Des Plaines, Ill.
Two days a week, Kamran Swanson arrives at Oakton Community College just before one of the three philosophy courses he teaches. Between classes, he heads for a windowless office on the second floor of the campus building, where if he's lucky he can find an open desk. Oakton provides 25 of them for its hundreds of part-time faculty members.
After Mr. Swanson is finished teaching for the day and has held his required office hour, he is out the door to catch a bus home—without ever serving on a faculty committee, attending a department meeting, or even having a cup of coffee with any of the college's other professors. If students want extra help, Mr. Swanson usually handles their questions by e-mail. "Without my own desk," he says, "you never really feel at home." Mr. Swanson acknowledges that it is partly his own schedule that leaves him little time to do much more at Oakton than teach. He lives a two-hour commute from the suburban-Chicago campus here and teaches two classes at another community college downtown.
But even adjunct professors who have worked at Oakton for decades and are inclined to hang around the campus—which is dotted with 20 outdoor sculptures and a 16-acre lake—say they feel like outsiders. Their lack of connection to full-time faculty members and to what goes on at the college outside the classroom poses a crucial problem, they say, not just for them but for the institution and its 10,766 students. After all, the college's 540 part-time instructors outnumber its 154 full-time professors by more than three to one, teaching 60 percent of the courses here. While administrators at Oakton have taken several steps to encourage part-time professors to play a bigger role, and even pay them to attend faculty meetings, most of the college's part-time instructors either can't make the time or feel they don't really belong.
"There is a whole social and professional interaction that goes on in the faculty world that ignores adjuncts," says Lawrence E. Marks, who has been a part-time teacher of psychology and global studies at Oakton for seven years. "I don't have any chance to struggle with the faculty over what's right or wrong in the classroom. The ultimate benefit of that is for the students."
'Nobody Knew My Name'
Complaints about a lack of connection are not unique to adjuncts at Oakton. The Chronicle heard the same lament from several part-time professors in the Chicago area who took a survey it distributed last spring. "In my role as an adjunct," one wrote in an anonymous comment, "I have very little contact with regular faculty, or even other adjuncts, so I feel very marginal to the educational process of the school."
Part of that feeling is built into the job: Adjuncts are paid to teach, and many work at several institutions, which leaves them little time or inclination to get very involved at any of them. But that poses an increasing problem as part-time adjuncts now make up about 50 percent of the professoriate nationwide. That means that half of the nation's college instructors may not feel much of a connection to the campuses where they teach.
By adjunct standards, Oakton is actually one of the better colleges in the Chicago area to work for. It has the state's oldest union for part-time instructors and pays them a competitive rate—between $2,475 and $3,540 for each three-credit course. The college is known for giving adjuncts freedom to teach the way they see fit, and it isn't reluctant to back up instructors if students challenge a grade. It also encourages, and often pays, adjuncts to get involved outside the classroom.
Margaret B. Lee, the college's president, was once an adjunct instructor herself. She taught English at Alpena Community College, in Michigan, during the mid-1970s, while she finished up her dissertation at the University of Chicago and worked on a pig farm with her husband. "I have an innate sympathy in my heart for those people who get called a day before class starts and get sent the syllabus in the mail, and there's no other contact throughout the semester with anyone until you're told, Turn in your grades," she says. When Ms. Lee was an adjunct, she recalls, "I could say, nobody knew my name."
But the president, who entered a convent right out of high school and spent seven years as a nun, says she has worked hard to create the sense of community at Oakton that she learned was so important to the church. At every meeting of the Board of Trustees, representatives of the adjunct union sit at the table with board members, she notes. And, she says, Oakton takes its adjuncts seriously. It was upon the recommendation of an adjunct that the college decided to continue requiring all graduates to pass a test on the country's founding, even though Illinois decided last year that colleges could drop the requirement. "Because you have one title and not the other is no indication you are less important," says Ms. Lee. "I think you can be as involved in the life of the institution as you want to be."
