Alliance Between TT and Adjunct Faculty That Benefits Both

[Kron3007]

Sorry, but teaching 4 courses a semester is not a full-time job compared to a full-time TT faculty gig.
I teach  2 courses a semester, and my teaching is considered 40% of my job. However, my teaching is not just classroom teaching, but all the committees related to teaching (e.g. plagiarism cases and student grade appeals, curriculum development) as well as graduate supervision, PhD exams and comprehensive exams. supervising capstone projects, student training in the lab, etc. so 2 courses in the classroom is actually about 20 to 25% of my job. 4 courses a semester therefore is about 50% of my job. So  I don't consider 4 adjunct courses a full time job. It's about the equivalent to half my job.
Most TT faculty--much like myself--would love more TT faculty and to get rid of adjuncts. Having to manage, hire, and supervise the adjunct pool is just one more job for us, and as has been mentioned in this thread means that the pool of TT faculty is so small now that large amounts of service work that used to be spread amongst large groups of TT faculty is now downloaded onto an ever shrinking pool.

So, of course TT faculty have a stake in wanting fewer adjuncts and more TT faculty. We would love it. Can we do anything about it? No more than adjuncts can do.

I say this as an ex-adjunct who held down a full-time unrelated job while teaching 2 courses per semester in evenings, and still managed to write a book that led to my landing my TT job.

Perhaps 4/4 would not be full time, it seems everyone else is more efficient than I am (although I usually have labs for my classes and they still count as a single course for me).  Regardless, appropriate salaries coudl still be calculated based on what people feel would be full time (the original reason this came up).

As an aside, a lot of what you list as teaching I would generally list on my CV under service (plagiarism committee, curriculum development, exam committees, etc), but I guess that just depends on how things are defined where you are.   

[pedanticromantic]

Agreed. But wanting fewer adjuncts because it would lighten your load or be better for the department is not the same as wanting the end of the regular use of non-benefitted, temporary, dead end college teaching jobs because it isn't ethical, which is what tenure track professors sound like they think they believe. So adjunctification is here for good. Not solely because of government defunding. Not because administrators are nuts. Because it works for the plutocracy. That's my point. It's not directed at you, cause I don't know you. But, explaining further...
Staffing with only TT  would mean everyone gets your benefits and salary, or is on a path to, and no one loses any employment, salary or benefits already allotted to him because of fluctuating enrollments. Not gonna work for most departments, not in an era where tuition is such a big part of the revenue and everyone's wanting to build bigger, better student centers and sports facilities to chase their share of a limited number of prospective students.

Of course those things are a given, too, but it seemed that the assumption was that TT faculty don't care because it doesn't impact us directly, but I'm saying it does impact us directly, so even selfish faculty should want to get rid of the contingent nature of adjunct work. Not only that, but the poorly paid nature of it means a gradual erosion of full-time pay and benefits as well as the whole idea of the professoriate is eroded.
So purely for selfish motives the faculty should want to do away with the whole notion. The problem is that we are just as powerless as the adjuncts. I have supported union drives for adjuncts at my place, but other than that, unless adjuncts just refuse to do the work, of course the admins are going to hire them instead of full-time faculty. 

[mahagonny]

Agreed. But wanting fewer adjuncts because it would lighten your load or be better for the department is not the same as wanting the end of the regular use of non-benefitted, temporary, dead end college teaching jobs because it isn't ethical, which is what tenure track professors sound like they think they believe. So adjunctification is here for good. Not solely because of government defunding. Not because administrators are nuts. Because it works for the plutocracy. That's my point. It's not directed at you, cause I don't know you. But, explaining further...
Staffing with only TT  would mean everyone gets your benefits and salary, or is on a path to, and no one loses any employment, salary or benefits already allotted to him because of fluctuating enrollments. Not gonna work for most departments, not in an era where tuition is such a big part of the revenue and everyone's wanting to build bigger, better student centers and sports facilities to chase their share of a limited number of prospective students.

Of course those things are a given, too, but it seemed that the assumption was that TT faculty don't care because it doesn't impact us directly, but I'm saying it does impact us directly, so even selfish faculty should want to get rid of the contingent nature of adjunct work.

I don't believe that selfish faculty with tenure want to get rid of the contingent nature of adjunct work, and I don't think any adjuncts who are being honest believe that. What they want is to have an adjunct workforce that is small enough and stifled enough by being made to feel inferior academically and suspected of poor judgment that they won't make any noise.
My position is not that TT faculty don't care about what adjunct faculty are experiencing because it doesn't affect them. It's that TT faculty won't admit that they are getting something out of the regular use of adjunct faculty that maintenance of tenure needs. Well, and then compounding the irony: these are the people to whom we need to make promises of additional protection of free speech, because they are eminently, truth seekers.

