding by facilitating a coherent image or mental construction, this process leads to effective knowledge retention and understanding (Bates & Poole, 2003). Furthermore multimedia learning is flexible in terms of time, space and pace, allowing flexibility in approaches to access and explore the learning material. This is a critical asset in meeting the needs of multi-tasking adult learners.
The rapid growth in educational technologies requires leaders to continuously reassess their learning management environment to ensure that their current technological platform provides an affordable high quality instructor – learner environment, and is prepared for tomorrow’s educational capabilities.
Course development and teaching process
There are two different approaches to online teaching that have been identified in the literature: the broadcast model and the collaborative approach (Brindley et al., 2006). In the broadcast model, the course material is designed and developed in advance and instructor’s role is that of a tutor. In the collaborative, or interactive approach, the instructors have a broader responsibility in that they create the detailed course teaching as it progresses over the duration of the course.
Educational leaders need to define the appropriate model and the faculty support infrastructure that takes effect from the bottom to the top (Zawacki-Richer, 2004). This institutional learning and support model should include:
· Binding agreements on the teaching pedagogical model and outcome targets for all departments within the educational institution.
· Organizational structures for the faculty and student support systems.
· Establishment of a faculty training center with formal measurements for professional training.
· Process for learning from examples of colleagues’ good practices including having access as a visitor to another class section.
· Process for informal personal pedagogical and media technological advice – for example being linked to a mentor or faculty network (as discussed in the earlier section), having assess to an online “faculty help desk”.
· Complaints procedure.
Management and protection of online resources
The management and protection of online resources have three key components for faculty: (1) the ability to readily access scholarly material; (2) the incorporation of scholarly material into the online classroom; (3) the ownership and protection of faculty material presented in the virtual classroom.
“Online library services are regarded as key to success of the virtual university” (Brindley et al, 2006, p. 147). Knowledge is the lifeblood of a university, and the immediate access to books, scholarly journals, and articles are essential for online adjunct faculty to keep “up to speed” with their subject and in developing a relevant learning environment for students. Services such as 24/7 librarian support, online access to a broad range of scholarly articles and journals, and home delivery of books are thus essential institutional capabilities for the success of online adjunct faculty.
The use of scholarly materials in a virtual classroom is thwarted with copyright and ownership issues. Library services can be very useful to online adjunct faculty in obtaining copyright permission and digitizing articles for publication within the learning management system.
The institution’s intellectual property policy, which is defined by the academic leadership, can have significant consequences to online adjunct faculty (Bonner, 2006). A university’s reputation is often built on the academic quality and notoriety of its faculty. In order to recruit highly qualified faculty, it is in the institution’s best interest to allow them academic freedom and ownership of their work as permitted in the teacher’s exception in the 1976 Copyright Act. The teacher exception permits the faculty members instead of their employers to own books, articles, lecture notes and other works routinely authored in connection with their teaching (Loggie et al.,2006). There seems to be a number of benefits to the online adjunct faculty member to be promoting this interest:
1) Protecting his or her work from the academic institution or other faculty members using the material without recognition or financial compensation.
2) The freedom to use the teaching material within a future text-book that they are planning to write.
3) The freedom to use the teaching material while teaching at other schools.
Technical support
Even after training many online adjunct faculty members feel hesitate and uncomfortable with their skills and competencies in the effective use of educational technology (Park & Bonk, 2007). Therefore, in the online teaching environment, 24 hour/7 days a week technical support to resolve or walk through any unexpected technical issues is essential to create an effective educational environment. “Little is more frustrating to faculty who teach online is the breakdown of equipment or slow responsiveness of technical support” (Meyer, 2009).
In addition, faculty members as leaders of the virtual classroom environment are often asked technology questions by students, or are called upon to resolve a student procedural problem caused by the student’s lack of technology skills. While it may be more appropriate to tell students to contact technical support, faculty members are generally the first contact person, and their technology competence is often seen by their students as a component of overall teaching competence. “Hara & Kling’s study shows that the frequency of experiencing frustration and drop-out rates increases if faculty are practically unable to help directly with simple technical problems and must refer students to technical support” (Zawacki-Richter, 2004). Thus faculty members must feel comfortable with the technological learning environment, and their technology training must be more comprehensive and at a higher level than student training.
Administrative support
The online adjunct faculty member’s interactions with the educational institution extend beyond the task of teaching a virtual class, and into the administrative procedures of the university. The ease of interaction with administrative organizations, and administrative procedures, have a significant impact on an online adjunct faculty member’s motivation and persistency of teaching at an educational institution (Meyers, 2009).
These administration processes include:
Student support services
Faculty members are the primary point of contact with students; as such the quality of student support services has a very direct impact on online adjunct faculty. If the educational institution provides student with a comprehensive set of high quality support services, students will be able to devote their online classroom energies to learning the course subject matter. However, if the institution’s student services are weak, then the adjunct faculty member will become the support service.
Student support systems within open distance learning are designed to help learners meet their learning objectives and gain the knowledge and skills that they need in order to be successful in their courses. Learner support services include tutoring and teaching, counseling and advising, administrative services, library and information systems, and other interactive processes intended to support and facilitate the learning process (Brindley et al., 2004).
While online adjunct faculty play the most significant role in the student learning process, having the ability to partner with online tutors, or writing experts, to help individual students master course content and meet the learning objectives has a positive impact on student persistency and reduces attrition rates (Brindley et al., 2004). Developing a partnership with online librarians in developing course-specific assignments that incorporate information literacy skills can be tremendously helpful in support student’s information literacy skills (George & Frank, 2004).
Conclusion
The effective leadership of online adjunct faculty members is critical to the success of a distance education university. Research studies have found that adjunct faculty are highly motivated to succeed and derive their motivation from intrinsic factors such as the joy of teaching, personal satisfaction, and the teaching mission of the university. The challenge to educational leaders is to harness this motivation, enthusiasm, and the specialized skills and knowledge of the online adjunct faculty in order to maximize both educational quality to students, and institutional effectiveness.
