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[boolos]

I saw a few interesting references to this in another thread.  Anyone with thoughtful comments on this subject?  I would love to hear them.

Do these often hold true even at places where previous non-tenure people DID receive tenure, or when previous adjunct people DID receive a lecturer or assistant position?

I know of someone in this situation - going on 3 years, with rather promising assurances that a full-time position will be opening soon and that this person is a preferred candidate.  Basically, the chair is at least verbally assuring that the intentions are that the relationship won't merely be a F-buddy situation.

My advice is to never trust the assurances, because those cliches are true.

[untenured]

Wise advice.  I agree with the notion that adjunct faculty commonly have a 'shelf life' of 'freshness'.    After a few years, the adjunct's services are taken for granted and the department perceives little incentive to bring the adjunct on the tenure track.  They've got you as an adjunct already, how will granting a full-time position spice up the department.  Someone new and unknown is usually more alluring.

Untenured

[mended_drum]

This has been discussed before, but what it comes down to is this:  yes, sometimes a part-timer, adjunct or VAP will be first in line for a tt job and actually get it; if a full job search occurs, other candidates will be irritated by the existence of an inside candidate, assuming, sometimes correctly, that they were at a disadvantage.  However, when a tt job search is conducted, no assurance of any kind guarantees that an inside candidate will get the job.  If other applicants appear (for any reason) to be better, the inside candidate will be out of luck.  And there is absolutely no way to know which of these scenarios will take place.  Ever.

[lotsoquestions]

I recently met someone who had been adjuncting -- at a prestigious university, yes, but adjuncting -- for 18 years.  SHe had little kids when she started and was not geographically mobile because her husband's job was considered the main job. 

I had a similar experience of my own a few years back where I adjuncted for a long time at a school where they kept telling me they'd be adding tt positions but never did. 

I think the 'milk is free' scenario is particularly likely if the rest of your department knows you have no options -- i.e. not geographically mobile, etc. etc. etc.  I think, unfortunately, that moms are probably particularly vulnerable to this scenario.  Once they have somebody who's dependable, reliable, and willing to take whatever courses they offer as long as they fit into their schedule, they have very little incentive to attempt to keep you there.  They just assume you're not going anywhere.  KNowing what I now know, I never would have wasted as many years as I wasted with that department, that university.

[aneumey]

I have seen a lot of non TT to TT hires, but they are almost always in the first 2-3 years.  Usually, it is someone they want to hire as soon as someone retires or a new position can be created.  Also, if they are impressed by an non-TT faculty member AND they believe they are about to be snapped up by another school.  Otherwise, it is rare.

[seniorscholar]

I agree with the notion that adjunct faculty commonly have a 'shelf life' of 'freshness'. 

Not only is this true of the school where one is an adjunct, it's true generally. By three years after one's degree date, one has to have more experience teaching different courses, more publications, and more service in order to be competitive with someone who is (on paper at least) fresh and up-to-date with the scholarship in a field.

If you are tied to a location and working as an adjunct, you can possibly gain some of that "freshness" by publishing, attending a high-prestige summer workshop, participating administratively in some regional organization (e.g., in my locale, there's a regional consortium of writing programs that sponsors meetings, workshops, lectures, and so forth), or doing something that shows you can bring more to a department than they're currently getting out of you.

[renji]

Basically, the chair is at least verbally assuring that the intentions are that the relationship won't merely be a F-buddy situation.

My advice is to never trust the assurances, because those cliches are true.

Even if the chair is honest and fully intends to keep their promises, final hiring decisions may be outside of their control.

At my school, a few years back, we had a chair that promised a friend on mine that they would be strongly recommended for the next open TT spot.

When the time came, the chair kept his word and put my friend up for the open TT position.

The dean shot it down.

The dean knew the person wasn't going anywhere and didn't see the need to triple my friend's salary when the college could still get their services on the cheap.

I though this was a pretty nasty thing to do. But, the dean was right.

Three years later, the person is still working for the college, still winning teaching and research awards, and still being paid peanuts.

Plus, the person hired for my friend's spot has also worked out very well. So, the dean correctly saw that he could get 2 people for the price of 1 and 1/3, saving the college tens of thousands of dollars a year.

[grasshopper]

I wonder if in some cases the cow-buying and familiarity-breeding reasons aren't justifications perpetuated by the people stuck in the adjunct ghetto. "Oh, I didn't get a TT job... again. Why buy the cow..."

I know of a few instances where adjuncts have gotten passed over for TT positions, not because of over-familiarity or free milk, but because they have been so overworked adjuncting that they haven't published in years. No research funding, no time to research even if you had the cash, no funding for conferences... and in the end, they simply didn't have what it took to compete with people who had been doing research.

