Wed 17 Sep 2008
In the Land of Adjuncts
Posted by Erin under Pensees
[10] Comments
About a month ago, I made a sudden decision to leave my fairly interesting, fairly well-paying, office job in order to return to teaching and writing. I had to move fast because the semester was about to start– I put in my notice, sent around my resume, and within two weeks had a full teaching load lined up for fall, and a slow, part-time phase out in place at my old job. I’d been planning to stick with the gig at least until the end of the spring semester– it wasn’t a perfect fit (gray cubicle, lots of meetings), but there was no strong impetus to look for something new. But you know, sometimes when you pray about things like work, answers come. With encouragement from Dr. G, I took the spiritual hint and shifted gears.
I knew for sure it was the right decision about a week ago– sitting in that gray cubicle feeling grouchy, exhausted, and headachy, with a persistent tickle in my throat. I had to go teach in a few hours and I decided I’d better do the whole class sitting down (usually I’m a roamer), with a throat lozenge. But within 10 minutes of setting foot in the classroom, my energy returned and my niggling aches and pains disappeared. I was happy to be there. It felt just right.
Being a college teacher sounds prestigious, and it is fun to be a part of the learning process with my students and focus my energy on what I know best. But actually, for most people, college teaching is tiring, low-paid work. That’s because the majority of college teachers are like me: “part timers” called adjuncts. In the community college system here, there is a policy of hiring up to 3 adjuncts for every two full-time faculty members. Adjuncts live class to class, semester to semester. No job security, no benefits, no vacation or sick time. An adjunct in my local community college system who taught 12 3-credit courses in a year (four per semester and four in the summer– the rules limit us to 3 per semester but sometimes there are exceptions) would make less than $29,000. An English composition adjunct would grade about 1200 essays during that year, and spend about 576 hours in class, not including planning time, reading time, helping students outside of class, and grading smaller homework assignments. It’s mentally and emotionally challenging work, though many of the adjuncts who do it love the work and being in an educational setting. They are dedicated.
Universities are also staffed more and more with part-time teachers and graduate student teachers and teaching assistants, rather than full-time faculty. Full-timers have more responsibilities than part-timers– they are expected to actively add to the knowledge in their field through research and writing, review and evaluate the work of others in their field, sit on planning committees that decide the direction of their department and their discipline, and, in many cases, bring money into the institution by winning grants. They also advise and mentor upper-level students. People are often surprised to hear that Dr. G teaches just a few courses each semester– that’s because he’s doing all those other things. He works year-round, even though he doesn’t teach a single class during the summer months.
There is definitely a place in higher education for part-time and student teachers. Adjunct teaching is good for both professionals and schools, because working people active in their field can come in and teach a class in the evening, pass on what they know, and earn a few extra bucks. They bring new perspectives and authenticity into the institution, which might otherwise become stuffy and insulated. And I believe that every graduate student should take a course in pedagogy and teach a class or two under the close mentorship of an experienced professor, as part of their training for a career in higher ed.
The problem is that those grad students are often not fully prepared to teach or closely supported while they do. And, as for the alleged “part timers”– too many of us are not part time. We cobble together a schedule of a few classes at this institution, a few more at that one, until our schedules are completely full. The schools save tons and tons of money operating this way. Even if a department has to go through the hassle of hiring 10 adjuncts to each teach three classes each every semester, it would rather do that than create five full-time positions and pay three times as much. At the community college (though perhaps this does not hold true at four-year schools or private schools), this hiring model may help keep tuition costs down.
The reason this strategy works is that there are so many people like me: qualified educators who have graduate degrees and are willing to make financial sacrifices to stay in a college setting doing what they love. There is no incentive to offer people $50,000 to do what they will just as eagerly do for $20,000.
But this is not just about educators– it’s about students. How are students best served? In most cases, adjuncts do not have an on-campus presence outside a mailbox and an email address, and are therefore not very accessible to students outside of class. They are generally not well connected to what is happening at the college and can’t alert their students to new opportunities and resources as well as a full-timer could. There may be professional development opportunities available that would help improve their teaching or expertise in their field, but chances are they are too busy making ends meet to attend. When those full-timer faculty committees are meeting to set the direction of the department, adjunct voices are likely not included. And, unless they take particular initiative to seek out their fellow part-timers, most adjuncts are unlikely to interact with other teachers and exchange ideas. Even the most effective and accomplished adjunct is less equipped to serve his or her students than a full-timer with the full campus community and network of resources behind her.