The adjunct union here, which is affiliated with the National Education Association, has tried to make sure instructors get paid for extra time they spend on university business such as serving on committees and attending training sessions and department faculty meetings. Adjuncts typically earn $22 an hour for those activities. The union also pushed the college to agree that for every full-time faculty opening, 25 percent of those interviewed must be adjunct instructors. In the last decade, that has helped increase the proportion of full-time professors hired from the adjunct ranks to 63.5 percent, up from 50 percent.
The union has also pressed for symbolic changes, making sure that this year's faculty directory lists adjuncts right along with full-time professors, rather than in a separate set of papers stapled into the back of the book.
Still, Barbara Dayton, a sociology instructor who helped form Oakton's adjunct union nearly 30 years ago, says there is a "definite stratification" among faculty members here. Ms. Dayton has taught at Oakton for 33 years, and as the union's president she is practically an institution on the campus. But when asked if she counts any of the full-time professors among her colleagues or her friends, she comes up blank. "If I wanted to talk to somebody about something, they'd be willing," she says. "But it isn't like they'd casually drop in and say, Barbara, what do you think about this?"
Olivia Cronk, a part-time instructor of English, says she sometimes feels invisible at Oakton. During a department meeting at the beginning of this academic year, she waved at a full-time professor whose classes Ms. Cronk had covered a few times when the professor couldn't make it. But all Ms. Cronk got in return was a blank stare. "She clearly had no recognition," says Ms. Cronk.
The Pay Gap
Part of the gulf between full- and part-time faculty members here is financial. Full-time faculty members at Oakton teach five courses a semester and earn an average of $86,000 a year. Adjuncts, who can teach up to three classes each semester (a new contract will allow them to teach four), earn a maximum of about $21,000 during the academic year. Like other colleges, Oakton does not provide adjuncts with subsidized health insurance. And full-time professors can qualify for up to $1,000 a year in travel expenses for scholarly conferences; adjuncts usually get only as much as $100.
That means that when Keith R. Johnson, an adjunct instructor here, traveled to the American Sociological Association's annual meeting in San Francisco in August to present a paper, he bypassed the conference hotel and stayed at a hostel, where he shared a room with five other men (he got a top bunk) and paid $30 a night.
The gap in pay and benefits feels particularly unfair to adjuncts at Oakton because, unlike at many four-year institutions, the credentials of full- and part-time instructors here are not much different. Nearly as many adjuncts as full-timers hold Ph.D.'s: 18 percent compared to 22 percent. And all but one of the full-timers here are tenured or on the tenure track, while many adjuncts don't know from semester to semester how many courses they will be teaching.
Larry Knapp is an adjunct instructor with a doctorate in film studies from Northwestern University. He gets along well with his department head at Oakton and enjoys teaching. But he is bitter about the status differential between full- and part-time instructors, and the idea that if someone hasn't made it into the full-time ranks it must be because there is something wrong with him or her. "We are not part of the actual family here," he says. "It is like we are servants."
Feeling unimportant, says Mr. Knapp, comes with a price. "There is no incentive to give 100 percent," he says. "Mediocrity is built into the system."
Beverly E. Stanis agrees. She left a full-time legal career 28 years ago, the year she had the second of her five children, to begin teaching business law part time at Oakton. As an adjunct, she says, it is easy to teach the same material the same way, year after year. No one pays adjuncts to take the time to look at things in a new way, or to try out different textbooks or teaching methods. "It is easy to stay with the old," she says. Working as an adjunct, she says, also means "you're always on the edge wondering, Is this going to be my last semester?" The insecurity, says Ms. Stanis, makes adjunct instructors afraid to bring up thorny issues, like problems they might have dealing with a troubled student.
Another adjunct at Oakton, who asked to remain anonymous, says that she has tried to bring up some of her concerns but that no one will listen. Recently, a one-semester class she taught was split into two, but her department has not evenly spread the material over two semesters. Too much is now taught in the first semester, she says, and not enough in the second. But as a part-time instructor she doesn't have the clout to change the curriculum, she says. "I know what works, but I don't have a voice in that, even though I'm the one teaching it," she says. "I have brought it up several times, but it never gets addressed."
Some full-time faculty members here are just as frustrated over adjuncts' lack of power and their narrow scope. "If you're a full-time person, you're looking at how courses fit into the life of the college and the life of students when they transfer," says Julia Hassett, who heads Oakton's department of mathematics and computer science. "If you're a part-time person, you're looking at your own teaching."
