Saturday
November 22, 2008
Advertisement
News, Views and Careers for All of Higher Education
Nov. 13, 2007
The Future of the Contingent Faculty Movement
Campus Equity Week 2007 has just concluded. Supported by the three national faculty unions, the purpose of the week is to call attention to the exploitation of non-tenure-track faculty members throughout North America and to insist on their equitable treatment. A look at the history of the week and its recent execution suggests that it may not be having as great an impact as it had when it was created in 2001. The national contingent faculty movement itself may have reached a turning point, offering us the opportunity to reassess the goals and structure of the movement and to chart a course for the future.
Related stories
- For Adjuncts, Progress and Complexities, Aug. 11
- Progress for Adjuncts, May 3, 2007
- Redefining Academic Freedom, April 2, 2007
- New Push for Full-Time Faculty Jobs, Nov. 30, 2006
- More Rights for Adjuncts, Sept. 13, 2006
In “A Brief History of Campus Equity Week / Fair Employment Week,” Chris Storer writes that “the threat to quality higher education and academic freedom created by the growth of for-profit colleges, the corporatization of private and public non-profit colleges and universities, and the corresponding increased use and abuse of contingent academic labor (now over 50 percent of faculty positions in the United States), continues to be a growing worldwide problem.”
Indeed, academe has not been immune to the vast changes that have taken place in the workplace since the mid-1970s, when corporate America launched a campaign to reverse the gains the labor movement had made in the previous decades. Kim Moody, founder of Labor Notes, has described the corporate demand for ” lean production” that is dedicated to producing the largest number of units for the cheapest possible price. Consequently, American workers have been subjected to wave after wave of layoffs, downsizing, and outsourcing.
In the past three decades, business and government have pushed for concessions from workers and their unions, including givebacks, reduced benefits, and the increased use of part-time and temporary workers. Consequently, union membership has declined from a peak of 32.5 percent of the nation’s workforce in 1953 to 27.3 percent in 1970 to only 12 percent today.
In distressed industries, two-tiered compensation systems preserve higher wages for existing members, while new employees must do the same work for a much lower wage. Under pressure, unions have sometimes agreed to a two-tiered system. Needless to say, union solidarity invariably suffers when members working side by side are paid at significantly different rates, with the lower paid workers often feeling their union has not provided them with “fair representation.”
Surprisingly, this denial of the principle of “equal pay for equal work” has become the norm throughout academe, regardless of whether or not the faculty has been unionized. To be sure, the percentage of college and university revenue coming from state and local funds dropped from 35 percent in the 1975-76 academic year to 27.2 percent in 2000-1.
Yet academe has hardly been a distressed industry. From 1975-2001, tuition and fees increased from 20.6 percent to 25.6 percent of college revenue and private grants and gifts grew from 4.8 percent to 9.1 percent, with overall revenue more than doubling from $141 billion to $293 billion (in constant 2005 dollars). And academe has certainly not cut “production” in the past 30 years. Student enrollments increased by 60 percent from 1975-2005. And the number of graduate teaching and research assistants grew from 160,606 to 298,602 in the same period.
Yet colleges and universities have also adopted the policy of “lean production” and created what Rich Moser has called “The New Academic Labor System”: “The exploitation of graduate students and the abuse and overuse of adjunct and non-tenure-track faculty is the most prominent characteristic of a new employment strategy sometimes referred to as the two or multi-tiered labor system.” The tenured faculty and their union leaders made a pact with college administrators, who agreed not to lay off tenured faculty, as long as the tenured faculty would allow them to increase the use of contingent faculty. According to Moser, “This multi-tiered approach succeeded because it blunted opposition by promising not to affect existing constituencies. Yes, the evil genius of the multi-tier system is that it enticed tenured faculty with short-term benefits. We cooperated in our own demise.”
In “Contingent Faculty and the New Academic Labor System,” Gwen Bradley explains that the dismal employment situation for college professors is the “result not of a job market but of a labor system.” It is not simply a matter of supply and demand since “the same institutions both manufacture and consume the Ph.D. product. There are too few tenure-track jobs for all the Ph.D.’s in some disciplines because graduate students or faculty on fixed-term or part-time appointments teach so many courses. If full-time tenure-track faculty taught most courses, there might not be a job shortage.”
As a direct result of this new labor system, tenured and tenure-track faculty have dropped from 56.8 percent of the nation’s professors in 1975 to 31.9 percent in 2005. Full-time non-tenure-track and part-time faculty grew from 43.2 percent in 1975 to 68.1 percent in 2005. In 2005 there were 414,574 tenure and tenure-track professors and 885,803 full-time non-tenure-track and part-time faculty.
Contingent faculty began to protest as soon as the multi-tiered wage systems were instituted in the 1970s. Nearly two decades ago, the contingent faculty movement achieved two major victories.
In 1988, the Vancouver Community College Faculty Association in British Columbia, Canada entered into mediation with a strong strike vote from its members. As a result, they achieved a contract whereby after two years of teaching at least half-time faculty automatically went from probationary or term status to “regular” or continuing career status contracts. All pay distinctions between part-time and full-time faculty, with the exception of how much each person chose to teach, had previously been eliminated. Salaries of faculty who teach less than “full-time” are now simply pro-rated according to the number of courses or hours they teach. Non-teaching duties are required of everyone as per departmental norms and are also appropriated on a fully pro-rated basis.
In August, 1988 the California legislature passed AB 1725, This bill mandated that 75 percent of credit hours should be taught by full-time faculty, and that only 25 percent of credits should be taught by part-timers. Unfortunately, however, this bill did little to stop the increasing use of part-time faculty in California. Since funding was provided for only the first two years, the state let the colleges off the hook and free to add more part-timers. (See Chris Storer’s “Part-Time Faculty: A Principled Perspective.”)
