5.2 Revisiting the four cornerstones to mentoring adjunct faculty  (Page 2/6)

The authors did just that - they went straight to the source – adjunct faculty members. Their discovery resulted in findings of importance to the success of 21 ^st century higher education, particularly, for online teaching. To illustrate, Lee Monroe, adjunct professor and former college president for more than 20 years, asserted that “an experienced mentor is critical to the support and success of adjunct faculty, with particular attention given to new adjuncts.” Phyllis Wilson, adjunct at Capella University, suggested that “if colleges and universities are to maintain quality in educational programs, they must support adjuncts professionally in their development.” Historically, adjuncts were made to feel detached from their departments, schools and universities (Edelstein&Edwards, 2002; Eney, Davidson, Dorlac,&Whittington, 2005). Denise Weems, adjunct and full-time professor, has found varied degrees of support from school to school. She is often unsure of who she needs to go to for support, particularly in her work online. While she does not complain about the level of support, she sometimes thinks adjuncts fall into the category of out of sight, out of mind. This supports the need for an adjunct mentoring program that would help to unify adjunct professors with their full time counterparts. Arazolla Session echoes the importance of mentoring programs for online adjuncts. She sees the need for mentoring programs, which include on-going professional development as very important to the success of an adjunct instructor.

Lee, Phyllis, Denise and Arazolla were not alone in their desire for effective mentoring programs to include professional development for adjunct faculty. Laura Jenks, when she was new to the world of online adjunct, emphasized that mentoring programs need to instill effective communication. In addition, Douglas DeWitt pointed out that adjunct online professors need guidance and support in building balance into their lives, because online teaching does not mean on-going teaching . This point is important, because the propensity to work long hours online where other needs of life are neglected is a hazard of the profession (Lyons, 2007). In addition to professional development, effective communication and guidance for building balance , forming relationships was perceived as a vital part of a mentoring program. Educational leadership adjunct faculty member Carolyn Anderson posited that the forming of relationships with their colleagues is the glue that makes adjunct instructors stick to their institution.

The participants of this study expressed their needs and desires for effective mentoring programs for adjunct online professors repeatedly. Mentoring programs need to include high quality professional development, effective communication, building balance, and forming relationships. These four needs serve as the cornerstone of what comprises an effective mentoring program for online adjunct faculty. Online adjunct faculty participants asserted that they would gravitate to the institutions that provided mentoring programs which address these needs. As such, the examination of each of these cornerstones ensues.