Higher Ed Demographic Changes: IHE article

[Wahoo Redux]

Many adjuncts don't have a PhD.  That's one of the counterarguments about converting the adjunct army into full-time positions because so many of the current adjuncts wouldn't be hired. 

I'm so curious that this point comes up over and over and over...

It's not a hard concept.

My own thought has always been that the market could open up a great many more *quality* jobs and fewer jobs overall.  The competition would become much tighter, and people without the doctorate would probably be out competed as they are now with virtually all TT and FT NTT jobs.  And probably a great many PhD-holders with minimum experience and little to no publication histories would also be out-competed as they often are now.

However, while a great many more quality academics would be employed in quality jobs, some still might not get a quality job.  I'd to see the hard numbers on how many credit hours are taught by adjuncts and how many FT time jobs this would create in [whatever] discipline, just so we could see the numbers (so no one wet hu's knickers on a hypothetical).  MacMurray is not the best example.

I suppose, if you have an adjunct without a doctorate but whose teaching is above par or even just plain old par and you like hu, one could offer that person the FT job, PhD or not. 

I suppose COVID-19 makes all this even more impossible in the foreseeable future, however.

[mahagonny]

I suppose, if you have an adjunct without a doctorate but whose teaching is above par or even just plain old par and you like hu, one could offer that person the FT job, PhD or not. 

How many chairs have much of any idea who the better teachers are and who the weaker ones are? These are the same people who give you a five minute interview, a room key and a contract. They don't have time for one meeting per semester. The reason adjuncts are a valuable go-to solution is you can say they aren't equal to the tenure track faction in teaching without knowing anything about them, and they have to shut up and listen to it or go away. And they're a zero time investment as far as management.

My own thought has always been that the market could open up a great many more *quality* jobs and fewer jobs overall.  The competition would become much tighter, and people without the doctorate would probably be out competed as they are now with virtually all TT and FT NTT jobs.  And probably a great many PhD-holders with minimum experience and little to no publication histories would also be out-competed as they often are now.

This is a credible model for how tenure ends. With the cost savings from using part time, unwelcome faculty no longer in the equation, the added full time positions get funded by letting tenure lines expire naturally over time.

[Hegemony]

Well, the problem is that adjuncts are astronomically much cheaper than "quality" positions, because adjuncts are not really paid living wages.  So at my place you could have three adjuncts, each teaching ten courses per year ($3000 per course, for a total salary per person of $30,000), with forty students each, which is our average, so for $90,000 per year you get 1200 students taught. Or you could have one full professor making $90,000 per year and teaching the regular tenure-track course load of 2-2, so for your $90,000 per year you get 160 students taught.  At a university that's severely underfunded, as many are, the choice is going to be obvious.

There are some costs for benefits I'm leaving out, but I'm also leaving out that many adjuncts are on a 40% load so the university doesn't have to give them health insurance. Extra savings! 

That's why adjunct lines are not going to be converted to "quality" lines.

[mahagonny]

But that doesn't explain why students don't know what office hours are. That part can easily be explained by greed among those who are in a position to get good money and their lack of interest in the student experience. Otherwise everyone would do office hours.
Adjuncts are the first people the students meet. If adjuncts don't do office hours, students don't expect them from anyone. Great, more free time to do something else.
Same goes for paid department meetings. There's enough money. The problem isn't money. It's the thinking. The thought process is low expectations, because 'oh, we're underfunded.' Like...compared to what? A fantasy?

[spork]

I give you the adjunct of the future . . . today!

[Hegemony]

Our adjuncts certainly do office hours.

[marshwiggle]

http://www.lawcha.org/2017/01/09/decline-faculty-tenure-less-oversupply-phds-systematic-de-valuation-phd-credential-college-teaching/ remains relevant to the adjunctification question.

One thing that continually frustrates me in articles like this:

With 66 percent of all college faculty off the tenure track, and perhaps 23 percent of non-tenure track faculty holding PhDs, it is likely that more than 50 percent of all college faculty in the U.S. do not have doctoral degrees. They are the majority.

Unless and until you put these in terms of full time equivalence, the numbers are largely meaningless. "More than 50% of faculty don't have PhDs " does not mean that "More than 50% or courses are taught by people without PhDs."

Figuring out the numbers of full-time positions whcih could be created by consolidating part-time positions requires knowing the average number of courses taught by full-time and part-time people. And it no doubt varies a lot by discipline (especially for part-times).

[mahagonny]

Our adjuncts certainly do office hours.

But there is much room for improvement in that area, nationwide. Same goes for regular paid faculty meetings, say three or four per semester. It would make a difference where I work.
The slogan of today's 'faculty forward' (I think it's called), adjunct advocacy is 'faculty working conditions are student learning conditions.' This phrase has been trumpeted for several years now. It stuns me how many deaf ears are in our midst. If the subject were equipment for COVID-19 victims and the people who implement policy were republicans, there would be a deafening furor by now.
Tenured faculty give tacit approval to the neglect of students who are the charges of adjuncts. They may blame it on administration, but there's not much pushback.

[marshwiggle]

Our adjuncts certainly do office hours.

But there is much room for improvement in that area, nationwide. Same goes for regular paid faculty meetings, say three or four per semester. It would make a difference where I work.
The slogan of today's 'faculty forward' (I think it's called), adjunct advocacy is 'faculty working conditions are student learning conditions.' This phrase has been trumpeted for several years now. It stuns me how many deaf ears are in our midst.

Except that they aren't.

