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[mouseman]

Adjuncts care about quality. Someone's got to.

What adjuncts care about and what they can supply are two different things.  It is hard to provide quality education when you have few resources, are overworked, have no real connection to the school, and, of course, are fully aware that you a simply another interchangeable warm body.  Additionally, it is hard to provide quality education when next semester's paycheck depends on keeping students happy, rather than making sure that they learn the material.  Much of the support that  chairs/deans/etc. give faculty in classroom issues is based on the fact that these people know the instructor and are familiar with his/her behavior.  As far as they know, the person who was hired this semester to teach basket weaving 101 did indeed behave badly to Suzie Snowflake, and it is easier to replace the instructor with another hungry PhD/MA than it is to deal with any conflict.

Unfortunately, increasing adjunct pay and adding benefits will not solve these problems.  IMO eliminating the wide use of adjuncts to teach intro and service courses is the only real solution, as well as slashing enrollment in PhD programs in glutted fields. 

[spinnaker]

Adjuncts care about quality. Someone's got to.

What adjuncts care about and what they can supply are two different things.  It is hard to provide quality education when you have few resources, are overworked, have no real connection to the school, and, of course, are fully aware that you a simply another interchangeable warm body.  Additionally, it is hard to provide quality education when next semester's paycheck depends on keeping students happy, rather than making sure that they learn the material.  Much of the support that  chairs/deans/etc. give faculty in classroom issues is based on the fact that these people know the instructor and are familiar with his/her behavior.  As far as they know, the person who was hired this semester to teach basket weaving 101 did indeed behave badly to Suzie Snowflake, and it is easier to replace the instructor with another hungry PhD/MA than it is to deal with any conflict.

Unfortunately, increasing adjunct pay and adding benefits will not solve these problems.  IMO eliminating the wide use of adjuncts to teach intro and service courses is the only real solution, as well as slashing enrollment in PhD programs in glutted fields.  

Take the same guy who's teaching this freshmen course now, compensate him decently, offer him a two year contract, give him a stipend to come to meetings several times a semester so you, the administrator, have a relationship with him, give him an office space to meet with students and pay him for an office hour, put something in his contract about due process for termination and academic freedom, stop calling him names, and you've got just about everything adjunct unions want. For improved educational outcome.

[mickeymantle]

As a former adjunct now raised to a tenured professor, I fully sympathize with my former colleagues.  But I also realize that my present colleagues now feel threatened by the growing use of adjuncts.  It's very similar to the scene in Billy Elliott during the 1983 miners' strike in Great Britain, where the strikers fight in vain against the incoming buses of "scabs."  By the end of the film, as I remember it, the boy's father sees his brother now joining the temporary workers going into the mines.

In short, I am not sure there is a definite answer to the problem from either the adjunct or tenured faculty side, except solidarity.

[mouseman]

Adjuncts care about quality. Someone's got to.

What adjuncts care about and what they can supply are two different things.  It is hard to provide quality education when you have few resources, are overworked, have no real connection to the school, and, of course, are fully aware that you a simply another interchangeable warm body.  Additionally, it is hard to provide quality education when next semester's paycheck depends on keeping students happy, rather than making sure that they learn the material.  Much of the support that  chairs/deans/etc. give faculty in classroom issues is based on the fact that these people know the instructor and are familiar with his/her behavior.  As far as they know, the person who was hired this semester to teach basket weaving 101 did indeed behave badly to Suzie Snowflake, and it is easier to replace the instructor with another hungry PhD/MA than it is to deal with any conflict.

Unfortunately, increasing adjunct pay and adding benefits will not solve these problems.  IMO eliminating the wide use of adjuncts to teach intro and service courses is the only real solution, as well as slashing enrollment in PhD programs in glutted fields.  

Take the same guy who's teaching this freshmen course now, compensate him decently, offer him a two year contract, give him a stipend to come to meetings several times a semester so you, the administrator, have a relationship with him, give him an office space to meet with students and pay him for an office hour, put something in his contract about due process for termination and academic freedom, stop calling him names, and you've got just about everything adjunct unions want. For improved educational outcome.

So what you're saying is that schools should replace adjuncts with lecturers with long-term contracts.  Remember - if a school is going to give somebody a long-term contract it is unlikely that they'll want somebody to teach one course, more likely two-three courses.  This means replacing 2-3 adjuncts with one lecturer.  Which means getting rid of many or most of the adjuncts.  QED (with apologies to mathematicians for the somewhat incorrect use of the term)

[lyndonparker]

Adjuncts care about quality. Someone's got to.