Regional activities were transformed into a nationwide movement roughly a decade ago with two conferences held concurrently with the Modern Language Association’s annual meeting, in Washington. The National Congress of Part-Time, Adjunct, GTA, and Non-Tenure-Track Faculty, which took place in 1996, was organized by Jonathan White, an English student at George Washington University. (See John Hess, “Using the Internet for Contingent Faculty Organizing.”) At the same convention, the MLA Graduate Student Caucus put together a panel of speakers on part-time faculty concerns called “Making the MLA More Proactive.” In February, 1998 Marc Bousquet and a collective of students from the MLA caucus, including Kent Puckett, Bruce Simon, and Christian Gregory, launched the online journal Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor. This led to the first of several North American conferences that would later come to be called the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor
(COCAL), which has met in Washington, New York, San Jose, Montreal, Boston, Chicago, and Vancouver, Canada, and which also has an active listserv.
The new academic labor system has given rise to a new academic labor movement. Joe Berry, author of Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education, has pointed out that “this is ‘do it yourself’ organizing. This means it was not initiated by established unions as part of an organizing strategy. Instead it was initiated by groups of workers who came together on their own and only afterward sought out a union affiliation.”
To be sure, the three faculty unions have also jumped on the adjunct faculty bandwagon, organizing part-timers and hiring staff to devote more attention to part-time and other contingent faculty. The AAUP set up a committee on part-time faculty in the 1970s. In 1998 Rich Moser was named national field representative, and helped launch the famous multi-campus organizing campaign called the “Boston Project,” with the AAUP donating staff and seed funds to get them off the ground. While Moser shepherded the AAUP’s 2003 policy document on Contingent Faculty and the Profession, the AFT’s Perry Robinson and the NEA’s Christine Maitland both worked on contingent faculty issues and helped produce their organizations’ policy documents on part-time faculty.
However, with a few exceptions, the primary impetus for change has often come from the adjunct professors themselves, who have either organized themselves into caucuses pushing for change from within the unions or else organized themselves into independent groups and pushed for change from outside the unions. In this, the contingent faculty movement has followed other workers whose best interests have been ignored by their unions. In Poor Workers Unions: Rebuilding Labor from Below, Vanessa Tait writes that “Many in the traditional labor movement did not believe poor workers could be organized, either because of their fluctuating job status, or because of prejudices against their race, ethnicity, gender, poverty, or immigration status. It was in this climate
that poor workers themselves began to organize for change.”
In any grassroots movement, the question inevitably arises as to whether to adopt a more formal organizational structure. By the time of the second Campus Equity Week in 2003, Chris Como wrote in The Adjunct Advocate that “Campus Equity Week Is Growing Bigger: But Is Bigger Better?” Como pointed out that a social movement needs more than just rallies and publicity, it needs results. “If the movement is to succeed, it must first find the grape pickers, organize them, and, finally, better their lives in some tangible way; otherwise temporary faculty may simply shrug their shoulders and resign themselves to an eternity of temporary teaching.”
This year’s Campus Equity Week did have some notable events, including speeches by Rich Moser and Joe Berry at Central Connecticut State University, the Academic Freedom Forum at Portland Community College, and the showing of Barbara Wolf’s two documentary films on adjuncts (Degrees of Shame and A Simple Matter of Justice) at the University of West Florida. In Washington State, I appeared on the Seattle national public radio affiliate to discuss Gov. Christine Gregoire’s declaration of “Adjunct and Part-Time Faculty Recognition Day” and Jack Longmate and Nat Hong held a forum at Olympic College. But there appeared to be fewer sponsors, fewer organized events, less publicity and less enthusiasm than in years past.
For all of the publicity and all of our accomplishments, we have not yet stemmed the still rising tide of exploited contingent faculty. The multi-tiered system remains in effect throughout academe, even where campuses have been organized by one of the big three faculty unions. With perhaps only a handful of exceptions — such as the Vancouver Community College Faculty Association, the independent California Faculty Association, City College of San Francisco AFT, the New School’s Academics Come Together (UAW) — part-time faculty are still earning only about 50 percent of what full-timers earn for teaching the same number of courses. Most adjuncts still do not have benefits, and few have any job security whatsoever. And none have automatic promotion to full-time tenure-track positions.
At COCAL VII, held last year in Vancouver, British Columbia, Joe Berry told the participants he thought that the contingent faculty movement had reached a “plateau,” and that it would take some new strategies to push us to a higher plane. In particular, he raised the question whether or not COCAL needed to move from a rather loose coalition of adjuncts to a more structured organization. If COCAL can continue to bring together multiple organizations — while still maintaining its independence — it may be able to serve some of the functions
of an all-adjunct national union, which we currently lack.
COCAL, and independent organizations like the Washington and California Part-Time Faculty Associations, have been an integral part of what Rich Moser and Joe Berry have called “the inside/outside strategy.” Joining the unions in their state capitals, the Washington Part-Time Faculty Association and the California Part-Time Faculty Association have helped obtain $40 million in Washington, and $57 million in California, to increase part-time faculty pay in the community colleges.
For the unions, however, collective bargaining remains the paradigm, even though it is unlikely to solve all of our problems, let alone quickly. Union contracts last several years, with adjuncts often lucky to achieve even a single
small improvement to their separate but unequal contracts. Indeed, in mixed units, adjuncts may have only one representative on the bargaining team, and this person may have been hand-picked by the full-timers. And bargaining would still leave the unorganized contingents out in the cold. More organizing might improve the situation, but many adjuncts may continue to resist being absorbed into unions they feel are still being run for the primary benefit of the tenured faculty.
Thus far, the national faculty organizations have shown little willingness to restructure in order to allow contingent faculty to more directly represent themselves, and mixed bargaining units are in the majority on the local level. The inequities of the two-tiered systems on our college campuses are mirrored in our unions, where adjuncts, who have no job security, must still struggle for equality with tenured faculty, who often serve as their immediate supervisors.
While strong legislation may also take some time, it has the possibility of solving the problem for many people at one time. And in public colleges and universities it is the state legislatures that will have to provide the money
for increased pay to contingent faculty.
We need legislation to provide 100 percent pro-rata pay, based upon a teaching load, so that we are no longer paid only for the hours we are in class, as if teaching could be broken down into piece-work. We need bills to provide
annual raises comparable to full-time faculty, so that our salaries will keep up with the full-timers and we do not fall further behind. We need to provide for health care and retirement coverage so that we do not live in fear of either sickness or poverty in old age. We should lobby for a lifting of the artificial workload caps which limit the amount of teaching we can do at any one college. We should no longer have to toil as “apprentices to nowhere,” hoping
to win the national lottery should a full-time job ever open up in our department; instead, we should automatically be on a track to move into full-time tenure-track jobs. And we need both state and federal legislation to stop the
colleges from denying us unemployment by claiming we have “reasonable assurance” of future employment when they in fact refuse to give us continuing employment rights of any kind.