That equation has become a problem, says Ms. Hassett, because over the last few years, several full-time professors in her department have retired but the college has hired adjuncts in their place. As a result, the adjunct ranks have swelled to 80 as the number of full-timers has dropped to only 10. Full-time professors at Oakton are supposed to be mentors for part-timers, but Ms. Hassett's full-time faculty members have told her they can't possibly do the job.
Ms. Lee, the college's president, says Oakton cannot afford to tip the balance toward more full-timers. In fact, she figures, converting all of the college's adjuncts to full-time status would cost $20-million. But beyond that, she says, part-time instructors allow the community college to remain flexible, offering some classes in hot, new areas while getting rid of others that interest students less. "It would be financially impossible," she says, "and probably not instructionally desirable."
'Bittersweet Irony'
Some department heads here have tried to reach out to adjuncts. At the start of every academic year, Denis R. Berkson, chairman of the performing-arts department, invites its 20 adjunct instructors and three full-timers to a "rally," complete with a buffet dinner. This year he gave everyone a flash drive. "If you have an institution where it's us and them," he says of full- and part-timers, "then you should close the place down." Mr. Berkson has put two adjuncts in charge of a departmental committee to assess student learning, and he is paying them $400 each to do the job.
Hollace Graff, who leads the department of humanities and philosophy, is sensitive to adjuncts who say they feel like second-class citizens. She lists the department's 37 adjuncts on its Web site, right alongside its six full-time professors. And the full-timers don't cherry-pick their favorite courses. "We have agreed that adjuncts should not be frozen out of the more interesting, advanced classes," she says.
Still, it can be a rough road for adjuncts who try to take a more active role in life outside the classroom at Oakton and deal with full-timers on an equal footing. "You have to be very, very aggressive to be part of that community," says Mr. Marks, the psychology instructor. "The full-time faculty and administration are not any more welcoming than in corporate America. You do not get invitations to sit at lunch with them."
But Mr. Marks feels he has begun to break down some barriers. In August he won the campus's award for excellence in part-time teaching—which comes with a $1,000 prize. Since then, people Mr. Marks doesn't even know have been saying hello and smiling at him in the hallways of Oakton's sprawling, two-story building. Someone even sent him an e-mail message, asking his opinion on whether final exams should be cumulative or should cover only material since the last test.
"I'm in the loop now," says Mr. Marks.
The day in August that he received the teaching award, though, he was reminded of his status as a part-timer when he went home and checked his mailbox. He had gotten a letter from the private company from which he buys health insurance: His bill, the letter said, was going up by $400 a month.
"I got great pleasure out of the recognition I got," he says of his teaching award, "but it was a bittersweet irony to be forced the same day to deal with the reality that I'm in this situation because I'm an adjunct, and my employer doesn't give me health insurance."
Comments
1. teacherspaddle - October 19, 2009 at 09:39 am
Right now, universities have no incentive to change. But this piece speaks volumes to why students, full time faculty and adjuncts need to be allies, and work together to make the public argument that a large pool of adjuncts is bad for universities, and that the state needs to improve funding for public education.
2. mmccllln - October 19, 2009 at 10:04 am
As a community college adjunct in the South, I can relate to most of what this article details. I thoroughly enjoy teaching, but my school has just four desks in the adjunct office and the only reason I go in there now is just to check mail. I am given great flexibility in how I teach my courses, but there is no accountability in whether I'm good at it. I've never had anyone observe me in the class, nor have I ever been asked about how I teach. That does make me feel like a disposable styrofoam cup that can be tossed away once I am no longer needed.
