An Adjunct Problem

By Timothy Hayes on March 30, 2015

Take a moment to consider who is teaching you. He might be a professor straight from finishing his dissertation, another undergrad reading one chapter ahead in the book, or a 60-something professor who still can’t figure out how to turn on a projector.

For most of you, they are just another teacher in a long stream of educators from preschool to now. You may have a passing knowledge about them or be strongly acquainted, but how much do you know (or care for that matter) about their working conditions or wages? Probably, surprisingly little.

American professors across the country are perhaps one of the most underrated and under appreciated groups of workers in the world. They work 50 hour, even 70 hour work weeks, for abysmal pay with no benefits, and no job security. That means no year to year employment guaranteed, no sick leave, no retirement assistance, and no healthcare of any kind.

Surprisingly, most students who are in close relation to professors constantly have little to no understanding of how bad their educators’ workplace environment actually is.

Consider what kind of rigors you have to go through to get your degree. Doubtless you applied to a competitive university and were accepted on certain terms and conditions along with between 300 and 30,000 other students.

You will then, have completed or are currently completing four to five years at that institution, again under certain terms and conditions. You then graduate with a degree ready to tackle full-time employment.

http://work.chron.com

Now let’s look at what professors go through. On top of the above, they will then apply to a competitive graduate program at an institution, sometimes the same school, and pursue a Master’s degree in a field for two to four years alongside 100-10,000 other students.

During this time, they may be required to teach several courses, take their own, and pass, on top of a potential outside job. All the while, graduate students must research, write and develop a thesis paper to be reviewed, defended and finally published.

Now, that professor-to-be must be invited or apply to a PhD program that is frequently not at their undergraduate or graduate school. There, the professor to be will do research or assist, teach, and write another paper, the doctoral thesis or dissertation.

They will be at that institute for two to four years again. Finally, if they pass a series of grueling examinations by current professors, they will be awarded their PhD. After all these years of hard work, dedication, and profound contributions to their field, what can these new professors expect? Not much.

Usually in American universities, new professors enter as temporary, contractual educators who may have access to the university’s enormous resources, but are paid a pittance compared to senior professors. They enter as adjunct professors, move up to assistant, then tenure-track, and finally tenured or full professors if they are very fortunate.

Full professors cannot be fired on academic grounds and as such have fewer restrictions on their job whereas any professor not tenure-track or tenured is constantly under pressure to perform.

Adjunct professors make up an alarming 41.5 percent of the nation’s professors according to the U.S. Department of Education in a 2011 survey, while tenure track and tenured are less than a quarter of the total faculty. The rest is made up of full-time, non-tenured or visiting professors and lecturers.

However, interview and research with humans working in these environments has led to higher conclusions of up to 75 or 80 percent of the faculty being contingent. This disparity in reported numbers and personnel may reflect a difference of language used in reporting number by different groups.

Assistant or adjunct professors are expected to teach and do their relevant research like full professors, but if they have a class that does not do well or they receive very poor student reviews, they can be let go at the end of their very short, sometimes one-semester contract.

They are reviewed periodically to assess their performance and kept or fired based on student reviews, grades, contributions to research, and other criteria. While this is true for some universities, it is not always true. Some universities such as Tufts University publish how departments go about renewals.

Adjunct professors also do not get much if any say in how a department is run. The system is very strongly oligarchical and hierarchical. This means that if changes are being made that will affect a majority of the faculty, that majority cannot do much about it.

Pay differences in adjunct and tenured professors are astronomical; there is approximately a $100,000 income gap. Because adjunct professors have been historically part-time employees, they receive less pay for work they do.

This used to be a good position for part-time professors who might be a professional in their field and teach on the side. I personally know an adjunct professor who teaches on the side, home schools her children, and is otherwise a stay-at-home mom.

While this may be beneficial to those specific environments, most adjunct professors have to take several appointments at several universities to make ends meet since adjunct earnings have not risen in tandem with inflation since the 1970s.

Currently, adjunct professors are fighting to get recognition and change these problems. With a saturated job market, getting and keeping an appointment at a university is extremely difficult. Adjunct professors are joining forces in unions, forming together to force universities to provide at least higher pay, if not benefits, and a more democratic system in universities.

The Service Employees International, famous for organizing the fast-food industry walkout to demand a doubling of the federal minimum wage, is also trying to help adjunct professors. They demand approximately $15,000 per course taught (compared to the $2000-$2700 average), benefits like sick leave, and healthcare.

This past February 28 was also National Adjunct Walkout Day, an event organized by professors to help students recognize the problem to force educators to try and function for one day without a majority of their educators. This event is part of a bigger National Adjunct Awareness Week to expose the problem.

While I have hopefully shown you this problem well, my research has only scratched the surface of this. Ask your professors about it.

(image thanks to bestcollegesonline.com)

Chances are they will love to talk about their job. This problem of underemployment means stressed, overworked educators who may not be able to teach you well enough. Until recently, this wasn’t discussed openly and only in the last two years has it been examined with any detail.

My research presented to you here is disparate and in need of roping in, but since the topic is new, it is subject to quite a bit of bias and has fuzzy edges (like the $700 dollar range in reported average per course compensation).

This issue reflects deeper cracks in the national education system as a whole. Therefore, I encourage you to seek out the information, make informed decisions about it and act on it.

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