[marshwiggle]

I don't believe that selfish faculty with tenure want to get rid of the contingent nature of adjunct work, and I don't think any adjuncts who are being honest believe that. What they want is to have an adjunct workforce that is small enough and stifled enough by being made to feel inferior academically and suspected of poor judgment that they won't make any noise.

Isn't one of the main arguments about the adjunct workforce that it is so large? Many institutions have more adjuncts than full-time faculty, so I'm not sure how that counts as "small".

[mahagonny]

I don't believe that selfish faculty with tenure want to get rid of the contingent nature of adjunct work, and I don't think any adjuncts who are being honest believe that. What they want is to have an adjunct workforce that is small enough and stifled enough by being made to feel inferior academically and suspected of poor judgment that they won't make any noise.

Isn't one of the main arguments about the adjunct workforce that it is so large? Many institutions have more adjuncts than full-time faculty, so I'm not sure how that counts as "small".

And that is why you have tenured people complaining about having to bother their beautiful minds with the presence of 'adjunct porn' (thanks to Barbara Bush..)

[polly_mer]

Perhaps 4/4 would not be full time, it seems everyone else is more efficient than I am (although I usually have labs for my classes and they still count as a single course for me).

The 4/4 is short-hand for a semester calendar with each class being a 3-credit lecture class for 12 contact hours per term.  Some teaching institutions have standard lecture classes at 4 credits so that faculty will only teach 3 sections and devote more time to each one for what is billed as the same overall effort.   The argument for why students take fewer courses over their enrollment is the extra depth the students get in each course.

Labs, studios, and similar one-credit-for-the-students offerings tend to count along the lines of one clock hour is 2/3 of a contact hour so that a standard 3-hour lab period will only count as 2 contact hours.  The justification tends to be that students aren't in labs etc. all three hours every week and frequently labs etc. don't meet every week of the semester.  The counterargument is that doing the lab prep etc. usually is substantially more work for every offering of the course than updating the lecture for repeat offerings of a course.  In addition, while the occasional lab etc. gets out early or doesn't meet during a given week, other lab etc. meetings during the term end up going long so that overall time for the term is preserved so that an clock hour in the classroom should count as a contact hour with students.

My "4/4" load at a regional comprehensive as a full-time non-TT lecturer was:
2 sections of a 4-credit, combined lecture/lab science for teachers course (2h meetings 3x per week, some lab setup/ordering assistance, no TA, no grader)
1 section of a 3-credit senior engineering/physics course (1h lectures 3x per week, no TA, no grader)

serving on a couple college-level committees and one university-level committee (generally monthly meetings or weekly for a short time as we completed required tasks)
serving as an elected officer in a regional chapter of a large national organization
serving as faculty advisor to a student group
performing outreach for K-12 groups on an ad hoc basis several times per term
recruiting at monthly open houses for our program
advising students as necessary to ensure we had enough advisors as enrollment doubled in just a couple years


My "4/4" just teaching load at Super Dinky as TT tended to be:

Case 1:
4-credit intro science course (3 h lecture, 3 h lab, 1 h recitation; no lab support of any kind, no TA, no grader)
4-credit different intro science course (3 h lecture, 3 h lab, 1 h recitation; no lab support of any kind, no TA, no grader)

Case 2:
4-credit intro science lecture/lab that met 3x per week for a combined 2h block (eliminating the inefficiency argument and making the poorly attended recitation be extended office hours; still no support)
3-credit STEM senior research course (lectures 3x per week and guide students to a paper and presentation at the end; no TA, no grader)
3-credit math class (lectures 3x per week; no TA, no grader)
with extra service/administrative duties to make up for being "short" on load at only 11 contact hours instead of 12.

For both cases, my service generally included:

chair of at least one campus-wide committee along with being member on several committees including search committees for other departments as the external person.  A few spectacular terms, I ended up chairing 3 committees that met nearly weekly to get tasks with firm deadlines done (self-study for the regional accreditor leading up to the site visit for the 10-year reaccreditation, assessment to provide feedback to every program before the next cycle of data collection, and renovating general education fast enough to matter to next year's enrollment) as well as chairing faculty senate that met monthly.

advising 30+ students including all the science education majors, which necessitated attending the more-than-monthly meetings of the extended education department

serving on the board of a regional chapter of a different national professional organization

sole creator of monthly STEM programming as outreach to the community as well as ad hoc K-8 outreach several times a term

advising a couple student groups

recruiting at more than monthly open houses



While one might quibble about how exactly to count courses for load, the fact remains that even if the 70% teaching held as the true effort, that leaves 30% other duties on top of 4 3-credit lecture courses and "professional development" is easily checking by attending one conference or workshop per year without presenting. 

