Service Requirements Increasingly Common for Adjunct Role...

[downer]

I did some course development for one place where I work as an adjunct. I got paid 2 credits worth for it, I think. A FT person would count that as service.

I attended a Zoom dept meeting once too. I didn't get paid for that. I wasn't enthusiastic. There hasn't been another since.

I did attend a workshop on diversity in the classroom at another place when I wasn't even asked to. I was curious. My curiosity was satisfied.

However, it will be a cold day in hell before I attend a committee meeting representing a department at a place I would be adjuncting at. I can't imagine how that would work well for the department -- how would a part time disconnected person be able to represent their department, and what kind of effort would they be making?

[mahagonny]

I did have to take an anti-sexual harassment training thing online. Didn't take too long.. I probably wouldn't mind if someone wanted me to take a brief training exercise for spotting students who are in distress, or where the fire extinguishers are located.  I suppose the 'you're a racist' one is coming. I might feel differently about that one, because I despise that lefty culture. But if it didn't take too long I'd probably just give the right answers and be done with it.
As soon as you have a certified union it's illegal for the college to add things to your workload without initiating negotiations.

The problem is when institutions take advantage of adjuncts wanting to go full time by pressuring them to do the work tenured faculty are blowing off, without actually intending to use this as a measure of making the person full time. And, using it as an excuse to not hold tenured faculty to performance standards. Because tenure, you know?

We had one bonehead dean who assigned me a few students for advising. The same one who, when he went back to classroom teaching, would lock the door at the start of class.
I wouldn't have been equipped to do that (advising), but they never contacted me as it turned out.

[Vkw10]

Adjuncts should feel no obligation to undertake or list uncompensated service. Listing professional development that helps stay current in field may be an advantage to the adjunct, in being re-hired, but uncompensated service is intrusion into the adjunct's personal time.

My university actually handles the service question fairy well.

Full time non-tenure-track (NTT) faculty at my university have renewable contracts that explicitly state course load and service expectations. For example, NTT faculty in my department teach four courses, advise up to 30 students, attend up to 20 hours of faculty meetings a year, and participate in state mandated training as specified in University Policy X.

Part-time faculty (adjuncts) have contracts that specify teaching and state mandated training. Their contracts explicitly state that University Policy Y prohibits administration from requiring meeting attendance or service, but that they may participate on a voluntary basis without compensation. That statement is set off from rest and both the adjunct and chair have to initial it.

[glowdart]

Like others have mentioned, we all have to do Title IX and IT training annually as part of our terms of employment.

We invite our adjunct faculty to all events & we have optional, paid, extra training sessions on new pedagogical approaches that they can attend. When we do a climate survey or curriculum overhaul, then we will solicit input from our adjunct faculty, too.

Otherwise, there are no service requirements, and we do not make the ask. The only thing that we will do is, if we have an adjunct who is finishing a dissertation and going on the market, include them in some easy service events if they feel like they need some service on their CVs. This would be introducing a speaker at an event or serving on a panel of former Peace Corps volunteers or the like — little or no prep, line on the CV, networking opportunities. If there's a speaker coming who would be a good networking or soul-refreshing connection working in one of our adjunct's areas, then we will have them to dinner or maybe do the introduction if they want.

[downer]

One fuzzy area is course development. I've experienced it in putting a course online for the first time. That is distinct from just teaching it, and should count as service. Ideally, adjunct faculty should get paid separately for course development. If they don't, then the online course should remain their own intellectual property, and should not be available to other faculty. But things are often far from ideal.

[marshwiggle]

One fuzzy area is course development. I've experienced it in putting a course online for the first time. That is distinct from just teaching it, and should count as service. Ideally, adjunct faculty should get paid separately for course development. If they don't, then the online course should remain their own intellectual property, and should not be available to other faculty. But things are often far from ideal.

Course development is really hard to figure out how to remunerate. If it's remunerated separately, then presumably the institution owns the "work product" and can let others use it. On the other hand, if it's not separately remunerated, then the effective pay rate for teaching the course multiple times goes way up; the work done to set it up the first time is way underpaid, but the efficiency each subsequent time is much higher. I think the second one is the best option for someone if they're prepping a course that no-one else is willing or able to teach. The first option makes more sense if it's going to be a one-off, such as when a faculty member is on sabbatical.

[mamselle]

Since dates change yearly, and new findings occur daily, the underlying assumption for most of the courses I've ever taught was that I'd need to do the planning, write the syllabus, and set it up/distribute it, simply because no boilerplate structure can accommodate holidays, leap-year-shifts, and all the rest.

I've also never wanted to teach someone else's syllabus.

Ooooh, ugh, the horror! It might have their germies on it!

M.