A review of leadership literature in distance education, and in different but related business segments (the service industry, leading virtual teams, and leading knowledge workers), suggests that a transformational leadership approach is the most effective model. The components of the transformational leadership style: idealized leadership (leaders behave like role models), inspirational motivation (leaders inspire those around them), intellectual stimulation (simulate innovation and creativity) and individualized consideration (support, encouragement and coaching to followers), all help to bridge the distance barrier between the educational leaders and online adjunct faculty. As a result online adjunct faculty feel inspired and motivated to go beyond their expectation in meeting the needs of the students, and in working towards institutional goals. In addition, the complexity of the distance education environment coupled with the wide scope in teaching/pedagogical skills of adjunct faculty results in a need for leaders to be able to adapt to the situation. These situational leaders effectively integrate the needs of the online adjunct faculty with the organizational processes and systems.
Ultimately creating an environment in which online adjunct faculty feel inspired to reach the institutional vision, and have the skills and support systems to fulfill the needs of students, requires the effective leadership of each online adjunct faculty member as an individual, and in providing of effective processes and systems to support all online adjunct faculty. The academic literature suggests effective leadership requires a situational transformational leadership using an empathetic communication approach throughout the online adjunct faculty career process, which includes recruiting and hiring, orientation, mentoring, teaching, faculty learning (initial and ongoing), faculty networking, evaluation, assessment and development, and broadening responsibilities. In terms of support systems, distance education literature suggests that much of the literature on online student support systems is equally applicable to online adjunct faculty. Online adjunct faculty along with students should be at the center of the distance education system; educational administrative leadership and institutional systems serve online adjunct faculty and students, not the other way around. From an online adjunct faculty perspective, key systems and processes to address include the online learning management technology, course development and teaching process, management and protection of online resources, technical and administrative support, and the student support services.
This is an exciting time in education; the rapid growth in technology is making it possible for people from all corners of the globe to readily access educational opportunities. Educational leaders who can lead their workforce in embracing educational technologies to provide a superior learning environment for students will lead the way in education. These leaders need to be visionary, motivational and highly supportive of their workforce especially those who are in direct contact with students, the online adjunct faculty.
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Introduction
Post secondary education leaders and administrators are currently facing two separate but interactive trends: the dramatic growth in online education, and the significant increase in adjunct (part-time) faculty. Allen & Seamen (2008) report that in a five year period between 2002 to 2007 the number of students taking at least one online course has more than double to over 3.9 million or 20% of the overall student population. While over the period from 1995 to 2005 the number of adjunct faculty has increased by over sixty percent to 615,000, or 47.6% of instructional faculty in degree granting institutions (National Center for Education Statistics, 2008). Although there are multiple reasons for the growth of adjunct faculty (critical expertise, evenings & weekend availability, real-world perspectives, economic containment), the growth in online education is becoming an increasingly key factor (Lyons, 2007).
The increasing presence and dependence of adjunct faculty are causing education leaders to seek new strategies in overcoming traditional cultural prejudices, and to lever the adjunct faculty’s specialized expertise, flexibility, and passion for sharing real-world perspectives, to maximize institutional effectiveness. This challenge is further exacerbated with the inclusion of online adjunct faculty who are physically separated from the institution. To address this challenge the APLU Sloan National Commission on Online learning (2009) recommends that education administrators need to better understand the characteristics of the online teaching community, understand what motivates them, and use communication strategies that target and engage the online adjunct faculty community.
This paper explores the characteristics of online adjunct faculty and their motivation for teaching, and offers a framework to education administrators for effective leadership and communication to online adjunct faculty. The framework is built on a transformational situational leadership style using an empathetic communication style, and the effective management of people and systems. The principles are built on lessons that have been learned in leading virtual business organization in the service industry. The paper further argues that many of techniques offered for effective online student support are equally applicable to integrating online adjunct faculty into the educational community.
Adjunct Faculty
While there is no uniform definition (Lyons, 2007), adjunct faculty will be defined in this paper as a part-time faculty member who does not hold a full-time or tenured position at a college or university, and is contracted by the institution for course assignments and receive minimal benefits from the institution (Shiffman, 2009). The term “adjunct” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary (2003) means “(a) something joined to or added but not necessary part of it; …….(b) attached in a subordinate or temporary capacity to a staff” (p.15). This definition highlights a temporal and remote nature of the role of adjunct faculty within the education community. However, the adjunct community has silently become a significant and permanent component of the higher education teaching community (Lyons, 2007). This calls for education leaders to develop new strategies for adjunct faculty inclusiveness in order to maximize educational quality for students. The development of these strategies requires educational leaders and administrators to have a greater awareness of adjunct faculty characteristics, motivations, needs and perceptions (APLU Sloan National Commission on Online learning, 2009). This section provides a literature review of these areas.
Adjunct Faculty Growth
The percentage of part-time faculty teaching in degree-granting institutions has grown steadily over the past forty years to now almost fifty percent of teaching staff (Table 1).
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
# of Faculty (000s)
Full time 369 440 450 459 530 551 604 676
Part time 104 188 236 256 295 381 466 615
%Part-time 22% 30% 34% 36% 36% 41% 44% 48%
Table 1: Instructional faculty in degree-granting institutions by employment status
Source: National Center for Education Statistics, (2008)
The growth has been attributed to a number of interrelated factors:
1) Need for specialized “real-world” expertise in a wide range of disciplines in the field (Berry, 1999). Nontraditional or adult students expect faculty to have real-world experience, the ability to be flexible and dynamic, be comfort with learning equality, and be customer-service oriented (Puzzifero & Shelton,2009; Lyons, 2007). According to Puzzifero & Shelton (2009), “adjunct faculty have demonstrated much more potential in adapting to and emulating these qualities than have many traditional campus faculty” (p.1).
2) Greater need for scheduling flexibility to maximize institutional costs – adding or canceling course sections at the last second (Berry, 1999).
3) Declining educational funding coupled with a demand to keep tuition low are leading higher education institutions to increase their use of adjunct faculty who teach “at a fraction of what tenure system faculty earn……. but without the health care and retirement benefits a tenure system faculty member receives”(National Education Association, 2009).
4) Increasing enrollments especially in online education (Allen & Seaman, 2008; Carnevale, 2004). Allen & Seamen (2008) report that in a five year period between 2002 to 2007 the number of students taking at least one online course has more than double to over 3.9 million or 20% of the overall student population. However many full-time faculty have been resistant to teach online while adjunct faculty have eagerly taken up the challenge (Puzziferro-Schnitzer, 2005). A recent study by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) Sloan National Commission on online learning (2009) found that “part-time faculty are more likely to engage in online learning than their full-time counterparts, with 32.4% of part-time faculty teaching online compared to 22.2% of full-timers” (p.15). This 10% difference accounts for over sixty thousand more adjunct faculty teaching online than full-timers.
