College administrators rend their garments and wail about student retention. Turns out, though, fretting over that issue is much like fretting about fried food: No matter your depth of concern, at the end of the day no one wants to believe that gorging on French fries is unhealthy.
I just finished reading the ubiquitous piece from the ubiquitous adjunct on how to teach 10 classes a semester. The author, a blogger, uses the moniker “Piss Poor Prof.” A few years ago, the ubiquitous adjunct was Jill Carroll. She wrote “How to Survive as an Adjunct Lecturer: An Entrepreneurial Strategy Manual.” Jill, who holds a Ph.D. from Rice University, also wrote for The Chronicle’s monthly column called “The Adjunct Track”: columns like “Avoiding Adjunct Burnout,” “Don’t go the Extra Mile, Except …,” and, my favorite, “Being a Professional in an Unprofessional Climate.” Interestingly, unlike Piss Poor Prof, Jill Carroll encouraged her adjunct readers to use the time saved by following her handy tips to squeeze in time to research and write.
Carroll wrote that one could make a living wage as an adjunct by teaching a large number of courses each semester; Piss Poor Prof suggests the same thing. The latter adds the twist of making use of technology, such as online grading programs and course Web sites, in order to be able to burn through, say, 250 assignments that need grading.
I actually think the organizational suggestions made by Piss Poor Prof and Jill Carroll border on the brilliant. For instance, Piss Poor Prof suggests accepting papers only in electronic format and then grading them in electronic format, as well. It’s a new world, Goldie. The days of sitting down over a mountain of essays with your favorite fountain pen has gone the way of arranged marriages.
Much as I like and admire their moxie, however, I am stopped by the issue of student retention. I can’t get past my belief that it’s impossible to do as good a job teaching 10 courses in a single semester as you can teaching only two or three. Put another way, simply because someone devises a strategy to squeeze in 10 courses in a semester doesn’t mean it should be done. In fact, I am of the opinion that college administrators’ blithe ignorance about the teaching loads of non-tenure-track faculty members borders on the criminal. Shouldn’t colleges be required to vouch for faculty readiness?
Losing a student is serious business. That’s why oodles of college administrators get paid six-figure salaries to fret about student retention at higher-education conferences held in winter in such dismal locales as San Diego and Phoenix. Is there a way we can fret a little less about how to retain low-income and minority students, whom studies tell us need mentoring and individual attention from faculty members in order to thrive? Should we do another study? Get a grant for a mentoring program? Give tenured faculty members release time to advise?
Sure. And while we’re at it, we might think also staff courses with non-tenure-track faculty members whose total teaching loads are (gasp) equal to that of the tenure-track professors on the campus, and we might pay them (gasp) pro-rata salaries and benefits so that they’re not forced to be “entrepreneurs” or piss poor adjuncts.
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6 Responses to Adjuncts and Student Retention
waldo2384 - August 10, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Most adjuncts have a day job, and teach evenings or weekends. We don’t fret about how many hours these moonlighters put into their other career. That should be at least as much a concern as how many courses a full-time adjunct teaches.
bfred58 - August 10, 2009 at 6:43 pm
In response to waldo2384, I would not make the assumption that “most adjuncts have a day job and teach evenings or weekends.” That was never the case for me and is not now, when I am preparing to teach 5 classes at two different community colleges and one online university. I have always maintained that adjuncts need to be treated fairly and with respect in terms of the amount of classes and pay. Why not establish a contract system, where faculty are hired year-to-year rather than as adjuncts and pay them as if they are the professional they are? I completely agree with P.D. Lesko on this.
clayjenine - August 10, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Many adjuncts do not have a day or evening job for that matter. It is unfortunate that adjuncts are forced to make a living by teaching multiple courses. As an adjunct, I resent the fact that administrators spend their time “whinning” about poor student retention rates, yet, if you visit their employment websites, the schools are trying to pull together their pool of underpaid adjuncts. Given the opportunity, many adjuncts would choose to be full-time, salaried, respected faculty members, not the drop in, underpaid employee. If school administrators are truly concerned about student retention, then they need to take the first step to address this issue. Schools need to provide students with full-time, accessible staff members who can support and mentor students without being forced to leave the campus once their class has ended!
tom777 - August 11, 2009 at 9:47 am
Many adjuncts learn unprofessional behavior from mentors and advisors who have displayed unprofessional behavior with them and other graduate students. There are many senior, tenured professors who know the game on how to ditch students, how to restrict access to email only, how to justify not helping, and how to put the blame on students. They know how to “thin the herd” and get rid of students so they don’t have to help them. These “elimination manoevers” are very common from the selfish, boomer professors who gravitate toward administrative work because they lack social skills and a genuine desire to help students. They try to stick it to the adjuncts to do the grunt work. Many universities need to reconsider the value-added of these so-called high-paying “professionals” who have the most knowledge and give the least back.
tom777 - August 11, 2009 at 10:20 am
Another growing problem is when universities try to supersize the credit hours per course by cram teaching, while maintaining the same adjunct faculty pool. These courses become overwhelmingly large in content as adjuncts are forced to cram in more teaching within the time period the class meets. Most students can’t retain large amounts of information at a single meeting. It’s like the universities want to sweat out as much teaching as they can get and pay the same labor price for it . . . but to what end? They don’t want to create a separate class that meets at another time/day and hire faculty to teach it in a decent way. Their fear is that students won’t like the additional course requirement since it will extend their time to degree. This is fast-food university that offers combo value meals that come off the backs of adjunct workers. I am waiting for the day when the university creates a combo deal course that consists of writing, math, science, art and history–all in a 5-hour course that meets one afternoon per week. This would be the ultimate in cram teaching where 1 adjunct teaches this supersized-content course for 5 hours.
reader1961 - August 11, 2009 at 11:28 am
In California, adjuncts now have an even more charming addition to the usual dilemmas. We are asked to go on Furlough nine days a semester (part of the budget solution), but not to cancel classes on those furlough days. That means we get a ten percent pay reduction, and must hold all our classes, but find a way to reduce our non-teaching-day workload by ten percent. So, for English Department adjuncts who teach remedial writing, we should probably assign fewer essays, comment on/conference on fewer essays and still coach our students sufficiently so that they pass their final portfolio review so they can go on to freshman English. Hmmmm.