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  • The Times Whiffs Again

    By Dean Dad February 4, 2010 9:54 pm

    Several alert readers sent me links to this article from the New York Times. It's a weirdly chipper "pick up some money in your spare time by adjuncting!" piece, written for (and apparently by) people who aren't terribly conversant in higher ed.

    Depending on your angle to the universe, it could be read as refreshing, bizarre, or deeply offensive. (I fall into the 'bizarre' camp, with sympathies for the 'deeply offensive.')

    First, credit where it's due: there's nothing actually false in the article. It notes, correctly, that the demand for adjunct faculty is high right now in many areas, and that the pay is generally underwhelming. It notes, correctly, that a graduate degree isn't always a hard and fast requirement, though from reading the piece you'd think it matters a lot less than it actually does. (At my cc, it's usually a deal-breaker outside of a few, very specialized, occupational programs.) It cites professional networking as a major benefit of adjuncting, which is probably true in a few niche areas, but which most composition instructors would find strange.

    That said, the reality is sooo much more complex than the article suggests.

    Having been a freeway-flier myself, I know it's easy to assume that all adjuncts feel exploited and really want to be full-time, but it isn't true. Many do, many don't. Adjunct gigs can make a certain sense in some situations, all of which exist on my campus:

    - The full-timer who picks up an 'extra' course or two, just to supplement salary. I have a surprising number of these on my campus. Some of them are young and paying off student loans; some of them have kids in college; some, I'm told, will do anything not to go home. (I try not to pry.) These people get health insurance and salaries anyway, but the marginal benefit of another course is adjunct pay.

    - People with other full-time jobs, whether on campus or off. We have full-time staff who pick up a class at night because they love teaching and/or want to pick up a few extra bucks. We also have a non-trivial number of high school teachers who like to stretch their wings a bit with an evening class. Of course, there are also the classic professionals-in-the-field, the model that adjuncting was built to fit. We actually do have a few of those -- lawyers who like to pick up the occasional business law class, say.

    - Trailing spouses. Typically, they aren't trailing anyone who works here, but the two-body problem brought them to this geographical area, and a course or two fits their needs. In some cases, we get some pretty wonderful people this way. Some would probably prefer full-time employment, but some find the part-time schedule a better fit for their lives.

    - Grad students trying to gain experience in the classroom. It's one thing to TA a discussion section; it's something else to teach your own class. I'd argue that you hit diminishing returns relatively quickly, in terms of future employability, but some experience is better than none. This is particularly true for folks who want to find a full-time community college position; hiring committees here are much friendlier to candidates who have taught at the cc level.

    - Retirees. We have about a dozen retired full-time faculty who like to teach a class or two. (Some of them teach only in the Fall, using the Spring to travel. Looks good to me...) It's a way of staying connected, without being bogged down in the stuff that comes with a full-time gig. These folks are usually wonderful instructors, and we're happy to have them. We also get occasional retired muckety-mucks from the business or legal worlds who like to pick up a class as a way of sharing what they know and love. Again, most of the time, these work out quite well (though this group usually needs more orientation than the others).

    None of this is to discount the real frustration of someone who's trying to break in, ekeing out a living in the meantime by cobbling together jobs that were never meant to be cobbled together. But I think it does explain, in part, why it can be so difficult to get adjuncts to organize; their interests aren't always the same. Reforms that might appeal to a freeway flier may be irrelevant to the full-timer teaching an overload, and might be actually distasteful to the retiree or the high school teacher. I've seen each of these, and untold variations.

    The common denominator, though, and what really irks me about the piece, is that college teaching isn't something to be done on a lark. It's work. (Historiann did a nice piece on this -- check it out.) Doing it well requires time, focus, and a willingness to do what needs to be done. Even when it pays badly, the students don't expect -- or, to my mind, deserve -- any less. It's not an easy and fun way to pick up a few bucks. (It can be fun, but the fun is a byproduct of job satisfaction.) I've gone on record suggesting that romanticizing the task too much is a bad idea, and I stand by that, but this piece trivializes it. When the professor is in class, she's the professor, regardless of her paycheck. If she doesn't respect her own role, I don't know why the students should.

    I don't expect much from the Times' coverage of higher ed, but this is really a bit much. The pay is bad enough; suggesting that anybody off the street could do it just adds insult to injury. No, thanks.

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Comments on The Times Whiffs Again

  • Response to Whiff
  • Posted by Gary Donato , Adjunct Professor of History/Government at Various on February 5, 2010 at 7:45am EST

  • I would wholeheartedly agree with the response to Whiffs. I am an "adjunct by choice" and have been since 1994. I retired from the military in 1994 and with two Master's degrees in hand and heading for a Ph. D. I welcomed the freedom and variety of students adjuncting offered. I presently teach 6-7 courses at 3-5 colleges every semester. The colleges range from open-enrollment community colleges to "tier two" colleges. The range of intellectual ability, desires, demand on students (some are married with three children working two jobs), and variety of departments makes the job that much more interesting. The work is demanding, the preps time consuming, the pay tolerable, with little to no benefits. To assume anyone from any walk of life wants to, can, or should be an adjunct is patently false. Dedication and love of teaching - seeing that "aha" moment is what continues to inspire me to adjunct. Departments are also much more inclusive than fifteen years ago. I can advise, vote in meetings, take part in departmental lunches, have access to the full range of academic support, and have even been granted conference funding support. All of my college department chairs/deans fully support and fund if they can conference attendance, summer workshops,publication of articles, or book reviews acknowledging the same at department meetings. The original author should get out and interview a few adjuncts - maybe even do a substantiated article for Inside Higher Ed. Gary Donato.

