SAND KEY, Fla., April 1, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Many believe that adjunct professors are part of a special group of highly revered professionals; however, Wendell V. Fountain, D.B.A., in his new book ACADEMIC SHARECROPPERS: Exploitation of Adjunct Faculty and the Higher Education System (now available through AuthorHouse), maintains that leaders and administrators of higher learning are guilty of egregious moral and ethical breaches by exploiting adjunct faculty, students, and the general public in many ways.
ACADEMIC SHARECROPPERS focuses on the group known as adjunct faculty but also exposes many other deficiencies in the world of higher education. "Adjunct faculty have no formal standing in the institutions for which they teach," says Fountain, "they are powerless---used and abused by a flawed system and are paid a third to a quarter of what a full-timer receives for teaching the same course(s), while teaching nearly half of all courses in higher education." Fountain, with nearly 30 years of teaching at all levels of the higher education system, culminates his research, personal observations, and experiences as an "academic sharecropper" into an enlightening book that examines the issues and "the failure of the academic system to properly recognize and reward adjunct faculty."
Fountain begins by removing the veil of bureaucracy that universities hide behind to expose how they exploit these members of faculty. He continues with deeply insightful examinations of outsourcing college and university teaching, the influence of sports, the efficacy of online courses, and the customer-student dilemma. He also details the discouraging plight of an adjunct while offering revelations into the "administrative incompetence and strategic bungling of administrators." Throughout the book, he weaves threads of personal experience that offer meaningful perspectives to these issues.
A lifelong resident of Florida, Fountain is a business consultant, educator, and author of many articles and books, both fiction and nonfiction, including the novels, LOVE-40 and GRACE (both available through AuthorHouse). He earned a bachelor's degree in psychology, a master's degree in human resources management, and a doctorate in business administration. He attended Harvard Business School, The University of Chicago Graduate School for Business, and The Wharton School for post-doctoral studies.
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