What adjuncts care about and what they can supply are two different things.  It is hard to provide quality education when you have few resources, are overworked, have no real connection to the school, and, of course, are fully aware that you a simply another interchangeable warm body.  Additionally, it is hard to provide quality education when next semester's paycheck depends on keeping students happy, rather than making sure that they learn the material.  Much of the support that  chairs/deans/etc. give faculty in classroom issues is based on the fact that these people know the instructor and are familiar with his/her behavior.  As far as they know, the person who was hired this semester to teach basket weaving 101 did indeed behave badly to Suzie Snowflake, and it is easier to replace the instructor with another hungry PhD/MA than it is to deal with any conflict.

Unfortunately, increasing adjunct pay and adding benefits will not solve these problems.  IMO eliminating the wide use of adjuncts to teach intro and service courses is the only real solution, as well as slashing enrollment in PhD programs in glutted fields.  

Take the same guy who's teaching this freshmen course now, compensate him decently, offer him a two year contract, give him a stipend to come to meetings several times a semester so you, the administrator, have a relationship with him, give him an office space to meet with students and pay him for an office hour, put something in his contract about due process for termination and academic freedom, stop calling him names, and you've got just about everything adjunct unions want. For improved educational outcome.

So what you're saying is that schools should replace adjuncts with lecturers with long-term contracts.  Remember - if a school is going to give somebody a long-term contract it is unlikely that they'll want somebody to teach one course, more likely two-three courses.  This means replacing 2-3 adjuncts with one lecturer.  Which means getting rid of many or most of the adjuncts.  QED (with apologies to mathematicians for the somewhat incorrect use of the term)

There is also the issue that many schools would not hire the same individuals for full-time positions whom they will engage for a single class.

[spinnaker]

Adjuncts care about quality. Someone's got to.

What adjuncts care about and what they can supply are two different things.  It is hard to provide quality education when you have few resources, are overworked, have no real connection to the school, and, of course, are fully aware that you a simply another interchangeable warm body.  Additionally, it is hard to provide quality education when next semester's paycheck depends on keeping students happy, rather than making sure that they learn the material.  Much of the support that  chairs/deans/etc. give faculty in classroom issues is based on the fact that these people know the instructor and are familiar with his/her behavior.  As far as they know, the person who was hired this semester to teach basket weaving 101 did indeed behave badly to Suzie Snowflake, and it is easier to replace the instructor with another hungry PhD/MA than it is to deal with any conflict.

Unfortunately, increasing adjunct pay and adding benefits will not solve these problems.  IMO eliminating the wide use of adjuncts to teach intro and service courses is the only real solution, as well as slashing enrollment in PhD programs in glutted fields.  

Take the same guy who's teaching this freshmen course now, compensate him decently, offer him a two year contract, give him a stipend to come to meetings several times a semester so you, the administrator, have a relationship with him, give him an office space to meet with students and pay him for an office hour, put something in his contract about due process for termination and academic freedom, stop calling him names, and you've got just about everything adjunct unions want. For improved educational outcome.

So what you're saying is that schools should replace adjuncts with lecturers with long-term contracts.  Remember - if a school is going to give somebody a long-term contract it is unlikely that they'll want somebody to teach one course, more likely two-three courses.  This means replacing 2-3 adjuncts with one lecturer.  Which means getting rid of many or most of the adjuncts.  QED (with apologies to mathematicians for the somewhat incorrect use of the term)

No, I'm saying adjuncts should unionize and t-t's should be in solidarity. Many administrators are mismanaging, as you note. Also the AAUP believes this (upthread). All faculty should be against the rampant exploitation and attendant compromises in quality.

[spinnaker]

Oh I see what you mean, Mouseman. I think it would take awhile, even with a union, for adjunct wages to get high enough that these positions would be eliminated/reduced in number. Some adjuncts now haven't had a raise in ten years. They need a union just to try and keep pace with inflation.
What I think would happen is some people who are now adjuncts would end up with fewer courses, but more pay for each. That's not so bad.

[pedanterast]

There is also the issue that many schools would not hire the same individuals for full-time positions whom they will engage for a single class.

You write a lot of drivel on these fora so I will just tell you that "who" is a subject pronoun and "whom" is an object pronoun.  You misuse "whom" consistently, which is often an effort to sound more erudite than one actually is.  Here is an example to give you some contrast:

"They would not hire the same people who they would hire for a single class" = subject pronoun; "The people who they would hire for job X are not the same people who they would hire for job Y" = subject pronoun.

"The people to whom they would offer job X are not the same people to whom they would offer job Y" = object pronoun.