Adjunct Positions in Academia

[CharonY]

The death of an 83 year old adjunct professor has sparked a discussion on the position of adjuncts in academia. Traditionally adjunct positions are offered as means to associate oneself with a given department without being a full faculty member and it generally (but not always) involves some teaching duties. Now why is this a matter of contention?

 

 

Margaret Mary worked on a contract basis from semester to semester, with no job security, no benefits and with a salary of between $3,000 and just over $3,500 per three-credit course. Adjuncts now make up well over 50 percent of the faculty at colleges and universities.

 

And:

 

 

As amazing as it sounds, Margaret Mary, a 25-year professor, was not making ends meet. Even during the best of times, when she was teaching three classes a semester and two during the summer, she was not even clearing $25,000 a year, and she received absolutely no health care benefits

 

While I am not in favor of her tragic fate being politicized, it does show an ugly underbelly of academia. Due to budget cuts many universities have or had hiring freezes and instead opted to hire adjuncts instead of lecturers (with full benefits) or tenure-track faculty. At the same time, tuition rates and fees increase.

There are certain elements to this story that make it so delectable for media (she was battling cancer and virtually homeless, though got intermediate housing on campus for a while), but I would like to focus on the broader discussion about what you think is important in higher education and the role of adjuncts.

Universities in most countries have become a business of sorts. The administration (as important as their role is) seek to increase revenue by creating position that make them more attractive to students and to increase student success (including dorms, outreach officers, advisers, recruiters, public relations etc.). To many, this is a clever business model. Coming from the other side the expansion of administration and administrative services while keeping faculties at roughly the same size in most universities and using adjuncts instead is quite troubling and may endanger the core mission of universities (i.e. providing higher education and research), not to mention the exploitation of highly qualified personnel.

 

What are your thoughts on the matter?

Edited September 23, 2013 by CharonY

[Tridimity]

I agree, I think that the model of Colleges (in the US) and Universities (in the UK) is upside-down and back-to-front. Somewhere along the way, our Higher Education institutes lost heart and have misplaced their priorities, such that students are now openly described as 'customers' or 'consumers' - and I suppose that that is an apt label for what they have been turned into by the system. Each student is not seen as a unique individual with dreams and aspirations to change the world, or to change themselves in a positive way; not as a human to be invested in and developed - but as a commodity, with a £9,000/year tag hovering above their head - another number to be enticed to the shiny institution. This does not hold true in all cases: get a lecturer and a student together and the chances are that the lecturer will genuinely wish to help the student to learn and develop, as far as it is within their power to do so; the problem is systemic. The picture is similar for those employed by Higher Education institutes: underpaid and over-worked, their roles re-defined to include more and more admin with less and less time for the most important things, the reasons they took the job in the first place - teaching and research, contact time with students. Sure, there are some who are well looked after, but they tend to be well-connected and to have sincerely rich fathers. It is only a matter of time before the system collapses under its own weight - the current model is surely unsustainable.

[Arete]

Every time I feel like I'm getting a raw deal as a postdoc (e.g. http://mashable.com/2013/09/20/why-you-dont-love-science/), I can think about my contemporaries in the humanities who are adjuncts and feel a little better of my lot in life. Even worse with the adjunct deal is that most have to teach at multiple institutions to fill out full 3x3 load, usually resulting in a pretty horrendous commute between schools. The fact that teaching university full time, with no office, no IT support and no health care for less than minimum wage has become a standard model for tertiary education is pretty damning. Personally, if it came down to being an adjunct, or leaving academia, I'd leave in a heartbeat - fortunately being in the life sciences, to some extent, have that option without a complete change of career.

 

Traditionally, these are both transitional jobs no one is supposed to be in for long, but it's becoming the norm for a significant portion of one's academic career to be spent in these positions, so there's more impetus for them to be catered to better. Aside from the moral treatment aspect, people are paying more and more for their degrees these days, yet what sort of teaching quality can you expect from someone with no job stability, no heath care, no office, on less than minimum wage?

