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[geheimrat]

I currently have a full time position at a cc in a location that is ok, but not my first choice.  I've been checking for full time positions at the two large community colleges in my state in the cities that I would rather be in for the past five years, but there hasn't been a single posting in my field yet.  I finally discovered that the reason for this is because these two colleges have hardly any full time positions.  One of them has only 12 full time faculty members and over 100 adjuncts in my field.

I've never even heard of an adjunct until I started teaching.  I think that the public would be outraged if they knew that this was going on.  What do you think the future of full time teaching positions will be?  Will it get worse or is there any way to limit the percentage of credits taught by adjuncts at an institution?  It seems like this would be an accreditation issue. 

[_touchedbyanoodle_]

To quote Sam Beckett: "Oh, boy."

[spinnaker]

I've read one forumite who said that a certain minimum number of courses had to be taught by full-timers to maintain accreditation, but have not heard of place losing accreditation for failing to meet this requirement.  It seems that if you run the courses needed to support the majors offered, you're in business.

[zharkov]

I think most accreditors are mostly concerned with faculty qualifications and credentials, less about whether they are full timers or not. 

But faculty at some schools -- either through the union or as part of shared governance -- do indeed restrict the amount of courses that can be taught by adjuncts. 

[glowdart]

We've talked about reducing the numbers for marketing reasons.  (As in, we'd like to say X% of classes are taught by permanent full-time faculty.)

[voxprincipalis]

I've never even heard of an adjunct until I started teaching.  I think that the public would be outraged if they knew that this was going on.

As they should be! After all, these are dedicated, hardworking professors, many of whom hold PhDs or other appropriate field-specific terminal degrees, who invest countless hours -- often far more than the amount for which they are technically paid -- prepping classes, grading papers, holding office hours, and working one-on-one with students, and for all this they get paid not even enough to live on. Yes, the public should be outraged that the people who work to open students' minds and teach them valuable intellectual skills -- which is, after all, the reason they send their kids to college in the first place -- are often not receiving the financial, professional, and technical support they need to do their jobs.

In fact -- wait, what's that? You weren't talking about the well-being of the adjuncts? Oh. Well, never mind then.

(Hint: an adjunct is not some kind of lower life form, nor some kind of pseudo-instructor or glorified babysitter, considered inferior to a "real" professor. Many adjunct professors are highly trained and provide necessary instruction in areas in which full-time members of the faculty are not experienced. They are therefore all the more valuable. It is true that departments that offer a lot of service courses (Comp 101, for instance) tend to rely more on adjuncts than on full-time professors; this is primarily a disservice to the adjuncts, not the students. Of course adjuncts should be evaluated like all other professors to be sure that their teaching is up to the standard of the school, but the automatic assumption that a course taught by an adjunct is an inferior educational experience than one taught by a full-time professor (maybe even one who hates teaching and can't wait to get back to the lab to work on research), and therefore that employing a hundred adjuncts is some sort of ripoff of "the public" is wrongheaded to say the least, and a good many other things besides.)

Apologies for excessive use of parentheses.

VP

[archman]

I've read one forumite who said that a certain minimum number of courses had to be taught by full-timers to maintain accreditation, but have not heard of place losing accreditation for failing to meet this requirement.  It seems that if you run the courses needed to support the majors offered, you're in business.

The accreditors will indeed notice the ratios of full time: part time. Having too few full-timers will red flag you. It's one of the simpler and easier things that is looked at, particularly at community colleges. The ratio permited is quite high, however, and it is calculated less with actual instructors and more with credit hours taught. As an example, a full timer teaching 5 classes would be granted course hour equivalency with 5 adjuncts each teaching 1 class.

As for losing accreditation, well that rarely happens to anyone, for any reason. The annual reports that the CHE releases on this typically report very few schools. One of the jobs of accrediting bodies is to *prevent* schools from losing their status. Schools are given a great deal of warnings, suggestions, etc. when trouble spots are identified. I have worked at a school that has been given warnings about our ratios. The university hired more full-timers.

[spinnaker]

I've read one forumite who said that a certain minimum number of courses had to be taught by full-timers to maintain accreditation, but have not heard of place losing accreditation for failing to meet this requirement.  It seems that if you run the courses needed to support the majors offered, you're in business.

The accreditors will indeed notice the ratios of full time: part time. Having too few full-timers will red flag you. It's one of the simpler and easier things that is looked at, particularly at community colleges. The ratio permited is quite high, however, and it is calculated less with actual instructors and more with credit hours taught. As an example, a full timer teaching 5 classes would be granted course hour equivalency with 5 adjuncts each teaching 1 class.

As for losing accreditation, well that rarely happens to anyone, for any reason. The annual reports that the CHE releases on this typically report very few schools. One of the jobs of accrediting bodies is to *prevent* schools from losing their status. Schools are given a great deal of warnings, suggestions, etc. when trouble spots are identified. I have worked at a school that has been given warnings about our ratios. The university hired more full-timers.

Yes, interesting. I have thought though that the accreditor's answer to the often ridiculous lack of facilities and oversize classes experienced by the adjunct may to hire more full time people, more than insisting on an improvement in the work situation for the adjunct.