3. jgelfuso - October 19, 2009 at 01:36 pm
I adjunct for two local colleges and I aspire to teach full time. However, while I'm on my way toward that goal, I'm meeting people who have taught as adjuncts for ten years plus. Is that really how long I am to wait for stability? Granted, the economy is horrible so it may take even longer. I'm applying all of the East Coast because I feel something has to give-I need health insurance which is not extended to us (or any other benefit for that matter). It makes you feel as if you are disposable, not really admired, and that you don't really count as an employee or professor. I want to become more involved at both schools-but I teach four classes AND I have to hold down other odd jobs to make ends meet since, as you know, adjunct pay is kind of a joke. I do not teach for the money, I teach to teach, so there is the silver lining. Anyway, even if I were 'allowed' to attend a faculty meeting, which I'm not, there is no time! Can I call myself a professor-yes-but do I feel like a 'real' one-not really.
4. skepticalteach - October 19, 2009 at 02:03 pm
I agree with #1 that now colleges and unversities may not be in a position to change (economy?), but many states haven't funded public education in the first place. The plight of adjunct faculty has been ongoing for almost three decades - and getting worse. Perhaps when there are no more tenured faculty members, the world will wake up. Also, let's not forget the for-profit, 'flexible', 'relevent', and 'customized' online explosion that exploits even more - at least the pay is better.
5. 22176686 - October 19, 2009 at 03:57 pm
"By adjunct standards, Oakton is actually one of the better colleges in the Chicago area to work for. It has the state's oldest union for part-time instructors...." Yet "Another adjunct at Oakton, who asked to remain anonymous, says that she has tried to bring up some of her concerns but that no one will listen."
By nearly any measure, the NEA adjunct union at Oakton has failed to adequately represent their members in the past 30 years. Their salaries are terrible, they have no health care, and the working conditions are abhorrent.
The full-time union, also NEA, has, however, done a marvelous job for its members.
It does not appear that being affiliated with the NEA has helped the adjuncts at all. The union can only claim that it has done a little better than the really lousy job all the other national unions have done for adjuncts.
How can we help to liberate the Oakton 540?
6. dietpepsi - October 19, 2009 at 08:59 pm
At least you don't have to pay nearly $600 in union dues every year for the ability to keep your job.
7. oaktonadjunct - October 19, 2009 at 10:50 pm
While it is great the The Chronicle has written this article to helps shed some small light on the plight of adjuncts it is unfortunate that they decided to sugar coat it. The actual situation at Oakton is far worse than is portrayed in this article.
Yes, as the article states, adjuncts are a second tier; what is not said is how adjuncts are treated with little more than derision by the Oakton Administration. We have no offices, no meeting rooms, no mailboxes, no voice mail, no benefits, no say in what courses we teach. It isn't just a lack of collegial atmosphere or refusing to say "hi" in the hallway as the article implies - it is open disdain.
Yes, as the article states full-timers earn $86,000 or more but the actual pay of adjuncts is exaggerated. The $21,000 figure given by the article can only be made by an adjunct with over 20 years at Oakton teaching three courses each Fall and Spring and a summer course. Actual pay for adjuncts at Oakton is between $5,000 and $10,000 a year.
The two department chairs interviewed for the article do nothing to meaningfully include adjuncts and their statements quoted in the article are completely false. One gave listing the adjuncts' names on the department Web page (that part is true) as a grand gesture to adjuncts. That gives you an idea of how much consideration adjuncts are given at Oakton: "We put your names on a Web page, now shut up and work."
As 22176686 said, the adjunct faculty union at Oakton is terrible. They have done next to nothing to bring real pay, benefits, or status to adjuncts. The union is completely non-responsive to its members. The union is afraid to stand up for its members. The contract is riddled with loopholes that the Oakton Administration is very ready to exploit. The union does nothing.
The Chronicle received other responses in its survey from Oakton adjuncts and interviewed other adjuncts, yet it seems The Chronicle decided to only publish comments most favorable to the Oakton Administration.
Of course, if any adjunct really spoke against the Administration they'd be fired. The union, of course, would do nothing.
The real tragedy is that Oakton and how adjuncts are treated there is normal in the U.S.
8. oaktonadjunct3 - October 20, 2009 at 02:15 am
I can relate to most of what this article details. I have been adjunct at Oakton for many years. The article is fairly accurate describing the tone and spirit that is Oakton Community College. I applaud The Chronicle of Education in bringing some facts to the forefront.
For an outsider to understand Oakton, I'd suggest reading "Animal Farm".
We are all equal, but some are more equal than others.
