So adjuncts have zero right?

[Aster]

Many years ago I tried to reform my institution's adjunct hiring policy to more closely conform to Department of Labor's rules about how many hours one could work before they were entitled to get benefits. Big Urban College had been either abusing the rules by granting "temporary waivers" to overload the adjuncts into teaching full-time loads without full-time benefits, or abusing the rules by changing our internal definitions of what constituted a "work hour" for any given class. In some cases, we'd have adjuncts teaching 9+ courses per semester and still be classified as part-time and receive no benefits.

It was toxic and unfair to adjuncts, but the adjuncts themselves were the biggest advocates for it. It was sweat-shop economics, pure and simple. And so long that enough adjuncts pushed for our institution to mistreat them and maintain the status quo for just a little more money, many in our institution's administration were perfectly willing to keep the sweatshop running and jigger the bookkeeping to keep us just within labor and accreditation requirements.

Whatever political pressures and strategies were used in the past to end child labor, set 40-hour work weeks, grant benefits to full-time workers, etc... is sorely needed in U.S. Higher Education. Until we get those reforms, adjunct labor at many institutions will continue to operate as sweatshops and the workers treated similarly as disposable.

[Wahoo Redux]

Things were slowly beginning to change for adjuncts.

And then COVID knocked everybody for a loop.

[mahagonny]

Many years ago I tried to reform my institution's adjunct hiring policy to more closely conform to Department of Labor's rules about how many hours one could work before they were entitled to get benefits. Big Urban College had been either abusing the rules by granting "temporary waivers" to overload the adjuncts into teaching full-time loads without full-time benefits, or abusing the rules by changing our internal definitions of what constituted a "work hour" for any given class. In some cases, we'd have adjuncts teaching 9+ courses per semester and still be classified as part-time and receive no benefits.

It was toxic and unfair to adjuncts, but the adjuncts themselves were the biggest advocates for it. It was sweat-shop economics, pure and simple. And so long that enough adjuncts pushed for our institution to mistreat them and maintain the status quo for just a little more money, many in our institution's administration were perfectly willing to keep the sweatshop running and jigger the bookkeeping to keep us just within labor and accreditation requirements.

Whatever political pressures and strategies were used in the past to end child labor, set 40-hour work weeks, grant benefits to full-time workers, etc... is sorely needed in U.S. Higher Education. Until we get those reforms, adjunct labor at many institutions will continue to operate as sweatshops and the workers treated similarly as disposable.

Obviously you had bad people in positions of power. You can't blame adjuncts so much for not standing up to them if the tenure track didn't. You see evidence of this on the internet. One or two real jackasses have their run of the place and the permanent faculty act all innocent...'what's to be done about the adjunct situation? My my.'
Although we stand up to them. Maybe we're just nucking futs.

[hamburger]

When I checked with administrator about the enrollment a month ago. She told me that only one student registered in one course and zero in another course. She told me that she would update me the status but on the first day of school, I still had not heard from her. When I asked, she said that she cancelled all courses due to poor enrollment. If she told me earlier that most likely the classes would be cancelled, I would have approached another department. This has happened several times in different departments in this CC. They won't want people to teach in different departments. They want people to be available to serve them when needed but when we are not needed, they just don't say anything until it is too late to check with another department.

The situation for PhD holders is even worse because they hire all sorts of people to teach regardless of academic qualifications. This includes administrators, people who got a 1-2 year certificate from the same college, people who have industry experience by opening a company in their basement, etc. As far as I know, two student advisors with low educational level also became professors!  I heard that one department also hired low level technicians to be professors.

With availability of teaching materials from the departments and online learning, anybody with a brain can teach. It is so unfair to those who have spent so many years in academia to have lost teaching jobs and company jobs to those with less education.

[Ruralguy]

In the future, if its possible, just sign up for, say, up to 4 or so courses or more
with different depts. Make it "first come, first served." If some dept. offers you a job first, take it. I don't see why you owe your employment to a particular dept. Then if all 4 courses get enrolled and you want to teach that much, just do so. Of course all of this assume you will stay, and I don't think you should, given the circumstances.

[polly_mer]

For those who care about data, it's not actually hard to generally categorize institutions on a continuum from ripoff artists to excellent.  College Factual is one place that does so...well, they categorize as poor to excellent for the tuition money spent. 