Adjunct Faculty Characteristics
Gappa & Leslie (1993) conducted the seminal research on adjunct faculty characteristics. They categorized adjunct faculty into four broad groups:
1) Specialist, experts or professionals – adjunct faculty who are employed full-time outside of their teaching.
2) Freelancers – adjunct faculty who choose to be employed in multiple part-time jobs, including regular college or university teaching assignments.
3) Career enders – adjunct faculty who are approaching the end of their working lives and wish to maintain a connection with a serious intellectual endeavor.
4) Aspiring Academics – adjunct faculty who have just completed (or close to completing) their graduate studies and are looking for experience and network opportunity to gain full-time faculty appointments.
This categorization of adjunct faculty has essentially been accepted in the academic research community although there has been some expansions or sub-categorization: moonlighters (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003) or migrant faculty (Halfond, 2000) –full-time faculty members in one institution teaching part-time in another academic institution; philosophers (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003) – generally liberal arts faculty who are working full time in an area not connected with their original degree and wish to be re-connected.
In a recent study doctoral research study, Shiffman (2009) utilized Gappa & Leslie (1993) adjunct faculty categorizations to gain an understanding of the characteristics, motivation, and job satisfaction factors of online adjunct faculty in two large virtual universities. Of the 697 online adjunct faculty who responded to a survey, Shiffman (2009) found that 43% (or 296) identified themselves as Specialist, 26.7% (or 184) as Freelancers, 8.9% (or 61) as Career Enders, 8.4% (or 58), and 12.9% (or 89) as Other. The “other” category provided an alternative for adjunct faculty who felt they did not fall into the four defined categorization. These findings are in line with other studies which have found that the Specialist category account for approaching half of adjunct faculty (Lyons, 2007; Halfond, 2000).
Adjunct Faculty Motivations
Most adjunct instructors are highly motivated to succeed and derive their principal satisfaction from the intrinsic rewards of teaching. Adjunct faculty have a passion for their chosen fields and can provide a richer perspective and build meaningful connections in students’ minds to the world outside (Lyons, 1999).
Much of the literature on online adjunct faculty motivation supports the view that intrinsic motivators are stronger than extrinsic motivators (Maguire, 2005). Intrinsic motivating factors include a personal motivation to use technology (Schifter, 2000), a feeling of self-gratification and self growth from teaching online (Schroeder, 2008; Rockwell, et al, 1999) and that teaching online provided optimal working conditions, as they were able to “teach” at any time and from any place (Schroeder, 2008).
Shiffman (2009) study of the initial motivation factors and the current satisfiers of online adjunct faculty found that all adjunct categories ranked the top three factors as: (1) the joy of teaching; (2) personal satisfaction; and (3) the flexible work schedule (see Appendix 1), whereas factors such as job security, advancement, and benefits (e.g. insurance) were the three least motivating factors. For aspiring academics, financial compensation for teaching ranked high as a satisfier, though all other adjunct categories ranked it as only a neutral factor.
Adjunct Faculty Demotivations
While extrinsic factors may not be motivators, they can be demotivators, as many adjunct faculty perceive that educational institutions treat them like second-class citizens. “Isolation, frustration, and lack of recognition are common feelings of adjuncts as they feel marginalized in the teaching profession” (Gaillard-Kenney, 2006, p.11). The significant salary disparity between full-time and adjunct faculty further exacerbates the feeling of second-class citizenship (National Education Association, 2009).
A review of online literature indicates that the majority of barriers to teaching on line are in that areas of administrative and technical support (Maguire, 2005). Administrative factors include a lack of inclusion in university issues and policies (Brindley et al.,2002), course and curriculum development (Degeneffe & Offutt, 2008), a lack of recognition of the time required to teach online courses (Coppola et al.,2002), and a lack of distance education training provided by the institution (Schifter, 2000).
Leadership Challenge
In order to maximize the educational quality and institutional effectiveness, education leaders must learn how to lever, and continue to stimulate, the talents, skills and expertise of this highly motivated adjunct faculty workforce. Lyons (2005) cites research studies that have found that effective institutional initiatives to integrate adjunct faculty requires:
- A thorough orientation to the institution, its culture, and its practices
- A sense of belonging to the institution
- Adequate training in fundamental teaching and classroom management skills
- Both initial and ongoing professional development
- Recognition for quality work that is perceived as appropriate and adequate
Leadership Styles
Bennis (1990) argued that to survive in the 21st century “leaders are needed to conquer the context – the volatile, turbulent, ambiguous surroundings” (p.44). This is undoubtedly true in the distance education sector where rapidly changing social, economic and technological environments are creating a tremendous demand for change in the education sector. Beaudoin (2007) argues that “the future of distance education is ultimately not so much about enhancing technology or improving pedagogy, but rather about managing change” (p.92). Managing change is the primary role of leadership and thus “the roles of leader/change agent and trainer [have] emerged as the most significant factor for the successful implementation of distance education programs” (p.92). This section reviews leadership literature from the context of managing change in a distance education environment.
Transformational and Transactional
In discussing the appropriate leadership style required to implement change, Beaudoin (2004) confesses to a bias towards a transformational leadership style which has been widely recognized as an effective leadership model to manage change. “Transformational leaders motivate others to do more than they originally intended and often even more than they thought possible” (Avolio and Bass, 2002, p. 1).The components of transformational leadership behaviors include: idealized leadership (leaders behave like role models), inspirational motivation (leaders inspire those around them), intellectual stimulation (simulate innovation and creativity) and individualized consideration (support, encouragement and coaching to followers).
However, Beaudoin (2004) argues that while a transformational style is more effective in a distance education environment, a transactional leadership style is most often found in traditional academia. Transactional leadership “occurs when the leader rewards or disciplines a follower depending on the adequacy of the follower’s performance” (Avolio and Bass, 2002, p. 3). This leadership style maintains the status quo through an exchange process where followers get tangible rewards for carrying out the leader’s orders. Beaudoin (2004) maintains that “although some academic leaders may possess good instincts regarding how best to take advantage of new technology-driven opportunities, they remain handicapped by a persistent preoccupation with the elite trappings of academia, and what they perceive as most important: stressing faculty scholarships, research and grants, prestige” (p.97). The adherence to academic tradition, the resistance of distance education by full-time tenured faculty members (who may be more focused on research than teaching), and transactional academic leaders are all factors that limit many organizations in effectively embracing distance education.
