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[spork]

I have no data to support this, but I would not be surprised if the institutions that had the highest growth over the last 2-3 decades in undergraduate pre-professional training/certification programs like education, business, and nursing also have had the highest increase in the proportion of adjuncts in their faculties.

[nordicexpat]

I do like the idea of a gap year, though I'm not sure it would (or should) dissuade the women you mention from going to college.

I can't speak for my colleagues in Britain, but few students in the frozen North begin university immediately after high school. Still, the vast majority of them take years to figure out what they want to study (even though to get into the university in the first place they have to get accepted into a specific department) and wind up spending most of their twenties at university, so I doubt a gap year will solve the problem. 

I think the "problem" is that a lot of students (at least in Western Europe) really don't want to begin a career (or a family) until they are in the 30s. During their twenties, they work at odd jobs, study, travel, etc: it's not being a teenager, but it isn't like a traditional 20 year old either. I'm not a sociologist, but I suspect this way of spending one's twenties is simply becoming part of upper-middle/middle-class life, and telling students they should begin work immediately is (to them) telling them they aren't middle class. Class is more than income: students are quite willing to be poor in exchange for a degree of freedom, but if they weren't at university, they would just be poor given the amount of money they make (I doubt many of those with a BA in Art History working at coffee shops plan on doing that for the rest of their life: it's what they will do for a period of time before they want to, well, become someone with a family and a career). Being a student is now an end in itself (rather than a means to an end), so all the lecturing in the world about "test driving a variety of professions" isn't going to help much: that's not why many twenty year olds are at university. Not sure whether this lifestyle is sustainable, because it IS expensive (whether for the individual, as in the States, or for the government, as here in Europe). There are also certainly a lot of students to whom this wouldn't apply. Still I do think it is a pretty sizable amount, and that is going to be a pretty hard situation to change.

[alleyoxenfree]

Obviously, we need to conscript them all and send them to far corners of the empire to do whatever low level jobs the commanders need.  That will give them a taste of travel and adventure and make them appreciate the bucolic pleasures of job and family!

[quasihumanist]

I'll have to think about whether I actually support this (but it's something I think is definitely worth considering)...

The logical end point of my arguments is that undergraduate pre-professional programs should be "illegal".  (Not necessarily forbidden by law, but de-certified.)

This argument was made in the late 19th century, and is why, unlike in Europe, US medical and law degrees require a (liberal-arts) bachelor's degree as a prerequisite.  Back then, Harvard and the rest of the Ivy League had the clout to basically force this requirement on the developing medical and legal professions.

[educator1]

I have no data to support this, but I would not be surprised if the institutions that had the highest growth over the last 2-3 decades in undergraduate pre-professional training/certification programs like education, business, and nursing also have had the highest increase in the proportion of adjuncts in their faculties.

I doubt that they would have the highest growth, as these professional programs have been utilizing adjuncts (experienced practitioners with terminal degrees) for a long time. I would bet, however, that these professional programs have the highest proportion of adjuncts that are used appropriately, as opposed to the abuse reported endlessly in these fora.

[bms2000]

I have no data to support this, but I would not be surprised if the institutions that had the highest growth over the last 2-3 decades in undergraduate pre-professional training/certification programs like education, business, and nursing also have had the highest increase in the proportion of adjuncts in their faculties.

I doubt that they would have the highest growth, as these professional programs have been utilizing adjuncts (experienced practitioners with terminal degrees) for a long time. I would bet, however, that these professional programs have the highest proportion of adjuncts that are used appropriately, as opposed to the abuse reported endlessly in these fora.

I find it amusing, as an adjunct, to be considered a device that can be used appropriately or inappopriately...

[lotsoquestions]

Wanted to revive this thread when I saw this article
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/jobs/31search.html
in yesterday's paper.
Basically, the "Careers" section of the New YOrk Times is proposing adjuncting as a great solution for anyone in a white collar profession who might be experiencing short-term cash flow problems. 
What the heck?
Does anyone else find this a bit problematic -- that this great mutuality of interests exists between people who are behind on their car payments and universities who are behind on their hiring?  I guess what I find strange about this article is that even if the solution proposed here is best for people who are late on their mortgage payments and universities that are having personnel problems -- shouldn't it also be best for the students? Funny how the article here doesn't mention them at all.