It's sad to see the organization, by administrative policy, institute a strict classful system. Oakton is upside down and backwards, practicing discrimination and reverse discrimination (white males need not apply for any faculty positions).
The good news I have is there has been a general increase in quality adjunct faculty arriving at Oakton. However, at the same time, there has been a dramatic decrease in full-time faculty competence. I believe a growing consensus among adjuncts and students is that most full-time faculty do not earn their salary, nor are they content experts, especially in the areas of Mathematics and Technologies.
Often demonstrated by full time faculty is a lack of ethics, self-absorption, infighting, and back-stabbing. Sadly, adjuncts, by no choice of their own get caught in the middle, often victims of blame, or worse, get bumped out altogether. Where is the student in all of this you ask? They were never considered.
I believe Oakton Community College is broken. What is really needed is an entire administrative overhaul.
9. ghol4718 - October 20, 2009 at 08:08 am
I could be worse. You could be teaching in Kansas as an adjunct for $360 per credit hour with a $10 increase per semester with a lifetime cap of $460 or a full-time faculty member with 15 years teaching experience with a salary of $38,000!
10. teacherandfriend - October 20, 2009 at 08:13 am
The fact that Oakton lacks a quality full-time faculty is of separate issue. Perhaps a low quality full-time faculty and poor treatment of adjuncts is the reason Oakton has had a poor reputation among students and recent enrollment problems?
Congratulations to Kamran Swanson, Lawrence Marks, and others for their perspectives. What worries me is Oakton will continue to treat these people (adjuncts) poorly.
11. emack - October 20, 2009 at 09:41 am
I am a relatively new adjunct (5 years)for Omaha-area community colleges and universities. I have been reading reports like this since I was a TA. One local university is kicking around the idea of unionizing, and adjuncts are running scared. I have come to the conclusion NOTHING will ever change unless there is a full scale - I'm talking across the country - sitout/walkout. It's time to take action and quit complaining.
If an organized effort was made for adjuncts (and sympathetic faculty?) to sit out the first day/week of classes - whatever - it would at least bring attention to our plight other than just complaining to each other, which hasn't gotten us far. Get it on the front page of newspapers - on the news - across the country.
Who's in?
12. drtimothy - October 20, 2009 at 10:34 am
The fundamental issue concerning adjuncts is the culture of the academic community: the core community--its institutional culture--is, as it always has been, its fulltime workforce. Adjuncts are by definition necessary and expendable to the extent that they support and maintain that culture, and its economic underpinnings. Most faculty--fulltime or adjunct--see occasional gestures toward adjuncts like a pat on the head in the form of an 'adjunct of the year teaching award' or four hundred bucks for serving on a committee for what they are: symbolic but ultimately meaningless to the adjunct desiring to become integrated in an institutional culture that does not include, nor desire, adjuncts--adjuncts are not part of the institution's core culture. These interesting economic times emphasize the obvious: adjuncts are, as we alays have been, first and foremost an economic necessity: nothing more, nothing less. (Former college administrator).
13. concernedteacher - October 20, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Reading this story of Oakton adjuncts baffles me.
Shouldn't an organization practice what it preaches about equality?
Equal pay for equal work. It's that simple.
14. laoshi - October 20, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Who needs an office? I don't even get that in my full-time university post.
If this is a plight, it is one of the adjuncts' own making.
15. dietcoke1 - October 20, 2009 at 01:50 pm
I bet Oakton doesn't even acknowledge this little article/issue.
Just one more minor adjunct disturbance issue to be swept under the carpet.
"It doesn't concern me, I'm not interested"
"Shh! Don't say anything"
"It will go away by tommorow"
"Someone's always complaining, who is it now?"
"I still have my job, that's all I'm concerned about"
Of course, as expected, the only talk about this article is from the quoted indiduals, whom are scampering all around the everyone@oakton.edu email distribution list covering their assess so they don't get fired!
Nothing's changed...
16. 22176686 - October 20, 2009 at 07:13 pm
Any union worthy of the name would have long ago negotiated equal pay for equal work, real job security with real protections from retaliation, and health care and retirement benefits. (And all Oakton adjuncts are forced to pay money to their union.)
