Too many community colleges rely on grossly underpaid contingent labor ("adjuncts") who have no job security or benefits. Four-year institutions do this too, but in community colleges as many as 90% of the courses are staffed this way. This directly impacts the quality of education, in addition to being grossly exploitative of an educated, dedicated workforce. Discuss!
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Comments (57)
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An equally significant issue is the continuing education of adjunct faculty in their fields. While some faculty development funds are available it is a challenge to encourage adjuncts' participation. Several years ago a conference was held for those teaching about religion at cc's and less than 20% indicated they had attended any continuing education conference, even fewer subscribed to journals in the field. High dependence on adjunct teachers can lead to reliance upon academic studies a generation old.
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If you want adjuncts, and I assume you mean the ones who are not still active in their fields (many) or keeping up on their own (many more), to do faculty development, there has to be compensation beyond the bare minimum reimbursement. It's counted as professional development on the records of full-time faculty, whereas it doesn't do an adjunct a lick of good professionally. Because you don't have a professional position as an adjunct - you are a temp. You are a very poorly paid temp, and journal subscriptions (often subsidized for full-time faculty, but not for adjuncts) cost hundreds of dollars a year, as do memberships in professional organizations. My one experience with faculty development actually being made available to adjuncts meant attending 10 weeks of seminars (20 hours total) on a day I was not teaching at that institution (so, a special trip) for which I was compensated with $500 in funds to travel to a professional conference in my field -- I really needed to attend that conference (I was giving a paper), so I did the faculty development, but this is not an attractive model on any level. I agree that quality of adjuncts is declining, but see the reason as being the admin tendency not to give a fit who that warm body is in front of the classroom, as long as they are cheap. The good teachers with years of great peer and student evals, publications in their field and such -- the minute they won't do it for starvation rations anymore, they are gone. We all know this is true - why pretend otherwise? Why blame the adjunct?
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Errata: from tendency, should read "not to give a fig who that warm body in front of the classroom might belong to as long as its owner works cheap."
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The general topic of "Community College Faculty" should rise to the top of this conversation. I know many individuals who although qualified, claim to teach 3 and 4 and 5 and even 7 courses at Community Colleges (CC) while leading a full-time job elsewhere. How can this lead to quality teaching when it is widely known that if you want to teach right, you should prepare 2-3 hours for each teaching hour? What about interacting with students? Answering their questions? Grading their work? Assess what they have learned? This all takes **real** time! The proof lies in the generally lower academic preparation that I have seen in many students once they transfer to a 4-year Institution and take the junior/senior level classes - and assuming they actually took the correct courses at the CC (this is another hot topic: advising so that the 2+2 transfer is real). Many CC Instructors do a great job; but many do a very poor job. It may not be their fault, but the fault of a system that needs to be changed.
I'm a faculty member at a 4-year, research Institution. My teaching load is typically 1 undergraduate course, and 1 graduate course (6 contact hours per week). Someone might say "if you teach for only 6 hours/week, what do you do with the other 34 hours?" Answer: I prepare for class, grade weekly assignments, prepare and grade tests, quizzes and projects; I advise a number of graduate students (weekly), write technical articles, write proposals, manage externally supported projects, build a lab for my courses, and do various service activities for the department, the university, and the profession (committees, professional organizations, etc). This keeps me quite busy. Thank you.
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Quite busy indeed, but not like an adjunct-busy. While I've never taught more than 4 per semester, for the first ten years of my career, I kept up my publication record, research, conference attendance, journal subscriptions etc., despite no (financial) institutional support whatsoever. For me, still, 80-hour weeks are the norm because, yeah, I do have a lot of prep hours and grading hours and still create new courses - and that's all year long - years like last year, in which I cleared 24K for all of this, no benefits. It's really not our fault if we can't keep this up, is it?
So, while , I agree quality of both CC and 4-year adjunct has declined as admins continually showed that they don't care about instructor quality, I don't blame the adjuncts. I know adjuncts who teach exactly two hours of their scheduled 3 hours a week --- it's ethically problematic, but exploited workers whose work and performance are ignored will do that kind of thing. Give them a full-time job at pay comparable, oh, maybe to the average kindergarten teacher (a huge raise for most of us), and see what happens.
Meanwhile, we all know tenured faculty who are no better than the least-responsible adjunct. What's their excuse? I know adjuncts who don't give any gradable assignments because there is no time whatsoever to grade. I know tenured faculty who don't grade because they have free TA labor to do it for them. I know the semi-retired kind of adjuncts, who haven't updated their information in their field in the past 20 years or more, and surely aren't going to do it now at these prices. I know tenured faculty semi-retired from their research who haven't learned a knew thing in 40 years, and aren't going to start now either, because they just don't have to.
When you don't create full time positions to keep the good adjuncts, you end up with good and bad adjuncts, but more of the bad ones. It's like the tenure system, really. When after a certain hurdle is leaped, the job is super-safe, you end up with good and bad tenured professors. The work world is like this, and not just in academia. The difference is the degree of economic exploitation.
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I am an adjunct teaching four courses at three different institutions; I attended graduate school at an Ivy League university and I had 7 years' teaching experience at well-respected colleges and universities coming in to these jobs, so don't even talk to me about credentials. I am where I am because I took time off to raise my family.
I am paid by the course hour -- no time rolled in for prep or marking at any of the schools. Office hours at one -- at a discounted rate. The different schools use three different textbooks for the same course. One of the colleges has enrolled 120 students in my class (that's how many seats the lecture hall has), pays me a supplement that is equivalent to time and a half for a course three times the size of normal, and has given me a student assistant (a community college student) who can take attendance but is not qualified to grade papers. The amount of time I put in for prep, grading, attending "optional" department meetings, etc. puts my hourly salary somewhere in the range of minimum wage.