Wahoo will accuse me of cherry picking, but it's still worth pointing out that elite institutions do not have armies of interchangeable adjuncts teaching their intro courses.  Accepting the revolving door, last-minute adjunct army as just how academia operates means hanging out in the lower ranks of much less prestigious educational institutions. 

Insisting that large numbers of standing contingent armies is normal is at best a mark of spending a lot of time in the gen ed world outside the excellent category and at worst spending time in the box checking-parts of the gen ed world where ripping people off is standard and encouraged practice.

https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-chicago/ indicates University of Chicago is very selective, but you're paying for full-time faculty at 83% and almost no graduate teaching assistants with an on-time graduate rate of 86%.  That's what paying for an elite institution buys you.


We've been talking in various places about:

New Mexico State University:  https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/new-mexico-state-university-main-campus/

Great value with 74% full-time faculty, but only 13% on-time graduation (rises to 50% within 8 years per College Scorecard). Editorializing: if you graduate, then you're probably on a good life path, but few people graduate in a timely manner.  Not a ripoff, but why go there if you can get into a university where your peers will graduate and become your first network?

Mills College https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/mills-college/#faculty
Great value, but 87% acceptance rate with 46% full-time faculty with a 58% on-time graduation (74% by eight years). 

University of Wisconsin-Madison https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-wisconsin-madison/

Fair value, #1 in Wisconsin, 54% acceptance rate, 82% full-time faculty with a 56% on-time graduation rate (85% at 8 years per College Scorecard).

Asserting that the typical institution is more like Mills and it's an unfair comparison to make to University of Chicago is missing the point.  The colleges like Mills that have already cut instructional costs as far as possibly by using armies of interchangeable adjuncts and are still in dire financial straits will go under in the near future, especially if they cling to majors that aren't drawing students to enroll.

To assert that all of academia is using adjunct armies hired at the last minute is one indication of not actually knowing the data and the great diversity of institutions in the US.  The elite enough institutions (and that apparently includes NMSU) aren't running on those armies.  The institutions with a focus other than the humanities seldom run on those armies.

It is an institutional financial red flag to have already been at the last-minute, warm body adjunct army state before Covid hit.  It may be common, but that's also why people who have researching high ed have been predicting waves of closures as the known demographic shifts accelerate.  Covid has done nothing to make those red flags less red.

[hamburger]

In the future, if its possible, just sign up for, say, up to 4 or so courses or more
with different depts. Make it "first come, first served." If some dept. offers you a job first, take it. I don't see why you owe your employment to a particular dept. Then if all 4 courses get enrolled and you want to teach that much, just do so. Of course all of this assume you will stay, and I don't think you should, given the circumstances.

A year ago, Department A gave me an offer so I took it. Then, Department B contacted me. Since teaching more courses would cause me to lose benefits, I did not take the job from Department B. Then, in the following semester when I tried to teach a course that I used to teach at Department B, the administrator said that since I did not take the offer in the previous semester, she assigned it to somebody else. She kept saying that they don't like people to have enough teaching hours to get benefits from the CC.

Students and administrators have told me that companies do not trust the certificates from this CC anymore because once hired, graduates have showed that they do not know even the simplest things that they are supposed to know.

When I told students from other universities that I am from this CC, they thought I were a student there and looked down on me.

[mahagonny]

In the future, if its possible, just sign up for, say, up to 4 or so courses or more
with different depts. Make it "first come, first served." If some dept. offers you a job first, take it. I don't see why you owe your employment to a particular dept. Then if all 4 courses get enrolled and you want to teach that much, just do so. Of course all of this assume you will stay, and I don't think you should, given the circumstances.

A year ago, Department A gave me an offer so I took it. Then, Department B contacted me. Since teaching more courses would cause me to lose benefits, I did not take the job from Department B. Then, in the following semester when I tried to teach a course that I used to teach at Department B, the administrator said that since I did not take the offer in the previous semester, she assigned it to somebody else. She kept saying that they don't like people to have enough teaching hours to get benefits from the CC.

Students and administrators have told me that companies do not trust the certificates from this CC anymore because once hired, graduates have showed that they do not know even the simplest things that they are supposed to know.

When I told students from other universities that I am from this CC, they thought I were a student there and looked down on me.

