Another unpaid adjunct job. This time from UCLA

[eigen]

I'm not buying all the after-the-fact apologist explanations. It is what it is. I don't care what they intended. They advertised for an unpaid adjunct faculty position, and that's that.

They should have included the missing context. They should have proofread and edited the poorly worded ad. No matter how or why they arrived at the advertising of an unpaid faculty position, the situation should be evaluated by what they said and not by what they forgot or neglected to say.

It is what it is.

Whatever scorn may be heaped upon UCLA, UCLA deserves all of it.

There is almost certainly a legal requirement that all jobs be posted for a certain length of time and officially open for anyone to apply to. Yes, it's stupid, but not something the people posting it, or even the university, could do anything about. They aren't allowed to say "this is a fake job posting to allow our postdocs to have the official position in the system that allows them to teach, which is in their training plan", as much as they might like to.

Of course if they wrote something like that, it would be stupid.

But putting in something along the lines of

"UCLA is looking for fully-funded post-docs who would like to accept an adjunct teaching position as part of their workload funded by external grants."

or

"Required qualifications: "Current holder of a post-doc with full funding."

would have probably avoided this completely asinine situation. Before a job ad gets posted, there are multiple steps where an ad can be checked. Nobody bothered or nobody cared. So, UCLA deserves all the scorn that they are getting.

It is what it is, no matter the reasons for how they arrived at the dumb ad and no matter what their intents were. They dropped the ball. They screwed up. They had an employment/HR system that lets or encourages these things to happen. Nobody should be coming to UCLA's defense.

And anyone that comes to their defense is only perpetuating the screwed up employment system and asinine HR rules that made this happen in the first place.

In terms of a response, the worst thing that we could do is think that this whole brouhaha is unfounded and we should just not make a bid deal out of it. The problem with that thinking is doing so would not only perpetuate screwed up employment systems and asinine HR rules and leaves them unchecked in future similar scenarios, it also validates the continuing de-valuation of the professoriate.

You realize ads like this are posted all the time, right? This one just happened to get picked up by the social media rumor mill and spread around enough to cause a problem.

The ad wasn't the issue, and we don't need to start adding additional stupid contextualization to ads that are already stupid to have to post.

The vast majority of people I saw outraged about this have not been routinely speaking up about equally egregious (or, I warrant) more egregious issues at their own institutions. This one was just easy to pile on because it was a "big deal" nationally.

No. The kind of ad posted by UCLA is not "posted all the time," at least in my field. Maybe in your field, it is commonplace, but that doesn't make it OK.

And how exactly do you know that "The vast majority of people" you saw who were outraged about this have not been routinely speaking up about equally egregious or more egregious issues at their own institutions? Even if this were true and they were not as vocal about other issues at their own institutions, that does not negate the conviction of their vocal opposition to UCLA's ad, nor does it negate the heinous absurdity of UCLA's ad.

At least we are in agreement about one thing: the ad was stupid and there is no need to add context, because it is what it is.

Well, you go on to say that this practice (having a post-doc adjunct) is common at your university, you just don't advertise this fact. So I'd categorize this as being outraged about this add but not speaking against the same thing happening at your university, unless you're saying that you actively oppose your grant-funded post-docs teaching classes?

Do you also vocally oppose librarians or qualified professional staff who want to teach a course in their area of expertise?

[lightning]

I'm not buying all the after-the-fact apologist explanations. It is what it is. I don't care what they intended. They advertised for an unpaid adjunct faculty position, and that's that.

They should have included the missing context. They should have proofread and edited the poorly worded ad. No matter how or why they arrived at the advertising of an unpaid faculty position, the situation should be evaluated by what they said and not by what they forgot or neglected to say.

It is what it is.

Whatever scorn may be heaped upon UCLA, UCLA deserves all of it.

There is almost certainly a legal requirement that all jobs be posted for a certain length of time and officially open for anyone to apply to. Yes, it's stupid, but not something the people posting it, or even the university, could do anything about. They aren't allowed to say "this is a fake job posting to allow our postdocs to have the official position in the system that allows them to teach, which is in their training plan", as much as they might like to.

Of course if they wrote something like that, it would be stupid.

But putting in something along the lines of

"UCLA is looking for fully-funded post-docs who would like to accept an adjunct teaching position as part of their workload funded by external grants."

or

"Required qualifications: "Current holder of a post-doc with full funding."

would have probably avoided this completely asinine situation. Before a job ad gets posted, there are multiple steps where an ad can be checked. Nobody bothered or nobody cared. So, UCLA deserves all the scorn that they are getting.