But in each of these cases, the person chalked up the failed job search to cow-buying and over-familiarity. I don't know - maybe they didn't want to characterize themselves as unproductive researchers? Or maybe they simply didn't see themselves as unproductive, because there were so many justifications for their lack of productiveness? Who knows? Whatever the reasons, these people weren't fully understanding why they were passed over for TT jobs, and ascribed it instead to cow-buying.

[blackswan]

Well, for the first time, I find myself in the position of the, uh, cow.  And I wonder if perhaps it matters what kind of a pasture I am in.  An R-1 pasture might be more concerned with my future cud-chewing abilities.  But a SLAC pasture might tolerate the fact that I'd been hanging around if at least I was an active cow.

Ultimately, it probably doesn't matter, as the final decision will be up to the farmer, er, dean.  All I can do is be the best-teaching, most-publishing cow I know how to be.

And being a cow isn't all that bad.  I really enjoy doing cow stuff.  And doesn't this mean that I get to have 4 or 5 stomachs?  There are some real possibilities there...

[johnr]

Interesting question.  In every job search that I've been party to (and there have been many) we've had our own adjuncts apply for the position.  Only once did we hire the adjunct and that was because the adjunct was a good teacher publishing regularly, had managed to acquire some lab space at our marine lab, and actually had an active grant at the time of application. We have never hired an adjunct who had a good teaching record but no publications or record of grants.  I know that's anecdotal, but it never was a situation of milk-for-free.

[csguy]

We've actually hired a couple people that worked as adjuncts. Sometimes we're too lazy and/or cheap to do a search. We're mostly a teaching school so if they've proven themselves to be good teachers ...

[king_ghidorah]

I posted this somewhere else but thought it was more apropos here.  Just these last couple of weeks the faculty got together to decide on a number of open positions - several positions.  Not a single one was viable for the numerous hard-working and dedicated adjuncts who were hanging around the back door, many of whom are at the beginning stages of their careers but well qualified and ambitious academics.  I was not so upset since this place has already started to grate, but it has certainly polarized those who were lead to believe that staff positions might turn into tt jobs.  F-buddys: the university made us vague promises but never carried through; we owe them nothing in return.  Several of us have SOs on the faculty who we plan on pulling with us...

[grasshopper]

Several of us have SOs on the faculty who we plan on pulling with us...

That sucks for the department, but for those of us looking for work, it just means more job openings.

[mj_romo]

I agree with the notion that adjunct faculty commonly have a 'shelf life' of 'freshness'.

I agree with this, and I think I have expired.

I have the teaching experience, regular publishing experience, conference/seminar experience.  I keep up-to-date with "best practices" and SLO initiatives.  I have good teaching evals and don't have a problem getting nice letters of rec. 

I'm not tied to my location and have applied for positions in several other counties and states.  I don't know if this is normal, but I've only gotten interviews at about 1/4 of the places where I've applied.

I don't want to be an adjunct-for-life, but I love teaching.  What does one do in that position? 

[untenured]

I agree with the notion that adjunct faculty commonly have a 'shelf life' of 'freshness'.

I agree with this, and I think I have expired.

I have the teaching experience, regular publishing experience, conference/seminar experience.  I keep up-to-date with "best practices" and SLO initiatives.  I have good teaching evals and don't have a problem getting nice letters of rec. 

I'm not tied to my location and have applied for positions in several other counties and states.  I don't know if this is normal, but I've only gotten interviews at about 1/4 of the places where I've applied.

I don't want to be an adjunct-for-life, but I love teaching.  What does one do in that position? 

Good question.  My question to you would be, "do you love research?"  If you like both research and teaching, then you should write your way into a job that gives you the flexiblity to teach what you want and when you want it.  So many universities are research oriented or trying to be that a research porfolio for classroom-loving academic can make your career trajectory much easier.

But what if you really love teaching and not that iggedly piggedly research stuff?  Then you are doing the right thing.  You have to go beyond good scores and show that you aggressively incorporate new pedagogical methods into the classroom.  Heck, you may even want to publish in a pedagogy journal or win a pedaogical based award if your discipline offers one.

Also, focus on improvements that have visible measures or success.  Spending hours and hours talking with students can't be measured by a search commitee or placed on a CV.  Completing eleven independent studies where two students win student-paper awards can.  Support your students, but do it in a way that can be concretely presented to further your career goals.

The adjunct who works really hard getting good teaching scores year after year and thinks that because hu is doing just a good job that some school will notice them and give them a tenure track job ... that's the one who is in real trouble.

Remember, is it measurable, is it CVable, will a search commitee care?  That's how you focus your pedogical search efforts most effectively.  Everything else is volunteer work in terms of your career.

Untenured