None of these appear on the list of accomplishments at the Oakton Community College Adjunct Faculty Association website. However, there will be an Oakton Community College Appreciation Dinner on October 29. To paraphrase Dickens, "Please, sir, can we have some more?"
Throughout the country, the plight of adjuncts is nearly identical and for the same reason. Nearly all adjuncts are being represented by the three national faculty unions, which are controlled by the tenured faculty.
Let's hope the Oakton 540 can find (or create) an independent democratic union to represent them.
17. shariyat5 - October 20, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Im in! After 7 districts and a few dept chair tyrants, Im so ready to fight back .EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK! I have taught for ten years with no health insurance. I pay for my dentist out of pocket and the same with doctors. I make $10,000 per district and I just completed my doctorate.I must commute everywhere when admins sit on thier big %$#@ and collect six figure salaries?
DO I want to do this for the rest of my? Absolutley not. I talk to full time tenure profs with less experience and less education and they get $80,000 a year. I have my own office at home and I can tell you that all districts are not created equal. Some are highly dysfunctional and should be avoided at any cost! Others pay so little, I could barely pay my bills let alone pay the gas for the 3 hour commute? There are 800,000 adjuncts in the US right now. Why wont they fight back!Now California is using the budget excuse to eliminate its part timers.Come on!
18. nationaladjunctday - October 20, 2009 at 11:53 pm
OK,
Let's organize a NATIONAL ADJUNCTS DAY!
It is important we reflect on both the good, and the injustices imposed on Adjuncts nationwide.
Pick a day, which one do you want?
Of course, adjuncts won't be in the classroom that day.
19. emack - October 21, 2009 at 09:41 am
Okay. That makes 3 of us, but a flame starts with but a flicker.
What about Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010? That is near the beginning of most semesters, easy to remember, and far enough off try to organize 800,000 people. My thinking is not only will we not teach that day, put protest on campuses.
I hope you who replied are not joking, because I am dead serious.
20. ksingh - October 21, 2009 at 02:09 pm
I teach at a very large community college system in Northern Virginia. Recently Dr. Jill Biden joined out adjunct ranks, and it was a great source of pride for our school. I remember reading that she said she would be treated like every other adjunct on campus. But, as adjunts, the only desk space we have in the department is crammed in behind a pillar across from the division secretery. I always tell my students to look for me behind the pillar. I can't imagine Dr. Biden sitting behind the pillar.......
21. cerebellum - October 22, 2009 at 12:00 pm
I feel that there are a lot of points that have been missed in this discussion. I work at a large two-year college that employs many part-time instructors. We aim to have 60% of our courses taught by full-time instructors, 40% by part-time instructors.
Things are not rosy here for our part-time instructors. Their pay is low ($2,100 to $2,300 for a 3-credit course). They do not have offices or even desks that they can call their own.
On the other hand, pay is also low for our full-time instructors (starting pay at $35,000 - $40,000). No one, full-time or part-time, will get a pay raise this year.
Space is tight. We have many full-time tenure-track faculty with cubicles for offices. If we had infinite amounts of space, our full-time faculty would have real offices and our part-time faculty would have their own desks or cubicles, but we don't have that space.
On the other hand, we've hired a number of new full-time faculty in the past two years and will be hiring more in the coming year. Our part-time instructors are eligible to apply for those positions, and many time part-time instructors win full-time positions. However, given that there are way more part-time instructors than available positions, part-time instructors are not guaranteed full-time positions, no matter how long they have served. And, it is always possible that someone from outside the college will apply and win the position over a part-time instructor. When Shariyat5 says "I talk to full time tenure profs with less experience and less education..." she misses the important point that in every search, committees seek the person who is best qualified for the position. Experience and education are part of that, but not the only determining factors. For a part-timer to win a full-time job, he or she must be overall the best-qualified person in a particular pool of applicants. If a part-time instructor applies for a position and fails to get it, it is not because there is a conspiracy to block part-time instructors from getting positions; it is because that person failed to demonstrate that they were the best fit for that position. I have had part-time instructors assume that they were entitled to full-time positions and submit poorly prepared paperwork, or present themselves very poorly at interview. It is a real disappointment when a sense of entitlement gets in the way of a sincere effort to win a full-time position.
