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  • Caps on Adjuncts

    By Dean Dad July 22, 2008 4:55 am

    My cc is gearing up for yet another discussion of the proper 'cap' on the number of credits taught by an adjunct in a single semester. It's one of those awful cases in which every option is wrong.

    The theory, as near as I can tell, is that if you don't cap an adjunct's load at something below a full-timer's, then there's very little to stop a college from simply phasing out full-timers altogether. After all, if we can get good teachers at piecework rates, but our other costs aren't nearly so flexible, then the gravitational pull in that direction will be powerful. If you place an arbitrary cap on how much you can ask of a given adjunct, the theory goes, then you will force colleges to hire more full-timers.

    There's something to that, even if it undercounts some of the other roles than traditional f-t faculty play (like student advisement). But it creates other issues.

    For one obvious one, our 'cap' is campus-based, rather than statewide. That means that adjuncts will sometimes cobble together assignments at multiple campuses, the total of which is well over the usual full-time load. It defeats the intention of the cap, and imposes obvious transportation costs on the adjuncts. (In the age of four dollar a gallon gas, that's nothing to sneeze at.)

    It also impacts different disciplines differently. Since we count credits, rather than classes, an adjunct in disciplines with lots of credits per section (like studio art or lab sciences) can bump up against the ceiling very quickly. Department chairs in those areas are constantly pushing for either exceptions or a general increase to the cap, since they want to staff their sections with the best available people.

    (The danger in bumping ceilings, as I've learned the hard way, is that if someone at the absolute max bails on you, it's that much harder to replace them. At PU, the max was annual – as opposed to semesterly -- so someone hired in the Spring could teach more or less as much as anyone wanted. That worked fairly well until I had someone teaching far too much drop out the second week of class. Not pretty.)

    Some adjuncts clamor for more hours at one college, to reduce their freeway flying to other colleges. I get it, and it makes sense from a particular angle, but it really raises the issue of what full-timers bring to the college to justify their higher salaries and benefits. Yes, they bring institutional memory and college service, but is that enough to justify a compensation package three to six times larger than what the adjuncts get? It seems like a stretch. And the idea of pro-rating, while it has a certain moral appeal, is a flat-out budget-buster. Without a serious, massive, sustained, predictable subvention from the state, or a herniating tuition increase, or both, it's just not gonna happen.

    (Before the ritualistic "well then, just fire all the administrators and distribute their salaries!" attacks, I'll just note that colleges don't run themselves, money comes with oversight requirements, the money 'freed up' wouldn't even come close to being enough, and community colleges are administratively thinner than any other branch of higher education. We have more adjuncts, and fewer admins, than any other branch of higher ed. What this says about the Bousquet hypothesis – that the adjunct trend exists to feather administrative nests – I'll leave an as exercise for the reader.)

    I don't have an elegant solution to all this, but I wish I did.

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Comments on Caps on Adjuncts

  • The Adjunct's Dilemma
  • Posted by Ken Bielen , Director of Grants Management, Adult and Graduate Operations at Indiana Wesleyan University on July 22, 2008 at 9:15am EDT

  • As you suggest in your first sentence, there is no good solution. As a former adjunct at a public, yes, it would irk me when I thought about how I was teaching two classes per semester, while the fellow in the office next to my space was only teaching one more course a semester and was receiving 10 times the remuneration I was plus benefits. (I know: advising, committee work, etc. etc. etc.) On the other hand, I needed the cash, so I made the choice to work under the circumstances.

    It seems ironic that schools want to cap the adjuncts' loads because, why, they want to feel like they are not exploiting the adjuncts? Administrators want to feel good about themselves? Adjuncts need to make a living and have to be scrappers. They shouldn't be blocked from making money to assuage someone's guilt.

    You make a good point that some will wonder why any f-t are needed if so many adjuncts are available and can be exploited, er, hired. I have no answer for that other than that f-t's are necessary, and someone should know the right percentage of f-t'ers to make a school credible and functional and accreditable.

    At the public I was at, some f-t faculty were paid too well. I can tell by the homes they upgraded to. Perhaps if f-t faculty salaries had been more modest, adjuncts could have been paid more, or more could have made the leap to full-time.