While truly equal pay and benefits are important, job security must move to the front of the line if contingent faculty are ever going to be able to speak out about their oppression — both on campus and within their unions. Job
security would give adjuncts meaningful academic freedom and make grievances worthwhile. Right now an adjunct who files a grievance has to weigh the short-term benefit of winning the grievance with the long-term chance of losing his or her job entirely.
I have drafted legislation that would give part-time faculty annual, renewable contracts after three years of half-time teaching. In “An Adjunct Bill of Rights,” I wrote that “college professors cannot teach successfully if they are in constant fear of losing their jobs because of something they said in class or wrote in a published article. They cannot enforce high standards, if they fear doing so will cost them their livelihood. It is high time that we extend job
security, and even tenure, to contingent faculty members of all stripes.”
While we may have to make improvements step by step, simply modifying these multi-tiered systems should not be our long-term goal. Instead, we should be seeking to eliminate them entirely, as Lantz Simpson has written in his article, “A Proposal to Abolish the Part-Time Faculty System in the California Community Colleges.” This would bring us true solidarity.
Of course, if we were to succeed in tearing down the wall that separates the non-tenure track faculty from our tenured and tenure-track colleagues, we would be eliminating the system I have called “faculty apartheid.” We would no longer be labeled “contingent” faculty; we would henceforth be called simply “college professors.”
Want it on paper? Print this page.
Know someone who’d be interested? Forward this story.
Want to stay informed? Sign up for free daily news e-mail.
Advertisement
Comments
This is an excellent article. I will forward links to this article and a brief description to discussion lists.
Charles Jannuzi, Mr., at 8:10 am EST on November 13, 2007
At most 4-year universities, adjunct faculty and lecturers do not do the same job as tenure-track faculty. The claim “equal pay for equal work” assumes there is equal work when there is not. Adjuncts might like to do the same work as tenure-track faculty, but they are not assigned the same duties, nor are there the same expectations for performance. Most of the adjuncts where I teach would not be qualified for tenure-track positions because they do not engage in any research and never bothered to write up and publish their own dissertations. They seem to believe that teaching is all there is to the job. Further, there is little oversight of the quality of adjunct teaching while tenure-track faculty are over-evaluated in all aspects of their job, including collegiality (something adjuncts are not expected to display). I sympathize with the desire of all groups to be compensated and work under good conditions, but equating an adjunct job to tenure-track is a fiction that makes their claims look inflated and thus specious.
Perry, at 10:35 am EST on November 13, 2007
Hearing from the other side
Thank you, Perry, for giving us a view from the other side of the question.
Can someone tell me, if being a “gypsy scholar", a part-timer or non-tenure track faculty member, offers such low income, skimpy or no benefits, and little or no job security, why does anybody take the job and why don’t those who have it leave for better opportunities? With such low unemployment in the country, it isn’t as though there are no other occupations to be found. Wouldn’t many of them be more lucrative and offer the better benefits and greater job security whose lack the contingent faculty complains of?
Jack Olson, at 11:25 am EST on November 13, 2007
Part Time Faculty
My experience is the opposite of Perry’s. Our part tiime faculty are among the most energetic with their outside the classroom work. They more than carry their weight and have my total respect. They certainly deserve more than they are currently getting.
Philip Koch, Professor at Maryland Institute College of Art, at 11:25 am EST on November 13, 2007
Contingent Faculty Militance
Keith Hoeller continues to ask some of the toughest questions regarding strategies for improving the situation of the contingent majority. It’s important to note that there have been several recent successes in contingent faculty unionization in the past couple of years, many of them reported on by IHE.
But Keith’s overall emphasis—to suggest that legislation is vital corollary to self-organization—is on target. Legislation—including regulation of pay equity and working conditions—is a core strategy for moving forward.
Marc Bousquet, author, How the University Works: at Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation, at 11:45 am EST on November 13, 2007
Four-year colleges aren’t the “whole world”
Perry talks as if 4-year colleges are the “whole world", which with all due respect, is the greater fallacy. In my part of the world, there are many more contingent faculty at community colleges. At community colleges, for example, “publish or perish” has no meaning and advising is largely done be advising staff, not faculty. And, to be clear, “equal pay for equal work” is focused on the classroom and the office, where contingents receive 40% to 60% of the pay of full-time tenure track faculty per class, i.e. — “For the same work". Hoeller does have a point when he suggests that legislation is the key. But don’t forget “the door". That legislation will not be forthcoming without help from the unions, mainly AFT, NEA, and AAUP, and with hard work in the locals. While the legislation in California did not solve the problem, that is largely due to the funding piece. More vigilance in writing legislation and in working the halls of those capitol buildings will help. And, the example of Hartnell College in California, when their local union president gained support of the community and other local labor unions, is the model for local action in bargaining. There is no panacea to fix a problem that has been 40 years in the making, it will take work from all the players, including unions and full-time faculty. Once full-time faculty realize that their fate is a direct consequence of the fate of contingent faculty, they will be on board, as evidenced by the recent work of AFT in the FACE legislation.
Barry Edwards, at 12:10 pm EST on November 13, 2007
ADJUNCTS NOT PUBLISHING!?
I’m mostly with Perry in his description of the ways the duties of adjuncts differ from those of the full-time tenure-track faculty, but when he lamented that they ‘never bothered to write up and publish their own dissertations,’ I about died.
Not only do our $3,000-per-course adjuncts not have Ph.D.s, some lack even Masters’ degrees and have only the 18 graduate-hour minimum required by the accreditors. Then every once in a while we get dinged by SACS for hiring folks who don’t even have that.
We hear over and over how important teaching is and this is how they address the issue? What do you think this does for the morale of the senior tenured, active scholars who are also good in the classroom?