• How many faculty share an office has no relationship to how many students share a classroom.
• How many hours a week a faculty member works has no relationship to how many hours of classes and homework a student has.
• If offices and classrooms are in different buildings, the age and condition of the building in which faculty offices are located has no relationship to the age and condition of classrooms.

This could go on forever. That mantra makes a good sound bite, but is mostly meaningless.

[mahagonny]

Our adjuncts certainly do office hours.

But there is much room for improvement in that area, nationwide. Same goes for regular paid faculty meetings, say three or four per semester. It would make a difference where I work.
The slogan of today's 'faculty forward' (I think it's called), adjunct advocacy is 'faculty working conditions are student learning conditions.' This phrase has been trumpeted for several years now. It stuns me how many deaf ears are in our midst.

Except that they aren't.

• How many faculty share an office has no relationship to how many students share a classroom.
• How many hours a week a faculty member works has no relationship to how many hours of classes and homework a student has.
• If offices and classrooms are in different buildings, the age and condition of the building in which faculty offices are located has no relationship to the age and condition of classrooms.

This could go on forever. That mantra makes a good sound bite, but is mostly meaningless.

I'm ignoring this. It's too silly to even spend time on.

[marshwiggle]

Our adjuncts certainly do office hours.

But there is much room for improvement in that area, nationwide. Same goes for regular paid faculty meetings, say three or four per semester. It would make a difference where I work.
The slogan of today's 'faculty forward' (I think it's called), adjunct advocacy is 'faculty working conditions are student learning conditions.' This phrase has been trumpeted for several years now. It stuns me how many deaf ears are in our midst.

Except that they aren't.

• How many faculty share an office has no relationship to how many students share a classroom.
• How many hours a week a faculty member works has no relationship to how many hours of classes and homework a student has.
• If offices and classrooms are in different buildings, the age and condition of the building in which faculty offices are located has no relationship to the age and condition of classrooms.

This could go on forever. That mantra makes a good sound bite, but is mostly meaningless.

I'm ignoring this. It's too silly to even spend time on.

If they said "Faculty working conditions affect student learning", it would be much more defensible. But it wouldn't sound nearly so dramatic.

[Wahoo Redux]

Well, the problem is that adjuncts are astronomically much cheaper than "quality" positions, because adjuncts are not really paid living wages.  So at my place you could have three adjuncts, each teaching ten courses per year ($3000 per course, for a total salary per person of $30,000), with forty students each, which is our average, so for $90,000 per year you get 1200 students taught. Or you could have one full professor making $90,000 per year and teaching the regular tenure-track course load of 2-2, so for your $90,000 per year you get 160 students taught.  At a university that's severely underfunded, as many are, the choice is going to be obvious.

There are some costs for benefits I'm leaving out, but I'm also leaving out that many adjuncts are on a 40% load so the university doesn't have to give them health insurance. Extra savings! 

That's why adjunct lines are not going to be converted to "quality" lines.

We know this, I think.  Again, this is one of those things that comes around again and again....

As I posted elsewhere, however, the lines have crossed and PT jobs are dropping as FT jobs are increasing.  I am now the recipient of this trend, and I make nowhere near $90K a year.  Nowhere near that.   Neither does my wife who is a tenured associate.

And yeeeeesss we know the dynamics of salary in education, but people are concerned about this trend.  Do a Google search on "college adjuncts" to see how much coverage this was getting before COVID.

[mahagonny]

If they said "Faculty working conditions affect student learning", it would be much more defensible. But it wouldn't sound nearly so dramatic.

Well, which phrase would the people whose nests are already feathered prefer to ignore?

Well, the problem is that adjuncts are astronomically much cheaper than "quality" positions, because adjuncts are not really paid living wages.  So at my place you could have three adjuncts, each teaching ten courses per year ($3000 per course, for a total salary per person of $30,000), with forty students each, which is our average, so for $90,000 per year you get 1200 students taught. Or you could have one full professor making $90,000 per year and teaching the regular tenure-track course load of 2-2, so for your $90,000 per year you get 160 students taught.  At a university that's severely underfunded, as many are, the choice is going to be obvious.

There are some costs for benefits I'm leaving out, but I'm also leaving out that many adjuncts are on a 40% load so the university doesn't have to give them health insurance. Extra savings! 

That's why adjunct lines are not going to be converted to "quality" lines.

We know this, I think.  Again, this is one of those things that comes around again and again....

As I posted elsewhere, however, the lines have crossed and PT jobs are dropping as FT jobs are increasing.  I am now the recipient of this trend, and I make nowhere near $90K a year.  Nowhere near that.   Neither does my wife who is a tenured associate.

And yeeeeesss we know the dynamics of salary in education, but people are concerned about this trend.  Do a Google search on "college adjuncts" to see how much coverage this was getting before COVID.

The addition of some added FT NTT jobs is popular with tenure track faculty because it lightens their service load. They see this is some kind of altruistic concern. It's not. Add too many of them, and you'll see the tenure track get very nervous. They have to be seen as the norm. Everything else has to be seen as either in too-short-supply (full-time nonTT) or not working out  properly (part-time). And that falls way short of an obvious, available remedy of saying 'there's no need for us to let any professor go without paid office hours, decent available workspace and some paid faculty meetings to keep them in the loop.

[dismalist]

I give you the adjunct of the future . . . today!

Yup!

[Wahoo Redux]

Some policy experts, institutional leaders and advocates believe higher education must change the way it trains, hires and promotes its faculty. Others say the blame is misplaced and instead point to structural issues like declining numbers of tenured positions, the importance of leadership and the need for more investment in teaching and learning.