Quality: I teach art history (survey courses that transfer to the University of California), and scantrons are frowned upon -- we are supposed to help students with their writing while teaching art history. Mpst community college students apparently never learned to write research papers in high school (or middle school) and we aren't allowed to assign them for fear of losing too many students, so we give many watered down one-page assignments that are murder to mark and, in my opinion, academically below college level. Many are ESL students who went to high school in other countries, some of whom don't even know what a paragraph is. (But their tuition provides revenue for the colleges and their attendance pushes up departmental enrollment! Who is evaluating their credentials? Who cares if they aren't qualified??) Textbook publishers change editions every year to keep their profits up, so getting PowerPoints "up to date" (accommodating random changes in images) in relation to multiple editions of multiple textbooks is an ongoing process. I have no office hours -- not even a desk -- at two of the schools. I receive emails at any hour of the day or night. The full-time faculty are also over-burdened, as is the administrative staff, who have to cope with the massive flux of paperwork that accompanies this dysfunctional system.
Professional development? I served as a moderator for a panel at a prestigious professional conference in my field in June and the college actually docked my pay for missing class. I don't know ANY adjuncts who have a cushy job somewhere else and are just doing it to provide coverage in a special interest field that is not covered by the "full-time" faculty, such as it is. What a myth! One of my colleges, in fact, has initiated a moratorium on hiring full-time faculty at all, even to replace current full-time faculty who retire or die (!). All the adjuncts teach the survey courses and paste together schedules at different schools to keep body and soul together. No one ever knows when schedules will change and work will dry up. We have to keep our mouths shut, for fear of losing our classes from one semester to the next. . . .
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Community Member, you don't not-have-a-full-time-job because you took time off to raise a family. You don't have a full-time job because they have more or less have ceased to exist. At one school I teach, there were 7 full-time teaching staff eight years ago. Now there are just two. This happens to be a 4-year with 50K per year tuition. The same department teaches three times as many students as we did eight years ago -- 90% of those students are taught by adjuncts making $1875 per 17-week, 3-credit course. And admins really don't care if you took time off or not - it's really about how cheaply you are willing to do it that gets one this kind of job. They can do this because the admin doesn't care much about instructor quality, and certainly not whether or not students have the same experience learning a struggling adjunct racing between classes at multiple institutions to make ends meet. Enrollment at 4-years and CC's has, in some cases increased 10 x over the past 15 years. Full time teaching positions have decline by more than half. This makes no sense whatsoever except on the level of bare, really bare, economics. There is nothing more economical than refusing to hire people full-time. That colleges see no reason to do so is both irresponsible with respect to the students, ignorant, with respect to the subjects we teach, and grossly exploitative with respect to fair labor practices and principles, particularly the one that says "equal pay for equal work."
FYI on student quality, here's what I do after struggling with similar situations for years - I teach the course to the CC students with the same respect I would give Harvard (or in my case, at an elite liberal arts uni) students. I pitch it high, not low. They won't all get fantastic grades, but most of them will thank you for giving them the real deal just the same. Yeah, they haven't had enough high school prep in basic skills - presumably they are getting those in remedial classes somewhere. Your class, the Art History, is to remind them, on some level, why they keep learning.
(Ph.d Anthro-Archaeology, I teach Art History, Classics, Anthro, Islamic Civ.)
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I am an adjunct and am really glad to be working as an adjunct--I look at it as a job for the soul. My extended family members pay the brunt of the financial burden. I am still looking for a full-time job, that is a way to earn a living and would love to be an asset to my community. What can I do and still be able to take care of myself?
-LLC, MA& MFA English
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As a part-time instructor, I'm usually limited to a 5/4 load, but I was "allowed" to pick up a sixth class this semester because of an emergency situation--an instructor quit at mid-term because she found a full-time position. I'd never heard of a mid-term change in instructors, so I asked around and found out it's common. One student said she had three instructor changes this semester. How's that for continuity of instruction?
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basedow.maureen -- You're right, of course. What I meant was that once my family no longer required so much of my attention and I came back to work, there were no longer any full-time jobs to be had.
Iclose -- you are lucky that your family is able to carry the cost. I am now a single parent and there isn't a day that I couldn't use the salary that my credentials and experience merit. It is very difficult to get a mortgage and health insurance when you don't even have guaranteed work from one semester to the next, never mind tenure.
Teaching to the top -- the only way to keep one's integrity! Unfortunately, as much administrative time, money and pedagogical theorizing is spent on programs or strategies for remedials, most of the remedials I come across don't have the time or motivation to do extra work, especially once they have been placed in a course that is, in reality, above their abilities. (That short-writing strategy I described earlier was supposedly part of a campus-wide "writing across the curriculum" campaign.) The students just take their Ws and Fs and drop in and out. Wouldn't it just be simpler to stop overcrowding classes and squeezing the blood out of teachers so that they could give their best to their students?
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I work in an administrative role at a university by day and have (until this semester) adjuncted at a local community college by night. I have a strong desire to be part of providing access to higher education to first-generation college students, and yet I sit around talking to whiny PhD students all day about completing their paperwork and getting their faculty advisors to pay attention to their dissertations (and trying to resist the urge to tell them to RUN AWAY!). I recently had a baby, and as a result, I've had to give up my adjunct position for now. I miss it, and I often wonder why, exactly, I got my PhD. It's so very sad that people like me, who have the passion and skills to help fulfill Obama's goal, aren't able to do the work they love, simply because they need healthcare and a living wage. So I'll show up to my cubicle every day and continue advising yet more people into a field where they won't be able to make a living wage, either. If the Obama administration wants this summit to be useful, they should discuss placing restrictions on the percentage of faculty that can be adjunct at any given institution.
