Adjunct limits

[hester]

Should adjuncts be capped at two(2) courses per term at each institution?  When does a lecturer become ineffective or burnt-out?

This is for onground courses.

I know faculty that teach at 3-4 different colleges per term and carry 1-3 courses per institution. How much is too much?

Thanks

 

[fishbrains]

If adjuncts can't eat, they can't teach. Let 'em do what they gotta do if we can't/won't fix the system.

[dismalist]

The question is not well formulated, so I didn't vote. I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly.

--If an adjunct is trying to make a living adjuncting, and doing nothing else, 4-5 courses per semester total at several institutions, three semesters per year, are fine.

--If an adjunct has a real job, one course per semester, three semesters per year, is optimal, though I suppose two can be done without too much degradation of quality.

[downer]

It's going to vary for each individual.
Someone new should probably not do more than 2 new preps per semester. It's a lot of work when you start out.
Someone long in the tooth with much practice could probably easily manage 12 courses a semester.
Then as old age creeps in, people find it harder to cope with a lot of work, especially when there's new tech involved.
It's not clear whose point of view you are asking from. A dept chair can't regulate how many courses adjuncts teach elsewhere.
From an adjunct's personal self-interest, you should do something else if you are doing it for the money alone. From an intellectual point of view of staying fresh, it's all very variable.

[Hibush]

One?

[jerseyjay]

Should adjuncts be capped at two(2) courses per term at each institution?  When does a lecturer become ineffective or burnt-out?

At all the schools I've taught, the caps on part-time teaching have nothing to do with burn out or effectiveness. Rather, it has to do with either (a) making sure that full-timers are not replaced with part-timers or (b) making sure that the school does not become liable for benefits and tenure protection.

Regarding (a): if a full-time load is three courses, hiring a part-timer to teach three courses means that in essence the school's hired a full-timer at a fraction of the cost. Thus many union contracts have a limit.

Regarding (b): I have heard stories at my current school of an adjunct getting two courses in one department and two courses in another department, and then being able to claim full-time benefits. Thus my administration limits the total number of credits taught by an adjunct per year at 12 (four courses).

Personally I do not think it is really the business of a school to ask about how much outside work a part-time professor does, especially when paying essentially poverty wages. The most I ever taught was three courses at one school (Tuesday and Thursday) and two courses at another (Monday and Wednesday) plus two asynchronous online course. That's a lot of work, but I essentially only had two preps because I taught multiple sections of each course at each school.

I would not recommend that many. As I got older and had other responsibilities and interests it became nonviable, not to mention that there is always the possibility of a course or two being cut.

But, to be honest, having been a professional adjunct for a decade, I would not suggest that most people do it for more than a transitional year or two at the most.

[Wahoo Redux]

Lots of peeps teach 5/5.  I've done that.  It is a load but it is doable.

Any more than five classes and you are treading water just trying to keep from drowning. 

[sinenomine]

My institution limits adjuncts to six courses a year.

[Parasaurolophus]

One?

Yeah, ideally, that seems right to me, too. But I'd also want a strict limit on the number of adjuncts a department could hire. Because if you have enough courses to amount to a full or nearly full load at that institution, they should go to either a VAP (if they're temporarily available) or a TT hire (if they're always available).

[downer]

It would be great if that happened. World peace would be great too. Both seem about as likely to happen.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I'd say no more than 2-4, but if a department offers more I can't really blame people for taking them.

[dismalist]

The high variation of opinion expressed in the posts surprised me. I did vote just now to get a numeric sense of opinion. I was pleased to learn that about half the respondents said 5 - 7 courses per term. While I think six or seven is too much, my maximum of five lands right in there with most others.

The difference of opinion is likely caused by different objectives. My objective when determining that number is to maintain teaching quality for students.

I wonder what those deciding outside the 5-7 range have as objectives.

[Caracal]

From an adjunct's personal self-interest, you should do something else if you are doing it for the money alone.

I teach four courses most semesters. If the money didn't matter, I would teach two. If I get to the point where I need to do more than four for the money, I'll go get a different job.

[marshwiggle]

I wonder what those deciding outside the 5-7 range have as objectives.

As Downer said:

Someone new should probably not do more than 2 new preps per semester. It's a lot of work when you start out.
Someone long in the tooth with much practice could probably easily manage 12 courses a semester.

My rule is that creating from scratch takes about 4x as long for prep as something familiar.

[Hibush]

One?

Yeah, ideally, that seems right to me, too. But I'd also want a strict limit on the number of adjuncts a department could hire. Because if you have enough courses to amount to a full or nearly full load at that institution, they should go to either a VAP (if they're temporarily available) or a TT hire (if they're always available).

That is what I was getting at. If someone is teaching a number of intro courses that the TT faculty don't want to teach, then it can make sense to cover those with an NTT lecturer. But that should be filled with a relatively permanent NTT lecturer who is paid a competitive salary (at my school, intro-bio lecturers are non-TT on a three year renewable contract and earn $70-$100K depending on rank and time in service.) If there is continuous demand for the course, it is not ethical to fill it with underpaid temps.