Comm Prof, at 3:00 pm EST on November 13, 2007
this is my second year as a visiting professor, so i had to jump in on this. there was a question of why would someone enter as an adjunct or whether we hold up our weight against tenure-track folks, as we ask for equity. i, of course, don’t represent all non tenure track folks. i have a ph.d. and very much want a tenure track job, just took an opportunity to “visit” until a tenure track position opened. sometimes that happens while you are waiting for the holy grail of tenure-track. of course i’m not expected to take on committee work and other volunteer work, but i do it anyways and enthusiastically, as i want to show that i’m in it for the long haul. i engage in research, during off-time as i have a 4/4 course load. why shouldn’t i be entitled to equity, if i am working just as hard as a tenure-track? i say this without a raise in my pay, being paid the same as someone with no prior experience, and knowing that my time “visiting” won’t count towards tenure even if i get the position (it won’t even count in what “step” i start at as tenure-track). how fair is that?
perfesser pm, at 4:30 pm EST on November 13, 2007
knocks on adjuncts
There are adjuncts occupying every degree of the academic ladder, from rank amateurs to PhDs who have shown every sign of scholarly promise except for getting a tenure-track job—and even that supposed failure can come about for any number of reasons, not necessarily including actual unsuitability.
One shouldn’t base any tendentious assumptions on the skimpiness of our publication records, either: I teach six, sometimes seven classes a semester, with as many as four separate preps a day, just in order to keep the roof patched.
On the other hand, it’s true that most of us don’t get assigned to work with the majors or grad students very often, but I do prove myself more than capable of it when the assignment comes around.
Tenured profs ought to realize that some adjuncts are their equals in every way that counts—except in our job security and pay. The view to the contrary is, as far as I can see, a thin rationalization.
Dr. Jim, at 4:35 pm EST on November 13, 2007
Call the FBI
Anyone being forced to work against their will should contact the police immediately. That’s a crime.
Otherwise, do yourselves, the students and everyone a favor — consider doing something else.
There’s no tax-money to pay for what has been proposed in this column. A dead horse is being beaten. It is more likely, financial exigency and layoffs of the tenured will happen, before this.
Searching for “the truth?” Well — re-read the above. And have a nice day.
Buzz, at 9:15 am EST on November 14, 2007
Thanks for the history
Keith Hoeller has done us a great service in both providing an outline history of Campus Equity Week and suggesting some sound strategies for how to move forward. Thanks Keith for the kind words but in the interest of accuracy I did not shepherd the AAUP’s 2003 statement on Contingent Faculty and the Profession. That was done with great political and literary grace by Ruth Flower, a former member of the AAUP national staff, and members of the Committee on Contingent faculty, most notably by the late, great, David Gruber. David was a tenured faculty member with strong instincts toward solidarity and the understanding that contingency was the front line of today’s struggles over academic freedom and the fate of the university. I had the easier job of agitator.
Let’s continue the strategic debate. The three most important things for me are organizing, organizing, and organizing. It’s the foundation on which all the rest depends. By the way the ahistorical potshot offered in “Call the FBI” is more suited to a crank call than an informed debate about the most dramatic transformations shaping academic labor in US history.
Richard Moser, at 10:20 am EST on November 14, 2007
If adjuncts were evaluated with the same scrutiny as tenure-track faculty, they would be unable to teach the overloads that are common among them (supposedly justified by their low pay). I have personally met adjuncts teaching 17 courses per semester and the person above who admits to teaching 7 per semester is evidence of the abuse of students that is committed so frequently by adjuncts. Tenure-track faculty, who are required to be good teachers, know that one cannot do the job well and teach so many sections, even if they are not all new preps. Adjuncts design their courses to minimize exposure to students and grading, they don’t put the time and effort into improving their lectures or exams (relying on test bank questions and scantron grading), they don’t learn to use new technology in the classroom, they don’t change their textbooks as needed, or fit their classes to the syllabus of each institution. They do the minimum required in order to maximize their income. Then they complain about being underpaid for the “same” work. This is not the same work. We have some excellent adjunct teachers, but many are cutting corners and doing a lot less in the classroom than the tenure-track faculty. We routinely hear complaints from students of adjuncts that their emails are ignored, that adjuncts are not available during their office hours (or want to hold office hours remotely via computer), refuse to deal flexibly with student emergencies, give no make-up exams and accept no late papers (as a matter of their own convenience not student discipline), and write no comments on student papers (causing students to suspect they don’t read them either). This is just not the same job and does not deserve equal pay, whatever the self-justification advanced by the adjunct. It shows a lack of professionalism. I have certainly seen exceptions to this behavior among adjuncts, but the structure of an adjunct’s job is that there is little accountability for teaching quality beyond student evaluations (which are frequently manipulated simply by giving easy grades and are often ignored by administrators who have the headache of staffing all sections). As a tenured faculty member in a department with more than 50% of courses taught by adjuncts, I get tired of correcting the misinformation taught by adjuncts who don’t bother to keep up with knowledge in their disciplines and who never grapple with subtleties on any topic, leaving out the “difficult” sections of the textbook instead of teaching them. I’ve seen adjuncts who fail to teach for the entire class time and who don’t bother to teach the required class content. I do not believe adjuncts are being abused in this situation — I think the students are. I am much more willing to support additional tenure track faculty lines than improvement of adjunct working conditions and pay.
Perry, at 10:25 am EST on November 14, 2007
Perry:
Thank you for so simply lumping all adjunct faculty into one big bunch of lazy, dead-beat instructors. I, being one of those lumped into this category, would like to refute your assumption that all contingent faculty look for the easy way out and have no where near the same commitment level as tenure-track and tenured faculty.
The courses I teach carry the bulk of the FTE for my department. My students are given formal writing assignments. I respond to all with comments and suggestions which are personalized and (some students may claim overly) detailed. The students I teach in upper division courses are given essay exams which I, not a TA, read and respond to. I, more so than many of the tenured faculty in my department, keep up on technological advances and use them to my advantage in and out of the classroom. I know all of my students BY NAME. Last fall the enrollment cap of one of my courses was doubled so that I essentially taught 5 courses for the price of four(bet that doesn’t happen to you). It took me almost half the semester, but I learned all of their names, too. Why? Because I, like every contingent faculty member I know across the CSU system in which I work, CARE.
I can only surmise that you have a bee in your bonnet concerning someone at your university who matches your insulting description, but understand that the bulk of adjunct/contingent/part-time faculty do not match that description and deserve the same respect you no doubt expect for yourself.