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I agree, but I also fear that if this percentage is enforced now that the system has been corrupted, the tendency among administrators will be to "clean house" -- cut loose all of the current adjuncts and hire new, sexy full-timers.
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I think quotas are the only way to make colleges hire full-time -- and I think they will, for the most part, hire younger people full time because they will be the cheapest full time hires, and some of them will be OK. Remember, they don't care about instructor quality all that much, so yeah, this is likely the road to which quotas would lead. They'd keep some of the older, experienced ones, but not all of them for sure. A simple challenge on the grounds of equal pay for equal work based on current labor laws and the right to organize
would improve conditions. I have worked for one institution for 7 years, with not so much as a COL-rate of inflation increase. Let's start by making that a requirement. Arguably, it would lead to them just keeping a given adjunct less than a year to avoid paying a COL, but that's extremely impractical, so unlikely to be actively employed. How about the right to collective bargaining for part-time teaching staff, something many of us do not have because it is illegal in our states. How about "providing a reasonable path" to full-time employment? The right to arbitration over dismissal, access to personnel files, that kind of thing? Equal pay for equal work would mean that, say, if full time staff make 60 K with benefits, and (countering the argument that they do 'so much more than teach') as an example, 50% of their job hours are teaching, then equal pay for equal work means that's how you figure out what to pay your adjuncts. These are all options enshrined in the history of the American labor movement, and all would greatly improve adjunct conditions, and the education we provide as well.
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As an administrator in a rural community college I have difficulty finding adjunct instructors. There are no qualified physics instructors, for example, to employ in an adjunct capacity. The same holds true in most fields of study. Therefore, 90% of our instruction comes from full-time instructors who teach overloads to cover the sections needed to meet the needs of our students.
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Why is it in this country we reward the adminstrative staff with big bonuses and salary increases for cutting "costs" by getting rid of higher paid but experienced help because they are looking out for the "bottom line" with regards to cost and not quality? And you wonder why the US is slipping toward third world status?
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I would like to weigh in here as well. I am an adjunct teacher who would like the CHANCE at least for a full-time position. At the risk of sounding highly immodest, I am a GOOD teacher. I have been evaluated every single semester for the last thirteen years! I have never been admonished, counceled, or "written-up" for any type of misconduct. I spend 60-70 hours a week teaching in the classroom, teaching online, developing courses, upgrading assignments to meet current issues in our society, answering emails from students, working one-on-one with students who need extra help, grading papers, sometimes lending a sympathetic ear when a student is ill or in an accident, devising makeup work so they do not fall behind, driving to two high schools to teach duel enrollment classes to high-school seniors...well, I could go on and on. Yet, for all this, no one has offered me a full-time position, despite applying for these positions on three separate occasions.
Of course, this has a direct effect on my dedication to my profession. It wouldn't be near as bad (money-wise) if I didn't repeatedly hear of administrators pulling big bucks while I cannot make ends meet on a daily basis! It doesn't help when different schools have different textbooks for the same classes, different standards to adhere to with the students, and different excuses as to why I am not considered "qualified" for a full-time position.
I've read over all the above comments carefully, and I must agree there are bad adjuncts as well as good ones. That's what the evaluations are for, or so I was told. If those evaluations were supposed to weed out the bad teachers, why do they not also reward the good ones?
Yet, for all the grousing above (and I WOULD like to see my efforts in education paid accordingly), I STILL TEACH! Because I love teaching. Many adjuncts DO. I would LOVE to present papers, but I cannot pay the travel expenses and conference fees. I would love to subscribe to relevent journals, but I cannot afford the subscription prices. A COL increse would greatly help my financial situation, not to mention being able to afford health coverage!
I know I am not the only person here who is in this situation, but I do feel as if I am made to feel like a "non-person" or a "temp". I know the system needs fixing, but start with paying teachers what we are WORTH, not what will balance the bottom line!
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Although I empathize with the plight of adjunct instructors this conference should NOT focus on the needs of adjunct instructor but serving the millions of students who are flooding community college campuses nationwide. If community colleges were to immediately change adjuncts to full-time status that would bankrupt the community college system.
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Community (and four-year) college students are under-served already because they are not taught by a professional workforce, but by severely underpaid contingent, part-time labor. You would not treat kindergarten students this way - why is it OK to treat college students this way? We are not talking about low salaries, we are talking Walmart level without the benefits. Do you want to live in a country where college-level teaching is valued less than running the register at Walmart? Does this make any sense? Community colleges can find funding in part from the 30-60% increase in enrollment and tuition over the past five years, in part from being realistic about administration needs, in part from looking into additional sources for public funding -- but using the actual implementers of the service you offer, the teaching staff, as the short end of making ends meet, is profoundly irresponsible. I will add as well that your basic argument - we can't afford it - has been used in every exploited labor situation from slavery down through child labor to the 80-hour work week. Somehow capitalism survived having to do away with those cost-saving measures -- but not without a fight.
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Will add that there are ways of phasing in fair compensation - it does not all have to happen at once, but does have to be part of the plan.
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Then the colleges should find a way to subsidize their enrollments that does not involve the exploitation of labor. Administrators have perverted a system meant to support bringing in experts (with full-time jobs elsewhere) to teach occasional specialty courses.
Instead, adjuncts are now commonly hired to teach all the introductory courses -- at one of my colleges using adjuncts is so rampant that administrators have instituted a moratorium on full-time hires altogether. The IMPORTANT POINT is that while many of us don't actually mind working part-time, we aren't compensated fairly or proportionately for the work we do. We get paid significantly less than the full-time rate per course hour and we are not eligible for comparable benefits. This is based on some outdated calculus that predicated that adjuncts have other "real" jobs and that they don't attend meetings or work outside the classroom the way full-timers do. This is patently untrue. We are still expected to keep up with department business, attend meetings, respond to student and staff emails, and do more and more without compensation as enrollment climbs. As administrators have cannily figured out, hiring us is cheaper than hiring full-time.
