dagblog - Comments for "National Adjunct Walkout Day (and Why It Matters to You)"

There's a lot going on in

Doctor Cleveland — Thu, 26 Feb 2015 05:21:48 +0000

There's a lot going on in that post and thread; more than I can address here. I should probably do a follow-up post on adjunct issues, which intersect with a lot of larger higher-ed questions.

The adjunctification of the teaching force 1) gives away that there's a real level on which the decision makers DON'T care about teaching and 2) serves to increase the emphasis on research instead of teaching by tenure-line faculty members.

The cause and effect are complicated, but cheap adjunct labor goes alongside a shrinking number of tenure-track jobs that combine teaching with research, so that it takes more and more research to get and keep those full-time middle-class jobs.

To spell out the

Doctor Cleveland — Thu, 26 Feb 2015 04:43:15 +0000

In reply to We start our adjuncts at $2

To spell out the ramifications of what Flavia's saying: at $2400 a course, you'd have to teach 10 college courses a year to make $24,000 before taxes.

5 classes a semester is more than most colleges allow their full-time faculty to do, because quality would suffer. At lots of places, the load for full timers is 3 courses a semester; at very teaching centric institutes it's 4 a semester. (And there are places where the load is less than 3 courses a semester, because faculty are expected to get more research done.)

So just to make $24,000, and adjunct has to teach more than anyone agrees is really appropriate to teach. I've heard of adjunct professors teaching 6 courses at one time; you really can't give six classes the time they deserve. It would take a minimum of 60 hours a week to do even a mediocre, half-prepared job of it.

And of course, no school would give you 5 classes at once. They don't let their own faculty do that. And if any school lets you teach more than 2 classes at a time at one place, they're admitting that you're not actually part-time. They can't afford to do that. So, like TMac, you'll have to string together jobs at at least three campuses during any given semester.

Also, at some places, unlike Flavia's school, adjuncts don't get their own offices. So there's no private place to meet with students. If you're a student and you have to have that conference where you get told some tough truths about how your work is going ... Well your adjunct professor is going to have to tell you that in a public place. Good times! And if you need to tell your adjunct professor that you need an extension because of some horrifying personal circumstances, you might find yourself telling him that in the middle of the campus coffee house.

And that's computer science.

tmccarthy0 — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 19:51:30 +0000

In reply to Thank you.

And that's computer science.

There were many consequences for spending those 5 years teaching, in the end they become financial consequences big ones. My husband always had retirement and max contributions to social security etc, I lost 5 years of that in my earliest years of professional work. Those are serious consequences.

I was happy when I quit Mona,

tmccarthy0 — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 19:45:22 +0000

In reply to Tmac, I honestly had no idea

I was happy when I quit Mona, I'd grown kind of bitter, you know I realized I wasted 5 years of my life and gained nothing.

It also had suddenly becomes apparent to me that I had made a mistake financially by doing this, a big one, because for my first 5 years of working I basically lost 5 good early years bof my financial future, 1. adjuncts here were not eligible to contribute to the state retirement system, and 2. over the long term it shorted my own payments to social security just because I barely made anything. If I hadn't been married I would've probably qualified for food stamps, but probably not have had access to any kind of health insurance. It isn't just the slap you in the face in the moment consequences but there were severe long term financial consequences to remaining an adjunct instructor at our local community colleges.

This article and the

A Guy Called LULU — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 18:42:02 +0000

In reply to National Adjunct Walkout Day (and Why It Matters to You)

This article and the following comments at "Crooked Timber" might be of interest to those of us who find this post valuable or at least interesting even if it does not affect us directly. To be clear about my own sentiments I will quote, approximately, someone I cannot recall, " I would rather pay the price of education than to pay the price of ignorance."

Is teaching undergraduates central to the mission…?

http://crookedtimber.org/2015/02/23/is-teaching-undergraduates-central-t...

We start our adjuncts at $2

Flavia — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 18:11:40 +0000

In reply to National Adjunct Walkout Day (and Why It Matters to You)

We start our adjuncts at $2,400/class, and the raises from there are not large or frequent. Western NY is an affordable part of the country -- but the trade-off is that colleges aren't especially close together, so our adjuncts, if they're lucky enough to have work at two or three schools, log a lot of hours and gas mileage commuting.

We do give benefits to adjuncts who teach two classes for us per semester, and the benefits are good (and most department chairs try their damnedest to make sure every adjunct has two classes). We also provide them with real offices with equipment and supplies, which is more than some institutions do -- some places don't even give adjuncts photocopying privileges. But it's embarrassing that those things are the mark of a <i>relatively good</i> adjunct gig these days.

Thanks, Doc. I had no idea of

Oxy Mora — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:51:57 +0000

In reply to National Adjunct Walkout Day (and Why It Matters to You)

Thanks, Doc. I had no idea of the extent of this problem. Thanks for highlighting it in this fine article.

No. No one outside the system

Doctor Cleveland — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:45:56 +0000

In reply to When I first saw this I

No. No one outside the system has any idea how bad it is, or how widespread the problem is.

Tmac, I honestly had no idea

Ramona — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:43:18 +0000

In reply to It matters to me because I

Tmac, I honestly had no idea it was this bad. Incredible. It must have been so hard for you to give up your dream, especially when you worked so hard to achieve it. I hope this draws attention to the real world of the adjunct. I wish I could say I thought it would bring the needed results. This is not the best climate for fairness and equity.

When I first saw this I

Ramona — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:40:27 +0000

In reply to National Adjunct Walkout Day (and Why It Matters to You)

When I first saw this I wondered what you thought about it, Doc. We've turned the corner on education, it seems, and the act (and joy) of enlightening and educating is not nearly as important as the end result: full classrooms and funding successes.

Everything is about somebody's idea of the bottom line--which should never happen in places of learning--and both the students and the adjuncts lose out because, again, it's all about the money. So disgusting; so disheartening. I really had no idea how overworked and poorly paid they are. This should bring some much-needed attention, but it'll be interesting to see if anything at all changes.