Transformational Leadership in a distance education environment
The transformational leadership is particularly effective in a distance education environment both from the perspective of leading virtual teams and in leading knowledge workers. Moore’s (2005) theory of transactional distance, which maintains that “it is the physical difference that leads to a communication gap, a psychological space of potential misunderstanding between the instructors and the learners that has to be bridged by special teaching techniques” (p.224), is not only relevant in a instructor-learner perspective but is very relevant in a leader-follower (adjunct faculty) relationship. The challenge for instructors to find the most effective learning pedagogy through the manipulation of structure, dialogue and learner autonomy (Gorsky & Caspi, 2005) is equally applicable to leaders and followers.
Kayworth & Leidner (2001) study found that effective virtual teams require a high degree of trust, empathy, empowerment, and mentorship. Transformational leaders express confidence in followers, articulate a clear and appealing vision, empower people to achieve the vision, and lead by example (Yukl, 2002). Zayani (2008) found that transformational leadership style was strongly associated with global virtual team success, with success being defined as (1) the motivation of global virtual team members to exert extra effort; (2) the leader’s effectiveness in interacting with team; and (3) the team member’s satisfaction with the leadership.
Bell-Roundtree (2004) found that transformational leaders will most likely experience higher trends in positive outcomes of knowledge workers’ satisfaction with their job and their job commitment. “Managing knowledge worker job satisfaction is important because these attitudes have been positively related to increased customer support, willingness to exert extra effort, performance, and retention rates and negatively related to employee burnout” (p.114). Adjunct faculty, as knowledge workers, will thus be more likely to provide superior student support, exert more effort in creating an exception learning experience for students, be actively supportive of university initiatives, and remain loyal to the university, if they work in a positive, encouraging and supportive environment.
Situational Leadership
Distance education leaders are faced with a radically changing environment which Portugal (2006) argues calls for not only transformational leaders but situational leaders. The challenges come from multiple fronts:
1) A highly competitive global environment in which customers (students) can easily switch from one online university to another.
2) Increasing customer (student) demands for higher quality of education at reduced costs.
3) Redefining the mission beyond the geographical proximity.
4) Shifting the organizational structure from a face-to-face centralized academic setting to a (global) virtual environment.
5) Training, motivating and directing an ever expanding adjunct faculty population.
6) Constantly changing technologies.
These challenges require distance education leaders to “need a variety of skills that are constantly refined and include resource mobilization, needs assessment, fitting technology to needs, program evaluation and accreditation, policy formulation, strategic planning, operationalizing ideas, market analysis, implementing online infrastructure, collaborating with partners, training and support for faculty, and mentoring the next generation of leaders” (Beaudoin, 2002, p. 43).
These diverse challenges calls for situational leaders who seek to find the effective integration of the needs of the followers, and the organizational processes and systems to complete the task or mission (Hersey et al., 2008). Distance Education situational transformational leaders inspire, stimulate, and support their staff including adjunct faculty, and collectively create the organizational process and systems to facilitate a high quality, cost-effective education for students.
Distance Education Leadership Framework
Business Environment
Tait (2004) argues that although education and business have historically not been linked together, there has been a deliberate shift by governments over the past 20 years to “diminish the autonomy of education as an activity which exists for its own sake, and to bend it more closely to serving a purpose, generally economic, of the state” (p.205). Nunam et al. (2000) assert that “universities are moving from scholarly ivory towers to information corporations….this paradigm shift is described as a shift from a culture of production to one of consumption” ( p. 87). This is especially true in the distance education environment where there is a higher degree of competitiveness due to the fact that technology enables access to students anywhere in the world, and students are generally adults who are paying for their education. This competitive nature of education has resulted in “student in ODL [online distance learning] being constructed as the customer” (Tait, 2000, p. 288). Students, as consumers of education, have now started to question the return of investment for their education dollars (Nalewaja, Van Vorhiss, & Falkner, 2004), and are demanding a high quality of education at an affordable price. The shift to a student centric environment has led to the learner being the center of the universe where “teaching no longer drives learning: instead, teaching responds to and supports learning” (Moore & Kearsley, 2005, p.20).
Framework for the effective leadership of online adjunct faculty
The shift in the educational environment to a service industry business context in which serving the needs of the student is the primary objective, requires leaders who are transformational and “provide clear energizing visions and define or redefine the core values and goals of their organization” (Latchem and Hanna, 2001, p.57). The setting of a clear vision and inspiring adjunct faculty to create an enriching educational environment for students is especially important in an online educational service industry, as the online adjunct faculty, who are the point of contact with students, are not visible to management.
The university leadership “defines the vision, mission, goals, and objectives for the institution or program regarding distance learning” (Moore & Kearsley, 2005, p.187). These policies and directions set the tone for facilitating effective student learning in all aspects of the educational experience by committing the organization to support the student (Moore & Kearsley, 2005; Holmberg, 2005). However to quote Bates (2000): “Presidents may dream visions, and vice presidents may design plans, and deans and department heads may try to implement them, but without the support of faculty members nothing will change” (p.95). Thus educational leaders must create an environment in which adjunct faculty members feel inspired to reach the institutional vision and have the skills and support systems to meet the challenges. This environment is created by educational leaders by:
· Hiring, training and retaining excellent, committed, quality adjunct faculty who are student centric, empathic and motivated.
· Providing an effective organizational and systems infrastructure that supports distance education students and faculty.
An effective leadership framework of adjunct faculty in a distance education environment is thus twofold: the situational transformational leadership of adjunct faculty and the management of faculty systems.
Effective Leadership of Adjunct Faculty
In the service industry, the link between customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction has been well established (Heskett et al., 1997). Gudergan et al. (2008) found that the greater the emotional motivation displayed by frontline staff the better the customer service provision. An emotional motivation is stimulated from an inherent desire to do well for the customers and the organization. In distance education, it is thus critical to hire adjunct faculty who are passionate about teaching, and creating an environment in which the faculty feel a positive attachment to the organization and its mission.