As I posted before, these people may be plenty polite to talk to but they are not your friends. They are doing the bidding of a stupid bureaucracy with horrible labor relations because they are told to. Ruralguy has the right idea. Getting the union benefits and running your own career is your right. If it weren't people wouldn't be doing it. Keep your fingers in the pots. Or if you can cut these jerks loose.
Ditto for Polly_'Ignore user' is your option.

[Wahoo Redux]

Wahoo will accuse me of cherry picking, but it's still worth pointing out that elite institutions do not have armies of interchangeable adjuncts teaching their intro courses.  Accepting the revolving door, last-minute adjunct army as just how academia operates means hanging out in the lower ranks of much less prestigious educational institutions. 

Insisting that large numbers of standing contingent armies is normal is at best a mark of spending a lot of time in the gen ed world outside the excellent category and at worst spending time in the box checking-parts of the gen ed world where ripping people off is standard and encouraged practice.

Good golly, Miss Polly, we've always agreed on that!  I've always said adjuncting is the cancer in the bowels of academia.  I know you have a hard time processing that because I aggravate you, but we're in agreement.

However!  I don't necessarily think that the adjunct army "rips people off" (avoid making inadvertently condescending comments to an army of teachers).  Some adjuncts are great at their jobs (which makes the situation even more tragic); many of these people are highly motivated to be good teachers because they are A) excited about being "professors," B) hoping to actually be professors, and C) often ideological.  So you are wrong to make a blanket statement about "rip offs" (which I suppose you make so you can rant a bit about the lib arts), particularly given the number of full profs who dial it in after tenure.

To assert that all of academia is using adjunct armies hired at the last minute is one indication of not actually knowing the data and the great diversity of institutions in the US. 

OMG, Polly, you need to find a lower horse.  My goodness do you think much of your common knowledge.

It's the age of information.  We all know the basics.  You have no esoteric knowledge.  Yes, the elite colleges hired FEWER adjuncts than the big state schools scrimping on payroll.  But there are only a few elite colleges.  There is an ocean of mid-level and low-ranking schools that survive on the blood, sweat, and tears of the adjunct nation. 

And no matter what, EVERY COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY, every single stinkin' one of them, hires contingent labor.  Every one.

So spare us your deep insight that everyone already knows, please.

[mahagonny]

Other thoughts on recent posts on this thread:

1) The ripoff artists should be closed and students directed to good educational institutions.  Creating a strong faculty union is fixing the wrong problem.

2) Professional fellows tend to have good job stability with the department, even if the contract is not officially signed until after the drop date.  True adjuncts (i.e., extras or temporary substitutions) will generally be last-minute hires or anticipated possible hires if enough sections make.

3) Places that are running on armies of adjuncts hired/fired at the last minute are probably approaching ripoff status and should be closed.  Again, fixing the timing of adjunct contracts is fixing the wrong problem in most cases.

Wholeheartedly agree with these statements. The idea that "a strong union would make life better for adjuncts" is fixing the wrong problem. The main problem is that schools are relying on adjunct faculty for ongoing teaching needs.

A truly strong union actually would not necessarily make life better for adjuncts, because they would oppose the underlying forces that lead to the adjunctification of the professoriate. A strong union would bargain for a contract that would (1) guarantee a high percentage of course sections in every department to be taught by full-time union-represented faculty and (2) strictly limit the number of sections that can be taught by an individual adjunct over some period of time. These provisions would ensure that full-time faculty are hired to meet ongoing teaching needs and limit adjuncts to situations like where someone has a 9-5 job and teaches their specialty on the side, or someone is hired at the last minute to teach an extra section because enrollment was unexpectedly high.

...and this is why every one of them uses contingent workers. The narrative of the college teacher who does it for fun and doesn't want money and the accompanying self-flattering fiction that the tenure track  is concerned about the financial well being of the people who get the crumbs from the banquet. This is the matrix of adjunctification in a sentence.

On the old forum there was a very interesting guy, DvF. though he sometimes lapsed into a bit of BS, for example the time he explained why a college cannot be run with zero adjuncts. Naturally, it went unchallenged.

[apl68]

With availability of teaching materials from the departments and online learning, anybody with a brain can teach. It is so unfair to those who have spent so many years in academia to have lost teaching jobs and company jobs to those with less education.