If I were the 'consumer' contemplating 'purchasing' an education, I would surely find this a bit strange.  It's a bit like suggesting that restaurants save money by allowing people to clean out their refrigerators and make a little cash while restocking the restaurant at the same time.  Interesting proposal -- but what about the people who want to eat there?  Maybe if there are some unemployed contractors around, they could fill in at the hospital -- you know, resetting bones and stuff -- until something better turns up.  The mind reels at this new type of economy . . .

[bms2000]

Yeah, 'cause none of us adjuncts are competent or care about the students or anything. We're just doing it for the mortgage. /sarcasm off

[lotsoquestions]

Actually, that wasn't my point at all.  My point was that when most of us think of adjuncts WE
think of someone who is working on or perhaps has already finished a Ph.D. who is adjuncting at the moment because of the job market, but who hopes to one day become a professor and who has an active research agenda and keeps abreast of academic developments in the field and who is clearly committed to students and teaching. 
Most of us don't immediately think to ourselves, "Oh, here's somebody who's never actually given a thought to teaching or students or education but who appears to be experiencing short-term cash flow problems."  Can't say that in all my many years of adjuncting, I met too many people who went into it because they found it financially lucrative, or who fit that profile.  Have you? 

.  That was what struck me as bizarre -- the emphasis on 'this is a great way to fix your short-term financial crisis.'  If you've ever adjuncted, you know how hard it really is if done successfully.  And honestly, I'd thought you'd probably find an article focussed on how lucrative adjuncting was sort of humorous -- because it's such a skewed way of looking at the problem. 

[kedves]

The article refers to the original purpose and a continuing, if perhaps diminishing, use of adjuncts:  to give students the opportunity to learn from someone with substantial practical experience in the field.  It is a good match of interests in some areas.  Presumably, colleges and universities can decide who is qualified to teach.  

I thought the article was informative and honest.  Far from promoting the idea that adjuncting is lucrative, the writer advises that the money is not worth the time spent, professionals should not pursue this form of part-time work for mainly financial motivation, and the value of the job is primarily non-financial.  Why is the emphasis of the article on workers rather than students?  It's in the Jobs section, not the Education section.  

If we are thinking in terms of education consumers, real-world experience of faculty is more likely to be a selling point than a weakness.   Whether students learn more or better from people with experience in a particular field or industry than from people with academic experience or blended experience, I don't know.   But the analogy above is peculiar.  I don't see much similarity between a filmmaker's teaching a film class, or a nurse's teaching a nursing class, and homeowners bringing leftovers to restaurants or contractors working as physicians.  

[mad_doctor]

Years ago, when I first began thinking about the long-term effects that the increasing usage of adjuncts might have on higher education, my first thoughts were that it would not be a good idea since it resulted in there being fewer and fewer full-time faculty/ stakeholders interested in the best long-term interests of the institution.  Adjuncts show up, teach, and go home.  They typically don't serve on committees, don't advise students, don't participate in curriculum development, don't hold office hours, and generally don't contribute to anything to the university community beyond their classroom duties.  So, at first I believed that when the system became stressed from too much short-term focus, the pendulum would swing back toward less adjuncts and more full-time tt faculty as the system corrected itself for having too few stakeholders with its best long-term interests in perspective.  Lately, however, I have been thinking that if I were an administrator I'd probably be thinking that I could compensate for that by incrementally placing all those necessary services on the shoulders of adjuncts instead of hiring back more ft-tt faculty.  In other words, I'd just make committees, office hours, advising, and all that junk a part of the standard adjunct, and even if I had to start paying adjuncts more to do it, it would still be better than hiring more disloyal, overprivileged, underworked, prima-donna tt faculty.  Of course, before this can happen, they'll have to find a way either to bury tenure or to make it so irrelevant to the university as to be of no further consequence.  So, there you have it - mad_doctor's prediction about the future of ft-tt faculty in higher ed.

Now, don't get me wrong here, I believe adjuncts may serve a beneficial purpose in higher ed., but like anything else they can become counter-productive when the system becomes overly-reliant on their services.

