Recommendations for Chairs regarding communicating with Adjunct Faculty

[downer]

Some chairs are better than others at communicating with adjunct faculty. What guidance can we give them?

Let me start off.

1. Send an email around the start of the semester greeting adjuncts and telling them what is going on in the department. Invite them to come to visit you in your office and say when you will be around.

2. If there are major changes going on the the department, such as chairs changing, offices being moved, secretaries or assistants changing, then tell the adjunct faculty.

3. Tell adjuncts when you will be scheduling classes for next semester and recommend that they get their requests for when and what to teach in early.

4. When classes are assigned to adjunct faculty, tell them. Don't expect them to look it up by themselves.

5. If an adjunct emails you with a question, then reply to them within a couple of days with an answer or a promise of an answer.

6. Welcome reports on how classes are going from adjuncts.

7. Thank adjuncts for their work at the end of the semester.

[Caracal]

Some chairs are better than others at communicating with adjunct faculty. What guidance can we give them?

Let me start off.

1. Send an email around the start of the semester greeting adjuncts and telling them what is going on in the department. Invite them to come to visit you in your office and say when you will be around.

2. If there are major changes going on the the department, such as chairs changing, offices being moved, secretaries or assistants changing, then tell the adjunct faculty.

3. Tell adjuncts when you will be scheduling classes for next semester and recommend that they get their requests for when and what to teach in early.

4. When classes are assigned to adjunct faculty, tell them. Don't expect them to look it up by themselves.

5. If an adjunct emails you with a question, then reply to them within a couple of days with an answer or a promise of an answer.

6. Welcome reports on how classes are going from adjuncts.

7. Thank adjuncts for their work at the end of the semester.

Ugh, there are chairs who don't do this stuff? I guess my chair doesn't do the first or the last thing, but everything in the middle is fine.

[Wahoo Redux]

Honestly, when I've adjuncted at places, I could care less about most of that stuff. 

I was simply there to teach classes and nothing more. 

Thank yous from anyone were polite but perfunctory.

The niceties are, well, nice, but hardly pay the rent.  Money talks.

I know that some adjuncts do want to feel like they are part of the department, but a great many, most probably, become essentially mercenary---as I did.   

Getting a FT position makes all the difference in the world.

[polly_mer]

How is 3 supposed to work?  Professional fellows have their standard courses.  True adjuncts will be offered sections based on departmental needs.  I never wanted a deluge of requests that won't be accommodated because they are so far off the plan.  If a standing adjunct army exists in the department, then this communication list misses the actual problems.

[mahagonny]

Some chairs are better than others at communicating with adjunct faculty. What guidance can we give them?

Why should I tell them all the ways they aren't doing their job? They're the ones who were painstakingly chosen from many other PhD's, they're the ones who claim they know what it's like to be in our place, and they're the ones who are getting rich and growing the legacy of their department. Let them figure it out, neglect it, cry about how busy they are, do whatever they do. It's not the outsider's job to tell them how to do theirs.
You're an adjunct, aren't you? You're offering. Why bother?

[DrSomebody]

Our adjuncts are always included on any general department threads that are informational, whether they involve procedures, or food parties at holiday or the end of a semester. Our adjuncts are always invited--yet never expected since we pay them so little--at our department meetings, any gen ed sessions where we talk about common procedures, etc. Some come and offer input, and are taken seriously. We do tend to hire some as instructors, so at least there is some potential there, but we are a smaller school and there is room for personalization. I think that helps. The pay sucks, though.

[mahagonny]

Some chairs are better than others at communicating with adjunct faculty. What guidance can we give them?

Let me start off.

1. Send an email around the start of the semester greeting adjuncts and telling them what is going on in the department. Invite them to come to visit you in your office and say when you will be around.

2. If there are major changes going on the the department, such as chairs changing, offices being moved, secretaries or assistants changing, then tell the adjunct faculty.

3. Tell adjuncts when you will be scheduling classes for next semester and recommend that they get their requests for when and what to teach in early.

4. When classes are assigned to adjunct faculty, tell them. Don't expect them to look it up by themselves.

5. If an adjunct emails you with a question, then reply to them within a couple of days with an answer or a promise of an answer.