When I was serving on search committees and reading materials, the discussions often arose on how someone who was "only" adjuncting with "only" four or five courses per term would do with our full duties for the job.  Someone who was holding down a middle-class full-time job while teaching a course or two a term on the side would likely be able to rise to the occasion, especially if they were already teaching our demographics.  Someone who was only teaching part-time at schools with generally better prepared students and had little to no service experience of any kind was generally eliminated for consideration on the first read as being underqualified.

Contrary to what the fora wisdom tells TT faculty, people were denied tenure for not doing enough service at Super Dinky.  Discussions with colleagues at similar institutions indicate Super Dinky wasn't alone.  As for how many institutions pay what, the institutions at the bottom of the average pay scale for assistant professors are generally the institutions we expect to see on the Dire Financial Straits thread.  I will also point out that a decent average pay can mask some huge departmental differences where it's not unheard of for humanities faculty to make half to two-thirds of what the engineering, nursing, and business faculty make on the same campus.

[fast_and_bulbous]

Contrary to what the fora wisdom tells TT faculty, people were denied tenure for not doing enough service [...]

How about long-tenured faculty denied promotion for not doing enough service? I had some pretty interesting experiences with this sort of thing at R2.5 where the untenured faculty tended to do more service than the long-tenured. In this bizarro-world, the ageing full professors graciously denied themselves service so that there was enough service for the untenured so they could, well, get tenured.

In my experience, if department service isn't being spread around in an equitable way, it can fall on the shoulders of the untenured faculty who really need to focus on research, the one thing that usually tanks them. Stuff [read: paperwork] needs to get done. A primary focus while I was chair was protecting the untenured and making sure they weren't focusing on the wrong things and making sure they weren't doing too much service.

So when ageing entitled tenured professor goes up for their Nth promotion (allowable at R2.5), the knives come out. My dysfunctional department denied two self-important faculty promotion because they shirked their departmental service duties.

It was glorious. One left in a fit of pique and the other one retired after filing a grievance and losing.

Back to the subject at hand, I see no reason for there to be any alliance between adjunct and TT faculty because their jobs are so very different. A solution to this problem is to just get rid of tenure and put everyone on a 5 year contract. However it won't solve all the problems because there will still be teaching faculty, research faculty, etc. Someone who has been adjuncting for 20 years isn't going to suddenly start doing meaningful/fundable research. And I can't believe *everyone* would be on a 5 year contract. There will always be disparity.

Adjunct faculty don't deserve tenure. But they do deserve respect and a modicum of job security. Then again, we all make choices in life and not all of them are good ones.

I have become quite lukewarm on the whole tenure system. In my experience it's almost entirely about job security, not freedom of expression. I'm sure it serves the latter purpose for people who do "controversial" research, but I've personally never once seen tenure be used as a shield against a hostile administration (I've seen it more often used as a way to protect slackers). And I say this as someone who is adjacent to climate change research in the United States.

If they want to get rid of you they can do it even if you're tenured anyway... say, by dissolving your department. I personally know one tenured faculty at a small public regional who is being let go due to "budget issues."

In closing let me say in my version of an ideal world, all faculty would be participating in teaching, research, and service. But that's just not going to happen, and here we are.

[mahagonny]

When I was serving on search committees and reading materials, the discussions often arose on how someone who was "only" adjuncting with "only" four or five courses per term would do with our full duties for the job.  Someone who was holding down a middle-class full-time job while teaching a course or two a term on the side would likely be able to rise to the occasion, especially if they were already teaching our demographics.  Someone who was only teaching part-time at schools with generally better prepared students and had little to no service experience of any kind was generally eliminated for consideration on the first read as being underqualified.

Too many variables in that experiment. I suspect your dislike for freeway fliers was part of it.

[Aster]

R2.5. I love this, but wish for more dirt.

Is it a really small R1 with R2 teaching loads and low PhD enrollments?

or

Is it a bloated R2 with ridiculous R1-level faculty research and tenure requirements?

or

something else?

[pedanticromantic]

I don't believe that selfish faculty with tenure want to get rid of the contingent nature of adjunct work, and I don't think any adjuncts who are being honest believe that. What they want is to have an adjunct workforce that is small enough and stifled enough by being made to feel inferior academically and suspected of poor judgment that they won't make any noise.
My position is not that TT faculty don't care about what adjunct faculty are experiencing because it doesn't affect them. It's that TT faculty won't admit that they are getting something out of the regular use of adjunct faculty that maintenance of tenure needs. Well, and then compounding the irony: these are the people to whom we need to make promises of additional protection of free speech, because they are eminently, truth seekers.