The article and the comments so far also ignore the enormous diversity of adjunct instructors. Some are just out of grad school with master's degrees. Others have doctorates and considerable teaching experience. Some have other full-time jobs and just want to teach part-time for the joy of teaching or to supplement their income. For others, this is their sole source of income. Part-time teaching is not intended to be a sole source of income and their are few people that could subsist on a part-time income in education or elsewhere.
I support equal pay for equal work. However, at our institution, duties of tenure-track full-time instructors go well beyond what is expected of part-time instructors. In addition to their teaching duties, full-timers are expected to maintain office hours, to service the college in various capacities, including committees, to attend innumerable meetings, and to maintain and document appropriate professional development. Part-time instructors are expected to teach their classes, be available to meet with students before and after class, to maintain accurate records, and to report their grades on time.
While part-time instructors occasionally attend meetings at our institution, we do not encourage them to do so. Why? To the extent that part-timers are often interested becoming full-time instructors, attending the same meetings as full-time instructors tends to increase their sense of entitlement and expectation that they will be the heir-apparent to the next full-time position. Do we value input from part-time instructors? Absolutely. Part-time instructors don't have to wait for a meeting to express their ideas. Most department chairs are open to meeting with part-time instructors, receiving their input, and sharing it further, as appropriate.
Overall, do we value our adjunct instructors? Absolutely! But they are a mixed lot. Some of our adjuncts are go good that we are eager to bring them on full-time at the next available opportunity (and we pray that they don't shoot themselves in the foot on their applications or at interview.) Some of our adjunct instructors make us want to tear our hair out with their attitudes toward our students, with their failures to comply with our procedures, etc. We debate each semester whether to rehire the instructors in the latter group, and if we can find someone better to teach those classes, we will not bring them back. Instructors in the latter group will never find full-time employment at our institution, no matter how long they have taught here, because it is overall quality, not longevity, that dazzles a search committee.
22. chadroscoe - October 23, 2009 at 02:53 pm
No full-timers want to support part-timers. They want the unions to advocate for them, and when the unions have to choose between the 2 groups because they represent both, that is always the choice they make: full-timers. If adjuncts had one nation-wide union, then they could make an impact. A nation-wide adjunct strike would cripple the college system.
The economy is bad, and what is the first to get cut? Construction schedules? Purchase of media equipment? Clerical? Benefits? Nope. Adjuncts.
A full-time position is open at your school! Do they hire you, the adjunct who has been their faithful employee for years, and had semesters of excellent teaching observations and student surveys?
Nope, they hire a newbie from outside every time.
Where is the union on that? Full-time positions should be filled from the part-time pool on a seniority basis.
Good enough to work here, but not good enough to be hired for 2 more classes is a blatant form of classism.
And because they pay us so little and keep us running so much we are far too overworked and busy to organize and make a change, and also, according to most adjuncts I know, too afraid as well. When someone can just not hire you back with a "no classes available" and no proof required, how can you ever do anything to improve your situation?
C-R
23. chadroscoe - October 23, 2009 at 02:56 pm
You know, cerebellum - October 22, 2009 at 12:00 pm, if they're not good enough to be hired full-time you're not doing them any favors by keeping them on staff. You should let them go. If they are so good that you want them they should not have to re-prove themselves to you at an interview, or leave with the worry that they "shot themselves in the foot." How unkind and snooty you are.
You are a perfect illustration of the classism of which I speak.
C-R
24. californiabruce - October 25, 2009 at 01:33 am
I found the remarks by "cerebellum - October 23, 2009" totally offensive to me as a part-timer. For example: "While part-time instructors occasionally attend meetings at our institution, we do not encourage them to do so. Why? To the extent that part-timers are often interested becoming full-time instructors, attending the same meetings as full-time instructors tends to increase their sense of entitlement and expectation that they will be the heir-apparent to the next full-time position." That comment shows her total disregard for the collegiality with which faculty are expected to treat each other AS EQUALS. She/He demonstrates the typical arrogance of an administrator.