Gail, at 2:05 pm EST on November 14, 2007
Perry’s right to a point, given a screwed-up situation, there are bound to be screw ups.
However, he seems to blame the victims of the screwed-up situation. The point is that the tenure//non-tenure system isn’t working, period. Not for students and it certainly isn’t working for non-tenured people and I wonder if it works that well for tenured people at least for the years that they have to “mind their manners” while they are “on track.” To further complicate matters, the “victims” are not paid anything near pro-rata so they need to take more work at different locations to survive.
As Keith mentioned in his article, at Vancouver Community College and other colleges and university-colleges in British Columbia, the way we deal with this issue to have equal expectations of all new hires. In return everything is pro-rata. Everyone goes through similar evaluation procedures and everyone is expected to participate in all the work of the department. And everyone shares the prevailing level of academic freedom extant at each college (we haven’t had a problem with it, but I would like stronger language in our collective agreement.)
Of course it may look to some to be horrendously expensive to move to such a system overnight, but it should be possible to phase in equity over a decade. About 60% to 70% of BC college and u/college instructors are on our top step which will be about $8l k next year (that’s probably $85 US). That might be lower than some few tenured people might make in the current prevaling model, but it’s fairer because everyone can get there. (btw: I thought tenure was supposed to be about academic freedom, not salary) During a transition period those that currently make more can be granfathered until they retire.Frank Cosco VCCFA
Frank Cosco, President at VCCFA, at 2:50 pm EST on November 14, 2007
Keith Hoeller has written an excellent summary of the issues facing the growing ranks of adjunct faculty and the efforts made to address these issues over the past years. He is correct in saying that, although the faculty unions play an important role, they must move past their “genetic” predisposition to solve these issues campus by campus through individual collective bargaining, as proposed in the AFT’s Faculty And College Excellence (FACE)legislation, which practically guarantees uneven results, and take advantage of the opportunity to press state legislatures to address these systemic policy issues of faculty pay and working conditions and “solve the problems of many at once", to quote Dr. Hoeller. In this respect Richard Moser is correct in stating the key to achieving this is through organizing and working together.
I would suggest that Perry look beyond his ivory tower and the preservation of his privileged status as a tenured professor at a research university. Research universities typically do not value teaching as much as the far more numerous four- and two-year colleges and universities where scholarly work is valued, and perhaps an essential part of the job description, but is less of a priority than the primary teaching duties and focus on student learning (exclusive of the learning done by graduate research assistants).
May I suggest you consider all of the non-monetary compensation you receive in the form of 3-month summer vacations, periodic sabbatical leaves for research and new course development, health and retirement benefits, private/secure office space for meeting and counseling with students, unshared computers and telephones, access to funding for attendance at professional conferences and other faculty development activities. The fact that adjuncts “cut corners” may be more of an effect caused by the low rate of pay rather than an attempt to “maximize income” and an intentional act to “abuse students". It is more of a survival strategy. Arguing that this “strategy” justifies the continuing gross inequity in pay and benefits between tenure- and non-tenure track faculty because adjuncts don’t do equal work seems a little like missing the forest for the trees.
As an adjunct who has taught for 17 years at both four-year and two-year institutions I would gladly compare my performance in the classroom, my dedication to the profession, and the learning accomplished by my students to yours despite the fact I do not have a tenured position.
Teaching is the primary function of a university or college. It is their raison d’etre. It is the sharp point of the spear. The knowledge and skills of the faculty are the “product” being marketed to the public.Beyond increased funding for capital construction and more student access, it is the funding to support faculty and their teaching duties that should be of primary importance in funding decisions by state legislatures.
As an afterthought, I would challenge your assertion of meeting someone who taught 17 courses in a single term. Simple math would suggest there aren’t enough hours in the day to do that and still have time to eat, sleep, shower, and walk the dog.
As for Buzz suggesting that adjuncts leave the profession if they don’t like the pay I would tell him that such an attitude would have prevented the American Revolution from ever happening. According to you, rather than complaining about taxes on tea and paying for their defense by the British army during the French and Indian War, our founding fathers should have simply packed up and moved someplace else, say like Papua New Guinea, rather than stand on principle and fight to change things for the better. On the other hand adjuncts might take a page from the French Revolution and start sending those responsible to the guillotine.
DR, at 4:30 pm EST on November 14, 2007
I never said all adjuncts behave as described. I noted that there are exceptions. I also noted that the system does not demand accountability and does not evaluate adjuncts, so quality is not enforced the way it is for tenure track faculty. That permits abuse of the system and the students. Please do not mischaracterize my comment or I will assume all adjuncts cannot read and handle complexity or argument either.
Perry, at 5:40 pm EST on November 14, 2007
It’s relative
I have a day job creating curricula for continuing medical education and I teach 4 classes at two universities as an adjunct. I’ve been doing this for six years.
From where the student sits in a lower-division class, I don’t expect there’s a big difference between tenured and contingent faculty.
We’re a result of budget concerns, not pedagogy. Required classes are required classes where few people are engaged.
I teach because I enjoy it. Albeit, I also enjoy the extra paycheck every month, and I wouldn’t do this without compensation. Having said that, I also believe we’re being paid almost exactly what we demand to be paid—not much.
I created a website, a resource of content and experience for adjuncts who teach across several institutions.
http:www.adjunctprofessoronline.com
Without exception, everyone I’ve met through the above has been committed to optimizing adult learning—both the adjuncts and the fulltime faculty.
AdjunctProfessoronline.com, at 7:55 pm EST on November 14, 2007
For 12 years my husband was chair of a graduate department which contained two Master’s level programs. He was responsible for both programs becoming accredited and one recognized as among the top 10 in the US.
For two years he worked to develop a proposal for a doctorate program. When he presented the outline/curriculum/etc to the retiring chancellor for approval. Said chancellor took over the program and runs it out of his home on the water as an online program. When the faculy rebelled and refused to allow the retiring chancellor to place his wife in my husband’s position there was great hostility. Some of the things we experienced at this multi-campus private university(?) were wage discrimination, constructive discharge, harassment, and bullying. Not to mention the fact they would take a year to pay my medical bills (they were self insuring and I paid one of the highest rates in the country).