So, I’m gladly diving back in to a field I love, but I feel a bit like I am contributing to the problem. And yet, I want to do this work. I have to start somewhere and see what doors open along the way. I just wonder if there is any way I can contribute to improving the system in the meantime.
Kudos on the work change. I especially admire everyone who does any kind of teaching – it must take enormous patience. I’m glad that Jason decided to not go the academic route because I would have had a hard time hearing about some of the dysfunction, even if it’s merely second hand.
I love that you are always looking to make everything you touch better than when you found it. No matter what the field or organization you are up for tackling what most learn to live with.
Go Sista!
Nice post, Erin. I like to hear you analyze things.
As I was reading, I was thinking about what you, perhaps, alluded to in your second-to-last sentence — that perhaps a part-time/adjunct position will eventually lead to a full-time position. It seems (from an outsider’s perspective) likely.
And, doing what you love, even for less money, makes a HUGE difference in your overall health.
Julie– it’s true that higher ed has some dysfunction, but honestly, that’s been true of every organization I’ve participated in– churches, businesses, nonprofits, etc. I really don’t think that higher ed is worse than private sector– you just trade one set of issues for another.
Shannon– maybe you can give me a crusader cape for Christmas?
Karen– yes, there are the occasional full time positions that open up. But, there are fewer of them than in the past, and fewer than enrollment levels would conceivably justify. They are rare enough that I would not call adjuncting a career path to becoming a fulltime faculty member. Personally, I’m not sure that full-time is my goal in the near future, though I do believe that some opportunities I can’t even picture now are bound to open up. I would like to get equal pay for equal work, even as a part-timer. Part time pay per course should be somewhat lower than full time pay per course since there are fewer responsibilities involved, but not shockingly lower, as is the case now.
Three cheers for taking risks and doing what you love! I need to take some steps in that direction myself.
Actually, part-time pay should be higher since there are no benefits. It’s just that supply exceeds demand.
The educational industry is just as adept as any other at efficiently funneling money to the “haves” at the top (administration, faculty) by taking advantage of “have nots” (students, adjunct teachers) at the bottom.
The “education for its own sake” myth is often a cunning marketing ploy. There aren’t many other industries where the seller gets to make the buyer (students) jump through hoops in order to “qualify” for the privilege of buying.
The adjunct position is an extension of that “privileged to be here” concept to the employees, which is a far more common ploy.
But it’s even worse in industries where people love the work. Sports, the arts, and ministry all have a few “rock star” types who get copiously rewarded, but huge masses of people who feel lucky to be actually getting paid at all to do what they love.
Garbage collectors probably don’t have the same problem. The leverage is all on the employees’ side
Erin, thanks for this great post. I’ve been on both sides of this dilemma, having put myself through grad school by adjuncting (3 departments at 2 universities in the same semester), and now occupying a tenure-track slot. I don’t have much to add to your description of the problem except to say that one factor working against the profit motive (which as you point out encourages hiring more and more adjuncts) is that in all five of the departments where I’ve taught, at four very different schools, the problems with using adjuncts–both for their sake and for the students’–is very much a part of departmental discussions, with some benefit as faculty seek to put checks on those administrators (not all of them) who exploit the potential of adjuncts. In some cases I have known of or been part of, faculty have been successful in improving both the situation of particular adjuncts and the direction of their school’s hiring practices.
