Critical Infrastructure

Curatorial Statement:

Within higher education, adjunct faculty play a critical role, one without which our institutions could not function. Adjuncts teach vast numbers of courses, and often teach at multiple institutions, stitching together teaching loads oftentimes alongside other employment. Given their part-time status, they often cannot access benefits available to full time faculty, and the contractual basis of the work can often lead to job insecurity from semester to semester. And yet, without our adjunct faculty, the infrastructure of our schools, and they are currently structured, would collapse. There would not be enough faculty to teach the classes offered, and students would suffer. As an educator involved in higher education for nearly 15 years and a former adjunct who taught simultaneously at three colleges while working an additional 3 part-time/gig-based jobs, I can say that adjunct faculty are over worked and underappreciated. For our studio art faculty this is especially true as they are maintaining art practices alongside their teaching obligations. This exhibition is an attempt to acknowledge and show appreciation toward our fantastic adjunct faculty in the Department of Art and Architecture, and to support and showcase them in their roles as working artists.

- Stephanie Burke, President's Gallery Curator