[archman]

I am unaware of any concern that accreditors have for adjunct well-being. I presume that is one sticky issue that they either refuse to acknowledge as even existing, or they feel is not their responsibility to do anything about. I do not think that accreditors investigate the well being of full time faculty, or staff, either. I am not sure that they should be, beyond looking at basic things like maximum teaching loads.

[geheimrat]

I've never even heard of an adjunct until I started teaching.  I think that the public would be outraged if they knew that this was going on.

As they should be! After all, these are dedicated, hardworking professors, many of whom hold PhDs or other appropriate field-specific terminal degrees, who invest countless hours -- often far more than the amount for which they are technically paid -- prepping classes, grading papers, holding office hours, and working one-on-one with students, and for all this they get paid not even enough to live on. Yes, the public should be outraged that the people who work to open students' minds and teach them valuable intellectual skills -- which is, after all, the reason they send their kids to college in the first place -- are often not receiving the financial, professional, and technical support they need to do their jobs.

In fact -- wait, what's that? You weren't talking about the well-being of the adjuncts? Oh. Well, never mind then.

(Hint: an adjunct is not some kind of lower life form, nor some kind of pseudo-instructor or glorified babysitter, considered inferior to a "real" professor. Many adjunct professors are highly trained and provide necessary instruction in areas in which full-time members of the faculty are not experienced. They are therefore all the more valuable. It is true that departments that offer a lot of service courses (Comp 101, for instance) tend to rely more on adjuncts than on full-time professors; this is primarily a disservice to the adjuncts, not the students. Of course adjuncts should be evaluated like all other professors to be sure that their teaching is up to the standard of the school, but the automatic assumption that a course taught by an adjunct is an inferior educational experience than one taught by a full-time professor (maybe even one who hates teaching and can't wait to get back to the lab to work on research), and therefore that employing a hundred adjuncts is some sort of ripoff of "the public" is wrongheaded to say the least, and a good many other things besides.)

Apologies for excessive use of parentheses.

VP

I was talking about the well being of adjuncts.  The outrage should be the tendency of replacing full time faculty positions with many underpaid part time positions. 

[spinnaker]

I am unaware of any concern that accreditors have for adjunct well-being. I presume that is one sticky issue that they either refuse to acknowledge as even existing, or they feel is not their responsibility to do anything about. I do not think that accreditors investigate the well being of full time faculty, or staff, either. I am not sure that they should be, beyond looking at basic things like maximum teaching loads.

Right. But I'm not thinking of "well-being" as job satisfaction or anything related. Just a reasonable situation in which to accomplish things.
This is not meant as an analysis, just one person's impression from working in the trenches: in one's bleaker moments, it seems as though the accreditors look at adjunctland as basically a lost cause, to be offset by trying for normal situations elsewhere.

[aprilmay]

I was talking about the well being of adjuncts.  The outrage should be the tendency of replacing full time faculty positions with many underpaid part time positions. 

The public would not be outraged at all. This is a cost cutting measure more than anything else, and the public is outraged at tuition costs. The public may also not understand the difference between four Ph.D. graduates teaching 8 classes and two Ph.D. graduates teaching 8 classes. Much of the public also thinks, incorrectly, that these are cushy jobs, so they will not feel sorry for highly educated people who cannot find their dream job, when they envision professors taking school holidays and the summers off.

The solutions need to come, at least partially, from within academia. I have diligently been pushing for more full-time tt positions and fewer adjuncts, but it is difficult. I cannot say I have been very successful.

[spinnaker]

I was talking about the well being of adjuncts.  The outrage should be the tendency of replacing full time faculty positions with many underpaid part time positions. 

The public would not be outraged at all. This is a cost cutting measure more than anything else, and the public is outraged at tuition costs. The public may also not understand the difference between four Ph.D. graduates teaching 8 classes and two Ph.D. graduates teaching 8 classes. Much of the public also thinks, incorrectly, that these are cushy jobs, so they will not feel sorry for highly educated people who cannot find their dream job, when they envision professors taking school holidays and the summers off.

The solutions need to come, at least partially, from within academia. I have diligently been pushing for more full-time tt positions and fewer adjuncts, but it is difficult. I cannot say I have been very successful.

The public might be outraged, or some of them might, but then, it's not like they have a lot to pick from. Not if the same poor teaching conditions are tolerated by the standard-keepers, wherever they go.

[oldfullprof]

It's a union issue on many campuses.  Few full time lines are developed.  The use of adjuncts at places like mine is probably no different than the use of grad students to teach most intro courses at research universities, however. 

[spinnaker]

As for losing accreditation, well that rarely happens to anyone, for any reason. The annual reports that the CHE releases on this typically report very few schools. One of the jobs of accrediting bodies is to *prevent* schools from losing their status. Schools are given a great deal of warnings, suggestions, etc. when trouble spots are identified. I have worked at a school that has been given warnings about our ratios. The university hired more full-timers.

Sorry, I'm posting another response to the same post, but I see something weird here. Not that you have endorsed the process. But this sounds like saying we never need to fail any students because they are given so many warnings that they all end up doing passing work.