The organizational objective in this process is to attract and hire outstanding adjunct faculty and provide them superior support such that they will contribute to both an excellent student learning environment, and to the institution’s mission and vision. The ability of educational leadership to fully integrate adjunct faculty into the institution’s community, and to train them to be highly effective online instructors is critical to the success of the institution’s mission.
“We contract strangers to spend fifty hours with twenty or more of our precious consumers. Sometimes these part-time faculty, while seasoned in their professions, are novices in the art of constructing and conducting a class. Given the challenge and intricacies of teaching it is remarkable how rarely pedagogical wisdom is shared and cultivated. Students will judge their education by what happens in the classroom, and will emerge as either your program’s apostles or detractors based on that experience……….The quality of teaching should not be a matter of chance, but first and foremost in the minds of those who are responsible for the financial and educational performance of their enterprise” (Halfond, 2000, p.55).
The development of an environment that fosters passionate, energetic and effective adjunct faculty requires a persistent and continuous improvement focus by education leaders on their empathetic communication, recruiting and hiring, training (initial and ongoing), mentoring, networking, management and appraisal practices.
Empathetic Communication
Communication with faculty who are located all over the world requires leaders who can effectively evoke passion, encouragement, stimulate and direct operations through telephone calls email, and other asynchronous and synchronous technologies.
Holmberg (2005) maintains that the empathic approach in all communications “between the parties involved in the teaching –learning process as central to distance education” (p.38). The empathetic communication approach is not only effective for teacher-learner communication but also for distance education leader/administrator and adjunct faculty communication. Empathy describes an emotional appreciation for another’s feeling; empathetic communication invokes a feeling of a personal connection and trust, attributes that are critical in a distance education environment. Friendly and stimulating dialog between the leader and adjunct faculty members (and among adjunct faculty members) on university mission & policies, curriculum development, and teaching best practices provides intellectual stimulation, motivation, and feelings of trust, involvement and a personal relationship between the adjunct faculty member and the university.
Recruiting and Hiring
“Recruiting, hiring and developing adjuncts for a distance education environment is no easy task” (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003, p.1); at the same time, finding high quality candidates are crucial to an institution’s success (Strycker, 2008). Recruiting online adjunct faculty often needs to go beyond the typical faculty recruiting process since many adjuncts are not actively seeking positions. Networking through professional organizations and conferences, university advisory boards, relevant businesses, and current adjunct faculty are excellent sources for candidates. (Green, 2007).
“Good credentials on paper, and ‘brick-and-mortar’ teaching accomplishments, do not necessary translate into a similar level of success online (Six-Daniell et al.,2006, p. 4). In a student centric online environment, administrators should seek out candidates who are subject matter expert, enthusiastic about their subject, technology orientation, well organized, and care about students (Edwards, 2009; Filene, 2005: Rahman, 2001).
Matching needs is a critical component of the hiring process: administrators should use a transformational approach in this first meeting by emphasizing the institution’s vision and commitment to quality and professional development. “Quality instructors will want to teach for institutions that demonstrate a commitment to quality and to employees’ professional development and overall satisfaction” (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003, p.3). A key component of the interview process is to connect the potential adjunct faculty member’s motivation for teaching with the mission and goals of the institution. The resultant outcome is hiring a highly competent online adjunct faculty who is enthusiastic about his/her subject, working with students, and teaching at the educational institution.
Orientation and Initial Training
An online orientation session should immediately follow the hiring process; the purpose should be to acquaint and assimilate (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003). This session should be the first step in making the online adjunct faculty feel welcome and connected to the organization (Green, 2006). Transformational educational leaders need to use this session to enthuse new adjunct faculty members about the institution’s mission, service to students, and academic values. In this context, synchronous video and audio technologies are preferred as this medium contributes to a greater sense of community and intimacy, where the speaker can connect with the audience and provide immediate feedback to questions (Murphy & Laferriere, 2007).
The new adjunct faculty needs to be introduced to a high level of administrative and technical information including “administrative and technical support group contacts, an explanation of administrative procedures, instructional procedures, instructional requirements, technical requirements, technical resources for teaching online, curriculum processes, copyright guidelines, and standards and expectations for distance education instruction” (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003, p.5). However care needs to be taken in assessing the new faculty member’s ability to absorb all this material; providing reference material such as online faculty handbook for administrative material, and ongoing online course work for the pedagogy and technology training is recommended beyond the initial orientation session.
The literature supports the need for online training that goes beyond merely learning the technical tools (Palloff & Pratt, 2001). Ko & Rossen (2001) argues that exploring pedagogical issues should be a significant part of online training and should take precedence over technology training. In fact an understanding of Collins & Berge (1996) framework of instructional roles: pedagogical, social, managerial and technical, provides an excellent platform for discussion and training of new online adjunct faculty.
Departmental Integration
Integration within the academic department is critical, as it is the primary point of contact throughout the adjunct faculty’s career at the university. As such the leadership role of the departmental head is critical to the adjunct faculty’s teaching experiences, growth and development, and ultimately their ongoing retention at the university. The departmental head needs to demonstrate the transformational leadership attributes of being enthusiastic and motivating about the institution’s mission and vision, and leading by example. At the same time, (s)he must demonstrate situational leadership attributes in adapting each adjunct faculty member’s integration and training to their respective skills and background, and in being highly supportive and responsive to their specific needs.
There is no stronger and more effective way to connect to and integrate into a department’s life than to pair up new adjunct faculty with experienced faculty in a mentoring program (Baron-Nixon, 2007; Zutter, 2007). The goals and benefits of a mentoring program for adjunct faculty are to:
a) Provide new hires with a deeper understanding of institutional and departmental policies, procedures and culture.
b) Promote professional development and best practices.
c) Increase collegiality.
d) Promote teaching and online classroom management skills.
e) Provide tip for preventing or correcting common mistakes.
f) Improve channels of communication.
The selection of the mentor is a critical leadership decision as the mentor needs to be a model instructor who is passionate about serving students and the institutional mission.
Evaluate, Assess & Develop
Effective leadership of adjunct faculty requires a regular evaluation and assessment of their teaching styles and pedagogy, and developmental feedback for continuous improvement. The effectiveness of this important developmental process is very dependent on the rigorousness of the assessment, and the empathy and quality of the feedback. The evaluation and assessment process must be treated as a teaching development tool to help develop online adjunct faculty members, as opposed to a means of reprimanding and flushing out weak adjunct faculty members.
