Adjunct faculty, academic publishing pressure, AACSB accreditation, and contract exploitation form an interconnected web of systemic injustice in American higher education.
According to the American Association of University Professors, over 70% of instructional staff now work in contingent positions, facing mounting research expectations despite lacking tenure-track protections. The AACSB accreditation process exacerbates these pressures by requiring schools to demonstrate faculty research productivity – often forcing underpaid adjuncts to publish without compensation.
The Two-Tiered System of Academic Labor
Universities increasingly rely on a dual employment structure:
- Tenured faculty with research support and job security
- Adjuncts handling 60-70% of teaching loads with minimal benefits
This disparity creates what labor scholars term “academic apartheid,” where contingent faculty bear disproportionate teaching responsibilities while simultaneously being pressured to publish.
How AACSB Standards Enable Exploitation
Business school accreditation requires evidence of faculty scholarship, leading to three systemic problems:
- Uncompensated research expectations in adjunct contracts
- Pressure to publish in top journals without institutional support
- Threats of non-renewal for failing to meet research benchmarks
Consequently, many adjuncts work 60+ hour weeks to satisfy both teaching and publishing demands, often for poverty-level wages.
Pathways to Reform
Potential solutions include:
- Clear contractual terms about research expectations
- Compensation for published work
- Unionization efforts like the National Education Association campaigns
- Revision of AACSB standards to acknowledge adjunct realities
Without systemic change, the current model threatens both educator wellbeing and educational quality.
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