New president arrived and needed to look tough—liked what she saw in my husband’s program and publicly announced his resignation—before she discussed it with him. All of this after working for 12 years on two year contracts, renewable every year. When we refused to stay on she refused to pay out the contract until husband stayed around to “make em look good". We were conned for 12 years. We were told if we built the program, we would be rewarded. Instead we endured 12 years of discrimination. A system of increased committment by the school to the teacher is essential.
facultywife, at 4:25 am EST on November 15, 2007
Perry thinks dedicated adjuncts are more the exception than the rule. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is clear he covered his behind by qualifying his over-genralizations, but it is an inadequate defense for his obvious disdain of those who have not achieved his exalted status of having job security via tenure. His sense of entitlement is clear.
Adjuncts at the two-year college I teach at are evaluated by peers and administrators each term of their first year. If they survive this process their name is entered into a part-time file that acknowledges their satisfactory performance and fitness to be re-hired each term, but remain on probation term by term subject to adequate enrollment levels, course availability, and funding. If an adjunct is not recommended for the part-time file after teaching for a year, they are not re-hired. This evaluation process may not be as rigorous as a full-up tenure review, but it is an evaluation nonetheless.
DR, at 4:25 am EST on November 15, 2007
I taught as an adjunct and as a Visiting Assistant Professor before being hired tenure track and becoming tenured. I have seen this from both sides. Adjuncts are more guilty of feeling entitled in my opinion. They feel they are entitled to equal pay without doing the work needed to earn it. I worked very hard to cross the divided between adjunct and tenure track faculty. I did it by continuing to do research and publish while teaching. That is expected of tenure track faculty, yet adjuncts moan and groan about how it is not possible for them to do. I did it by sending out applications every year and attending interviews and persevering in a horrible job market. Adjuncts complain that they cannot do this while also teaching, yet tenure track faculty are expected to do much more than that while concurrently teaching a full load. I continued to present at conferences paying to attend them myself. Adjuncts moan and groan that they will not do anything they have to pay for out of pocket, even though tenure track faculty routinely pay a large chunk of their travel costs. Adjuncts don’t get hired tenure track because they won’t do the work necessary to be competitive at that level. Because they won’t do the work needed to get hired in the first place, they are unlikely to gain tenure once hired either, because that work is just the start of 6 years of increasingly demanding performance. Adjuncts don’t want to do what it takes even to cross the first hurdle and it is a good thing they aren’t hired tenure track because they would not be tenured and would have wasted everyone’s time just to return to a non-tenured role. They do not understand what tenure-track expectations are and delude themselves that they are doing “equal” work when they are not. Those of us who do manage to find a tenure track job have earned it by being willing to do what it takes. Adjuncts are clearly demonstrating they will not do so, but somehow think they should be paid anyway. That strikes me as a grossly unfair sense of “entitlement".
Perry, at 10:10 am EST on November 15, 2007
My experience in higher education goes back to my childhood as the son of university professor in 40s, but I only have specific recollections from the mid 50s on. I too have worked both full-time and part-time, but never in a research university. Some of the distinctions Perry and others have made do have some truth in them, but my experience has been that these differences are very much a function of specific characteristics of different institutions and not of the part-time, full-time, tenured or non-tenured characteristics of the particular positions.
I have always understood the foundation of American higher education to lie in shared governance and academic freedom, and the primacy of the faculty (generally restricted to tenured faculty) in academic and professional matters. These would include authority and responsibility for faculty hiring and evaluation. Thus, if it is true in a particular institution that, “... there is little oversight of the quality of adjunct teaching while tenure-track faculty are over-evaluated in all aspects of their job, including collegiality (something adjuncts are not expected to display)” (Perry), or “Adjuncts don’t want to do what it takes even to cross the first hurdle” (Perry), then I can see no reason why the blame should not fall on those tenured faculty who have failed to exercise their authority and responsibility. It certainly seems less than reasonable to blame the victims of the failed hiring and evaluation processes.
If hiring the so described adjuncts was the academically and professionally responsible thing to do in terms of providing students with the education they deserve, then what possible justification is there for not allowing the University of Phoenix model to become the model for all higher education? If some students deserve the benefit of a tenured professor with all the professionalism that has implied, then what justification eliminates other students from this same right?
Chris Storer
Chris Storer, at 5:35 am EST on November 16, 2007
ALL FACULTY ARE EQUAL. OTHERWISE WE HAVE FASCISM.
“It is the job of the thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.” Albert Camus
Dr. Hoeller again composes a researched, balanced, and insightul article on the miserable state of 75% of the college instructors in America. Seventy_five percent of the faculty are teaching in a gulag created by a small yet powerful clique of self-serving administrators and faculty called full-time. All institutions are different in their structure, but all must adhere to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. At this time, not only are 75% of the instructors paid pauper wages, they are also teaching without academic freedom or freedom of speech. Thus, the colleges are presently shredding the Constitution and Bill of Rights not only for 75% of the teachers, but also 100% of the students. After 25 years of teaching “parttime” at the four area colleges and universities, I have witnessed loss of freedom of speech and academic freedom. The community colleges law enforcement students are being taught they are above the law. Some, some, “full-time” faculty in the English department, without even having a master’s in English, dictate pedagogy to people who did bother to get a master’s in their field. And some “full-time” instructors are supporting the conversion of our colleges into military mills, trolling for low-income students to join the military. This fracturing of the faculty is more than symbolic. Literally, the full-time/part-time machine is killing people, any discussion or dissent about Bush, Iraq, etc, is called “political” while the college administrations are apparently pro-war and against our Constitution and Bill of Rights. We have the right, we have the duty, and we have the power to end this tyranny. Teresa Knudsen Formerly Instructor of English Community Colleges of Spokane Gonzaga University Whitworth CollegeEastern Washington University
Terry Knudsen, at 10:20 am EST on November 16, 2007
Lack of “job security” is the flip side of “flexibility". I am part-time faculty in the California State University system, a wonderful flexible career that allows me to raise my children and work in a highly fulfilling job part-time. As my personal situation changes, I can adjust my workload. I am quite satisfied with my job and my pay. I do believe I am paid “equally” for my work, as I do not have the administrative and advising obligations of my tenure-track peers.
