The Cruelty of the Adjunct System by Alexandra Bradner

[Hibush]

Different pots of money always made me angry.

The pants that re the university do indeed have many pockets. However, in the end it is just one pair of pants.

It is a shame this misconception causes so much unproductive anger. But is sure does. I have  six different pots of money to run just my little faculty program. Each expense is tied to a specific pot, they are never interchangeable. Putting together all those pots into a coherent program (and one that keeps acquring new pots) is just one of the responsibilities of being a professor. Even more so for a university.

[Caracal]

Different pots of money always made me angry.

The pants that re the university do indeed have many pockets. However, in the end it is just one pair of pants.

It is a shame this misconception causes so much unproductive anger. But is sure does. I have  six different pots of money to run just my little faculty program. Each expense is tied to a specific pot, they are never interchangeable. Putting together all those pots into a coherent program (and one that keeps acquring new pots) is just one of the responsibilities of being a professor. Even more so for a university.

You can't reallocate your pots of money around. Heck, the chancellor or president might not be able to move all the money around. But, the money hasn't been placed in these pots by a divine power. It's a series of choices that actual people have made and continue to make  about how to run higher education and it is obviously possible to make different choices.

[jimbogumbo]

Different pots of money always made me angry.

The pants that re the university do indeed have many pockets. However, in the end it is just one pair of pants.

It is a shame this misconception causes so much unproductive anger. But is sure does. I have  six different pots of money to run just my little faculty program. Each expense is tied to a specific pot, they are never interchangeable. Putting together all those pots into a coherent program (and one that keeps acquring new pots) is just one of the responsibilities of being a professor. Even more so for a university.

I'm well aware. However these pots are already combined into a big salaries pot for instruction. A small part of the salaries pot is treated differently.

[Hibush]

Different pots of money always made me angry.

The pants that re the university do indeed have many pockets. However, in the end it is just one pair of pants.

It is a shame this misconception causes so much unproductive anger. But is sure does. I have  six different pots of money to run just my little faculty program. Each expense is tied to a specific pot, they are never interchangeable. Putting together all those pots into a coherent program (and one that keeps acquring new pots) is just one of the responsibilities of being a professor. Even more so for a university.

You can't reallocate your pots of money around. Heck, the chancellor or president might not be able to move all the money around. But, the money hasn't been placed in these pots by a divine power. It's a series of choices that actual people have made and continue to make  about how to run higher education and it is obviously possible to make different choices.

In my case, each pot is indeed the result of a series of choices, choices to give me money for the reasons that I chose to give. What I've seen of the institutional budget, it is pretty similar. There is not one big pot of salary money for instruction, for instance.

To make substantive chances, the choice would be for the school to ask those who control the source of revenue for different things. Not so much changing current commitments. Revenue sources include students, parents, donors, many deparetments at the State, many branches of the Federal goverment, foundations, and contracting companies. My institution is pretty good at doing that to keep up with needs and opportunities, but some desirable expensive things just don't have a lot of people who would want to pay for it. 

[marshwiggle]

I don't think deans or university presidents are making judgments about the worth of different faculty in any higher sense. They just do what they need to do to get by, to keep their schools going.

As far as I know, there's no evidence that full time faculty do a better job teaching the gen ed courses than the adjunct faculty. This also speaks to problems with the effort put in by FT faculty if they can't be demonstrably better then the PT faculty teaching 7 courses at 3 different places. As things stand, that provides no incentive for admin to have a higher proportion of FT faculty.

Everyone knows stories of tenured professors who checked out a long time ago and do no research, and little to no service. They may even teach from their stone tablets produced the first time they taught each course. (And yes, post-tenure review may have the incredible cost of no bonus pay, or no further "promotion" opportunities (the horror!!!).)

All arguments about full-time employment being better for the health of the institution are blown out of the water by the presence of those people.

[mahagonny]

I don't think deans or university presidents are making judgments about the worth of different faculty in any higher sense. They just do what they need to do to get by, to keep their schools going.

As far as I know, there's no evidence that full time faculty do a better job teaching the gen ed courses than the adjunct faculty. This also speaks to problems with the effort put in by FT faculty if they can't be demonstrably better then the PT faculty teaching 7 courses at 3 different places. As things stand, that provides no incentive for admin to have a higher proportion of FT faculty.

Everyone knows stories of tenured professors who checked out a long time ago and do no research, and little to no service. They may even teach from their stone tablets produced the first time they taught each course. (And yes, post-tenure review may have the incredible cost of no bonus pay, or no further "promotion" opportunities (the horror!!!).)

All arguments about full-time employment being better for the health of the institution are blown out of the water by the presence of those people.

There's another possible explanation. That being that the slippage in learning outcomes caused by using overworked, stressed out part timers (also living in fear of negative evaluations from students) means
that standards of rigor get watered down. The effect is then accepted by the permament faculty
& administration as the priority is to push lackluster students taking dumbed-down courses on to graduation rather than having a shortage of enrollment.

[Ruralguy]

There's often *some* slippage, and probably much more common in some places than others. But its not just overworked part-timers, its everybody but a few curmudgeons who don't care if their last few experiences in the classroom are in front of two people who fall asleep all class. You can't fail everybody, and probably in some places, you can't fail anybody.

[rth253]

I looked at the author's CV (https://kenyon.academia.edu/AlexandraBradner/CurriculumVitae). It appears, hidden in there, that she likely had a TT job at one point shortly after she earned her PhD ("Assistant professor, Denison University, 2005-12"). I wonder what happened there--the 7 year period suggests a possible unsuccessful tenure bid and terminal year.