26 Adjuncting--The Acadmeic Toll

Being an adjunct, should be regarded as par with being a dish washer. You get paid the same; get the same lack of respect, and same lack of job security.

When I was in college, I came across a few adjuncts who were students in graduate school or senior professors from another college teaching an unusual subject or as a guest lecturer instructing in a specialty that they were well-known for.. Today, it is routine that in any given university, it is not unusual that more than half the classes are taught by adjuncts. I realized in December 1971 that the supply of professors exceeded demand and the situation has become worse. People would flock to graduate schools in hope that they would beat the odds but failed to realize that they had to network like hell at very well-known schools. Everybody lied that there were jobs out there or a graduate degree could be used for something else because that would have meant less jobs for the professors who already had positions. The academic publications and the graduate schools still lie. Unless you go to an extremely well-known school with a professor who a major player in the field who knows the right people, you will never find a full-time job that leads to tenure.

We have the curious phenomena of tuition going up while the quality of the professor on the front line goes down. Virtually all colleges posit the fiction that they use only a few adjuncts to fill a few classes. In reality, they may be the backbones of entire departments. Even when an effort is made to limit the number of adjuncts, colleges find loopholes. New York State requires that at least half the classes be taught by full-time faculty. You just crowd the student into the adjunct classes. A federal law meant to help adjuncts required the payment of benefits if they taught more than seven classes. As a result, colleges make darn sure that you never teach more than seven classes in a year.

The advantage of an adjunct to a college is cheap labor that cannot protest. Or assign them the unpopular hours with the unpopular courses. In some place, the employment of five to ten adjuncts is the equivalent of how much you might have to pay a full-time instructor including benefits for the year.

Adjuncts can be asked to teach any number of classes that might not relate to the field they studied for. One semester I taught one lesson ahead of the students in Caribbean history. Students in turn get cheated because they have inexperienced professor or professors teaching of their fields.

People still become adjuncts because some are foolish to think that this might lead to a full-time position but actually you enter a ghetto that no college will hire a full-time from. Others have retired from various positions and find the time employed and the additional money useful. Still others getting an advanced degree in the field at least want to try their hand in what they were trained for.

If the students complain about you, or if you don’t teach class as effectively as you hoped, you might not have a second chance to improve.

You are at the mercy of the administration. Are you unpopular with the students? Is your political opinion acceptable? You can just rub somebody the wrong way. There can be any number of reasons why you might not be renewed.

Depending upon the college, you may or may not know if you will have a position for next semester or whether the summer course will go or not. A lot of places assign you classes that depend upon last minute registration.

Tough luck if you want to collect unemployment. Federal government decided because full-time teachers and professors collected unemployment during the summer to ban this for everybody because you have expectations of employment.