Amy, Dr. at California State University, at 5:25 pm EST on November 16, 2007
Part time administrators
Why are there no part-time administrators, paid much less than their full-time colleagues, with no medical benefits and very little job security? Huh?
Why isn’t sauce for the goose sauce for the gander, too?
Philip, at 9:35 pm EST on November 16, 2007
There are part-time administrators paid less than their full-time peers, with less health insurance. They are typically called clerks or administrative assistants. Their jobs require a lower level of training and they may even be filled by students, much as adjunct positions are.
Chuck, at 11:50 am EST on November 17, 2007
Direction for Contingent Faculty Movement
Cited in the article, and echoed in these comments, was Joe Berry’s observation that the contingent faculty movement has stalled. One idea for a new direction is to more emphatically link the rise of contingent faculty with the denigration of tenured faculty in order that all faculty work in harness for reform.
Alas, such an alliance is easier said than done. Not only are contingents sometimes resented by setting foot onto the “turf” of tenured faculty, the apartheid in working conditions compounds the obstacles to solidarity. Beginning with hiring, full-time faculty undergo national search and then, once hired, are scrutinized by a tenure review committee, and then are celebrated when finally granted tenure. Contingents, by contrast, are hired in a far more casual manner and rarely undergoing any sort of performance evaluation. Difference like these can be taken by some to mean that contingents are lesser faculty and less deserving, and to such a perspective, “Equal pay for equal work” may seem like contingents trying to get something that they don’t deserve.
Of course, such attitudes are suicidal for the movement. Hopefully, Barry Edwards is right: “Once full-time faculty realize that their fate is a direct consequence of the fate of contingent faculty, they will be on board.”
Maybe a sweeping initiative like the AFT’s FACE that address both tenured and contingent faculty does offer promise, assuming it is not so written as to leave key provisions, like job security, up to local collective bargaining, which “practically guarantees uneven results,” as DR notes. Without job security, says Keith, it is doubtful that contingents “are ever going to be able to speak out about their oppression.” Thus, if contingent are to be part of the movement, job security must “move to the front of the line.”
Jack Longmate Adjunct English Instructor andVice President of Olympic College AHE (NEA)
Jack Longmate, Adjunct Instructor and VP of NEA-affililated union at Olympic College, at 3:00 pm EST on November 18, 2007
SPEAK OUT!
Without job security, says Keith Hoeller, it is doubtful that contingents “are ever going to be able to speak out about their oppression.” Jack Longmate rightly concludes that “if contingents are to be part of the movement, job security must move to the front of the line.” Certainly job security needs to be emphasized over and over. It is not that hard to sell to tenured folk, as long as they understand it is not a threat to tenure. Significant job security after a reasonable amount of time should be sold as a no-cost necessity of life. It’s free. The fact that it is also a guarantor of academic freedom appeals to lots of the tenure-tracked ilk, most of whom are neither unprincipled nor ignorant.
Academic freedom is certainly an issue that needs to visibly connect adjuncts with tenured people of goodwill, like myself. Although I have plenty of like-minded tenured colleagues, hardly any are inclined to become activists. It would certainly be helpful if more of these better-off colleagues would at least come out and support AFT’s FACE and other initiatives to benefit both tenured and contingent faculty.
Contingents need to be paid equitably, reflecting the principle of equal pay for equal work, with increasing job security and benefits equal to those of teachers on tenure track. It goes without saying that nobody should expect to be paid for work they don’t do. The professional obligation of most us is determined by what side of the tenure track we’re on. The majority of contingents are not expected to perform service or research, though some are exceptionally productive and creative. The reality is that, even in regard to the categories of research and service, an increasing number of contingents outperform tenured professors, many of whom have simply drifted away from scholarship and service, without it affecting their job security in the slightest, thanks to tenure.
I do think that both adjuncts and tenured teachers CAN AND SHOULD FORCEFULLY SPEAK OUT AGAINST INEQUALITY AND EXPLOITATION, especially when it is all around them and has become systemic in the very institutions we serve. This affects everyone, including students and their parents. Blatant inequality and exploitation has become very un-American these days – we now prefer the subtler kind. In addition to working through our labor unions, we can also speak out to family, friends and relatives. We need to really act smarter and start educating a broader public about the plight of contingent faculty. As professional educators, we should be very good at that. Artists in the contingent cohort might create television sitcoms and feature films illuminating the plight of contingent teachers, others can write novels and maybe even a Broadway musical or two, or at least a play. “Contingency” – what a great word for a title.
Writing letters to the editor of newspapers or magazines is another way to speak out against the injustices. In the last ten days, variants of my latest letter were published in our college newspaper (http://www.newpaltz.edu/oracle/article.cfm?id=3378), as well as in a half-dozen dailies from Poughkeepsie to Albany. Imagine what would happen if ten people in the area starting writing monthly letters? A hundred? That could lead to more visible actions, such as public demonstrations or informational picketing. When contingents are part of a broad coalition and enjoy the public’s sympathy, activists are unlikely to be singled out and arbitrarily dismissed. If a college actually did engage in such flagrant retribution, it would be a great issue to organize around and further publicize the abusive treatment of contingents by that college. Everybody loves David and Goliath stories, and everybody remembers who won!
PDGB, Distinguished Service Professor of German at SUNY New Paltz, at 5:25 am EST on November 19, 2007
Correct link
Here is the corrected link to the letter referenced in my last comment:http://www.newpaltz.edu/oracle/article.cfm?id=3378
PDGB, Distinguished Service Professor of German at SUNY New Paltz, at 11:45 pm EST on November 19, 2007
I want to thank Inside Higher Ed for publishing Keith Hoeller’s piece and for sponsoring space for this dialogue. I would just like to add the emphasis that places where significant progress has been made toward equity have been places (like City college of San Francisco with AFT 2121) where a level of organized contingent (precarious, part-time et al) has been sustained over a period of many years. There are ups and downs of course, but never letting the organizational flame go out completely, and the institutional memory totally lost, is key to making and preserving gains, within the unions, in collective bargaining, or even in law.
