Another unpaid adjunct job. This time from UCLA

[Diogenes]

Maybe forcing adjuncts to all be volunteers would fix the adjunctification problem, since we wouldn't have any more.

https://recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF04991

[downer]

This one has been going viral on academic twitter.

I can't summon up much indignation. It's UCLA. Either there will be a rich person who wants to be there and have access to its resources, or someone with other funding will take the position.

I do wonder how much effort the person who gets the job will put into the work. Seems like there's not much incentive to do any work once you get the job, unless someone is doing it for the teaching references. But is some CC going to be impressed that the candidate did a good job with UCLA students? No.

[Diogenes]

With the experience they are requiring, they want that career or retired industry person to come and teach for fun and to "give back" which was the initial point of adjuncts before the exploitation and cutting of FT lines commenced. But they were still paid. Teaching a class is hard work and beyond what a volunteer would do, it's not a guest lecture or a continuing ed workshop, but a full course that effects the academic outcomes of those students.

[Mobius]

There isn't any teaching involved, despite what the ad suggests.

[Diogenes]

Upon second look, it probably is just some kind of fake post for a visiting scholar or something that needs UCLA library and key access, and they have to post the ad. If that really is the case, then the issue is how badly we've fallen into Vogon Bureaucracy.

[mahagonny]

With the experience they are requiring, they want that career or retired industry person to come and teach for fun and to "give back" which was the initial point of adjuncts before the exploitation and cutting of FT lines commenced. But they were still paid. Teaching a class is hard work and beyond what a volunteer would do, it's not a guest lecture or a continuing ed workshop, but a full course that effects the academic outcomes of those students.

So shouldn't they be allowed to discriminate in hiring against historically negative-privileged persons (BIPOC)? Why should people be invited to give back to a community that owes them reparations?

ETA: Although I couldn't imagine if there is teaching involved, how it would work. I couldn't teach for five minutes without pay. I can certainly pontificate to a friend about my field with a little flattery and beer, but the minute you require an outcome it's serious stuff.

[mamselle]

Upon second look, it probably is just some kind of fake post for a visiting scholar or something that needs UCLA library and key access, and they have to post the ad. If that really is the case, then the issue is how badly we've fallen into Vogon Bureaucracy.

This. I know of people who arrange for set-ups like this when they move to a new area and need library access, etc.

HR requires the fake post and the legal office or an on-tap retained legal firm supplies the text.

it's no big deal.

M.

[Puget]

Upon second look, it probably is just some kind of fake post for a visiting scholar or something that needs UCLA library and key access, and they have to post the ad. If that really is the case, then the issue is how badly we've fallen into Vogon Bureaucracy.

This. I know of people who arrange for set-ups like this when they move to a new area and need library access, etc.

HR requires the fake post and the legal office or an on-tap retained legal firm supplies the text.

it's no big deal.

M.

It's a weird way to do it though if that's what it is-- at my place, someone can just ask a faculty member to sponsor them as a "visiting scholar", which is a pretty simple process and doesn't get posted as a job, let alone one that states it is teaching rather than research.

[mamselle]

True. I've seen that, also. (My most recent EA/NP boss did exactly that, last year).

If the individual has had a more recent commercial R&D position, but otherwise strong credentials (the situation I saw it in, a few years back, now), such a 'posting' could smooth their way back into an academic liaison.

Goofy bedfellows, academics...

M.

[Hegemony]

Here is a useful post explaining the situation:

https://esweany.substack.com/p/free-academic-labor-and-easy-outrage?r=1ebkti&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

[marshwiggle]

Here is a useful post explaining the situation:

https://esweany.substack.com/p/free-academic-labor-and-easy-outrage?r=1ebkti&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

It raises an interesting question. If these "uncompensated jobs" are for post-docs, who are already getting paid, can a post-doc simply choose not to take on any of these without loss of compensation? In other words, is teaching a requirement for a post-doc, or is it completely optional? And if it's required, why does fulfilling that requirement involve voluntarily taking on "another" position?

[mahagonny]

I'm more inclined to be surprised by the outrage. Of course I am probably bitter because our tenured faculty have language in their collective bargaining contract that states that it's perfectly OK with them if the university get adjunct faculty to teach for free.  So how are they not getting something expected?

[Wahoo Redux]

This one has been going viral on academic twitter.

Also on Reddit.

I do wonder how much effort the person who gets the job will put into the work. Seems like there's not much incentive to do any work once you get the job,

In a way, being an adjunct has its freedoms----you just don't have that much to lose.

I imagine being a volunteer has even more freedom. 

[mahagonny]

In a way, being an adjunct has its freedoms----you just don't have that much to lose.

I imagine being a volunteer has even more freedom.

The equity police are not going to like that observation.

ETA: Take it to the extreme for one example. The homeless person. He expects little from himself in the way of what society regards as achievement. Could things be any other way? Was he forced into homelessness? We don't always know for certain.

[mythbuster]

I call shenanigans on the explanation that it's for some post-doc cohort. I had a one year post-doc fellowship at a UC, in science, that had both a teaching and research component. No such sham job ad was needed for me to be the instructor of record of a 300+ person intro level course.
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