It is what it is, no matter the reasons for how they arrived at the dumb ad and no matter what their intents were. They dropped the ball. They screwed up. They had an employment/HR system that lets or encourages these things to happen. Nobody should be coming to UCLA's defense.

And anyone that comes to their defense is only perpetuating the screwed up employment system and asinine HR rules that made this happen in the first place.

In terms of a response, the worst thing that we could do is think that this whole brouhaha is unfounded and we should just not make a bid deal out of it. The problem with that thinking is doing so would not only perpetuate screwed up employment systems and asinine HR rules and leaves them unchecked in future similar scenarios, it also validates the continuing de-valuation of the professoriate.

You realize ads like this are posted all the time, right? This one just happened to get picked up by the social media rumor mill and spread around enough to cause a problem.

The ad wasn't the issue, and we don't need to start adding additional stupid contextualization to ads that are already stupid to have to post.

The vast majority of people I saw outraged about this have not been routinely speaking up about equally egregious (or, I warrant) more egregious issues at their own institutions. This one was just easy to pile on because it was a "big deal" nationally.

No. The kind of ad posted by UCLA is not "posted all the time," at least in my field. Maybe in your field, it is commonplace, but that doesn't make it OK.

And how exactly do you know that "The vast majority of people" you saw who were outraged about this have not been routinely speaking up about equally egregious or more egregious issues at their own institutions? Even if this were true and they were not as vocal about other issues at their own institutions, that does not negate the conviction of their vocal opposition to UCLA's ad, nor does it negate the heinous absurdity of UCLA's ad.

At least we are in agreement about one thing: the ad was stupid and there is no need to add context, because it is what it is.

Well, you go on to say that this practice (having a post-doc adjunct) is common at your university, you just don't advertise this fact. So I'd categorize this as being outraged about this add but not speaking against the same thing happening at your university, unless you're saying that you actively oppose your grant-funded post-docs teaching classes?

Do you also vocally oppose librarians or qualified professional staff who want to teach a course in their area of expertise?

Either I'm terrible at communicating or something else. I'm not outraged with hiring post-docs to teach as adjuncts. I'm outraged with the need for a stupid workaround, the wording of the ad, and the idiots that let it happen, especially since the ad, outside of the post-doc context, marginalizes the professoriate.

No, I don't vocally oppose librarians or qualified professional staff or even administrators who want to teach a course, as long as the proper vetting process is followed. We also let librarians, staff, and admin teach courses here. They are all handled internally on a case-by-case basis. At the very least, we don't put out asinine ads that make us look bad in addition to de-valuing the work of the faculty and the professoriate in general.

Since you completely missed that point (which might be due in part to inadequate communication on my part), I have a feeling that you let a lot of bs fly at your place, when you cannot even see why the UCLA ad is so damaging and worthy of outrage.

[mahagonny]

What happens if they don't get any applicants who are post-doc with full funding, but someone comes along who is well qualified to do the work and wants the job? Do they tell him to go away?

[mleok]

For what it's worth, it's rarely the case that such shenanigans are purely the consequence of stupid institution-specific HR rules, but rather union contracts, state or federal laws, or requirements for sponsorship of work permits or green cards.

[marshwiggle]

For what it's worth, it's rarely the case that such shenanigans are purely the consequence of stupid institution-specific HR rules, but rather union contracts, state or federal laws, or requirements for sponsorship of work permits or green cards.

I've mentioned union contracts before, and of all of those factors it's the single one where the people bothered by the stupid rules, e.g. faculty, are responsible for the rules being there in the first place, usually because they have tried to exercise rigid control over a situation which in reality requires a certain flexibility for normal operation.

[mahagonny]

For what it's worth, it's rarely the case that such shenanigans are purely the consequence of stupid institution-specific HR rules, but rather union contracts, state or federal laws, or requirements for sponsorship of work permits or green cards.

I've mentioned union contracts before, and of all of those factors it's the single one where the people bothered by the stupid rules, e.g. faculty, are responsible for the rules being there in the first place, usually because they have tried to exercise rigid control over a situation which in reality requires a certain flexibility for normal operation.