The adjunct faculty evaluation process should be fully understood by the adjunct faculty member, and referenced in the interview, orientation, and departmental integration process. The assessment should be well defined and consistently applied across all faculty. “There are generally two forms of faculty performance evaluation: the supervisor or administration evaluation and the student evaluation” (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003, p.6).
The ability to appraisal an online adjunct faculty member’s teaching is relatively easy as administrators can access any online classrooms at any time. The assessment process should be defined and clear to online adjunct faculty, and make a systematic assessment of the faculty member’s course syllabus, teaching pedagogy, clarity of instruction, content value, classroom activity, their responsiveness to students, and grading practices.
“We have to make sure our faculty knows, if they have taught before, that they will be monitored much more than they are use to. In a face-to-face environment, they are on an island. But in an online class, everything they do is saved. They have to get use to this. It can be a change for some teachers who want autonomy. But we cannot allow that. We have to make sure standards are upheld.” (Vail, 2006, p.7).
The assessment feedback process requires educational leaders to display three key attributes: commitment, conversation and trust (Tait, 2004). Classroom appraisals are an effective tool for supervisors to demonstrate both a personal and institutional commitment to excellence. An empathetic feedback discussion creates a conversational environment between management and faculty on effective teaching approaches. Positive feedback geared to adjunct faculty self-development builds a trusting relation between management and faculty.
There has been extensive research into college level student evaluations of teaching effectiveness, and “it can be safely stated that student ratings are valid, reliable, and worthwhile means of evaluating teaching” (Wachtel, 1998, p.192). Student ratings feedback can help to improve instruction, increase student learning and achievement, and increase the likelihood that excellence in teaching will be recognized and rewarded. In a study of learner outcomes in an asynchronous distance education environment, Carswell & Venkatesh (2002) found that student perceived that a number of faculty related factors significantly contributed to their learning experiences. These factors included:
a. “The organization of the course: knowing where to find materials, having a clear idea of what is where, when assignments are due.
b. Instructor characteristics: responsiveness, “value added” to textbooks and other material, clear feedback on graded assignments, frequency and nature of interaction with students.
c. Social presence of fellow students and instructor” (p.486).
In the student centric environment of online education, ‘customer’ feedback is critical to achieving a rewarding learning experience for students and ultimately in achieving the institutional mission of educational excellence.
Ongoing Faculty Training
The initial one-time online faculty training while essential is not sufficient for effective online instructors; they require a variety of experiences and training interactions over time (Yang & Cornelious, 2005). Ongoing professional development that is aligned to the mission and vision of the higher education institutionis the ultimate goal of developing a highly effective workforce (Rodgers et al. 2009). Blodgett’s (2008) research found that online adjunct faculty perceived their primary need for ongoing training included training in course management systems, pedagogical approaches to online teaching (i.e. the use of discussions, constructivist methods, how to assess online students, adult learning theory), university/institution specific student support systems, and instructional design on how to develop an online course.
Continuous training and development contributes to institutional success in three ways: (1) individual development; (2) remedial development identified during the evaluation process; (3) preparation to meet change and future organizational needs (Tait, 2004). In addition, the institution’s effort in helping online adjunct faculty to develop their knowledge and skills not only helps student learning, but creates a tighter bond between the faculty member and the institution.
Faculty Networks
Organizational learning does not just take place in a hierarchical approach but across peer networks (Pahor et al. 2008). However, in an online teaching context, the physical separation and the feeling of isolation of online adjunct faculty can lead to “privatization” of teaching (Eib and Miller, 2006). This “privatization” leads to ineffective teaching practices as online adjunct faculty falls into a rut of delivering the same material in the same way, and lacks the stimulation of new ideas.
Eib & Miller (2006) further notes that “the focus on collegiality and creating a sense of belonging, as well as a formulation of knowledge as a social process, is not new”(p.3). In the traditional face-to-face environment many educational institutions offer onsite faculty meeting and events to stimulate adjunct and full-time faculty collegiality (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003). However in the online environment, the geographical separation and time constraints often prohibit online adjunct faculty from attending faculty meetings (Brindley et al., 2002; Kolbo & Turage, 2002).
Puzziferro & Shelton (2009) suggest frequent contact and communication over virtual synchronous technologies (e.g. skype) is good practice for adjunct faculty involvement and motivation. While synchronous technologies create a sense of community, they require all attendees to be present at the same time, which may be difficult for busy adjunct faculty members, especially if they are living in different time zones (Bates & Poole, 2003). As such online asynchronous networking systems are excellent platforms to accommodate the physical and time constraints of online adjunct faculty, as they are the tools of their learning environment (Eib & Miller, 2006; Scnitzer & Crosby, 2003; Kolbo & Turage, 2002). These networking systems can utilize the institution’s learning management system or utilize commercial social networking systems such as blogs, or Facebook. However, Pahor et al. (2008) research study of organization learning networks found that (1) the participation of the more experienced employees was critical; yet, the more experienced employees felt they had less need to participate; (2) the context in which the learning environment emerges is critically important. As such, there needs to be some form of incentive to get the experienced online faculty members to participate, and the discussion topics need to be established from the bottom-up. Utilizing and rewarding experience employees to act as facilitators in constructivist learning on specific topics of interest to adjunct faculty may be an appropriate methodology.
Broaden Role & Growth
While the primary activity of online adjunct faculty is to engage in teaching, if these faculty are to be fully engaged in the institutional mission, educational leaders must find ways to engage them into the full scope of the institutional life (Baron-Nixon, 2007). This includes having a voice in setting institutional policies, scholarships, course design and development, mentors, and invitations to institutional events.
Maguire (2008) found that online adjunct faculty expressed a desire for greater involvement in the creation of institutional policy. They felt that their close links with students would lead to improving the distance education process through the clarification of current policy and the identification of missing or problematic policy. However, online adjunct faculty members “believed that they do no have the opportunity to be proactive in the process, resigning instead to reacting to policy that they may not learn about until they violate it or make an error”(p.1). This leads to a sense of frustration and lack of ownership of the program by adjunct faculty. Maguire (2008) recommends giving online adjunct faculty representation in policy committees in a variety of areas including curriculum and program policy, student and faculty services, and institutional policies.