  • In the outrage column and right on , Dean Dad
  • Posted by mary zamon , Associate Director, Assessemnt at George Mason Univeristy on February 5, 2010 at 10:45am EST

  • Adjuncts should be respected, not lumped into a pot of vaguely qualified - get -some extra- bucks- crowd. Thus, I fall in theoutrage group.
    I have been in most of Dean Dad's categories of adjuncts: a K-12 teacher stretching to the next step at CC, an adminstrator at several levels, following up a love of teaching, a PhD student not able to give up joys of teaching until my committee said 'finish, already', and now back to an administration and teaching combo. I admit the bit of extra money for doing something I love is far better than some other part- time job. And as I head for retirement from my full tme job in the next several years, you may guess that I will stay teaching a course or two as long as I can.
    Long live adjuncts, and let them live long enough to thrive- I deeply appreciate the person who got me started in community college teaching, then at a 4 year college and now at a great state university. Good wishes to you all!
    Mary

  • Let's Be Honest
  • Posted by adjunct professor on February 5, 2010 at 11:00am EST

  • The public perception of college teaching reflected in the Times article should be instructive to college administrators who seem to insufficiently appreciate the extent to which the casualization of academic labor erodes the respectability of the profession. When one earns more cleaning classrooms than teaching in them, how can the latter be regarded as anything more than a hobby, a pastime, a lark that one does recreationally, on one's own terms and for one's own pleasure, rather than for making a living? To be sure, students "deserve more" but administrators should be under no illusion that for structural reasons they get much less from adjuncts. How can this not be? The student has the right to expect for his or her tuition dollars a professor who is paid a professional salary that gives him or her the time and resources needed to do the job well. Teaching at the university level is labor intensive and demands extensive interaction with students in and out of the classroom. But because many adjuncts have to string together a number of part-time positions to make ends meet, they cannot really give themselves undividedly to any one of them. Add to this harsh reality the lack of adequate office space to meet with the students for office hours; ineligibitly for funding for course development, research projects, or for continued professional development generally; underrepresentation (or none) in program decisions...the list could go on an on.

    It's really becoming tiresome to listen to university administrators give any and every reason to legitimate the exploitative abuse of contingent academic labor. I wish they'd be more honest and simply admit that that the task of education in the university is subordinated to the imperatives of cutting costs and increasing efficiencies that constrain any big business enterprise.

  • Data?
  • Posted by Phil on February 5, 2010 at 11:30am EST

  • "Having been a freeway-flier myself, I know it's easy to assume that all adjuncts feel exploited and really want to be full-time, but it isn't true. Many do, many don't."

    Are there any hard numbers on this? How many do and how many don't? And the question of who wants to be full-time needs to be distinguished from the question of exploitation. I was getting better paid as a freeway flier in the early 1990s than part-time instructors at my cc today. $2500 for a 16-week course with 40+ students is derisory compensation in my view.

  • Touchy, touchy
  • Posted by Superdude on February 5, 2010 at 1:00pm EST

  • I'm going to be a bit more charitable in my interpretation. The thrust of the article is that if you're willing to work, and need the money, teaching can be a fulfilling way to augment one's income. Heck, it even states that teaching is "rigorous" and "time-consuming".

    I've noticed that CC instructors/admins have an inferiority complex, and it's showing in reaction to the NYT article.

  • See Jane teach . . .
  • Posted by Prufrock , Dean at urban cc on February 5, 2010 at 2:30pm EST

  • Sorry, but I don’t see anything in the article to get too worked about. Yes, it is a bit “chipper,” but relatively benign. My only real concern is that it is quite simplified in its implication that one can easily walk into an adjunct position. With the grad programs continually adding huge numbers of newly minted graduates to the potential workforce, even getting adjunct teaching is now getting quite competitive, at least at my college. I do see what bothers some, though, in the way the article seems to trivialize the adjunct position, but I attribute that to being a byproduct of its gross simplification. Instead of the NYT, maybe the article would be better suited for some other publication, say “Higher Ed for Dummies.”

  • Adjuncts that teach: chicken soup for the administrator's soul
  • Posted by Michael , English on February 5, 2010 at 5:30pm EST

  • I saw the article linked on the front page of the NYTimes site, read it, and I fall in the outraged camp. As if we need more adjuncts, more internecine conflict between full-timers and part-timers, more burned-out adjuncts who just teach to (barely) survive and don't are if students learn or not. The article's "chipper" tone devalues the responsibility of adjunct instructors, despite the caveats. Can a man off the street teach college? According to the article, yes. Grossly underpaid adjuncts that actually perform good teaching -- that's the administrator's dream. And if a student complains, just don't renew the contract -- adjuncts are contingent anyway. The article promotes that exploitative vision.

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