Students would be a lot better off if administrators stopped packing our classes and pretending that the time we spend reading exams, going to meetings without being paid and processing Student Learning Outcome evaluations doesn't "count." Unfortunately, students get less of my attention when I am being stretched to the limit. Never mind reducing the numbers in my classes, if the administration as much as gave me office hours and a desk I'm sure the students would be better served.
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I teach as an adjunct and I think many students benefit from my experiences outside the classroom and I do not want to become full-time. Many adjuncts teach to get their foot in the door to become full-time. There needs to be a balance between full-time and adjuncts to perform academic activities and to focus on the direction of the institution. Adjuncts teachers bring depth to the classroom from their outside experiences. Remember the old adage, "Those who can do and those who can't teach." The unions are the ones pushing for full-time instruction and this will evetually bankrupt community colleges.
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My students benefit from my experiences outside the classroom too - this are called "research", the sort of thing the CC system, indeed, all adjunct systems, do not support. And as for the "can't" part - I actually "could" quite well, and was trained to teach this stuff too. I actually have up to date, depth of knowledge in my field, enough to teach it at college level. I question whether, as is the case at many CCs hiring a retired high school teacher to essentially recycle high school syllabi is the same thing -- or whether hiring someone with "work experience" rather than recent education in the field, and teaching experience, is always reliable if the instructor can't get beyond teaching from experience stories, as if often the case. Adjuncts used to be limited to the occasional grandmaster from, say, the business or medical world, but now adjuncts teach everything - the majority of the students, the majority of the classes and that's not the same thing at all. No one has to be bankrupted, but something has to give on this issue, so let's get it on the table. Let's take it in stages and give equal pay for equal work to part-timers, and be more realistic about an education model based on the non-existence of a professional teaching element. What made anyone think this would ever work, for anybody?
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Sounds to me like someone is very unhappy. If so, then why not leave the profession?
At my institution nearly 50% of our adjuncts show up to professional training. They receive tuition waivers and tremendous support from the institution and the department chairs. They are an extremely satisfied and productive group of faculty.
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Who are you? Admin? How much do you pay them per course? How do you know they are happy? What do you mean by "professional training?" Do you mean they can actually become professionals instead of part-time contingent labor by participating in it? Do you pay them for their time? Because if that's the case, good for your school!
Why don't I leave? Because this is the work I'm trained to do, where all my experience lies, and because I am not a quitter. I believe the entire system is rotten and extremely detrimental to the students and quality of post-secondary education in this country. I also believe that the tendency in all fields - not just academia - to hire down, reduce fair wages, and generally accept a lot less is one worth fighting. No other country does this. Is it any wonder we are so far behind? It's all worth fighting for, and walking away from it solves nothing.
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I am one of the lucky ones....full-time, tenured. And, believe me, it's worth it. But over the years, I have seen more and more good positions like mine disappear while overworked underpaid adjuncts like the above contributors have taken over 70% of all college teaching (and higher in community colleges).
This must stop. Students cannot get a first-rate education if their professors have third-rate jobs.
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I spent 13 years as an adjunct teaching 7-8 courses at 3-4 institutions, both 2 and 4 year levels. Then I landed a full-time postiion teaching 5 courses at 1 school. Is there a difference between PT and FT? Absolutely. But the differences have nothing to do with the classroom. And what is the majority of my job? The classroom. So why is my salary 3x (almost 4x) as much now that I teach only 5 classes? It's not that I am overpaid now; it's that I was horribly underpaid before. The system is grossly unfair.
I'm now department chair with 17 adjuncts whose livelihoods I hold in my hand everytime I create a new semester schedule. These adjuncts teach the vast majority of the students in my department. They are hard working dedicated folks who do this becasue they LOVE it, much like I did 10 years ago. At faculty meetings, department chair meetings, we full-timers are given many tasks--many of which we are told to solicit assistence from our adjuncts because there aren't that many of us FT faculty. What?! You want me to go to someone who is already overworked and underpaid and ask them to do more?? And yet the task needs doing.
Hiring more full time faculty will stop the abuse currently incurred upon many adjuncts and give more integrity to the system as a whole. Students benefit by having great access to faculty during office hours(instead of rushing off to the next campus a trend of most--but not all--adjuncts); PT faculty benefit by getting fairer fiscal compensation for their efforts; FT faculty benefit because we can share the additionall duties outside the classroom with other colleagues--the only downside is that it costs more. But the system now is exploitation, pure and simple. It needs to stop.
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I agree. The adjunct and non-tenure track full time faculty are being marginalized for no good reason. Administrators at our colleges find nothing wrong with this. As the situatin is now, we are labeled without looking at us individuality in terms of our talent and potential. Administrators, business and sales people as they are, look only to expediency and flexibility for themselves and put other more important educational issues aside.
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While I agree with your comment that adjunct faculty are severly underpaid and exploited, I disagree that the quality of their work is somehow less because they are not full-time or tenured. The institution I am with depends heavily on adjuncts and they are far more dedicated and interesting than most of our full-time faculty.
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kkowren, I know there are fantastic adjuncts out there. I also know there are fewer of them than there used to be, because the colleges are, 1) hiring down, because instructors without advanced degrees are cheaper 2) not valuing their quality adjunct instructors enough to pay them a living wage - or even keep their part time compensation in line with inflation. Many of the good ones leave teaching in despair (and poverty).
In addition, I think there is a decline in quality of teaching overall even from the best, most motivated adjuncts under present working conditions. You can't get blood from a stone. If the adjunct is overworked, underpaid, under daily, serious time and financial stress (to the extent that he or she is on several campuses plus working other part time jobs to make ends meet), he or she ends up giving the students less. Unless you are Superman/woman, this is a reality we all have to face.