6. Welcome reports on how classes are going from adjuncts.

7. Thank adjuncts for their work at the end of the semester.

Ugh, there are chairs who don't do this stuff? I guess my chair doesn't do the first or the last thing, but everything in the middle is fine.

Most of our chairs do between half and none of these things.

How is 3 supposed to work?  Professional fellows have their standard courses.  True adjuncts will be offered sections based on departmental needs.  I never wanted a deluge of requests that won't be accommodated because they are so far off the plan.  If a standing adjunct army exists in the department, then this communication list misses the actual problems.

This is a good example of the kind of chair you would happier to hear little to nothing from. The problems that are inherent in using what's called here a 'standing adjunct army' are a direct result of management's decisions/policies, yet this kind of a chair thinks it's OK to carry around an aura of anger about it which ought to be everyone's concern. I run into this attitude here and there, though it usually doesn't result in the kinds of things that can be posted on a pseudonymous forum.

[Aster]

This is great. Thank you downer. These items mirror almost exactly what I was taught by my faculty mentor when first starting out as a department head.

[downer]

How is 3 supposed to work?  Professional fellows have their standard courses.  True adjuncts will be offered sections based on departmental needs.  I never wanted a deluge of requests that won't be accommodated because they are so far off the plan.  If a standing adjunct army exists in the department, then this communication list misses the actual problems.

There is plenty of room for maneuver. Even with gen ed, most departments have realized that they need to offer lots of options, and so they will have a list of courses that count, sometimes many courses. Some places get adjuncts to teach honors sections or courses aimed at majors. A large part of a chair's job is accommodating preferences for everyone.

Also, all adjuncts will have time constraints, whether they have other adjunct jobs, a full time job, a part time job, or care giving responsibilities, and these often change from semester to semester. So just because someone could teach a course on Monday at 2pm one semester does not mean it is true next semester.

My experience is that chairs will try to keep good adjuncts happy because they want to keep them. Hiring new people is more work, both in hiring and explaining how things work in the dept, and there's the danger that someone new will turn out to be awful.

[Caracal]

How is 3 supposed to work?  Professional fellows have their standard courses.  True adjuncts will be offered sections based on departmental needs.  I never wanted a deluge of requests that won't be accommodated because they are so far off the plan.  If a standing adjunct army exists in the department, then this communication list misses the actual problems.

Those "actual problems" are usually things that department chairs only have a limited ability to change. There's an adjunct budget that each department gets, then there are tenure track lines. If the department employs people full time in non tenure track positions I assume this comes from a different pot of money? So yeah, lots of departments are just fundamentally short of full time people to cover their classes.

If you need to rely on adjuncts to cover your classes, then a chair who is a good manager should, all things being equal, want to hire fewer people to teach more classes. You've complained about "freeway fliers." If someone teaches four classes a semester, you're going to see a lot more of them and the students will too. Chairs should also want to keep people who are decent teachers around. The way you do both of these things is by trying to keep people happy. If you can't do that by paying them more, it makes sense to do what you can in other ways.

My chair sends the adjuncts the same course form that full time faculty get. We can rank classes in order of our preferences, propose new courses, make time and day requests and indicate times we don't want to teach. Obviously, this doesn't mean that the preferences of adjuncts are going to be given equal weight to those of tenure track faculty, and the intro courses that I teach in any given year are dictated by whatever the department needs, but I always get to teach an upper level course, I usually get a full load and my day and time requirements are respected.

This might result in more work than just slotting adjuncts in wherever it is convenient, but a smart and decent chair should realize that this is probably easier than having to hire new adjuncts all the time and finding that some of them aren't very good.

[mahagonny]

My experience is that chairs will try to keep good adjuncts happy because they want to keep them. Hiring new people is more work, both in hiring and explaining how things work in the dept, and there's the danger that someone new will turn out to be awful.

How is 3 supposed to work?  Professional fellows have their standard courses.  True adjuncts will be offered sections based on departmental needs.  I never wanted a deluge of requests that won't be accommodated because they are so far off the plan.  If a standing adjunct army exists in the department, then this communication list misses the actual problems.

Those "actual problems" are usually things that department chairs only have a limited ability to change. There's an adjunct budget that each department gets, then there are tenure track lines. If the department employs people full time in non tenure track positions I assume this comes from a different pot of money? So yeah, lots of departments are just fundamentally short of full time people to cover their classes.

