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When I pay high dollar tuition, I want the dang expert tenured/tenure track faculty in my classroom, not some part-time temp or somebody inexperienced, learning the ropes as a grad student.
In my department, ALL of the adjunct faculty are retired from industry. I would not jump to conclusions about their experience just because they make less money than the principal faculty.
"It turns out that due to a tiny logistical concern, only votes from the Kazakh judges has been counted. However, Kazakh organizers emphasized that the issue could not have had any impact on the final outcome."
"Once again this year, the WCA ceremony was a great success, except for a minor incident when a massive fight broke out between Kazakh teammates as they could not agree on who was to pick up the award for Friendliest, Kindest and Most Civilised people on Earth."
I do believe this is a satire site.
Did you even bother to read it?
In my department, ALL of the adjunct faculty are retired from industry. I would not jump to conclusions about their experience just because they make less money than the principal faculty.
That doesn't necessarily make them better instructors.
In my experience it's a double edged sword. They may have a lot of practical experience to draw on, but on the other hand sometimes they don't think they need to learn anything new because they've they think they've already learned and done everything they need to and thus know it all. And really, adjuncts don't get paid enough to justify them putting in hard hours on that. Ideally someone has practical experience AND is well versed in the up to date disciplinary literature & has contributed to it. Of course it's hard to get a perfect balance.
But that wasn't my point. I don't dispute that some, or most adjuncts even, are good instructors. But ultimately an adjunct is a temp. If they ARE good instructors, that makes me even MORE mad, because the institution does not value their talent!
Whether that temp is good at his or her job or not is irrelevant to me. The fact that they use temps says something about what they prioritize & what institutional values are. If I'm paying high dollar tuition and the vast majority of that money is NOT going to the instructor... where the heck is it going? What am I paying for? Why is it okay to exploit that temp?
I would wonder this about any company that managed its labor that way.
Last edited by redguard57; 09-27-2016 at 12:19 PM..
That doesn't necessarily make them better instructors.
In my experience it's a double edged sword. They may have a lot of practical experience to draw on, but on the other hand sometimes they don't think they need to learn anything new because they've they think they've already learned and done everything they need to and thus know it all. And really, adjuncts don't get paid enough to justify them putting in hard hours on that. Ideally someone has practical experience AND is well versed in the up to date disciplinary literature & has contributed to it. Of course it's hard to get a perfect balance.
But that wasn't my point. I don't dispute that some, or most adjuncts even, are good instructors. But ultimately an adjunct is a temp. If they ARE good instructors, that makes me even MORE mad, because the institution does not value their talent!
Whether that temp is good at his or her job or not is irrelevant to me. The fact that they use temps says something about what they prioritize & what institutional values are. If I'm paying high dollar tuition and the vast majority of that money is NOT going to the instructor... where the heck is it going? What am I paying for? Why is it okay to exploit that temp?
I would wonder this about any company that managed its labor that way.
Universities are businesses and yes they do have other costs beyond faculty. Just maintaining the physical integrity of the facilities is costly, and of course new buildings are built. Universities have amenities and other services that attract students like dining halls, gyms, etc. Of course maintaining things like the library and buying equipment just as computers and scanners cost money. Campus security have to be paid. Universities have other staff besides faculty, and of course administrators aren't going to be paid low wages.
If you can't tolerate the working conditions or a job or a career you need to live that career, plain and simple.
As for whether adjuncts need to have contributed to the disciplinary literature, that is certainly not true in all fields. For some fields practical experience is far more important.
Could universities make all faculty full time? Yes, but where is this money going to come from? Universities won't be able to cut the above services I mentioned and administrators never cut their own salaries. Tuition costs would need to go even higher and there would be a big backlash from the people who are paying for it, both students, alumnae and of course the government itself.
"It turns out that due to a tiny logistical concern, only votes from the Kazakh judges has been counted. However, Kazakh organizers emphasized that the issue could not have had any impact on the final outcome."
"Once again this year, the WCA ceremony was a great success, except for a minor incident when a massive fight broke out between Kazakh teammates as they could not agree on who was to pick up the award for Friendliest, Kindest and Most Civilised people on Earth."
I do believe this is a satire site.
Did you even bother to read it?
Yes, of course it is satire, and yes, I read it. I thought maybe it might give you a chuckle. (Note: there are identical websites for just about every country on the planet).
Universities are businesses and yes they do have other costs beyond faculty. Just maintaining the physical integrity of the facilities is costly, and of course new buildings are built. Universities have amenities and other services that attract students like dining halls, gyms, etc. Of course maintaining things like the library and buying equipment just as computers and scanners cost money. Campus security have to be paid. Universities have other staff besides faculty, and of course administrators aren't going to be paid low wages.
If you can't tolerate the working conditions or a job or a career you need to live that career, plain and simple.
As for whether adjuncts need to have contributed to the disciplinary literature, that is certainly not true in all fields. For some fields practical experience is far more important.
