Adjunct professor is paid so little she's actually homeless (science, teachers, money)
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ChrisC. Only item where I differ from you is that adjuncts do not do a lot of the same things a tenured professor does. Specifically, adjuncts do not have to hold office hours, sit on endless, meaningless committees, update CORs ("official" documents detailing what the course entails), course certification and renewals, and all the other bureaucratic garbage that a full-time teacher has to put up with. Just this crap is enough to keep me from wanting to be a full-timer.
ChrisC. Only item where I differ from you is that adjuncts do not do a lot of the same things a tenured professor does. Specifically, adjuncts do not have to hold office hours, sit on endless, meaningless committees, update CORs ("official" documents detailing what the course entails), course certification and renewals, and all the other bureaucratic garbage that a full-time teacher has to put up with. Just this crap is enough to keep me from wanting to be a full-timer.
That is true, although as adjuncts we often hold "office hours" in the halls or library or wherever else, even though we don't have to. But, you're right, it's not required. Actually, I see this as a disservice to the students though. My university has recently put in a "collective office" for adjuncts from the math, English, and foreign language departments to hold scheduled "office hours." Not much, but it is a step in the right direction.
-At $22K annually, her salary is far above the poverty level for a single person with no dependents
-She's chosen to only work part time
-Maybe she should move out of the NYC area
-Regarding the "how little we pay teachers" comment, is that why the NY teachers unions sued to have their salary and pension data removed from NY's fiscal transparency website?
Yeah, I don't get the point of this article. When I went to college, adjunct professors usually had a couple of other jobs on the side to make ends meet. Heck, some of them were attorneys or journalists and decided to teach a couple of classes a week for fun. There was no way they could've lived off what they made strictly as adjunct professors. Being an assistant, associate, or a full-fledged tenured professor is a career, but being an adjunct professor alone won't keep a roof over your head in much of the US. On an interesting note, my best professors were adjunct.
On an interesting note, my best professors were adjunct.
Same here.
Generally, though not always, the more "nationally noted" the professor was... the poorer his/her teaching ability was. To be fair, these types were brilliant and great researchers... but they still couldn't teach worth beans in many cases.
In one case, I never really caught a word the professor was saying all semester. He would walk into the classroom and to the chalkboard without even looking at the students, open the book, stare at the board as he wrote on the board, never look away, and mumble indecipherably all hour. He was a brilliant, nationally noted researcher in abstract and homological algebra.
The adjuncts I had, almost without exception, were very talented and capable when it came to explaining and teaching the concepts. They were able to connect with a "normal" brain; math gods were typically not able to do that.
Are we supposed to feel bad for someone too lazy to work a full week?
Only if you feel bad for the full time faculty, who work the same number of teaching hours and get paid ten times more. If you were making $7.50 an hour flipping burgers and the guy just next to you on the grill was making $75.00 an hour doing the exact same thing, you'd probably at least think about it, or maybe even feel a twinge of irritation.
But it's a moot point anyway, because that woman could easily get a full time position teaching Spanish elsewhere (especially with an MA degree). She needs to get out of New York for starters. She wouldn't be having a problem on her wages in many other locations.
I don't get this OP. I looked at her profile and, basically, she hops around CD posts once in a thread and moves on nary to be seen again in that thread.
There are several people here that do that. Hmmm...why do you think they do that? I enjoy a good conversation, but what's up with those who dive-bomb a thread with their opinion and never come back?
There are also the ones that come in and make unbelievable and outlandish comments that are designed to stir up the muck, but not offer anything to the discussion at hand.
Something to ponder.
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He was a brilliant, nationally noted researcher in abstract and homological algebra. 