Smith (2007) discusses the systems approach at the Rio Salado community college in which adjunct faculty are used almost exclusively to accomplish its mission, vision, and purposes. In noting the increasing numbers of “professional adjuncts” (adjunct faculty who chose to hold several part-time teaching and consulting jobs), Rio Salado use online adjunct faculty as faculty chairs who relieve the educational administrators in routine and mundane tasks. These tasks include instructional leadership, content and curriculum development, text book selection, new faculty mentoring, supervising and evaluating, and college-wide system projects.
Educational leaders should advocate and support adjunct faculty in continuous learning and scholarship (Puzziferro & Shelton, 2009). “If part-time faculty are to provide students with the same well-rounded education expected from full-time faculty, and if, as has been suggested, the quality of education rises with scholarship activity, then part-time faculty – like their full-time colleagues – should be expected to engage in scholarship” (Baron-Nixon, 2007, p.93). This support should include financial assistance in attending & presenting at conferences, support services in obtaining research grants, graduate studies tuition remission for continuous professional growth (Puzziferro & Shelton, 2009; Baron-Nixon, 2007; Askeland, 2008).
Online learning is credited in the literature for encouraging a move towards constructivist pedagogy and learning equity. However, the shift to equality is not only at the learning level, the shift to distance education also creates a flattening of the organization structures in which the virtual team members are empowered. The role of educational leaders like the instructor shifts from being the autocratic leader to the facilitator, and the adjunct faculty member needs to feel connected, involved, and equipped with the knowledge and skills to fulfill the goals and vision of the institution.
Management of Faculty Support Systems
Moore & Kearsley (2005) argue that the education system is in the middle of a Copernican revolution where the student is the center of the universe. In this new virtual world, the educational administrator’s role shift from worry about physical classroom scheduling and logistics to establishing a comprehensive student services system to support the distance learner (Moore & Kearsley, 2005; Brindley, Walti, Zawacki-Richter, 2004). However, while there has been an abundance of literature written on effective learning environments for students, there has been little literature on effective online faculty support. Although Puzziferro & Shelton (2009) argue that “if you are involved in faculty support and development, every time you read those articles, you should replace the word student with faculty. In many ways online adjunct faculty are exactly the same as online students” (p. 11). Ultimately, “excellent, committed, quality instructors are retained by excellent, committed, quality faculty support” (Schnitzer & Crosby, 2003, p.2).
From an online adjunct faculty member’s viewpoint, the key systems that educational leaders need to manage are:
1. Online learning management environment
2. Course development and teaching process
3. Management and protection of online resources
4. Technical support
5. Administrative support
6. Student support services
Online learning management environment
The quality and functionality of the classroom are a critical component of any instructor’s success. In an online environment, the virtual learning management system framework and its functionality is critical to the success of an online adjunct faculty member. Bates & Poole (2005) suggests the selection of the appropriate technology should be based upon a systematic holistic approach known as the SECTIONS model. This model is based on an understanding of the following criteria:
· Students – the appropriateness of the technology for the student population.
· Ease of use and reliability – how easy is it for students and teachers to use.
· Costs – the cost structure of the technology: cost/student.
· Teaching and learning – best technology to support required learning needs.
· Interactivity – the type of interaction that the technology enables.
· Organization – the organization requirements and barriers to be removed to successfully use this technology.
· Novelty – how new is this technology.
· Speed – how fast courses can be mounted and technology changed.
Asynchronous Learning Management Systems (LMS) are generally favored in the current distance education environment as they provide multi-tasking adult learners the flexibility to participate in the class at any time and any place (Moore & Kearsley, 2005). In addition, asynchronous systems provide students time to provide deeper thinking, well-researched responses. However, as distance education progresses and broadband technologies become more prevalent, multimedia learning offers a number of advantages. Multimedia learning uses the combination of two or more, linear or nonlinear, communication mediums (including text, graphics, static images, audio and video) that are integrated in one multi-sensory learning environment in order to facilitate the effective transfer of pedagogical knowledge (Bates, 2005).
The advantages of multimedia are that these technologies are designed to incorporate different learning styles and allow learners to explore new domains of knowledge by following their own learning paths and style. The integration of multiple media also facilitates a deeper level of learner understanding by facilitating a coherent image or mental construction, this process leads to effective knowledge retention and understanding (Bates & Poole, 2003). Furthermore multimedia learning is flexible in terms of time, space and pace, allowing flexibility in approaches to access and explore the learning material. This is a critical asset in meeting the needs of multi-tasking adult learners.
The rapid growth in educational technologies requires leaders to continuously reassess their learning management environment to ensure that their current technological platform provides an affordable high quality instructor – learner environment, and is prepared for tomorrow’s educational capabilities.
Course development and teaching process
There are two different approaches to online teaching that have been identified in the literature: the broadcast model and the collaborative approach (Brindley et al., 2006). In the broadcast model, the course material is designed and developed in advance and instructor’s role is that of a tutor. In the collaborative, or interactive approach, the instructors have a broader responsibility in that they create the detailed course teaching as it progresses over the duration of the course.
Educational leaders need to define the appropriate model and the faculty support infrastructure that takes effect from the bottom to the top (Zawacki-Richer, 2004). This institutional learning and support model should include:
· Binding agreements on the teaching pedagogical model and outcome targets for all departments within the educational institution.
· Organizational structures for the faculty and student support systems.
· Establishment of a faculty training center with formal measurements for professional training.
· Process for learning from examples of colleagues’ good practices including having access as a visitor to another class section.
· Process for informal personal pedagogical and media technological advice – for example being linked to a mentor or faculty network (as discussed in the earlier section), having assess to an online “faculty help desk”.
· Complaints procedure.
Management and protection of online resources
The management and protection of online resources have three key components for faculty: (1) the ability to readily access scholarly material; (2) the incorporation of scholarly material into the online classroom; (3) the ownership and protection of faculty material presented in the virtual classroom.
“Online library services are regarded as key to success of the virtual university” (Brindley et al, 2006, p. 147). Knowledge is the lifeblood of a university, and the immediate access to books, scholarly journals, and articles are essential for online adjunct faculty to keep “up to speed” with their subject and in developing a relevant learning environment for students. Services such as 24/7 librarian support, online access to a broad range of scholarly articles and journals, and home delivery of books are thus essential institutional capabilities for the success of online adjunct faculty.