 

Personally, the only answer I can really see is for adjuncts and postdocs to unionize - at least at the institution I am at the support staff (maintenance, admin, catering, etc) staff all are unionized and all get a much sweeter deal in terms of security, benefits and pay than me, despite the fact that we're the ones at the university actually doing the teaching and research.

Edited September 23, 2013 by Arete

[Genecks]

25-years is way too long. She should have been given professor status by then, I would think. If anything, I'm surprised she was not given tenure. Yes, the economics of academia bother me. I do not think people understand enough about it to really grasp the direction that academic institutions are heading. What bothers me is the spooky possibility that science will once again become a career path of the rich. That only those who are of considerable wealth can live such a life of leisure studying and professing knowledge of a particular academic field. That truly bothers me. It would lead to a slow-down of science and knowledge. It would lead to a decrease in education.

 

I don't know the entire history of the lady, but I'm surprised she did not jump ship in her 70s. She was definitely devoted to her field, which is admirable. I'm sure there is a background as to why she was being an adjunct that long. Her trade was the French language, from what I've read. I do not doubt that there exist various individuals who could also do that trade. And academia is turning into a business. I believe the business model is understandable. However, having not given tenure and a pay raise to her after 15 years marks some serious political garbage for the places she had worked. The concept of seniority, by the length of time an individual has been working at a business, must have severely been lost on her.

 

If anything is to be appreciated with seniority, then the concept of raising the pay grade and eventually laying the person of... only to hire the person back at a lower pay grade, would be more acceptable than what appears to happen to Margaret Mary Vojtko. Sure, it's a business tactic; but it at least gives respect and due wages to an individual who has show commitment and growth in a company. The layoff and re-hire tactic, however, would simply be a business tactic to get in new if not better talent at a lower wage. The amount of time she worked and the wages she was paid for that length of time is unacceptable: She should have earned more.

 

There is a lot missing to all of this, however. For instance, she was working as an adjunct at age 60? Seems like it would have been time to change to a career with a lot more money, if she was still interested in working. And with the pay she was getting, I'm surprised she didn't get a loan or use whatever pull she had in life to do better than an adjunct. At her age, doing what she did seems kind of like a retirement job, which may have caused the university/college to discriminate against her and not give higher pay: ageism.

 

My general view of research and progress has led me to believe in the past couple of years that individuals are better off playing the market to make more money than they would in academia. From there, research would become a side-job. I don't agree with volunteerism unless the pay-off and connections made are great. Research eventually moves more and more to a business model, thus taking the government money out of the hands of academic institutions. Internships and volunteer work would have to be held at corporations and businesses doing the research. Academic institutions are becoming more concerned with collecting capital. The trick is taking that away from them. If they become too rich, they'll just keep all the money to themselves like the super rich and be frugal in every other aspect in life. Unfortunately, if that keeps up, no one will really want to work for them.

 

Power in numbers, however. And you get enough people who care about science and academia, and they'll make their own business and weed out the big institutions. Somebody has to be rich; and somebody has to be poor. Unless people are really willing to take on the concept of being equals, things really will not change. However, for this exceptional story, I do not understand why the woman chose such a path of poverty to pursue academia. It's as though the French language is dying?

Edited September 30, 2013 by Genecks

[CharonY]

I think this misses the broader topic. The fact that faculty positions are replaced by adjuncts and the fact that the latter are paid a pittance for their work. This is especially an issue in humanities as there are not as many postdoc type positions which are also a type of waiting position for until one decides to seek a different career or finally lands that tenure track position.

However, postdocs are at least paid better (though not terribly much all things considered) and they get benefits. The big issue is that adjuncts have basically no say in this matter and the question is whether forming an union (which in some cases is not allowed) would improve that situation.

In many ways the career path of a scientist is often broken (as compared to a "normal" career) with many abusive steps in-between, if one is unlucky. The situation is only going to get worse with more and more students and graduates and less funding for science and teaching.