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  • Ask the Administrator: Adjunct Course Development

    By Dean Dad September 27, 2007 6:29 am

    A new correspondent writes:

    I am a recovering adjunct. I still teach a few
    courses but I am now doing more and more work as a freelance writer and
    loving it. The college (trying hard to a be a university with a few new
    graduate degree programs) where I teach has long relied on the R1 down
    the street (and where I got my Ph.D) as an adjunct factory. Most of the
    general core curriculum and the courses that help them meet their lofty
    mission statement are taught by adjuncts. It is the lowest paid adjunct
    gig in town but they will hire you back semester after semester. Anyway,
    nothing new there.

    BUT, and this is the crazy part to me. They rely on adjuncts to do a
    huge part of their course development. There may be a course development
    meeting in the spring (which they compensate us for) but then adjuncts
    are supposed to pick textbooks, plan assignments, etc to meet the
    general course requirements and incorporate their specific interests.
    Fun and often interesting but a huge amount of uncompensated work.

    This week I received the following email:
    > BSS is hoping to offer a brand new course this Spring for the Global
    > Studies (formerly International Relations) major. It will be a
    > multi-disciplinary survey of the Middle East (and presumably North
    > Africa) that will serve as the gateway course for those interested
    > pursuing a (yet-to-be-developed) Middle Eastern track. Would you be
    > interested?

    BSS is Behavioral and Social Sciences. And yes, they do not have a
    syllabus, texts, or course description for this class developed. That
    would all be expected from me. Free! They imply a promise of further
    work and perhaps a full-time job further down the line. (It is not
    unheard of for such things to happen here). But really, I have better
    things to do with my time.

    Anyway, I just wanted to touch base with someone and see if this is a
    common practice to farm out not just the teaching to adjuncts but course
    development too.--------

    I'll start by making distinctions among 'syllabus,' 'texts,' and 'course descriptions.'

    Every professor here does her own syllabus, including adjuncts. We have past syllabi for guidance, and the syllabi in certain courses (English Comp, Gen Psych, etc.) are fairly standard. But I don't think it's out of bounds to ask an adjunct to customize the contact information and suchlike. And in the less-heavily-trodden areas, it's not unusual for adjuncts to customize assignments.

    Textbooks are generally assigned by the department. That's not a universal yet, but we're moving increasingly in that direction to make it easier for students to buy (and return!) used textbooks. It's a cost-control effort. Admittedly, success there has been mixed, and it will probably never catch in the really rapidly changing fields, like immunology or IT. And there have been cases in which adjuncts have chosen their own textbooks, though they nearly always have the option of a 'default' choice.

    Course descriptions are another matter entirely. (Stephen Karlson likes to say that syllabi are course descriptions, and that what we usually call syllabi are actually something like 'work plans.' For clarity's sake, I'll use the terms as they're generally understood.) Those are part of the curricular hard-wiring of the institution. We have a fairly long (okay, too long) and thorough (!) process for vetting course descriptions, including approval by the college-wide curriculum committee. The idea is that course descriptions go into the catalog, and establish a permanent record of what we do. Transfer-of-credit decisions are often made based on course descriptions.

    That's not to say that we haven't had adjuncts create courses for us in the past. That has happened when somebody brought unique expertise in a specific area. But when that happened, it was the adjunct's idea. We don't turn away good ideas just because they came from adjuncts. But when we need something developed, we look to our full-time faculty. The courses that adjuncts have developed have been cases of folks trying to create jobs for themselves: let me teach this, it'll be a hit, then you'll need to hire me full-time to keep up with the demand! That has worked more than once, in areas of specific, narrow expertise and high student demand. (That is, never in the evergreen disciplines.)

    We do pay for faculty -- both full-time and adjunct -- to convert traditional classes to an online format. The initial change is very labor-intensive, so we compensate for it. (We probably don't compensate enough, but that's endemic to the cc world.)

    My usual advice to adjuncts who are looking for f-t jobs holds here, too: don't get trapped by false hope. If the gig makes sense on its own terms, then great, but don't endure it as a form of dues-paying. The odds against that working are just too long, and the folks who've fallen into that trap are, in my observation, pretty miserable. Best to avoid it in the first place.

    Good luck!

    Wise and worldly readers -- what have you seen? What do you think?

    Have a question? Ask the Administrator at deandad (at) gmail (dot) com.

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Comments on Ask the Administrator: Adjunct Course Development

  • Adjunct Blues
  • Posted by J.J. Tindall , M.A. (+30) on September 27, 2007 at 10:25am EDT

  • What a great posting! This is my first visit to the insidgehighered blogs, and this post speaks right to me! I have been struggling as an adjunct for three years now, since I completed my master's in English Lit. relatively late in life. The last school I worked for kept asking me to take as many classes each term as a f-t'er, and kept saying "maybe" regarding f-t work for me.

    THANK YOU for confirming my suspicion that hanging onto a no-win working situation on the outside chance that one might get hired full time isn't worth it. Unless, as you say, it works for you as is, in and of itself. The last institution I taught at relied HEAVILY on adjuncts, and yet the supervisors contented themselves by thinking we made a living just like they did. I guess it's difficult to expect adjuncts to produce at f-t levels while sympathizing with their plight at the same time. It's just easier not to sympathize.

