The purpose of this study was to examine the career expectations and lived experiences of women employed as adjunct faculty members at public four-year degree granting, Hispanic-Serving Institution in the American Southwest to provide a research-based foundation for higher education administrators to use when evaluating current adjunct hiring practices and working conditions. Four-year higher education institutions have become increasingly reliant on the labor of short-term contingent instructors to meet instructional needs and women are overrepresented in the adjunct faculty ranks. The role of an adjunct faculty member is usually characterized by low pay, few-to-no benefits, uneven workload, and a lack of professional support, economic stability, and career advancing opportunity. Relative deprivation theory is used to examine the perceived gap between what women adjunct faculty expect and what is actually received. This qualitative study used portraiture to examine the career expectations and lived experiences of three women adjunct faculty including each woman's motivation for accepting contingent employment, her experiences and observations while employed as an adjunct, and how those employment experiences influenced her decision to remain employed as an adjunct. This study found that women adjunct faculty have a love of teaching and form an identity as a teacher which proved to be a stronger motivating factor than pay. While adjunct faculty have little power to affect change at the departmental and institutional level and compensation is low, feeling valued and supported is the best indicator of an adjunct faculty member's choice to remain employed as an adjunct. Adjunct faculty who did not feel that their contributions were valued choose to no longer serve as adjuncts despite long-term adjunct employment. The emergent themes in this study suggest that, while fair compensation is a critical issue for adjunct faculty, support and respect are more powerful factors in determining whether an adjunct faculty member chooses to continue working as an adjunct. These findings will be of interest to educational leaders who recognize the importance of adjunct faculty in supporting the mission of higher education to ensure student success and want to better support adjunct faculty by changing departmental and institutional policies. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]