Contingent instructors are conscripted into unpaid social-work and emotional-support roles, draining the capacity they need for teaching

Summary

Adjunct and contingent faculty report that a sizable share of students are 'merely looking for additional life support' — needing meetings about attendance, vouchers, books, repeated lectures, and personal crises — and that instructors are expected to absorb this emotional labor on top of teaching. The instructor describes having 'no gas in the tank' to provide emotional support, having walked a student across campus only to find every support office working remote, and feeling 'a fool' for hustling to campus for a few dollars. This is unsolved: there is no triage or referral mechanism that routes non-academic student needs to actual support services, no boundary-setting tooling, and no visibility into which services are available or on-site — the instructor becomes the default (and unpaid) front line. Because adjuncts are the least resourced and least protected group in higher ed, they cannot refuse and cannot escalate. The cost is real: instructional capacity, retention risk for students with genuine needs, and documented burnout among the faculty most dependent on continued employment.