Wow. Well, I'm sorry that you think that, but it isn't true.
What do you think tenured faculty get out of having adjuncts? The fact that they have a secure job isn't at the expense of adjuncts. If we did away with the tenure system then we'd probably all be adjuncts, until everyone gave up on the system and walked away and then universities would have to go back to hiring full-time again, but the budget restrictions would mean they still wouldn't be replacing adjuncts with TT line faculty.
I don't know what else to say. I think you have a really skewed view of tenured faculty. And again, I say this as an ex-adjunct who became tenure track.

[fast_and_bulbous]

R2.5. I love this, but wish for more dirt.

Is it a really small R1 with R2 teaching loads and low PhD enrollments?

or

Is it a bloated R2 with ridiculous R1-level faculty research and tenure requirements?

or

something else?

Compass point public regional, mostly undergrad focused, with research requirements for tenure and promotion being ratcheted up steadily for years (note: I've not worked there for a few years now but still have contacts). A couple PhD programs, definitely a bit schizophrenic in their identity... I've seen administrators claiming that they are "a top research focused university" but at the same time "we are primarily focused on undergraduate education". The latter is mostly true, the former is laughable. The numbers bear this out.

Like many schools that rely primarily on tuition dollars, demographics are kicking their ass right now... enrollments are steadily declining at 1-2% per year. So there is extra pressure to bring in the research dollars, but barely any infrastructure for it - including meaningful grant support (which as I have discovered at my current top 10 R1 is absolutely invaluable - I can get a full 3 year NSF budget sent to me in a matter of minutes once I provide the basic parameters, just as an example).

I am still fond of R2.5, and built most of my faculty career there, but the future doesn't look too bright. I have a small amount of pride for the two programs I helped build and nurture. And they are managing to snag some quality faculty due to the RCM budget model (the dean gives out ridiculous startups from money he has stashed away). But it's a place that top people leave more than flock to, and it's difficult to compete for graduate students who get a much better experience at a "real" research university.

[fast_and_bulbous]

If we did away with the tenure system then we'd probably all be adjuncts, until everyone gave up on the system and walked away and then universities would have to go back to hiring full-time again, but the budget restrictions would mean they still wouldn't be replacing adjuncts with TT line faculty.

Many countries outside of US and Canada seems to manage without tenure. In my view/experience, if you're performing decently at your job, regardless of tenure, you are going to do OK. Tenure is as much of a cage as it is a shield. It's also something often fetishized, for lack of a better word. I've seen some people on the tenure track think about nothing other than achieving it... and sometimes getting what you want leads to a great letdown followed by a permanent loss in productivity (that is essentially protected by tenure). We all know associates-for-life that we desperately want to see retire, right?

I can't think of a single successful faculty that I respect who would do their job any differently if they weren't tenured. It really is a system with issues. I think getting rid of it is a better idea than trying to give it to more people (and that is pretty much what seems to be happening across the US). I have to wonder whether it will start going away at certain types of universities, and that others that keep it will use it as a carrot as it has such a high perceived value. It's already taken a beating in my state, but it still exists and still has some teeth left. And somehow the state's flagship university has maintained its stature throughout this messed up political climate. There were a few high profile faculty that were poached but those positions were readily filled by other high performing faculty - despite the cries that it would be the end of the world and that "all the good people would leave." Oddly enough, that's exactly when I arrived (and I did have second thoughts because of the politics).

I gave up tenure at R2.5 and have never looked back and am enjoying the hell out of my current fly by the seat of my pants soft funded position. It wasn't something I though I'd ever do (in fact I swore I never would) but life doesn't always go the way you expect it to, for better and for worse.

I don't know what else to say. I think you have a really skewed view of tenured faculty. And again, I say this as an ex-adjunct who became tenure track.

Understatement of the year...

[Kron3007]

If we did away with the tenure system then we'd probably all be adjuncts, until everyone gave up on the system and walked away and then universities would have to go back to hiring full-time again, but the budget restrictions would mean they still wouldn't be replacing adjuncts with TT line faculty.

Many countries outside of US and Canada seems to manage without tenure. In my view/experience, if you're performing decently at your job, regardless of tenure, you are going to do OK. Tenure is as much of a cage as it is a shield. It's also something often fetishized, for lack of a better word. I've seen some people on the tenure track think about nothing other than achieving it... and sometimes getting what you want leads to a great letdown followed by a permanent loss in productivity (that is essentially protected by tenure). We all know associates-for-life that we desperately want to see retire, right?