I just returned from a labor ed speaking engagment in Peru, whre faculty at all the public universiies have been on strike for some weeks, including a hunger strike, which i visited in Lima. Most faculty there are also not tenured or tenure track, though more are full-time then here. The key issues are implementation of pay equity with judiciary employees, which has been the law for 24 years, but never implemented, and the general atacks on public higher education. It is an inspiring struggle and the key activists are not the tenured faculty minority. Participating in their march on the national government buildings last week will be tatooed on my brain for a long time. It showed me that unity is possible, but there has to be respect for solidarity to flourish.
Joe Berry
Joe Berry, Visiting Labor Education Specialist at University of Illinois, at 5:25 am EST on November 21, 2007
adjuncts vs tenure
I don’t understand why adjunct faculty are putting all their eggs in the tenure basketwhen tenure appears to be dying out. Adjunct faculty are not the only group of academic employees routinely disenfranchised. Many universities have extremely large numbers of non-instructional academic staff, especially on campuses with large research and/or public service components, who similarly do not have tenure.
I find it extremely disappointing and disheartening that my union, AFT, gives very little lip service to non-instructional academic staff. We can pay the same percaps but we are treated as if we are completely invisible. Much of the complaints of the non-tenure-track instructors can equally be said of other academic staff, yet we are always ignored.
I invite instructional non-tenure track faculty to join with their non-instructional brethren to work to improve the workplace conditions of all non-tenure track staff. But to do this the instructional staff would do well to put a lid on the idea that only teachers deserve job security. All workers deserve job security. Let’s work together to raise the bar for all university employees regardless of whether the tenure track faculty approve. As long as they havetheir perks they’re not joining the fray. Let’s just go ahead without them.
academic staffer, at 1:30 pm EST on November 21, 2007
Adjunct Faculty
After almost 12 years as an adjunct professor at one public university, one for profit university, and one not for profit university, I have observed that adjuncts almost never receive the respect they deserve. This is true of how full time faculty see them and how they are traeted by adminstrators. A point that is most missed is that many adjuncts I know serve the important need to bring reality to students from the real world of work; something full-time faculty know very little of or about. As part timers, adjuncts work in the real world and bring their practical knowledge to students every day. At the for profit universities, adjuncts are treated like spare change-used only when necessary and often tossed aside when no longer needed. Often adjuncts have to almost beg for classes! This much I can also say about the public institutionand the for profit university where I have served. On the other hand, the not-for-profit university where I currently teach, treats me with respect as I serve their need to provide practical education with limited funds. But the reality is that adjuncts, no matter how hard working,or where they teach, are underpaid and have absolutely no security, no matter how hard and how long they have served. It is truly a national shame that these hard working people are not treated better. The blame is not only focused on teh universities, all too often the unions that happily collect tehir dues are reluctant to help in any disputes that come up with adjuncts and the school leaders. Their focus is on full-time faculty, but they are very happy to collect dues from adjuncts ACR
Al Restivo, at 4:55 am EST on November 25, 2007
From an Adjunct
6/5 at three Universities $2,000/classNo benefits
Bottom line: $22,000/yr
(FYI- This means that I am also currently working a non-academic, part-time job to pay my financial loans.)
I know that I “only” have my Master’s Degree. I know that I am not required to publish the way tenure-track professors are required to publish. However, I would love to know how one “travels” to conferences on $22/yr, not to mention the ability to take off work (my pay is docked for any class I miss). I would also love to know how I can hold office hours, considering the fact that I don’t have an office.
I am extremely dedicated to my job — I’ve always been a perfectionist, and I would never make my students pay for the faults of an imperfect system. I put a lot of thought and effort into every lesson plan, I use all of the media available, and I communicate with my students as best I can. This means that I usually work 50-70 hour work weeks.
It also means that I have very little time for personal academic development. I want to publish more; I want to pursue my PhD. But I have no idea how to do so right now.
Here’s the primary question: is $22/yr really fair, all things considered? I don’t expect to be paid as much as full-time, tenured faculty — but $22/yr? No one with an ounce of sense will put up with these terms for too long. I know I won’t. I’m leaving as soon as I can.
Adjunct, Adjunct Faculty, at 4:45 am EST on March 5, 2008
Advertisement
Jobs Related to The Future of the Contingent Faculty Movement
or search for jobs directly.
Associate Professor of Humanities
University of Colorado
Posting Description: The Department of Humanities invites applications for an Associate Professor with ... see job
Reading (Adjunct) Instructor
Hillsborough Community College
Hillsborough Community College is a public, comprehensive multi-campus, state-supported community college located in the ... see job
Communication
Keene State College
We are Creating a World of Possibilities! see job
2009/2010 William S. Vaughn Visiting Fellowship
Vanderbilt University
One-year residential research fellowship for a scholar interested in participating in a broadly interdisciplinary faculty ... see job
2008/09 Lecturer or Teaching Specialist: Art History
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
The University of Minnesota is a premier employer and a talent magnet attracting leading faculty and staff from around the ... see job
Senior Professional Research Assistant
University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center-Downtown Denver
Posting Description: The position will primarily center upon our ongoing Investigation of brain ... see job
2008/09 Teaching Specialist or Lecturer — Gender, Women, Sexuality Studies
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
The University of Minnesota is a premier employer and a talent magnet attracting leading faculty and staff from around the ... see job
Assistant Professor, French
College of the Bahamas
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES Applicants should be prepared to teach all levels of French language and French/Francophone ... see job
Assistant Professor or Instructor of Art History — Medieval Art
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
The University of Minnesota is a premier employer and a talent magnet attracting leading faculty and staff from around the ... see job
Assistant or Associate Professor of Spanish
Gordon College
GORDON COLLEGE Department of Foreign Languages and Linguisitics position announcement Assistant or Associate Professor of ... see job
Home
| Sign up | Log in
| About us
| Work for Us
| Press Releases
| Rights and permissions
| Contact us
| Advertise
| Partners
| RSS 
| Podcasts
| Links
| Privacy
| My Account
© Copyright 2008 Inside Higher Ed
contingent faculty
This article ought to be required reading for anyone seriously thinking about the future of higher education in the U.S. Had the SpellingsCommission begun with this piece, its members might have come out of la-la land.
John Zeugner, Prof. of History, Emeritus at WPI, at 7:35 am EST on November 13, 2007