In that sense, I’d have to respectfully disagree with Nate above, who suggests that faculty seek to benefit from having adjunct colleagues. First, we are sensitive to the issues involved because many of us have worked as adjuncts in the past, and second, we see firsthand the effects of uneven preparation in our students who have been taught by adjuncts (who usually do not have the time or the power to participate our shared negotiations over curriculum, and in most cases understandably elect simply to teach what they’ve taught before, or what they are also teaching at another campus). But even from a self-interested perspective, as some administrators choose to grow and grow student enrollments while cutting back on hiring full-time, tenure-track faculty, it’s easy to see that schools may be able to keep class sizes the same, but all of the advising and administrative work that takes up about 50% of our time (at least at a small liberal arts school, where scholarship is a lower priority than work with students) increases disproportionately since adjuncts cannot and should not be expected to do that work.
At our school, the administration proudly states that enrollment has increased from 1100 to 1500 while the student:faculty ratio has barely changed, but the truth is that only only about 6 full-time members have been added to our 100-person faculty. All the rest of the faculty keeping that ratio in check are adjunct teachers, and while their work is heroic, their situation is unfair to them and disadvantageous to students, and the outside-of-class workload on the rest of the faculty has increased commensurate with an enormous increase in students and a move from being a one kind of school (very small liberal arts) to another (middle-sized).
One thing that bothers me about it philosophically is that colleges and universities pride themselves on their progressive attitudes . . .
This is all FASKINATING. Nate, thanks for the comparison to other “love your job” industries, I hadn’t thought of that before. I will quibble with the “apply to buy” analysis– the community colleges are open entry, meaning they accept anyone who wants to come. On one level education is just another business and can be talked about in terms of customers and profits and products. On another level, education really is socialization– “how to be a decent human being in your community” even if you are ostensibly learning only welding or word processing. As such, administrative decisions based less on the bottom line and more on the health of the community are often in order.
Tara– I hadn’t considered the disproportionate administrative load that is now affecting full time faculty. Interesting. And, would you make any recommendations for me on how to participate in the process of shifting things to a more tenable and equitable system?
I’m just saying: in most industries, “the customer is always right”, and the company bends over backwards to keep customers happy so they won’t go to the competitors. But big undergrad educational institutions don’t have as much pressure to work for the “customer”, especially after the admissions process is over, because they have “lock in”. Marketing is all aimed at the pre-admission world (high school students and their parents) and at alumni for donations.
You only need a few excellent “rock star” faculty to photograph for your brochures, and the cheaper you can teach the rest of the classes (with adjuncts or grad students), the more margin there is for everything else. You just have to do a good enough job overall to keep your students committed to the program.
At the small community college level, it’s a little different, because you’re selling a lot of individual classes directly to students instead of degree programs, but it’s still got to be more profitable/efficient to provide adjunct-taught courses.
Even the most altruistic chancellors have to consider these economic things in order to keep the enterprise running. I guess the only exception would be a purely grant- or donation-based school, with no or minuscule tuition. But then there’s even less pressure to serve students, because the “customer” is the patron.
Erin, hmm, good question. Unfortunately, I think the most effective strategies for the long run might be distasteful and unsatisfying in the short run. I’m not sure if this applies in your situation, but I think it would be best for adjunct instructors in departments where I’ve worked to do exactly what they are contracted for, and no more, doing it professionally and beautifully. If the opportunity arises to do more, then negotiate cheerfully and calmly. If compensation is not on the table for extra duties, decline gracefully. In this way, administrators and decision-makers will have to face the reality that they have chosen not to pay for some of the work they want done, or they will have to offload it onto people who have more power to negotiate for that work to be fairly compensated.
It’s been rare in my experience to see an adjunct appointment be converted to a tenure-track one (it’s only happened once, and it was a visiting spot with a diversity focus in a field with few candidates, not a traditional situation), so I would not advise adjunct colleagues in departments where I’ve worked to shoulder any extra work on the chance that their appointment might be converted. The hiring processes are completely different, with different calendars, credentials required, etc., so much so that I think it’s almost unconscionable for departments to suggest such hopes to fixed-term appointees (I’m not sure that that kind of false hope has been planted, but I heard a rumor of it once where I was working).
I’m guessing, though, that your situation at a community college would have a faculty with a more diverse range of experiences (non-traditional tracks into academe, etc.), and thus would be more open to moving a talented instructor from a fixed-term to a permanent appointment. There, someone might ask a sympathetic tenured person whether it ever happens, and how often, and go from there . . .