Are you suggesting the university/department are unable to pay anyone to do this work? Yet they deserve it? How so.
Where you and I agree: while I'm not familiar with this university, but it seems to me either a union that includes adjunct faculty, or a separate adjunct faculty union, would have an agreement that prohibits this advertisement, and quite possibly it would be illegal by NLRB rules even in the absence of a ratified contract once the presence of the union was established. If this offering had happened at our school years ago, the tenure track would have to face the fact that their union laid the groundwork for it by isolating the adjunct faculty in their bargaining agreement. Of course, you know how the conversations would go -- tenured faculty can never be wrong, because any disagreement with them is a threat to academic freedom.

[marshwiggle]

For what it's worth, it's rarely the case that such shenanigans are purely the consequence of stupid institution-specific HR rules, but rather union contracts, state or federal laws, or requirements for sponsorship of work permits or green cards.

I've mentioned union contracts before, and of all of those factors it's the single one where the people bothered by the stupid rules, e.g. faculty, are responsible for the rules being there in the first place, usually because they have tried to exercise rigid control over a situation which in reality requires a certain flexibility for normal operation.

Are you suggesting the university/department are unable to pay anyone to do this work? Yet they deserve it? How so.

One thing you and I agree on is that there is a legitimate place for non-full-time faculty. A few specific examples:

• What Poly would call "professors of practice"; typically professionals teaching highly applied courses which regular faculty are unwilling or unable to teach.
• Sections which may be needed due to enrollment fluctuations
• Post-docs, and/or possibly grad students, if teaching is considered to be a necessary part of their professional development.

(This list is not exhaustive, but illustrates the point.)

In each of these cases, the "normal" requirements for full-time faculty (like holding a terminal degree) and the "normal" vetting process  (advertisement, multiple interviews, etc.) are inappropriate. If faculty unions would honestly discuss when and where these other types of positions are appropriate, then they could make rules that make sense to deal with them. Unfortunately, often faculty are so *paranoid that administrators will take liberties that they would rather effectively pretend these positions don't exist and look the other way in order to "officially" maintain control of the process.


(*Yes, some administrators will take advantage; that will happen whether the rules are sensible or not.)

[mahagonny]

For what it's worth, it's rarely the case that such shenanigans are purely the consequence of stupid institution-specific HR rules, but rather union contracts, state or federal laws, or requirements for sponsorship of work permits or green cards.

I've mentioned union contracts before, and of all of those factors it's the single one where the people bothered by the stupid rules, e.g. faculty, are responsible for the rules being there in the first place, usually because they have tried to exercise rigid control over a situation which in reality requires a certain flexibility for normal operation.

Are you suggesting the university/department are unable to pay anyone to do this work? Yet they deserve it? How so.

One thing you and I agree on is that there is a legitimate place for non-full-time faculty. A few specific examples:

• What Poly would call "professors of practice"; typically professionals teaching highly applied courses which regular faculty are unwilling or unable to teach.
• Sections which may be needed due to enrollment fluctuations
• Post-docs, and/or possibly grad students, if teaching is considered to be a necessary part of their professional development.

(This list is not exhaustive, but illustrates the point.)

In each of these cases, the "normal" requirements for full-time faculty (like holding a terminal degree) and the "normal" vetting process  (advertisement, multiple interviews, etc.) are inappropriate. If faculty unions would honestly discuss when and where these other types of positions are appropriate, then they could make rules that make sense to deal with them. Unfortunately, often faculty are so *paranoid that administrators will take liberties that they would rather effectively pretend these positions don't exist and look the other way in order to "officially" maintain control of the process.


(*Yes, some administrators will take advantage; that will happen whether the rules are sensible or not.)

What's missing is advocacy for the adjunct faculty that comes from them, not those above who purport to speak for their interests and only reinforce their own. Which is why I consider your view of adjunct unions not quite fair and balanced, and Polly_Mer's antagonism a basically toxic presence.

[marshwiggle]

What's missing is advocacy for the adjunct faculty that comes from them, not those above who purport to speak for their interests and only reinforce their own. Which is why I consider your view of adjunct unions not quite fair and balanced, and Polly_Mer's antagonism a basically toxic presence.

I'd just clarify that this is one of my main beefs with all unions; full-time, part-time, etc.- the attempt to rigidly define so many parameters of the employment situation in order to try and protect their own "turf". The two unions that represent my "day job" and my "side hustle" both do this. I don't have any affinity for one union or the other.

[mahagonny]

What's missing is advocacy for the adjunct faculty that comes from them, not those above who purport to speak for their interests and only reinforce their own. Which is why I consider your view of adjunct unions not quite fair and balanced, and Polly_Mer's antagonism a basically toxic presence.

