Georgia abolishes tenure.

[Sun_Worshiper]

The way to stop adjuncting is to not adjunct.

Noise [surveys] about adjuncting is no different from other noises stating "I want more".

With all due respect, this is an incredibly shallow and (again, respectfully) ignorant take. First, there is a supply side, but also a demand side. And, second, more data can tell us a lot more than "I want more." It is the only way to understand people's motives, which is critical to addressing the issue.

Not having a tenure track can enhance union solidarity.

I doubt it. But please do share the evidence that you are basing this claim on.

[mleok]

Not having a tenure track can enhance union solidarity.

Sounds like a throwing out the baby with the bathwater kind of approach. On the plus side, it might reduce the supply of deluded adjuncts on the death march who think they'll win the tenure-track lottery by continuing to persist.

At the end of the day, it's an issue of supply and demand, fields where PhDs have easy access to well-paying nonacademic positions do not generally suffer adverse working conditions even in contingent faculty positions.

[mleok]

For me, I suspect that the greatest impediment to union solidarity is the significant difference in working conditions by field. At least in my university, I never see the kind of truly deplorable working conditions that people write about, at least in the STEM fields, after all, why would anyone accept such conditions when they can go out into industry and make more than I do as a full professor?

For my department, one thing which I suspect helps the working conditions for our contingent faculty is that we hire them primarily to contribute towards the research mission of the department, so they have low teaching loads (2 courses/quarter), a decent salary $60K+ with benefits, and a multi-year fixed term contract. It's precisely because their role in the department isn't simply to teach the classes the tenure-track faculty don't wish to teach that they're treated well. This is in contrast to (book) fields where collaboration seems to play a less critical role, which are also coincidentally the same fields which seem to do a poor job supporting their graduate students. Having said that, biology seems to be a bit of an outlier here.

[mahagonny]

Not having a tenure track can enhance union solidarity.

Yes. Because at that point, all that you have left is the Union.

Sure, but we could try having union that the public doesn't hate, for a change.

[mleok]

Not having a tenure track can enhance union solidarity.

Yes. Because at that point, all that you have left is the Union.

Sure, but we could try having union that the public doesn't hate, for a change.

You're still a "professor" with "summers off." Good luck with your "plan."

[mahagonny]

Not only do I work year round, but I am visible in the community while doing it. Good luck with your propaganda.

[mleok]

Not only do I work year round, but I am visible in the community while doing it. Good luck with your propaganda.

Good for you. But how representative are you of the contingent faculty at the institutions you work at? Unions are a double edged sword, and while they may improve the conditions for those worst off, they also stymie the ability of those with more individual leverage from exercising it, all in the name of solidarity.

All I know is that combined unions are not going to mean that I will get paid what I would have in industry because I gave up the security of tenure. All that means is that those who can will move, and those who can't will stay, but it's precisely those who can't move that are most vunerable anyway, because their positions are largely fungible. At the end of the day, teaching just isn't that valued, and wages and working conditions for teaching only staff reflect that.

Thankfully, my university values research sufficiently that they've reduced my department's teaching load, even in the midst of the pandemic, which I honestly was rather skeptical that they would do when it was first proposed.

[mleok]

Interestingly, I found that Florida Insitute of Technology, which was where one of my graduate students got his first faculty position is actually trying to introduce tenure for the first time in their history, based on a desire to be more competitive for faculty and to improve their rankings.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/lots-of-people-want-to-end-tenure-this-university-wants-to-start-it/

This plan was initiated in 2018, and I wonder if they're going ahead with it despite the implications of the pandemic.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Interestingly, I found that Florida Insitute of Technology, which was where one of my graduate students got his first faculty position is actually trying to introduce tenure for the first time in their history, based on a desire to be more competitive for faculty and to improve their rankings.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/lots-of-people-want-to-end-tenure-this-university-wants-to-start-it/

This plan was initiated in 2018, and I wonder if they're going ahead with it despite the implications of the pandemic.

Smart move. Tenure is the only way to attract serious scholars or to retain promising young faculty.

[mleok]

Interestingly, I found that Florida Insitute of Technology, which was where one of my graduate students got his first faculty position is actually trying to introduce tenure for the first time in their history, based on a desire to be more competitive for faculty and to improve their rankings.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/lots-of-people-want-to-end-tenure-this-university-wants-to-start-it/

This plan was initiated in 2018, and I wonder if they're going ahead with it despite the implications of the pandemic.

Smart move. Tenure is the only way to attract serious scholars or to retain promising young faculty.

It's probably because it's primarily an engineering school, so why would a highly qualified engineering professor accept the lower wages in academia, without the potential job security of tenure. My former student moved to a higher ranked university with tenure when he got the chance, and he only accepted the position at FIT because he didn't want to do a postdoc after his PhD.

[marshwiggle]

There's a large survey from 2012,

http://www.academicworkforce.org/survey.html

I believe that's the one I saw. A few interesting results from that one:

• 43% (the biggest group) were teaching a single course. The next biggest group, teaching two courses, was 28%.
• 45% (the biggest group, at 40%, had a Masters) had a Master's or less; i.e. less than the terminal degree for their discipline, and thus wouldn't be eligible for a TT position.
• 42% (the biggest group) were in the humanities. The next biggest group, 22%, were in "professional fields".
• 14% (the biggest group) had been teaching the current course for a single term.
• 22% (the biggest group) had a personal income of $15k-25k.
• 14% (the biggest group) had a household income of $95k-125k.