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Community colleges must consider the working conditions of their adjunct faculty. Most non-tenured faculty members want to be effective but must teach so many classes just to begin to pay the bills. In short, they do not have the time or support necessary for excellent teaching.
I teach a composition course with 25 students and earn $1,450 for the quarter. I have no benefits. I have no job security. When I include my time for preparing and grading, I earn less than minimum wage.
Fortunately, I collect a pension so can afford to do what I love, but many of my colleagues try to live on this low pay so teach as many classes as allowed in several schools. I know people who are teaching nine classes spread over four schools. They are exhausted and frustrated. They would like to do a better job of teaching but cannot afford the time.
Until community colleges make it possible for adjunct faculty to teach fewer classes, quality teaching will seldom occur.
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I am an adjunct in an open-enrollment college. They cannot find any other adjuncts in my field and I teach the max course load, so rather than create a full-time position or ask me to teach more classes, they just don't offer courses that the students want or need (questionable business decision).
Most of my students are ill-prepared for college. They cannot put a paragraph together, and they would rather sneak a peek at their Blackberries than pay attention to the discussion in class. I bring to the classroom advanced degrees including a Ph.D., 30 years of experience in my field, and lots of local contacts for potential internship placements and employment opportunities. I attend every professional development seminar available which are required for full-timers and optional for adjuncts. I attend on my own time. As an adjunct, it makes no difference that I attend but I do it to improve my skills.
The college scrutinizes my background (fingerprints, background check, etc.) but anyone can be sitting in my classroom. Do I think about that as I talk with an upset student who has challenged my grade?!
I have never been observed by college administration since I started a decade ago. My teaching portfolio won praises from staff. I earn excellent ratings from students. I tweak my classes every semester to keep the material fresh and interesting. I do not use Scantron tests, I write comments on student work, and spend time letting students know that I care about their educational development. I teach four different courses; that means four course preps. I have created new courses and developed online courses. I am involved in the community, I continually update my personal and professional skills, and I do it all at my own expense.
Adjuncts are a flexible and disposable commodity. From a business standpoint, adjuncts make sense. Hire who you need, whenever you need them, for whichever courses achieve the required minimum enrollment. If someone with better credentials or connections comes along, dump the first and hire the second. But how do you build an educational community among people who don't know if they will be working from semester to semester? people who do not know if they are teaching a class until the end of the first week of the semester? people who are dedicated to the profession enough to suffer the uncertainty, lack of resources, low pay, lack of recognition, and second-class status?
Why do I do it? I continue to be an adjunct because I love to teach and I hope things will get better. Then again, I'm an eternal optimist.
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Political Science Prof: I AGREE completely. I trained to BECOME a rheotic and composition instructor because I love the language and its flexibility and complexity. I remain an adjunct because of the wholesale hiring freeze on full-time positions. I, also, tweak classes each semester to keep them fresh. I develop new assignments that reflect the world events around us. I also spend a great deal of time teaching technology...not because I love that particularly (I Do love it, btw!) but because incoming students of ALL ages have NO idea what to do with the technology. I teach because I love teaching writing and rhetoric.
Of course, I would love to see greater recognition both as a professional instructor and in the monetary area. It's unbelievably difficult to make ends meet on adjunct salary. A simple COL increase would help, but recognition of the devotion and excellence of adjuncts overall would GUARANTEE student involvement and retention! Yes, just that! When students KNOW their instructors are compensated, they feel they are receiving quality education. I know this is a fact for I have ASKED my students this very question. If our goal and purpose is student satisfaction, this area of monetary recognition DOES play a key role!
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The over-reliance on adjunct instructors is a monster with a thousand tendrils that grab at you everwhere you turn. I'm a tenured full-time instructor--finally, after more then twenty years of "freeway flying--and for this I count my blessings. But try to keep curriculum up to date? Design a new job training program for a job that didn't use to exist? Revamp archaic placement testing for new students? Establish and assess student learning objectives, as required for accreditation? Write reports? Conduct department meetings and staff development? Observe and evaluate teachers? A handful of full-timers are available to to do these things, in a large department that employs more than 40 adjuncts who are offered no compensation for such work and who, in any case, are always off to the parking lot to drive to their next job. Community colleges, at least in California where I live, can do nothing more and nothing new without more full-time teaching staff.
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aagard makes a terrific point, on topic with the http://chronicle.com/article/Adjunct-Faculty-Members-Feel/124761/
article mentioning the frustration adjuncts feel at lack of a directed role within the CC Summit. We would love to contribute to the vitality of our fields, institutions, and departments. We would love to use our experience and expertise to revamp a curriculum, seriously discuss assessment, or formulate long-term plans. But we can't. In departments where full time positions have shrunk by more than half, the amount of self-study, admin, and curricular work on the shoulders of so few is overwhelming. A thousand tendrils indeed.
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I would love to develop more courses that help prepare students who continue on to a university. I would love to be part of the discussion on curriculum enhancement and student development. I have great ideas for internship placements. I would love to create courses that reach across the college and address the needs of students in all disciplines. But there is no real opportunity for me to participate in a meaningful way. I lack credibility and stature. While some full-time professors respect what I do, there are far too many who treat adjuncts as invisible necessities. There is a clear caste system and we're at the bottom of the heap.
aagard, I admire your dedication. I'm halfway there and sometimes the frustrations are overwhelming. And basedow.maureen is absolutely on target: We have no vehicle to participate in a meaningful way in decision making that can make or break a great educational experience. I'm tired of getting lip service -- the "thank you" lunches, the certificates of recognition. That doesn't satisfy me; give me an opportunity to contribute and I'll be there.