[alleyoxenfree]

Years ago, when I first began thinking about the long-term effects that the increasing usage of adjuncts might have on higher education, my first thoughts were that it would not be a good idea since it resulted in there being fewer and fewer full-time faculty/ stakeholders interested in the best long-term interests of the institution.  Adjuncts show up, teach, and go home.  They typically don't serve on committees, don't advise students, don't participate in curriculum development, don't hold office hours, and generally don't contribute to anything to the university community beyond their classroom duties.  So, at first I believed that when the system became stressed from too much short-term focus, the pendulum would swing back toward less adjuncts and more full-time tt faculty as the system corrected itself for having too few stakeholders with its best long-term interests in perspective.  Lately, however, I have been thinking that if I were an administrator I'd probably be thinking that I could compensate for that by incrementally placing all those necessary services on the shoulders of adjuncts instead of hiring back more ft-tt faculty.  In other words, I'd just make committees, office hours, advising, and all that junk a part of the standard adjunct, and even if I had to start paying adjuncts more to do it, it would still be better than hiring more disloyal, overprivileged, underworked, prima-donna tt faculty.  Of course, before this can happen, they'll have to find a way either to bury tenure or to make it so irrelevant to the university as to be of no further consequence.  So, there you have it - mad_doctor's prediction about the future of ft-tt faculty in higher ed.

Now, don't get me wrong here, I believe adjuncts may serve a beneficial purpose in higher ed., but like anything else they can become counter-productive when the system becomes overly-reliant on their services.

This stuff has been made part of standard adjuncting at the places where I've adjuncted, and for no additional compensation.

[educator1]

My point was that when most of us think of adjuncts WE
think of someone who is working on or perhaps has already finished a Ph.D. who is adjuncting at the moment because of the job market, but who hopes to one day become a professor and who has an active research agenda and keeps abreast of academic developments in the field and who is clearly committed to students and teaching. 

The article refers to the original purpose and a continuing, if perhaps diminishing, use of adjuncts:  to give students the opportunity to learn from someone with substantial practical experience in the field.  It is a good match of interests in some areas.  Presumably, colleges and universities can decide who is qualified to teach. 

The narrow view of adjuncts expressed by lostofquestions, nicely refuted by kedves, is the source of much of the meaningless back and forth regarding the use of adjuncts. Both of these uses of adjunct instructors are common and focusing on the ills of one only muddies up the conversation. I am not a recent Phd. who is looking for a full-time TT job. In fact, I do not want it!

[der_gadfly]

First, define full time professor. In my mind, this is someone who focuses on teaching first, research last. Undergrads outweigh grad students, and going off on sabbaticals is intended to improve teaching, not get new publications. that stated up front, my bent is clear.

Now, what matters MOST (as far as the tax-paying American) is teaching these over-achieving underachievers in the skills that matter most: show up on time, perform all the required activities, perform well on objective measures of expected outcomes, and maintain contact when any of the above prove impossible.  Corollary issues include paying bills on time (i.e. student loans), and becoming a productive citizen, adding ot the ongoing cycle by providing education to the offspring.

Now, how do we bring back the 'full time professor'? Let's start with a mandatory retirement age. Give those former promising grad students the chance to suck dry a system of our own creation just as we did. Failure to do so will result eventually in a fate similar to "The Big Six" (seek references to the NYC Typographers unions). Witness also what "the Greatest Generation" did to the social welfare in the US: sucked it dry under the guise of entitlement.
Re-frame the purpose of the professor in 21st century terms, and drop the pretense that we are artists working for patrons in some Renaissance passion play. This does not entail the elimination of tenure and the associated lifetime employment, but rather that tenure carries with it certain accountabilities, and certain limits.

Drop the pretense that the sole purpose of graduate education is to prepare the next generation of scholars for tenure track positions when none exist. Allow that some seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and not as a means to a cushy life. Drop the attitude that only those from elite  educational backgrounds are worthy of entry into the academy: the poor and underserved are no less prepared.

Let fly the freedom to excel at what it is that pays the bills: undergraduate teaching. Allow us to challenge out=r youth so that they too may enjoy the rich opportunities afforded to those with the power to effect change.

In short, remember that dinosaurs once ruled the planet....

[mad_doctor]

Good points, der_gadfly, although I would take a pragmatic perspective on changing rules for tenure.  Any  tweaking with the "except for cause" part will result in the elimination of tenure for all practical purposes.  The reason behind this is the courts don't require employers to have reasons for terminating employees, and any dispute about performance is treated as a "he says - she says" situation.  In other words, the universities will just terminate "at will" and claim that your performance was poor, if they provide a reason at all, which they are currently not required to do.  When you produce the evidence that your performance was great, they'll respond by saying that it's not good enough, there were other things not included in your documentation, claim managerial privilege, blah, blah, blah...