I'd just clarify that this is one of my main beefs with all unions; full-time, part-time, etc.- the attempt to rigidly define so many parameters of the employment situation in order to try and protect their own "turf". The two unions that represent my "day job" and my "side hustle" both do this. I don't have any affinity for one union or the other.

Adjunct unions in the USA don't have a turf. They're more like trying to find a one solid square foot of ground to stand on. Anyone who won't give them a little help is just plain stingy.

[simpleSimon]

Help Wanted: Adjunct Professor, Must Have Doctorate. Salary: $0.
After protests, U.C.L.A. took down a job posting that offered no pay. But it turns out colleges often expect Ph.D.s to work for free.
by Anemona Hartocollis

The job posting for an assistant adjunct professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, set high expectations for candidates: A Ph.D. in chemistry or biochemistry, a strong teaching record at the college level, and three to five letters of recommendation.

But there was a catch: The job would be on a "without salary basis," as the posting phrased it. Just to be clear, it hammered home the point: "Applicants must understand there will be no compensation for this position."

The posting last month caused an immediate uproar among academics across the country, who accused the university of exploiting already undervalued adjunct professors, and suggested this would never happen in other occupations. Under pressure, U.C.L.A. apologized and withdrew the posting.

But the unspoken secret had been fleetingly exposed: Free labor is a fact of academic life.

"These arrangements are common in academia," Bill Kisliuk, a spokesman for U.C.L.A., told Inside Higher Ed when at first defending the job posting.

Contingent faculty, the umbrella term for all kinds of generally part-time and untenured college teachers without much if any job security, make up a huge portion of the teaching staff of universities — by some estimates, around 70 percent overall and more in community colleges.

They have long complained about the long hours and low pay. But these unpaid arrangements are perhaps the most concrete example of the unequal power in a weak labor market — in which hundreds of candidates might apply for one position. Institutions are able to persuade or cajole people who have invested at least five or six years in earning a Ph.D. to work for free, even though, academics said, these jobs rarely lead to a tenure-track position.

"If your theory is that association with U.C.L.A. is itself compensation, then it makes sense," said Trent McDonald, a Ph.D. candidate in English and American literature and union organizer at Washington University in St. Louis. "I think there is the belief that you can eat prestige."

Very often, adjuncts and other contingent faculty are asked to do unpaid work that is presented not as free labor but as a way to hone their own credentials, according to union activists and some instructors who have received such requests. It may be characterized as professional development or service. Professionals are sometimes willing to teach a class in their field for free so they can put the university affiliation on their business cards, said Joe T. Berry, a former adjunct and historian of contingent faculty.

And the instructors who are pressed into teaching without job security are often women or minorities, who began entering academia in force as the system was shifting to contingent faculty, said Dr. Berry, who recently co-wrote a book on the subject called "Power Despite Precarity."

In a previous book, Dr. Berry said, he has a page listing all the terms that have been used for contingent faculty: One of them is "uncompensated."

The union representing contingent faculty at the University of California has been fighting the uncompensated positions for years, said Mia McIver, the president of the union, which represents about 7,000 members. "The fact that it is common does not excuse it," she said.

The union suspects that the number of uncompensated teachers at the university is increasing, said Dr. McIver, who is also a lecturer in the U.C.L.A writing program. "As of March 2019, we had identified 26 faculty members at U.C.L.A. alone," she said.

In the California system, the trend seemed to have begun with the financial crisis of 2008, Dr. McIver said. By 2010, she said, "We became aware of people who had been laid off and who were teaching for free in the hopes, without any commitment from the university, that if the work came back they would be hired back to teach for pay."

The union won a settlement with the administration in 2016 requiring compensation for lecturers, who are mostly part-time and make up a majority of contingent faculty, Dr. McIver said. But while lecturers are now unionized, adjuncts are not, allowing the university to have adjunct positions known as "zero percent appointments," meaning that they are unpaid.

A spokesman for U.C.L.A., Steve Ritea, said that before the settlement, the people who taught for free were often full-time professionals with other income. He said he could not comment on the number of zero percent appointments without seeing the documents the union was relying on. But he said that a typical example of a zero percent adjunct is a tenured professor at another institution who has a formal affiliation with U.C.L.A. that might include mentoring students or serving on committees. Or someone who has moved to another university but wants to finish out a grant or a project.

The job posting "regrettably contained errors and a lack of context," he said, adding, "We always offer compensation for classroom teaching."