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All I can do is add to the comments of others. In my case I'm an online adjunct teaching a 7-8 course class-load for three different universities. This does have the advantage of avoiding all the commuting cost and time many others have but it has some disadvantages as well. For example, I am required to be online for my students on a daily basis, not 5 days a week but 7 days a week. Combine that with three schools with three different term systems, and I work 7 days a week, 51 weeks a year (I do get a break the week between Christmas and New Years although it is typically spent in class prep.)! This is something that is illegal in most states but schools somehow still can get away with it. And as mentioned by others, I get no unemployment, no insurance, no retirement, no paid vacation, and no security. In addition, I have to pay for my own social security, my office space, utilities, software and equipment, and my continuing training. Added together, and I figure it to comes out to be slightly less than minimum wage.
Why do I do it? It's hard to answer that, but I guess because I love teaching. But this certainly is not the best situation for the students and it certainly hints at an unsustainable and ineffective system.
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The detailed comments above lay out the adjunct issues admirably. Most of us do continue to teach for little compensation because we love teaching.
We could be even better teachers for our students if we were given even just slightly more motivation by improving our situation, say an opportunity to purchase affordable health care, stipends for above-and-beyond participation in college-wide activities, or paid professional development opportunities. But of course all of that takes money and many states are in dire straits, such as CA where I teach.
Federal funding and support of community colleges should begin with improving the situation of the adjunct instructors.
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Adjunct instructors, the new faculty majority, will get justice when they organize their labor.
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I have been an adjunct instructor for three years. I am a single parent, yet I have traveled all over town, gone to more than one campus miles away from each other for different schools on the same day, I am not paid a living wage as I am limited in the number of classes I can teach at a college. I have no office, no phone number, no way to provide the office hours that my students should have with me, even the privacy to consult with them when they need me. I often work after hours with no support staff to help me when the copier,computer/technology breaks down, I walk a very long way in the dark to my car every night alone, I have no job security to speak of and student loan debt that is monumental because I have not been able to make payments on it in the last two years and the interest is just piling up, I live in a lousy neighborhood in the fourth largest city in the US, where I have to beg my landlord two or three times a year to let me pay half my rent this two weeks and then the other half the next paycheck because I have to wait so long to get paid after the semester starts. I am basically bankrupt only I cannot afford to file for bankruptcy, I am in desperate need of car repairs or a new car but would never qualify for a loan, never know if I am going to have a job next semester, cannot speak up or speak my mind in faculty meetings where I am unpaid for fear of losing my job, have applied to over one hundred full time jobs in the last three years and gotten two interviews, love teaching but I wake up every day angry and resentful that I am basically a temporary again, that I will spend at least four months out of the year unemployed because adjuncts typically have no summer employment and when there is the classes don't make in the summer and no affordable health insurance to speak of ($700 + per month just for me, not including my son), I went to school for seven years to become a temporary again. Thank you for marginalizing me and my participation in higher education, we are not represented in our workplaces and that is a travesty of exploitation, it is even worse that we are being ignored here.
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@dahnshaulis - it is illegal for adjuncts to organize in my state, and many others. We'd love to, really.
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In what state is it "illegal" for adjuncts to organize? Under the 1st Amendment, the People have the right to freely associate. You may be barred from collective bargaining, but that's not all a union or association can do.
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It is risky to say that adjuncts perform at a lower level than FT teachers, but the fact is that I am paid about 1/3rd of what FT faculty are at my institutions (3 of them). Hiring an adjunct with very specific skills to teach a very specific course makes sense, but most adjuncts are doing the same job as FT teachers (granted, no mandatory faculty meetings, but I try to attend these whenever I can just to know what's going on!). As far as organizing, I am hired on a semester to semester contact - I'm sure it would be easy to find a way to not offer me a contract if I became 'problematic'.
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In my community college our adjuncts are key to offering many of the classes in our learning center sites off campus. Some of them have years of teaching experience and are not interested in full-time employment. A concern I have with placement of adjuncts is their lack of formal training in teaching methods. Most adjuncts are hired because they worked in the field but don't hold teaching licenses. While their knowledge of the subject is invaluable, I think it's important for "teachers" to have some understanding of student learning and technology as well as the psychology of the classroom. A second concern is the lack of connectivity the adjunct has with the administration and student. Few adjuncts in my college ever set foot on the actual campus and are left to fend for themselves in evening classes where they don't have the ability to contact their Dean or on campus support system. Also, it is difficult for students to contact adjuncts because they are so disconnected from school they don't have an office or email account. Students have to wait until the next class to communicate or hope the message was relayed to him/her via department messages. An important thing to consider about adjuncts is the long term consequences of putting an adjunct in as a temporary fix for the semester. Since adjuncts may not have knowledge base of grading and assigning homework, students who perform poorly in a class taught by an inexperienced adjunct may not really be failures. It could be the school failed the student by not providing him with a quality education and qualified instructor.
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To clarify, in my state:
Adjuncts and contingent academic labor (including grad students) can form a union, but are banned from collective bargaining. If we form a union, or any association, any recognition of such is voluntary on the part of the employer. If that organization so much as requests a meeting to discuss salary or other compensation, it has broken the law. All the full-timer unions can do is ask that we be treated better -- all the employer has to say is that the union does not represent it, which technically, by law, it cannot. This leaves us pretty much without representation, doesn't it?