Yes, it does seem very unfair to have spent years acquiring skills and education, only to find others without these gaining greater rewards.  But we live in a constantly-changing world, and some of us get left behind by these changes.  We have no choice but to adapt to these changes as best we can.  Sometimes that adaptation involves finding a new occupation.

[Aster]

Many years ago I tried to reform my institution's adjunct hiring policy to more closely conform to Department of Labor's rules about how many hours one could work before they were entitled to get benefits. Big Urban College had been either abusing the rules by granting "temporary waivers" to overload the adjuncts into teaching full-time loads without full-time benefits, or abusing the rules by changing our internal definitions of what constituted a "work hour" for any given class. In some cases, we'd have adjuncts teaching 9+ courses per semester and still be classified as part-time and receive no benefits.

It was toxic and unfair to adjuncts, but the adjuncts themselves were the biggest advocates for it. It was sweat-shop economics, pure and simple. And so long that enough adjuncts pushed for our institution to mistreat them and maintain the status quo for just a little more money, many in our institution's administration were perfectly willing to keep the sweatshop running and jigger the bookkeeping to keep us just within labor and accreditation requirements.

Whatever political pressures and strategies were used in the past to end child labor, set 40-hour work weeks, grant benefits to full-time workers, etc... is sorely needed in U.S. Higher Education. Until we get those reforms, adjunct labor at many institutions will continue to operate as sweatshops and the workers treated similarly as disposable.

Obviously you had bad people in positions of power. You can't blame adjuncts so much for not standing up to them if the tenure track didn't. You see evidence of this on the internet. One or two real jackasses have their run of the place and the permanent faculty act all innocent...'what's to be done about the adjunct situation? My my.'
Although we stand up to them. Maybe we're just nucking futs.

In this particular instance, I can point the finger at a single adjunct as the root cause for derailing the reform plan. Our chancellor had provisionally agreed to the proposals to stop overloading adjuncts to full time loads with no benefits. This made some adjuncts angry because even though they were treated like cattle, they were still getting an extra pittance of money for teaching extra courses.

One adjunct got so mad about not being able to keep his improper overloads, that he went over everybody's heads and talked to the chancellor about how "unfair" the situation was.

After that one meeting with the angry adjunct, our chancellor abruptly cancelled the labor reform plan. Overload caps were going to continue to not be enforced. Not only that, but the chancellor decided that "part-time" maximum course loads for adjuncts were now bumped up by another 25%, pushing us right to the very edge of maximum for what classified part-time workers under the (new at the time) Affordable Care Act guidelines.

And so now, the system that we have for our adjuncts is even worse than it was before. Many of them are working well over full-time teaching loads every single semester, and none of them are getting benefits, and none of them are performing any of the duties required for full-time faculty. The inequity gap has widened.

One angry adjunct created all that in one meeting. Again, sweatshop economics. If you're only scraping by because your employer is abusing you, you're not going to want to change that system and risk losing your extra pay, no matter how poorly you're treated.

If we really want more equity in Higher Ed, I doubt that we're going to get it from bottom-up local initiatives. It will require strong regulation and enforcement at the federal level. Sure, some states and some institutions treat part-time workers much better and much more correctly, but many other states and institutions do not.

[Kron3007]

Many years ago I tried to reform my institution's adjunct hiring policy to more closely conform to Department of Labor's rules about how many hours one could work before they were entitled to get benefits. Big Urban College had been either abusing the rules by granting "temporary waivers" to overload the adjuncts into teaching full-time loads without full-time benefits, or abusing the rules by changing our internal definitions of what constituted a "work hour" for any given class. In some cases, we'd have adjuncts teaching 9+ courses per semester and still be classified as part-time and receive no benefits.

It was toxic and unfair to adjuncts, but the adjuncts themselves were the biggest advocates for it. It was sweat-shop economics, pure and simple. And so long that enough adjuncts pushed for our institution to mistreat them and maintain the status quo for just a little more money, many in our institution's administration were perfectly willing to keep the sweatshop running and jigger the bookkeeping to keep us just within labor and accreditation requirements.

Whatever political pressures and strategies were used in the past to end child labor, set 40-hour work weeks, grant benefits to full-time workers, etc... is sorely needed in U.S. Higher Education. Until we get those reforms, adjunct labor at many institutions will continue to operate as sweatshops and the workers treated similarly as disposable.