The first two in particular suggest the person with the terminal degree teaching everything possible is definitely not the most common scenario, even if it's the one typically presented.

(Just one note: Since all of these seem to be produced by groups trying to highlight the plight of adjuncts, they are likely to overstate rather than understate the negatives, so statistics like the two above are particularly instructive.)

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

There's a large survey from 2012,

http://www.academicworkforce.org/survey.html

I believe that's the one I saw. A few interesting results from that one:

• 43% (the biggest group) were teaching a single course. The next biggest group, teaching two courses, was 28%.

...

There are two tables (16 and 18) with different numbers, with table 18 seeming to be more representative based on the notes.
For me this table highlights different ways of looking at things:
- there is indeed fewer part-time faculty teaching 3 courses per semester (19.4%) than ones teaching 1 course (24.8%)
- but a given section is much more likely to be taught by a stereotypical overworked adjunct teaching 3+ courses, as 19.4 x 3 >> 24.8 x 1 (and that is even before adding those teaching 4 or more courses to the calculation)

[/list]

[mahagonny]

At the end of the day, teaching just isn't that valued, and wages and working conditions for teaching only staff reflect that.

Sure it is. This is just a way of saying 'you don't have a research position, so you can't get on the ladder.' Sorry.' Teaching and research are both valued when people on the tenure track do them, while neither is valued when others do them. It's a segmented labor structure.

Interestingly, I found that Florida Insitute of Technology, which was where one of my graduate students got his first faculty position is actually trying to introduce tenure for the first time in their history, based on a desire to be more competitive for faculty and to improve their rankings.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/lots-of-people-want-to-end-tenure-this-university-wants-to-start-it/

This plan was initiated in 2018, and I wonder if they're going ahead with it despite the implications of the pandemic.

Smart move. Tenure is the only way to attract serious scholars or to retain promising young faculty.

It's probably because it's primarily an engineering school, so why would a highly qualified engineering professor accept the lower wages in academia, without the potential job security of tenure. My former student moved to a higher ranked university with tenure when he got the chance, and he only accepted the position at FIT because he didn't want to do a postdoc after his PhD.

In any case, you don't have to worry about people teaching in higher ed who question why they should be fans of tenure. Our contribution to the discussion is easily dismissed. Your worry should be those people who make the case against tenure by their mere presence. And voters who decide they've seen enough:
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/10/30/rutgers-university-silent-over-racist-tenured-prof-who-proclaimed-we-got-to-take-these-motherfers-out-1156196/

[marshwiggle]

There's a large survey from 2012,

http://www.academicworkforce.org/survey.html

I believe that's the one I saw. A few interesting results from that one:

• 43% (the biggest group) were teaching a single course. The next biggest group, teaching two courses, was 28%.

...

There are two tables (16 and 18) with different numbers, with table 18 seeming to be more representative based on the notes.

I looked at the notes for the two tables several times, and I'm still not clear on the difference. Maybe Table 18 refers to sections, and Table 16 refers to courses, so someone teaching two sections of one course would show up as "one" in Table 16 and "two" in Table 18. That's the only way I can make sense of it. The only question that both are supposed to refer to is
"How many courses are you teaching in fall 2010?"

For me this table highlights different ways of looking at things:
- there is indeed fewer part-time faculty teaching 3 courses per semester (19.4%) than ones teaching 1 course (24.8%)
- but a given section is much more likely to be taught by a stereotypical overworked adjunct teaching 3+ courses, as 19.4 x 3 >> 24.8 x 1 (and that is even before adding those teaching 4 or more courses to the calculation)

This raises a question I had. In STEM, it's quite common to have large courses, but if it's needed to deal with students in smaller groups then that's done by things like tutorials, typically run by TAs. I'm guessing in humanities, it's much more common to have lots of small sections instead. Is that true? If that's the case, it raises the question of why the difference is required, since the STEM model is a lot more cost effective, based on the idea that only a part of course delivery is interaction-intensive, so only that portion needs to be done in smaller groups.

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

There's a large survey from 2012,

http://www.academicworkforce.org/survey.html

I believe that's the one I saw. A few interesting results from that one:

• 43% (the biggest group) were teaching a single course. The next biggest group, teaching two courses, was 28%.

...

There are two tables (16 and 18) with different numbers, with table 18 seeming to be more representative based on the notes.

I looked at the notes for the two tables several times, and I'm still not clear on the difference. Maybe Table 18 refers to sections, and Table 16 refers to courses, so someone teaching two sections of one course would show up as "one" in Table 16 and "two" in Table 18. That's the only way I can make sense of it. The only question that both are supposed to refer to is
"How many courses are you teaching in fall 2010?"

Based on the "Teaching Load" section and questionnaire itself, the values in table 16 were calculated by summing up number of courses participants have described in detail (they were supposed to answer 15 questions about each). In contrast, Table 18 is based on direct answers to the question about number of courses.
So, 19.4% (Table 18) answered said that they teach 3 courses, but only 15.5% (Table 16) provided information about all 3.