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I am not sure what community member means by lacking a teaching license. Instructors with graduate degrees have usually been teaching for years, and had years of both peer and student evaluation as instructors behind them. A teaching license is something high school teachers get, and, quite frankly, college isn't supposed to be high school. I encounter a lot of retired high school teachers teaching college classes these days - they are very cheap and have a pension, so aren't as likely to complain. They are often teaching courses in which they have no training whatsoever, but even if, say, and English teacher is teaching something he or she did teach in high school, like Writing or Comp, they are recycling high school syllabi, and often using some very dubious assessment strategies because this is what they did in high school. I know a comp teacher who never grades papers - just has the kids correct each other's work, a tried and true high school teacher strategy that greatly reduces the workload, but doesn't exactly take things to the next level. They teach that in Ed programs. It is not appropriate for college level. So, while I agree teaching skills are important, and also have issues with unqualified adjuncts who come in and treat a class like a 17-week Pieces-of-my-mind seminar, and behave otherwise unprofessionally (it breaks my heart when I hear someone talk about failing a student because they "just didn't like him" - no professional would do this), I think we have a good workforce of trained instructors with teaching experience out there, without the licenses that, given the dire state of public education before college, aren't doing anyone all that much good.
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Basedow.Maureen: While the above may be true in some cases, it is not true for all. I agree some high school teachers DO act and teach as you say, but some of us are trained in our fields and constantly upgrade our credentials in hopes of attaining a full-time position. I speak of the college instructors (adjuncts) here. In my state, one must show a degree in the subject field AND provide proof of training and classroom teaching experience ON the college level, not high school. In fact, some of our high school teachers are being required to go BACK to college and get a degree in their fields. I have TAUGHT high school teachers in my freshman classes, so this area (loophole, HOLE in general) is being addressed in an effort to improve public education. On the back side of this issue, I cannot teach ANY high school class, because I don't have a separate degree in education! How's that for messed up!? I do currently teach duel enrollment classes in the high schools, and I like to think I am making a difference in that sector. Duel enrollment classes require a college professor with a degree. Now, would someone explain why I can teach as an adjunct professor in the high school system but am considered "unqualified" to teach the SAME SUBJECT in the public sector?
For the record, I grade ALL my assignments, both in class and online, and I have NEVER failed a student because "I didn't like him or her." That's HIGHLY unprofessional, and such teachers should be relieved of duty the minute they do this. Education is a service industry. If "you" don't like your clients, find another job!
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Of course there are good adjuncts out there - there are even high school teachers who realize they are not teaching high school anymore, but the kind of continuing ed high school teachers do in the two states I've worked in does not, in my opinion, qualify them to teach those subjects in college, or teach like college teachers. There are exceptions to everything - but why hedge bets by hiring high school teachers to teach, oh World Lit, when there are M.A.'s and Ph.ds available who have deeper knowledge of the subject, an enthusiasm for the material (no one makes it out of advanced research with it), and years of (regularly evaluated) and ample experience teaching all kinds of students at a college level? Answer: retired high school teachers are cheaper and do not complain as much and have fewer ambitions for full time work. I will get off this particular subject now because I don't want to insult the ones who go well beyond the norm and truly excel under difficult conditions. My issue is with the model, which seems to make little sense from the point of view of the students at least
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Oh, great -- a license for college teachers. Another brilliant idea dreamed up by some desk-bound administrator somewhere to "improve" teaching. Like Student Learning Outcomes, which both of my districts spend a ridiculous amount of time implementing, just to satisfy institutional evaluators. (Needless to say, we don't get paid extra for SLOs, and it involves more committee work for the F/T instructors.) Oh yes, and then they can charge us to go back to school to get more credentials (as if a PhD and experience isn't good enough to teach intro courses, which is what we teach) and get some of their money back. Kind of like an academic company store. . . .
The easiest way to improve teaching is to give teachers reasonable workloads instead of treating them like slaves. If we weren't so worried about how to grade the hundreds of papers and tests that come with the jammed classes and heavy course loads we are required to carry to make a living, the students would receive more personal attention and a higher quality experience. We could spend more time learning more about our fields of expertise. It just wouldn't give the administrators anything to talk about in meetings.
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Community member raises a good concern. I am aware of adjuncts hired without any teaching experience, particularly people in high-demand subject areas. They do not always have classroom experience and in fact, many do not. They are given a syllabus example, the classroom number, the key to the mail room, and off they go. Just because you know your field -- and you can be an expert in your field -- that doesn't mean you can be an effective college instructor. Since professional development seminars and workshops are optional, unpaid sessions that do not "count" towards anything for the adjunct except an opportunity to improve your skills, many do not attend.
I hear from many students that other adjuncts in my field use the classroom as a forum to express their opinion; the way to get through the course is to suck it up, shut up, and don't mention if you disagree. How's that for enlightened discourse and critical thinking?! Since my institution has difficulty finding adjuncts in my field, the behavior isn't questioned.
In my institution, there is an overwhelming reliance on adjuncts. My institution would rather poach a full-time professor from another institution to fill a rare full-time position than consider an exemplary adjunct who has stuck it through for many years, hoping for a full-time slot. (Why hire the adjunct? It's not like the adjunct is going anywhere!!) Adjuncts carry the classroom load. Their overhead is comparatively very low -- dozens of adjuncts share an office with 3 desks, adjuncts are hired only when a course "makes", they are more apt to use their own personal computers and other equipment, they get no benefits and cannot participate in any benefits programs, and they are generally unaware of all the campus resources so they don't use them.
Full-time faculty are provided their own office, computer, phone, and can rely on staff for assistance. They are familiar with campus resources and use them. They have a salary they can depend on, even if it is renewed year-by-year, and they get benefits. It is true that full-timers are weighed down by participating on committees. But that means they are participants in an organization that solicits their input and values their contribution. Adjuncts are used when necessary, and they take whatever they can get.
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The increased use of teaching and research adjuncts is a four decade-long phenomenon. This dependence on part-time and contingent labor is happening not only in my city, but everywhere in the US. The higher ed system, now relies on a corporate/business model, extracting as much surplus value as it can from its workers. Now the attack against educational labor (popularized by anti-union celebrities Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates) is focused against tenure in US public schools. Without organized resistance the path is clear. Organize now or face the consequences of increased exploitation.