I can't think of a single successful faculty that I respect who would do their job any differently if they weren't tenured. It really is a system with issues. I think getting rid of it is a better idea than trying to give it to more people (and that is pretty much what seems to be happening across the US). I have to wonder whether it will start going away at certain types of universities, and that others that keep it will use it as a carrot as it has such a high perceived value. It's already taken a beating in my state, but it still exists and still has some teeth left. And somehow the state's flagship university has maintained its stature throughout this messed up political climate. There were a few high profile faculty that were poached but those positions were readily filled by other high performing faculty - despite the cries that it would be the end of the world and that "all the good people would leave." Oddly enough, that's exactly when I arrived (and I did have second thoughts because of the politics).

I gave up tenure at R2.5 and have never looked back and am enjoying the hell out of my current fly by the seat of my pants soft funded position. It wasn't something I though I'd ever do (in fact I swore I never would) but life doesn't always go the way you expect it to, for better and for worse.

I don't know what else to say. I think you have a really skewed view of tenured faculty. And again, I say this as an ex-adjunct who became tenure track.

Understatement of the year...

You're assessment works for most situations but I feel that it misses the main point of tenure and why it exists in the first place.  Tenure is not about performance/productivity and as you mention may have a negative effect on that, it is to ensure that professors can work in controversial topics and not worry about losing their job over offending the sensibilities of the administration, politicians, etc.  This probably dosn't matter for most faculty, but I do think it is important that we protect academic freedom and the ability to work in such areas. 

So while I agree that tenure has issues I don't think we should throw out the baby with the bath water.  IMO these issues only magnify when coupled with unionization, but again there are many benefits that come with it...

[Aster]

The best way to understand the value of tenure (or tenure equivalent like rolling multi-year contracts) in the U.S. Higher Ed system is to observe a college or university that doesn't have it. Keiser. University of Phoenix. Liberty. Certain SLAC's. Certain community colleges (those without collective bargaining protections).

When you see how professors are treated at those institutions, one quickly becomes a fanatic believer in tenure. Nobody works at those institutions voluntarily unless they have no other choice.

[fast_and_bulbous]

If we did away with the tenure system then we'd probably all be adjuncts, until everyone gave up on the system and walked away and then universities would have to go back to hiring full-time again, but the budget restrictions would mean they still wouldn't be replacing adjuncts with TT line faculty.

Many countries outside of US and Canada seems to manage without tenure. In my view/experience, if you're performing decently at your job, regardless of tenure, you are going to do OK. Tenure is as much of a cage as it is a shield. It's also something often fetishized, for lack of a better word. I've seen some people on the tenure track think about nothing other than achieving it... and sometimes getting what you want leads to a great letdown followed by a permanent loss in productivity (that is essentially protected by tenure). We all know associates-for-life that we desperately want to see retire, right?

I can't think of a single successful faculty that I respect who would do their job any differently if they weren't tenured. It really is a system with issues. I think getting rid of it is a better idea than trying to give it to more people (and that is pretty much what seems to be happening across the US). I have to wonder whether it will start going away at certain types of universities, and that others that keep it will use it as a carrot as it has such a high perceived value. It's already taken a beating in my state, but it still exists and still has some teeth left. And somehow the state's flagship university has maintained its stature throughout this messed up political climate. There were a few high profile faculty that were poached but those positions were readily filled by other high performing faculty - despite the cries that it would be the end of the world and that "all the good people would leave." Oddly enough, that's exactly when I arrived (and I did have second thoughts because of the politics).

I gave up tenure at R2.5 and have never looked back and am enjoying the hell out of my current fly by the seat of my pants soft funded position. It wasn't something I though I'd ever do (in fact I swore I never would) but life doesn't always go the way you expect it to, for better and for worse.

I don't know what else to say. I think you have a really skewed view of tenured faculty. And again, I say this as an ex-adjunct who became tenure track.

Understatement of the year...

You're assessment works for most situations but I feel that it misses the main point of tenure and why it exists in the first place.  Tenure is not about performance/productivity and as you mention may have a negative effect on that, it is to ensure that professors can work in controversial topics and not worry about losing their job over offending the sensibilities of the administration, politicians, etc.  This probably dosn't matter for most faculty, but I do think it is important that we protect academic freedom and the ability to work in such areas. 

So while I agree that tenure has issues I don't think we should throw out the baby with the bath water.  IMO these issues only magnify when coupled with unionization, but again there are many benefits that come with it...

I don't really disagree with you. I know that I am looking at this through my own somewhat narrow lens. I guess what I am against is "tenure is sacrosanct" - an attitude I have encountered more than I would prefer.