Could universities make all faculty full time? Yes, but where is this money going to come from? Universities won't be able to cut the above services I mentioned and administrators never cut their own salaries. Tuition costs would need to go even higher and there would be a big backlash from the people who are paying for it, both students, alumnae and of course the government itself.
If universities didn't put out a bunch of bs about how they're saving the world, it might not bother as me as much. But no, they say they're making the world a better place and are supposedly bastions of progressive values, yet they operate as mercenary as the worst businesses out there.
They also do their best to hide this from the students & community. They want the public to think that professors are compensated fairly. Students are always shocked when they find out how much adjuncts make, that they are contingent, and that they get no benefits... they tend to think all professors are paid middle class salaries because they mostly associate that as a middle class job.
If the public were aware that the people that the most public-facing employees of a university were little better than the temporary cashiers Target hires at Christmas-time, I think people would be a lot more upset about the tuition they're paying.
This is not the way they always operated. Prior to about the early 1990s, adjuncts were maybe 20% of the faculty corps at most universities. Now they're 50-70%. What businesses use mostly temps? Fast food, retail, colleges. Great company they're in. A college instructor is supposed to be more than a temp cashier. They certainly have the education for more.
But as you say, part of the problem is the people that allow themselves to be exploited. I know some graduate programs have drastically reduced their incoming cohorts to deal with this. I'd go even further if I were a department chair, dean or provost (an ethical one, anyway). I would do my best to close down graduate programs down or convert them to purely vocational programs. Training people & collecting their tuition dollars to do academic jobs that don't exist is tantamount to graft.
Last edited by redguard57; 09-28-2016 at 04:43 AM..
I knew it was bad but 70% of teachers are adjuncts or part timers????
My son is a university professor overseas and he makes 3 times what he could make here---if he even could get a job in the States. Plus he is respected not only on his campus but in the community.
If you are not counting full time equivalents, then sure, 70% of college teachers might be adjuncts. The typical adjunct teaches 1 course per semester or year. They often contribute valuable knowledge from their regular day jobs.
The author of the cited article then infers from this 70% figure that almost 3/4 of all classes are taught by adjuncts. Again, this is a problem of counting those who teach a class or two the same as those who might teach 4 to 10 classes per year. For example, there might be 10 adjuncts that each teach one class and 10 full time faculty who might teach 6 classes per year. Seventy classes are taught, but only a small fraction of total classes are taught by adjuncts. In this example, half of the college teachers are adjuncts but they account for 14% of total classes offered.
Yes, of course it is satire, and yes, I read it. I thought maybe it might give you a chuckle. (Note: there are identical websites for just about every country on the planet).
No it gave me a belly laugh! and my son appreciated it as well.
If universities didn't put out a bunch of bs about how they're saving the world, it might not bother as me as much. But no, they say they're making the world a better place and are supposedly bastions of progressive values, yet they operate as mercenary as the worst businesses out there.
They also do their best to hide this from the students & community. They want the public to think that professors are compensated fairly. Students are always shocked when they find out how much adjuncts make, that they are contingent, and that they get no benefits... they tend to think all professors are paid middle class salaries because they mostly associate that as a middle class job.
If the public were aware that the people that the most public-facing employees of a university were little better than the temporary cashiers Target hires at Christmas-time, I think people would be a lot more upset about the tuition they're paying.
This is not the way they always operated. Prior to about the early 1990s, adjuncts were maybe 20% of the faculty corps at most universities. Now they're 50-70%. What businesses use mostly temps? Fast food, retail, colleges. Great company they're in. A college instructor is supposed to be more than a temp cashier. They certainly have the education for more.
But as you say, part of the problem is the people that allow themselves to be exploited. I know some graduate programs have drastically reduced their incoming cohorts to deal with this. I'd go even further if I were a department chair, dean or provost (an ethical one, anyway). I would do my best to close down graduate programs down or convert them to purely vocational programs. Training people & collecting their tuition dollars to do academic jobs that don't exist is tantamount to graft.
Very well said. To someone who loves research and is a scientist, it is very discouraging to sede how academics are treated and underpaid. This country is getting further and further behind in science and STEM teaching and contributions and the future looks bleak as well.
This is not the way they always operated. Prior to about the early 1990s, adjuncts were maybe 20% of the faculty corps at most universities. Now they're 50-70%. What businesses use mostly temps? Fast food, retail, colleges. Great company they're in. A college instructor is supposed to be more than a temp cashier. They certainly have the education for more.
.
Not at the better universities, they're not. They're still around 30-40%. And at some universities, some of the adjuncts are covering subject areas that were never offered before; their positions represent an expansion of the curriculum even as budgets have been cut back. They cover topics that are offered only once semester/year, or for one full academic year every two years. Many adjuncts are thus used for curriculum enhancement, not to teach core courses. It's usually the 2nd- and 3rd-tier universities and colleges that rely more heavily on adjuncts, not the top-tier ones. It's inaccurate to paint all with the same brush.
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