25. californiabruce - October 25, 2009 at 01:37 am
"Cerebellum" might as well say: "Don't tell a part-timer that he/she is doing a good job. Why? He/She might expect an increase in their paycheck." What rubbish!!!
26. cerebellum - October 26, 2009 at 01:23 pm
Chadroscoe- I find your comments more than a little unkind.
There is no process at my institution for hiring someone into a full-time tenure-track position without an interview. I have seen people that I really liked and wanted to hire alienate the search committee so that I could do nothing to bring them on in a full-time position.
My track record - of the 45 full-time positions we have filled in my department in the last two years, 29 of them have been filled by people who started out teaching for us part-time.
I'm intrigued by your comment that "if they're not good enough to be hired full-time you're not doing them any favors by keeping them on staff." First, I'm not in a position to only hire people that I think I might hire full-time. With 40% of our sections taught by part-time instructors, I have a constant need. Second, not everyone who teaches part-time aspires to a full-time job. (Many of them have other jobs that pay better, and they don't want to take a pay cut to teach for us full-time.) Last, though, your comment is thought-provoking, and you may be right. Are you saying that if you had no shot at a full-time job, you would feel better about being offered no part-time work than about doing part-time work without the possibility of ever being offered a full-time position? This is one that I'll keep mulling over.
Your statement "Full-time positions should be filled from the part-time pool on a seniority basis" is one point of view. However, very few hiring committees would subscribe to it. I reiterate my earlier point that if you want a full-time position, you have to demonstrate that you are the best person for the position, not just the one who has been in the position longest.
Californiabruce- sorry if I come across as arrogant. My goal was to provide insight. I responded to an article about the distress that part-time instructors feel when they are unable to secure full-time positions. For some instructors, sense of entitlement does get in the way of them proving to search committees that they are the best person for the job. This is something that part-timers need to be aware of in preparing for and interviewing for full-time positions.
You're right, I am an administrator. That means that I have served on a lot of search committees and overseen even more searches. I do care what happens to our part-timers. But I don't have magic powers to overcome what happens between them and a search committee. (Some of our part-timers do very well, see my note above indicating that 29 of 45 recent hires into full-time positions came from the part-time ranks.)
I often tell part-timers that they are doing a good job. I also often encourage them to apply for full-time positions. I provide references for them when it is someone I know well enough.
There is no danger of part-timer instructors expecting a pay increase for being told they are doing a good job. Sadly, we do not provide pay increases for part-timers based on longevity or quality. The only pay increases come when we upgrade the pay across the board, every few years.
However, if you read Chadroscoe's comments, there is a very real danger of an instructor feeling entitled to a full-time position based on longevity or on a feeling that he/she does everything that the full-time instructors do, including attending meetings.
To both of you, not all institutions are alike, but mine has a good track record of bringing part-time instructors into the full-time ranks. AND, our full-time instructors are VERY supportive of our part-time instructors, advocating for pay increases, and selecting them for priority interviews when positions become open.
27. 11228418 - December 15, 2009 at 01:00 pm
Two year colleges are the "pits" for adjuncts.
I served as the Director of Bands for a Community College for a number of years. Despite the fact that I had taught at a major state university and had a very successful high school career in music education, I was still considered "hired help", Degrees did not prove very helpful either. The response was: We don't need that here". Just do what I tell you. "I hire adjuncts and I can fire adjuncts."
I stayed, because, it was close to home, I really like teaching and am very good at it. As it turned out I stayed longer then anyone else ever had in that position, and longer other Fine Arts adjuncts hired when I was.
Our concert band often played on the level of a four year school. I did major work in helping the music area get accreditation, as I had been involved with this, at my previous four year institution. I was often told, that I "over dressed" for the job. I guess a shirt and a tie is just too much for a two year college. A number of our players came from a local Air Force Base. They expected the person in charge to "look like they were in charge!"
Out of the clear blue, a young gal was hired full time, and she retired or dismissed all of the music adjuncts and brought in her own people. All of them for more money, and with lesser education then the people who were there. All of a sudden there was money galore to spend on all kinds of things.
I often feel like I just waisted 10 years and a lot of work for nothing.