Even if someone takes a zero percent position willingly, the union sees it as a disincentive for the university to create more secure positions.

"From my perspective it doesn't matter whether someone had another job or another position, or is a retired professor who wanted to come back and teach, or a refugee scholar who needed a position, or a postdoc doing research who wanted or needed to teach," Dr. McIver said, rattling off possible justifications. "Ultimately, all of that doesn't matter because anyone who teaches at a university or any school, let alone the University of California, should be paid for their labor."

Liza Loza, a graduate student in molecular microbiology and microbial pathogenesis at Washington University, was excited to be asked to teach a discussion section about four years ago. She had to do a lot of preparation, spending hours reading very dense scientific papers and anticipating students' questions.

But she saw the job as her chance to make those discussions more hospitable to women and other students who had been shut out of the hard sciences. She remembered her own experience having professors who were so intimidating that she was afraid to speak, and she wanted to set a counterexample.

She was told that the job was unpaid because it was a professional development opportunity. She says the experience was valuable. "I did get a lot out of it on my C.V., but also personally, as something that I wanted to help make better about the program," she said.

Then last semester, in her third year of teaching the section, she found out by accident that graduate students in other departments were being paid $1,000 for the same work.

"That was for me a bright line," she said. "It just seemed sort of straightforwardly unfair once I figured that out."

She wonders if she was lulled into working for free by the culture of academia, which drills into everyone that they are lucky to be there. "It is a privilege," she said.

A spokeswoman for Washington University, Joni Westerhouse, said graduate students in Ms. Loza's department were required to have one "mentored teaching experience," for which they were paid through their stipend. She said they were not considered contingent faculty.

Ms. Loza said she continued to teach beyond the requirement, and was not compensated for it, while others were.

In an indication of how widespread the practice of free teaching may be, the Twitter posts reacting to the U.C.L.A. job posting included one from Caitlin DeAngelis, a historian. In 2018, while being paid to work as a research associate on a project about the historical connections between Harvard and slavery, she said that she voluntarily taught a course, called "Harvard and Slavery," normally taught by a tenured professor. She did so because she cared so deeply about the subject.

"The course was an extra responsibility added on (as a lectureship in the history department) that did not come with additional pay," she said in a text message.

On Twitter, she expressed some regrets about agreeing to teach without salary. "In retrospect," she wrote, "I shouldn't have done it for $0.00, but I wanted to get the info out to students."

Harvard confirmed that Dr. DeAngelis had an unpaid lectureship in the fall of 2018.

Linn Cary Mehta is a longtime lecturer at Barnard and says she has seen a devaluation, even though adjuncts often have similar credentials to tenured professors. "When I first started we were called instructor and then lecturer," she said. "The title changed to adjunct instructor, adjunct lecturer, almost aggressively, as if trying to put us in our place."

Dr. Mehta, who has a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Columbia, has spent a career as a part-time worker because she needed the flexibility to care for her husband. She said that unionization at Barnard had provided increased job security through multiyear contracts, and higher salaries per course.

Of the U.C.L.A. job posting, she said, "It's insulting."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/us/ucla-adjunct-professor-salary.html

[downer]

Why not just post the link?
The comments section provides entertainment too.
My favorite was from Margaret: Friends don't let friends get Ph.ds.

[mleok]

For what it's worth, it's rarely the case that such shenanigans are purely the consequence of stupid institution-specific HR rules, but rather union contracts, state or federal laws, or requirements for sponsorship of work permits or green cards.

I've mentioned union contracts before, and of all of those factors it's the single one where the people bothered by the stupid rules, e.g. faculty, are responsible for the rules being there in the first place, usually because they have tried to exercise rigid control over a situation which in reality requires a certain flexibility for normal operation.

The union regulations that would apply in UCLA's case are from the union for lecturers and contingent faculty. The University of California does not have a union for tenure-track and tenured faculty.

[mleok]

I'd just clarify that this is one of my main beefs with all unions; full-time, part-time, etc.- the attempt to rigidly define so many parameters of the employment situation in order to try and protect their own "turf". The two unions that represent my "day job" and my "side hustle" both do this. I don't have any affinity for one union or the other.

For what it's worth the postdoc union here prevented me from reappointing a current postdoc because I only had sufficient funds for a 6 month appointment, but the regulations required at least a 1 year appointment. This was supposed to "protect" the postdoc.

[Wahoo Redux]

We have worked at a non-union school and a union school.

We both greatly prefer the union school for all sorts of reasons.