Obviously you had bad people in positions of power. You can't blame adjuncts so much for not standing up to them if the tenure track didn't. You see evidence of this on the internet. One or two real jackasses have their run of the place and the permanent faculty act all innocent...'what's to be done about the adjunct situation? My my.'
Although we stand up to them. Maybe we're just nucking futs.

In this particular instance, I can point the finger at a single adjunct as the root cause for derailing the reform plan. Our chancellor had provisionally agreed to the proposals to stop overloading adjuncts to full time loads with no benefits. This made some adjuncts angry because even though they were treated like cattle, they were still getting an extra pittance of money for teaching extra courses.

One adjunct got so mad about not being able to keep his improper overloads, that he went over everybody's heads and talked to the chancellor about how "unfair" the situation was.

After that one meeting with the angry adjunct, our chancellor abruptly cancelled the labor reform plan. Overload caps were going to continue to not be enforced. Not only that, but the chancellor decided that "part-time" maximum course loads for adjuncts were now bumped up by another 25%, pushing us right to the very edge of maximum for what classified part-time workers under the (new at the time) Affordable Care Act guidelines.

And so now, the system that we have for our adjuncts is even worse than it was before. Many of them are working well over full-time teaching loads every single semester, and none of them are getting benefits, and none of them are performing any of the duties required for full-time faculty. The inequity gap has widened.

One angry adjunct created all that in one meeting. Again, sweatshop economics. If you're only scraping by because your employer is abusing you, you're not going to want to change that system and risk losing your extra pay, no matter how poorly you're treated.

If we really want more equity in Higher Ed, I doubt that we're going to get it from bottom-up local initiatives. It will require strong regulation and enforcement at the federal level. Sure, some states and some institutions treat part-time workers much better and much more correctly, but many other states and institutions do not.

In my opinion (as an outsider), the adjunct situation in the USA is directly related to the relatively weak labour laws in the first place.  I remember traveling through the US on a field course and our tour guide kept asking the waitresses how much they make.  The answers were appalling and often in the range of $3/hour.  Many of these stops were buffets, where I doubt they are raking in the tips.  My point is the adjunct situation (low pay, lack of benefits, etc) runs much deeper than that particular issue.  Without strong labour laws, this is what happens across the board.  I suppose the adjunct situation seems particularly bad since these are highly trained people, but a lot of this should not even be legal... 

Adjuncts are becoming more common in Canada (although we usually call them sessionals, as adjunct has a very different meaning here), but in most places I am familiar with they are unionized and get reasonable pay/etc.  To me this just seems like one of the many issues Americans seem to think is inevitable, but is directly related to the regulatory framework and completely predictable.
   

[hamburger]

With availability of teaching materials from the departments and online learning, anybody with a brain can teach. It is so unfair to those who have spent so many years in academia to have lost teaching jobs and company jobs to those with less education.

Yes, it does seem very unfair to have spent years acquiring skills and education, only to find others without these gaining greater rewards.  But we live in a constantly-changing world, and some of us get left behind by these changes.  We have no choice but to adapt to these changes as best we can.  Sometimes that adaptation involves finding a new occupation.

Thank you

[marshwiggle]

In my opinion (as an outsider), the adjunct situation in the USA is directly related to the relatively weak labour laws in the first place.  I remember traveling through the US on a field course and our tour guide kept asking the waitresses how much they make.  The answers were appalling and often in the range of $3/hour.  Many of these stops were buffets, where I doubt they are raking in the tips.  My point is the adjunct situation (low pay, lack of benefits, etc) runs much deeper than that particular issue.  Without strong labour laws, this is what happens across the board.  I suppose the adjunct situation seems particularly bad since these are highly trained people, but a lot of this should not even be legal... 

Adjuncts are becoming more common in Canada (although we usually call them sessionals, as adjunct has a very different meaning here), but in most places I am familiar with they are unionized and get reasonable pay/etc.  To me this just seems like one of the many issues Americans seem to think is inevitable, but is directly related to the regulatory framework and completely predictable.

It's part of the American anti-government paranoia; look at the fight about wearing masks. It's a much bigger issue in the US than in Canada, because we don't have so much of the "Gub'mint not gonna control ME!" going on . Any kind of government regulation is a big deal.