  • Posted by Paul Roehl on July 22, 2008 at 11:15am EDT

  • Yeah, those whining, ungrateful adjuncts are always trying to bust the budget: the nerve! If they can’t afford gas why don’t they change their cars over to cooking oil or get electric cars. I’m with you; the Wal-Mart model should be the paradigm for all education. Let’s make all positions at our local colleges part-time except for a small elite of full-time instructor/administrators and administrators each with that boundless sense of entitlement so necessary to govern the plebes. This is a model that could have great benefit to all aspects of society. Why not have adjunct police and firefighters? How about adjunct nurses and doctors? A world of adjuncts would , after all, be a world of balanced budgets. Makes so much sense doesn’t it?

  • A symptom, not the real problem
  • Posted by Barry Edwards on July 22, 2008 at 11:15am EDT

  • Putting caps on contingent (adjunct) teaching loads is a band-aid to the symptom, not the real problem of abuse of contingent faculty.

    First, let's put to rest some myths about contingent faculty. Contingent faculty are just as qualified and experienced as FT faculty.Contingent faculty are a very diverse group: Some like to teach just a little while others try to make a career out being "Road Scholars" (multiple colleges/campuses) until a full-time position is available. Which often is very rare. And, if the time and compensation were available, most contingents would be open to "non-instructional duties". And, contingent faculty are just as much the professional educators as FT faculty. They care just as much about their students and their craft. Yes, there are exceptions to these "mythbusters", but that goes to both sides. I've seen FT faculty that are barely capable to pushing a broom, let alone teaching a class. So let's avoid using these and other myths that are used to marginalize contingent faculty. It's been done too many times in the attempt to avoid treating them fairly.

    Now, since the real issue is the abuse of contingent faculty, the real solution is to stop doing so. Although this solution is obvious, its admittedly easier said than done in the real world. The major resistance is from administration that use contingents as a cost-cutting measure. So, we ask our state and local governments to fully-fund community colleges and required equitable wages, benefits, and working conditions. Another "easier said than done" idea. FT faculty also resist the relaxation of caps on contingents out of fear for their jobs, but if equitable wages, benefits, and working condition were given to contingent faculty, their resistance would fade into (at least) marginal support.

    So, what can be done in the real world of what is feasible? In the current state of our real world, we can't depend on the generosity of administration and we can't wait for the wisdom of government. There is not enough motivation to make it happen. Well, there is the old adage, "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." The unions must step up to the plate and organize contingent faculty into a force that cannot be ignored. Since the cost-cutting mania of administration has created a contingent labor force that numerically exceeds most of the other groups on campus (combined, in many cases), there will be power in numbers ... if it is organized and utilized. This process has begun, but remains all too slow in execution. I wonder why ...

    Once organization of contingent is fully realized, then all that is left to do, as Larry the Cable Guy would say is to "Git 'er done!" both in their individual colleges and in state and local government, where the most like funding improvements are to be found.

  • Posted by Unemployed Academic on July 22, 2008 at 7:35pm EDT

  • "Some adjuncts clamor for more hours at one college, to reduce their freeway flying to other colleges. I get it, and it makes sense from a particular angle, but it really raises the issue of what full-timers bring to the college to justify their higher salaries and benefits." -- Dean Dad

    Now that's the administrative perspective we all know and love! Actually, you've got it backwards, Dean Dad: it raises the issue of why administrators think adjuncts' labor is worth so much less. This is a particularly salient issue for public institutions, since sub-living-wage salaries inject stress throughout the state budget as more people apply for welfare, unemployment and pay less in taxes. It's alright for WalMart to try to socialize its costs, perhaps: they expressly intend to rape society. But for state institutions it is foolish.

    In addition, Bousquet isn't saying that administrators are only trying to benefit themselves in employing adjuncts. He is saying that university fiscal policies are part and parcel of the same corporate agenda that has decimated the middle class in the U.S. and caused the largest redistribution of wealth from the non-elite to the elite in our development. All that new tuition money goes somewhere -- admin salaries and perks, building campaigns that funnel money to the local elites' cronies, money-losing (for the university) sports programs, etc.

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