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I logged on to post about this problem, and am heartened to see that it is already up, with many supporters. The picture is painted and the story is told, here is what I have to add:
It should be the goal of our country, a recommendation coming from this Community Colleges Summit, to significantly raise the percentage of full-time faculty, largely by hiring current adjuncts, at Community Colleges. At least 50% of current faculty are adjunct, and at least half of them want, need and are well-qualified to be full-time. Our goal should be to increase full-time faculty to 80% of the total, in increments, over the next 10 years.
This goal will be coupled with that of providing entering students with the skills and mentoring they need to succeed. The majority of community college students are not ready to do college-level work, but there are various programs around the country demonstrating the effectiveness of working with these students before classes start and as their first semesters progress. A significant increase in full-time faculty will provide the workforce for programs with new students, This brings together solutions for the 2 most critical problems at community colleges, and the state of education in our country, today.
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I am worried that there will be a loss of tenure for full-time professors. Right now, a person with a masters degree can work full-time at a community college, get benefits, and earn tenure as a professor. Universities are merging with community colleges and unless you have your PhD, you cannot be a tenured professor. If this trend of merging continues, we will lose a lot of good professors. A masters degree definitely meets the higher qualified criteria!
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I don't think we have to worry too much about Ph.d's getting FT when M.A.s do not - I think there are bigger things to worry about, namely, anyone getting FT-anything at all, with or without tenure. For the record, M.A.s and M.Scs and M.F.As DO get hired at 4-year universities. . . as much as anyone does. But since neither Ph.ds are M.A.s getting tons of FT positions at CC's or 4-years, because no one is. I think this is the issue we need to deal with first - not the way-down-line one as to who those FTs should be. We need to get a fair percentage of FT positions in all post-secondary education first.
Plenty of folks with Masters degrees are plenty qualified and talented teachers, certainly. No one here is saying only Ph.ds should teach college, only that they are qualified to do so professionally.
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Again, power concedes nothing without a demand--an organized demand. Those in power will continue to extract as much surplus value from their workers as long as they can--until they feel forced to do the right thing.
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Last year was a hard year. I earned 17K teaching at two community colleges, 14 units at one and 10 at another. For the summer term there were no classes to be had. Because I received fewer classes than the previous year, I served on committees. In other words, I worked for free. But this is nothing new for adjuncts.
In the weeks before semester starts, we anxiously are forced to choose text books at the last minute. Additionally, we spend an inordinate amount of time composing our syllabi and creating new materials hoping that this time we have it just right. All of this is uncompensated time. I have three different college email accounts, six different passwords and log-ins for the various education systems I must be part of, and read hundreds of emails from the various colleges I teach at weekly—this is time that is expected that I give away. When we email our students, we do it for free. When we meet with our students before or after class, we do it for free. We get paid only for the time teaching in the classroom, and the vastly reduced hourly pay for holding a weekly office hour. At some colleges I am not compensated even for this yet am still expected to meet with students. Every minute that we spend outside of the classroom, we reduce our pay. Essentially, we give ourselves a pay cut. We dilute our pay—our own worth—with long hours spent grading and then frantically prepping for class. This year I am counting how many hours outside the classroom I dedicate to my “profession.” I am certain that I am paid significantly less than minimum wage.
In what other career would employers get away with not paying employees for their time? What professional would stand for it? It’s madness; why are we not in revolt.
But we, the educated, who teach students the concept of hegemony, for example, and to advocate for themselves so that they might become critical-thinking citizens with a voice, we are silenced by the sheer fatigue of our workload and passion. We are worked into less than invisibility. We don’t even have a voice from the dark.
I’m not sure this year will be easier. This semester I am working at three community colleges teaching 20 units. I drive 12 hours a week, teach six days a week, and grade non-stop on Sunday on my one day off. This semester I am not serving on any committees, even though I have been told that this is the best way to be visible on campus if I want a shot at an interview for the coveted and rare full-time position, should it ever surface. I am a single parent who rarely has time for my daughter, although she is supportive of my mid-life decision to switch a good salary for a pittance in pursuit of my dream.
I am passionate about teaching and students. However, this is a lifestyle I cannot sustain. I have spent all my savings and cannot pay back my substantial school loans. In fact, the only people that can sustain this career, according to the recent public debate on teachers, are sinners and saints. (It’s beyond frustrating to constantly hear when I’m working so hard how people without one day of teaching experience feel they know how to fix the “broken” system.)
By the way, President Obama’s heralded education loan forgiveness program applies only to full-time workers. As adjuncts we do not qualify because we are considered part-timers, even though we often teach more classes than full-time faculty. We have no benefits anywhere—period. Daily I learn new ways in which we are exploited and disrespected.
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I wonder where the accrediting bodies are in this? Do they have strong data that a high adjunct/full time faculty ratio has no effect on instructional and institutional quality? If they don't, why are they still accrediting schools that continue to use this strategy? if they do, please share!
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Adjunct faculty, of which I am one, are among the most dedicated. We put up with a lot because we love teaching. I think we do affect the instructional quality-- positively. One of the biggest problems I see, however, beyond having to work at multiple schools to earn a full-time living, not having any benefits, not having even an office, and all the rest, is security. Even schools which treat their adjuncts well, comparatively, will simply exclude an adjunct from the next semester's schedule without any rational reason given. This happened to me, recently, cutting my income in half-- and yes I may go bankrupt by June-- even though I'd been teaching successfully at the institution for six years. At the very least, I think that adjuncts should be assured classes six months out, and offered a reason why they will not be invited back. Then, one would have time to go to other schools and promote one's skills. I have been adjunct for 16 years; I have a master's; I am a trained, experienced "professor". Almost all of my adjunct colleagues are like me. This isn't a hobby; we are professionals and deserve to be treated as such.
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