If you need to rely on adjuncts to cover your classes, then a chair who is a good manager should, all things being equal, want to hire fewer people to teach more classes. You've complained about "freeway fliers." If someone teaches four classes a semester, you're going to see a lot more of them and the students will too. Chairs should also want to keep people who are decent teachers around. The way you do both of these things is by trying to keep people happy. If you can't do that by paying them more, it makes sense to do what you can in other ways.

Polly Mer: [crickets]

Sure, but if you're paying only $1800 per course, making them a little happier by giving them a larger load just makes it more obvious that their food stamp supported, meager standard of living is the result of accepting the jobs you have designed and implemented. Which means when the controversy about crappy part time college jobs comes along, they're talking about you.

This is why some of the chairs whose decision making is least appreciated by adjunct faculty are the last ones who want to hear how you think they could improve it.

[Wahoo Redux]

The system is broken.  Niceties, even course accommodation, will do nothing to fix it.

We need to get the word out. 

For a number of years certain forumites have repeatedly posited a public and student-bodies deaf to academic causes and completely unconcerned with anything other than cost.  My experience has been that these forumites are wrong, at least in part. 

Certainly there will always be the teeth-gnashers and victim-blamers, but enough people care about our schools----sometimes even including students----that we can help these trends which have already started to reverse to reverse even more.

We need to stop figuring out how everything has gone wrong and blaming each other for a system none of us created and start thinking about how to fix it.

[Caracal]

Sure, but if you're paying only $1800 per course, making them a little happier by giving them a larger load just makes it more obvious that their food stamp supported, meager standard of living is the result of accepting the jobs you have designed and implemented. Which means when the controversy about crappy part time college jobs comes along, they're talking about you.

This is why some of the chairs whose decision making is least appreciated by adjunct faculty are the last ones who want to hear how you think they could improve it.

I do think there are big differences between institutions which create very different sorts of adjunct positions. I suspect that as you suggest, pay drives a lot of this. Outside of institutions that actually only hire adjuncts to meet short term needs, and certain disciplines, nobody is actually paying adjuncts  particularly well, but there's a big difference between 3500 a course and 1800. The more pay gets vaguely reasonable, the more you have a chance of keeping people around and I suspect this leads to all kinds of knock on effects in terms of things like office space, course requests and the like.

[mahagonny]

The system is broken.  Niceties, even course accommodation, will do nothing to fix it.

We need to get the word out. 

For a number of years certain forumites have repeatedly posited a public and student-bodies deaf to academic causes and completely unconcerned with anything other than cost.  My experience has been that these forumites are wrong, at least in part. 

Certainly there will always be the teeth-gnashers and victim-blamers, but enough people care about our schools----sometimes even including students----that we can help these trends which have already started to reverse to reverse even more.

We need to stop figuring out how everything has gone wrong and blaming each other for a system none of us created and start thinking about how to fix it.

Agree with some of this, but I don't see how any solution will not take cost into account. That is why I suggest looking at reforms to tenure. It's a pseudonymous forum, and someone has to step on that third rail. Might as well be me. Little to lose. I'm not popular as it is.
In my field you see people advance all the way to full tenured prof only to see the composition of the student body shift over decades, resulting in a very highly paid professor who is attracting and servicing a smaller number of students. A small business would decide at this point, appropriately, that they could be serviced with a part timer.
The endless calls to shore up the tenure system with more bodies is most tiring and uninspired. Faculty are fine with wasted money when they stand to be the ones with the guaranteed good salary, come hell or high water. These costs are never blamed for closings. More tenure is always seen as a sign of health and good planning. Mistake!

I do think there are big differences between institutions which create very different sorts of adjunct positions. I suspect that as you suggest, pay drives a lot of this. Outside of institutions that actually only hire adjuncts to meet short term needs, and certain disciplines, nobody is actually paying adjuncts  particularly well, but there's a big difference between 3500 a course and 1800. The more pay gets vaguely reasonable, the more you have a chance of keeping people around and I suspect this leads to all kinds of knock on effects in terms of things like office space, course requests and the like.

We need to stop figuring out how everything has gone wrong and blaming each other for a system none of us created and start thinking about how to fix it.

When people are blaming faculty for accepting the jobs that they themselves promote/implement, we have reached the point of absurdity, and those managers need to be identified as providing toxic attitudes and dynamics.