Adjuncts, Academic Freedom & Importance of Tenure form AAUP

[Wahoo Redux]

Topic has been buried for a while since COVID overwhelmed us.  Just thought I'd pop it back in.

From the AAUP magazine

[marshwiggle]

For future reference,

To be sure, all part-time appointments are not alike. According to a 2018 survey by the TIAA Institute, about 11 percent of part-timers are retired tenured professors. Another 23 percent have career employment outside higher education, perhaps as a practicing nurse, journalist, or attorney. They may teach one or two classes, but their income derives mainly from nonacademic occupations. The remaining 66 percent can be deemed precarious. About 70 percent of such "adjuncts" are over forty years old, with a third aged between fifty-five and sixty-nine. Approximately one-half teach one or two courses at a single institution, while 22 percent teach three or more classes at two or more institutions. About one-half say they would prefer a tenure-track position, with an additional 10 percent preferring a full-time non-tenure-track position. A 2012 study from the Center for the Future of Higher Education found that more than a third of contingent instructors report being hired within three weeks of the start of classes and more than a sixth within two weeks, a practice common even among those who have been employed for years.

From the study referenced above,

• Most (56%) earned a master's as their highest degree attained; one third have a Ph.D.
• While half would prefer to have a tenure-track position, two-thirds of all adjuncts report being satisfied overall with their academic careers.
• Seventy-four percent of adjunct faculty teach at a single
  college or university. Among these, 35% teach one
  course and 35% teach two courses, meaning that 52% of
  adjuncts teach one or two courses at a single institution .
• The academic discipline of most
  adjuncts falls under the humanities or social sciences.

[Hibush]

*** March I see we were working on the same thing***
They provide some data on who are the NTT faculty. These numbers are useful to have handy since people's perceptions of the norm really color their idea of what is improvement.

Part time NTT faculty

• 11 percent are retired tenured professors
• 
  23 percent have career employment outside higher education, perhaps as a practicing nurse, journalist, or attorney. They may teach one or two classes, but their income derives mainly from nonacademic occupations.
• 
  66 percent can be deemed precarious.
  




• 50 percent teach one or two courses at a single institution
• 22 percent teach three or more classes at two or more institutions.
  


• 33 percent have a Ph.D.
• 56 percent have a master's as their highest degree

The above numbers are from a 2018 survey by the TIAA Institute. As far as I can tell, they don't include full-time NTT faculty, which would be include VAPs with recent PhDs. The crosstabs would give a better idea of the demographic and attitudinal differences between the freeway fliers versus the side-giggers. Conflating them like the report does really hides actionable information.

[marshwiggle]

Another interesting tidbit:

Adjunct faculty are paid an average of $3,000 per course, but almost 60% receive less than this amount on average. At the same time, 60% of adjuncts are in households with an income of $50,000 or more. Clearly, the majority of adjuncts are in households
where adjunct earnings are not the primary source of household income.

[mahagonny]

Another interesting tidbit:

Adjunct faculty are paid an average of $3,000 per course, but almost 60% receive less than this amount on average. At the same time, 60% of adjuncts are in households with an income of $50,000 or more. Clearly, the majority of adjuncts are in households
where adjunct earnings are not the primary source of household income.

Right, adjunct faculty are wealthy. And, anyway, you can buy so much health care and housing these days with just a modest income. When I hear most households with adjunct faculty in them are living on $15,000 per year I'll get interested (snicker).
Marshwiggle, I recommend you think of something pertinent to add, or start adding less.

Levity: I believe you misspelled 'from' in your thread title and it says 'form.' Consequently I misread the title as 'Re: Adjuncts, Academic Freedom & Importance of Tenure Reform AAUP.' Then after leaving my computer I thought 'that's odd. 'Tenure' and 'reform' are never found in the same sentence. LOL
I see one of the adjuncts got Borked.

Serious question: what happens to a school after they are censured for denying academic freedom to an adjunct professor?I suspect nothing at all. Because there was no breach of contract .No academic freedom is one of the attractions of using adjuncts. That's a settled issue.
It amounts to the AAUP conveying that it wishes there were not adjunct faculty. Not that it matters anyway. They don't run anything except their organization. It's like a moot point within a moot point.

[marshwiggle]

Another interesting tidbit:

Adjunct faculty are paid an average of $3,000 per course, but almost 60% receive less than this amount on average. At the same time, 60% of adjuncts are in households with an income of $50,000 or more. Clearly, the majority of adjuncts are in households
where adjunct earnings are not the primary source of household income.

Right, adjunct faculty are wealthy. And, anyway, you can buy so much health care and housing these days with just a modest income. When I hear most households with adjunct faculty in them are living on $15,000 per year I'll get interested (snicker).
Marshwiggle, I recommend you think of something pertinent to add, or start adding less.

The point, which I have made in the past, is that the poster child of the adjunct who is trying to support a family on only the income from several adjunct appointments actually represents a tiny minority.  It is not that "adjunct faculty are wealthy", but it is also not true that most adjuncts survive solely on the income from adjuncting.  As Hibush said:

The above numbers are from a 2018 survey by the TIAA Institute. As far as I can tell, they don't include full-time NTT faculty, which would be include VAPs with recent PhDs. The crosstabs would give a better idea of the demographic and attitudinal differences between the freeway fliers versus the side-giggers. Conflating them like the report does really hides actionable information.

[mahagonny]

The point, which I have made in the past, is that the poster child of the adjunct who is trying to support a family on only the income from several adjunct appointments actually represents a tiny minority.

What's there to worry about then? They'll never have any clout. Screw them.

[Hibush]

The point, which I have made in the past, is that the poster child of the adjunct who is trying to support a family on only the income from several adjunct appointments actually represents a tiny minority.

What's there to worry about then? They'll never have any clout. Screw them.

Did you read this on an inspirational poster in the Dean's office? Or a politicians?

[polly_mer]

The problem isn't lack of clout; it's a mindset that somehow if one is just persistent enough as one of the interchangeable cogs that one will get a permanent position with the privilege of just teaching instead of doing all the work of a full-time professor.

The problem is all those individuals who could have better lives if they would give up on being a death-marching cog and do something else when they have the luxury of money enough for now instead of ending up with no money one term and things are desperate at home.

The problem is the mindset that somehow the system will magically change so that people who want to be mostly supported by academic income will have that work out instead of continuing the path of having far too many people who won't just leave and let the system crash while insisting that the system should treat them better.

I worry about people who don't seem to have enough information ignoring the blunt truths of how untenable their situations are because they believe they are the majority and somehow majority wishes always win.  That may be how the fairy tales and movies work, but that's not how human organizations out in the world work based on history and realistic literature.

[mahagonny]

The point, which I have made in the past, is that the poster child of the adjunct who is trying to support a family on only the income from several adjunct appointments actually represents a tiny minority.

What's there to worry about then? They'll never have any clout. Screw them.

Did you read this on an inspirational poster in the Dean's office? Or a politicians?

Ha ha. As Irving Berlin wrote 'I can't recall who said it. I know I never read it.'
As he didn't say: you can smell an attitude, whether you find it in the powers that be or their sycophant.

I return to the point: the AAUP is acting like there has been a consensus that higher ed wants academic freedom among its workforce; therefore, pointing that it has been kicked out of the way should be some sort of outrage... I find that to be quite a stretch. Because people's attitudes are not shown by what they say but by what they do. And the AAUP is, after all, what? What the heck is it that they do other than take a stand? How does the AAUP decide they've had a good year. Do they hold a meeting and say 'nobody's doing what we recommend about the adjunct situation again this year, but this time my car didn't get egged!'