    Tip: when it starts to feel like the Battan Death March, FLEE...

    Thanks,
    J.J. Tindall
    Chicago, IL

  • Posted by Larry Gillis on September 27, 2007 at 6:10pm EDT

  • I agree with your writer, who says that adjunct opportunities should be accepted for what they are, rather than what they suggest they may become. In other words, a dedicated part-timer will very likely REMAIN a part-timer, precisely because that is what is dictated by academe's economics.

    I suggest that adjunct gigs are a great way of adding some "throw-weight" to your resume, and they make you look interesting, but they certainly don't guarantee any partcular trajectory to your career.

  • History and Political Science
  • Posted by Roger Robins , Asst. Professor on September 28, 2007 at 9:30pm EDT

  • This exchange brings back memories of my own years circulating in that community college cul de sac known as adjuncthood. At the time, it seemed like the most egregious form of white-collar exploitation in the country, with ostensibly high-minded college administrators exploiting a labor glut with a ruthless efficiency that would do Henry Clay Frick proud. Now, looking back after having lucked into a full-time gig, I would have to say that the community college adjunct system is, well, the most egregious form of white-collar exploitation in the country, with ostensibly high-minded college administrators exploiting a labor glut with a ruthless efficiency that would do Henry Clay Frick proud! I didn't forget that experience when I lucked into a full-time gig and found myself on the adjunct hiring end. I and other faculty pressed for better pay for adjuncts, and we eventually found a receptive ear in a new college president. Now, we pay our adjuncts about twice what most of the community colleges pay. So to all of you adjuncts out there: Never Forget! What's happening to you is not just, and throughout your career you should do everything within your power to change it.

  • Adjunct Woes
  • Posted by Joe Baugher on September 29, 2007 at 12:30pm EDT

  • Although there are exceptional circumstances, I would recommend that adjuncts do not get involved in controversial academic politics or contentious issues such as creating new degree programs, making curriculum changes, or introducing new courses. Since adjuncts can be fired (or, rather, “not renewed”) for making only the slightest waves, it is usually a mistake for them to try and get involved in these issues--they will just eat up your time, you will invariably offend at least some of the full-time faculty, you will probably antagonize the dean or the department head, and people will wonder about your motives and will think that you are acting above your station. As an ever-vulnerable adjunct, the last thing you need is for faculty members or administrators to be suspicious of you.

    A lot of adjuncts labor under the expectation that if they do a good job, obtain glowing student course evaluations, and perform extra work above and beyond their regular duties, they might be able to attract enough favorable attention from the administration so that their jobs are eventually converted to a full-time or tenure track position. However, such hopes are usually in vain. It is very rare that part-time positions are converted to full-time, and even if they are, the adjunct faculty already on staff seldom receives any priority consideration. Typically, when a non-tenure-track position is converted to the tenure track, or if a new full-time position is created, the department advertises nationally, usually resulting in a flood of hundreds of CVs from super-qualified applicants. At research institutions, adjuncts have little opportunity to publish in peer-reviewed journals--so their lists of publications will generally be much less impressive than those of recent PhDs. The teaching experience of adjunct faculty members may actually work against them—it is often true that the longer an adjunct works as a temporary instructor the farther behind they will fall in the publish-or-perish game. If an applicant for a full-time job has been an adjunct for too long, the search committees will look askance at their CV and will start wondering what is wrong with them. Tragically, in academe, once you are branded as a part-timer, you are likely to stay one, and all too often you will find that you are in a dead-end rather than an entry-level job.

  • How true these comments are!
  • Posted by trexan , Adjunct Spanish Professor at Community College on July 12, 2009 at 5:45am EDT

  • I have been an adjunct for 11 years at my local "top-rated", "innovative", and "well-funded" community college. Prior to that I graduated from GWU in Washington, DC in 3 1/2 years & got my Master's from KU. A year or so into being an adjunct, I got on the "mommy-track" and I have been okay with prioritizing my family and supporting my more "career-successful" husband. Anyway, in my department, 2 FT jobs opened up and 2 "outside" applicants were hired. Several adjuncts within my department, those with more "seniority" (or should I say "longevity"?) were most definitely overlooked. Many in my department do just about anything at a FT's bidding and I have resisted "tactfully" doing any work for which I am not paid. I try to be collegiate and most recently, I even nominated other adjuncts for awards, and piddly recognition efforts, so no one can blame me for not being a team-player. However, I am also on a bandwagon to form some sort of independent adjunct advocacy group on our campus. I wrestle between advising some adjuncts (that are stressed out financially) to look for a new career and yet encouraging them to "hang on" and become part of a systematic solution. I wrestle with adjuncts that I'm trying to serve with my own voice who do not even reply to my emails. The biggest thing that has struck me is that throughout our lives we are told that "education matters" -- go to school, stay in school, get your degree, and then we get a graduate degree, or PhD, etc. -- but truly, it seems the place where education matters least is amongst part-time faculty. Truly, it's like your PhD doesn't matter unless you are FT.

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