The use of scholarly materials in a virtual classroom is thwarted with copyright and ownership issues. Library services can be very useful to online adjunct faculty in obtaining copyright permission and digitizing articles for publication within the learning management system.
The institution’s intellectual property policy, which is defined by the academic leadership, can have significant consequences to online adjunct faculty (Bonner, 2006). A university’s reputation is often built on the academic quality and notoriety of its faculty. In order to recruit highly qualified faculty, it is in the institution’s best interest to allow them academic freedom and ownership of their work as permitted in the teacher’s exception in the 1976 Copyright Act. The teacher exception permits the faculty members instead of their employers to own books, articles, lecture notes and other works routinely authored in connection with their teaching (Loggie et al.,2006). There seems to be a number of benefits to the online adjunct faculty member to be promoting this interest:
1) Protecting his or her work from the academic institution or other faculty members using the material without recognition or financial compensation.
2) The freedom to use the teaching material within a future text-book that they are planning to write.
3) The freedom to use the teaching material while teaching at other schools.
Technical support
Even after training many online adjunct faculty members feel hesitate and uncomfortable with their skills and competencies in the effective use of educational technology (Park & Bonk, 2007). Therefore, in the online teaching environment, 24 hour/7 days a week technical support to resolve or walk through any unexpected technical issues is essential to create an effective educational environment. “Little is more frustrating to faculty who teach online is the breakdown of equipment or slow responsiveness of technical support” (Meyer, 2009).
In addition, faculty members as leaders of the virtual classroom environment are often asked technology questions by students, or are called upon to resolve a student procedural problem caused by the student’s lack of technology skills. While it may be more appropriate to tell students to contact technical support, faculty members are generally the first contact person, and their technology competence is often seen by their students as a component of overall teaching competence. “Hara & Kling’s study shows that the frequency of experiencing frustration and drop-out rates increases if faculty are practically unable to help directly with simple technical problems and must refer students to technical support” (Zawacki-Richter, 2004). Thus faculty members must feel comfortable with the technological learning environment, and their technology training must be more comprehensive and at a higher level than student training.
Administrative support
The online adjunct faculty member’s interactions with the educational institution extend beyond the task of teaching a virtual class, and into the administrative procedures of the university. The ease of interaction with administrative organizations, and administrative procedures, have a significant impact on an online adjunct faculty member’s motivation and persistency of teaching at an educational institution (Meyers, 2009).
These administration processes include:
- Ongoing selection of online course instructors.
- Course cancellation process.
- Contract and payment process.
- Text book and teaching material delivery process.
- Promotions procedure.
- Class record keeping – ongoing and final grade recording.
- Exam delivery systems.
- Access to equipment, software programs and supplies.
Student support services
Faculty members are the primary point of contact with students; as such the quality of student support services has a very direct impact on online adjunct faculty. If the educational institution provides student with a comprehensive set of high quality support services, students will be able to devote their online classroom energies to learning the course subject matter. However, if the institution’s student services are weak, then the adjunct faculty member will become the support service.
Student support systems within open distance learning are designed to help learners meet their learning objectives and gain the knowledge and skills that they need in order to be successful in their courses. Learner support services include tutoring and teaching, counseling and advising, administrative services, library and information systems, and other interactive processes intended to support and facilitate the learning process (Brindley et al., 2004).
While online adjunct faculty play the most significant role in the student learning process, having the ability to partner with online tutors, or writing experts, to help individual students master course content and meet the learning objectives has a positive impact on student persistency and reduces attrition rates (Brindley et al., 2004). Developing a partnership with online librarians in developing course-specific assignments that incorporate information literacy skills can be tremendously helpful in support student’s information literacy skills (George & Frank, 2004).
Conclusion
The effective leadership of online adjunct faculty members is critical to the success of a distance education university. Research studies have found that adjunct faculty are highly motivated to succeed and derive their motivation from intrinsic factors such as the joy of teaching, personal satisfaction, and the teaching mission of the university. The challenge to educational leaders is to harness this motivation, enthusiasm, and the specialized skills and knowledge of the online adjunct faculty in order to maximize both educational quality to students, and institutional effectiveness.
A review of leadership literature in distance education, and in different but related business segments (the service industry, leading virtual teams, and leading knowledge workers), suggests that a transformational leadership approach is the most effective model. The components of the transformational leadership style: idealized leadership (leaders behave like role models), inspirational motivation (leaders inspire those around them), intellectual stimulation (simulate innovation and creativity) and individualized consideration (support, encouragement and coaching to followers), all help to bridge the distance barrier between the educational leaders and online adjunct faculty. As a result online adjunct faculty feel inspired and motivated to go beyond their expectation in meeting the needs of the students, and in working towards institutional goals. In addition, the complexity of the distance education environment coupled with the wide scope in teaching/pedagogical skills of adjunct faculty results in a need for leaders to be able to adapt to the situation. These situational leaders effectively integrate the needs of the online adjunct faculty with the organizational processes and systems.
Ultimately creating an environment in which online adjunct faculty feel inspired to reach the institutional vision, and have the skills and support systems to fulfill the needs of students, requires the effective leadership of each online adjunct faculty member as an individual, and in providing of effective processes and systems to support all online adjunct faculty. The academic literature suggests effective leadership requires a situational transformational leadership using an empathetic communication approach throughout the online adjunct faculty career process, which includes recruiting and hiring, orientation, mentoring, teaching, faculty learning (initial and ongoing), faculty networking, evaluation, assessment and development, and broadening responsibilities. In terms of support systems, distance education literature suggests that much of the literature on online student support systems is equally applicable to online adjunct faculty. Online adjunct faculty along with students should be at the center of the distance education system; educational administrative leadership and institutional systems serve online adjunct faculty and students, not the other way around. From an online adjunct faculty perspective, key systems and processes to address include the online learning management technology, course development and teaching process, management and protection of online resources, technical and administrative support, and the student support services.
This is an exciting time in education; the rapid growth in technology is making it possible for people from all corners of the globe to readily access educational opportunities. Educational leaders who can lead their workforce in embracing educational technologies to provide a superior learning environment for students will lead the way in education. These leaders need to be visionary, motivational and highly supportive of their workforce especially those who are in direct contact with students, the online adjunct faculty.
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