Do You Personally Know Your Adjunct Colleagues?

[OneMoreYear]

We had 3 adjuncts last year who are full-time practitioners in the field and who teach 1 class per year for us in their area of expertise.  I know them all, though not well. We may have a few more adjuncts this year due to an unexpected retirement.  None of our adjuncts attend meetings or are expected to do service; as far as I know none of them are interested in full-time academic employment, as they are established professionals and transitioning to academia would likely would be a significant pay cut, given their current positions. They are certainly respected members of our faculty, as they bring expertise in important specialty topics that we do not have within the core faculty.

[lightning]

We have basically no adjuncts, aside from a few postdocs and other staff with PhDs who teach a class now and then. I usually know them.

Instead we mostly have full time or half time (their choice- usually as a phased retirement path) NTT faculty, who are treated as equal colleagues in every way, just with a different job description than us T/TT folks. We are a relatively small department and all know each other pretty well.

My unit is the same, employing almost no adjuncts. However, I personally got to know what very few adjuncts my unit has employed. The few adjuncts that we have hired were usually people with full-time jobs in the private sector. They were great colleagues.

[Caracal]

I'm an adjunct and have been teaching at the same place for more than 5 years. I teach a full load and I have an office so my situation is different from that of some people. Mostly, who I know has to do with where people are in the building. There are two people on my floor I'd consider friends, one of whom is across the corridor from me. I say hi and occasionally chat to a few of the other people who have offices near me. There are people who have offices on other floors of the building who I have never even seen, much less met. The only adjuncts I know are ones who I shared an office with and whom I would occasionally see as I was leaving and they were coming in.

[little bongo]

Seems consistent with my years as an adjunct. We got to know department adjuncts at our school fairly well, but we're not using them now--part of the whole "dire financial straits" thing.

[ergative]

This is several years old, but it seems relevant.

[secundem_artem]

Between programmatic growth and the usual faculty turnover, I don't even personally know all the TT/permanent faculty members in my college.  At the dept level, we have no adjuncts in my dept.

[Ruralguy]

Yes, admittedly, though I know some adjuncts, I don't *really* know all of the tenure track faculty. At this point, some of the youngest new faculty are 30 years my junior, so we aren't exactly running in the same circles, though because I had my kid relatively late, I can talk young-ish kid stuff with some of the younger faculty who have them. I am friendly with the others as well, but at some point the decades difference settles in, plus I have been in positions of semi-authority (policy committee chair, T&P member, etc.), so its hard to get past that wall much.

[larryc]

I've always known our adjuncts, who are invited to Happy Hour. We only have one campus adjunct anymore, though, as our majors have dropped off and my colleagues stubbornly work past retirement age. We did recently start an online program that uses three adjunct faculty, but I don't know them that well.

[Mobius]

I know a few in our department who teach on campus. I don't know the ones who teach remotely, but that will change with my new role.

[Harlow2]

The adjuncts who teach single courses generally teach at night or online, so I don't know them. I do know and talk to 2 from other departments with offices across from mine. Where I adjuncted during grad school we all knew each other, but nothing was online then. I benefitted hugely from their expertise and advice.

[Antiphon1]

Sure do.  As the only instructor in the discipline in our department, I hire the adjuncts.  So, yes, they and I are pretty well acquainted.

[dinomom]

I am in a department that is run more than 50% on adjunct labor. I know some of the long-serving adjuncts very well, although others not as well (some have been working at the institution since the mid-90s - they have a long history and knowledge of the place, much longer than I, but these people have tended to keep their heads down and don't attend social functions).

[kaysixteen]

But are they invited to those social functions?

[Caracal]

But are they invited to those social functions?

I'm certainly always invited to social stuff. I rarely go. Do full time faculty members go to department parties because they love the chance to get together with their colleagues? Not the ones I know? They might enjoy getting together with a colleague they are friends with, but the events aren't usually something anyone looks forward to that much. Like any obligation, I'm sure people sometimes have a good time once they are there, but they go because they feel obligated to.

I'm not obligated, these things never sound like much fun, so I don't go.

[downer]

What are departmental social functions? I don't think many places have such things. There are meetings and some official occasions. But a beginning of the semester gathering or even a dinner after a visiting speaker's talk. These things seem pretty rare these days. Even meeting for a drink at a local bar seems like something people don't do much these days.