Punished Or Cut Back on Hours For Working at Multiple Colleges?

[mahagonny]

Yes, you don't like the starkness of "warm body on the academic death march" as a description.  I don't like reading all the first-person narratives where it's clear too many people are in that category who claim no one ever told them how bad it would be. I am that person telling people at great volume in the starkest terms how bad it can be in the hopes that fewer people end up in that category.

I don't believe you. You and your kool aid stand are here talking about part time faculty among your former peers, tenured and administration, in a way that makes you feel swell about yourself while keeping the second tier 'down where they belong'. You are not going to be seen as a friend or advisor to the adjunct. Few things could be more implausible, given your hostility to unions, the put-downs, the assaulting of adjunct faculty boards with relentless walls of text, etc.

How does encouraging people to get out of a situation serve to keep them  'down where they belong'???

It does when you are the one that creates the job and then hires someone to fill it. They're encouraging someone to get out of the situation? They are the situation.

We don't have to agree, but I am quite certain people like Polly_Mer are not going to be, have never been seen as the friend by adjunct faculty. That's one reason why we have unions. You and me.

[marshwiggle]

How does encouraging people to get out of a situation serve to keep them  'down where they belong'???

It does when you are the one that creates the job and then hires someone to fill it.

Except that the people "creating jobs" and "hiring" are rarely the people establishing the budget in the first place. Allocating funds is done much higher up the food chain, so those doing the hiring aren't in control of what to pay in many (most?) cases.

We don't have to agree, but I am quite certain people like Polly_Mer are not going to be seen as the friend of the adjunct, and don't expect to be. That's one reason why we have unions. You and me.

My impression is that you see very few "friends" of the adjunct. Administrators are bad. Tenured faculty are bad. Part-time faculty who don't like unions are bad. Not a lot of potential friends left.

[mahagonny]

How does encouraging people to get out of a situation serve to keep them  'down where they belong'???

It does when you are the one that creates the job and then hires someone to fill it.

Except that the people "creating jobs" and "hiring" are rarely the people establishing the budget in the first place. Allocating funds is done much higher up the food chain, so those doing the hiring aren't in control of what to pay in many (most?) cases.

We don't have to agree, but I am quite certain people like Polly_Mer are not going to be seen as the friend of the adjunct, and don't expect to be. That's one reason why we have unions. You and me.

My impression is that you see very few "friends" of the adjunct. Administrators are bad. Tenured faculty are bad. Part-time faculty who don't like unions are bad. Not a lot of potential friends left.

Oh, it's always open season on administrators. Tenured faculty do the most complaining about presidents, provosts, extra provosts, extra deans, et al. And unlike us, they can fuck them up too. 'No confidence' votes and such.
As I've said before, votes for adjunct unionizing are usually 'yes' and frequently by a landslide. Yes, plenty of friends around.

[mahagonny]

More about this:

My impression is that you see very few "friends" of the adjunct. Administrators are bad. Tenured faculty are bad. Part-time faculty who don't like unions are bad. Not a lot of potential friends left.

Tenured people being bad people, when encountered one-on-one is not usually my impression, though if they are inclined to be vindictive toward an adjunct, as happens occasionally, there's very little restraining them. Tenured people as a group being no friend to the adjunct as a group is an undeniable fact of my years of experience, and there is no way anyone with my experience could have concluded otherwise. First, shut out of their union, then important misstatements of fact about us that appear in their union agreements, then their flat refusal to lend even a modicum of spoken support for us when we finally did organize, then the icing on the cake: not just not being a friend, but being a proactive enemy with active attempts to cripple our leadership through discontinuing of contracts. I'm sorry if I have to keep doing SPADFY on this forum to readers with tenure who report having helped adjunct faculty get gains, but everything I've reported has happened and I've been here muddling through it, with many colleagues understanding the lay of the land as I do.
Furthermore, I have no reason to believe this experience is unusual through any information presented here. Anyone who wants to talk about union organizing and progress achieved thereby will be met with a prolonged chilly reception. It's especially comical given recent conversations about the forum wanting more participants.

Polly_Mer, notice, no one else is making up derisive nicknames for a category of faculty. Glowdart is not. Scout is not. You are doing something weird.

Several people have also used the term "freeway flier", which may be another term which you see as derisive. To me, it just reflects the situation frequently described where people are teaching at several different places, often with (by their own admission) long commutes which is the basis for the term.

The new forum says 'we need more contributors' but on the old forum, one long term poster wrote 'we do not need more freeway fliers contributing to the forum.' I'm not going to tell you who. Maybe you can figure it out.

[downer]

Is there some secret location on the internet where adjunct faculty do actually talk with each other?

I suspect not. I certainly haven't seen a place. I'm not sure why there is no such place, but I entertain a few hypotheses.

It would be great if there were such a place.

[mahagonny]

Is there some secret location on the internet where adjunct faculty do actually talk with each other?

I suspect not. I certainly haven't seen a place. I'm not sure why there is no such place, but I entertain a few hypotheses.

It would be great if there were such a place.

The only thing secret on the 'net is, just maybe, who you really are. In real life, discussions among adjuncts are productive, and obviously, only a real horse's ass would try to crash the party. Unfortunately, there are 9.2 million horses in the USA alone.

[polly_mer]

Is there some secret location on the internet where adjunct faculty do actually talk with each other?

I suspect not. I certainly haven't seen a place. I'm not sure why there is no such place, but I entertain a few hypotheses.

It would be great if there were such a place.

I have started a thread: https://thefora.org/index.php?topic=543.0 for such a discussion.  I agree to not post anything further to that thread so that the thread can function as a support group.

Out in other parts of the internet:

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Adjuncts/

Adjunct Nation: https://www.adjunctnation.com

New Faculty Majority: http://www.newfacultymajority.info

The CHE ChronicleVitae/Adjunct Life: https://chroniclevitae.com/groups/adjunct-life?cid=VTXGROUP_GROUP_BY_TOPIC was a place, but it seems dormant now

Twitter brings up many entries for #adjunct #adjunctlife #adjunctprofessor

The American Association of Adjunct Education: http://adjuncteducation.weebly.com has newsletters that might help make more contact.

[polly_mer]

The title of this thread is Punished or Cut Back on Hours for Working at Multiple Colleges. 

Let's do a different take by looking at two adjuncts: Alex and Dana.  Both have MFAs in creative writing from comparable programs. 

Alex publishes about a novel per year for a solid income stream, but far from enough to give up all other income streams.

Dana publishes online and has placed some articles with good magazines for a steady income stream, but is also far from being able to give up all other income streams.

Several years ago, Administrator P ran an ad for creative writing adjuncts to build local authors into the creative writing program.  Alex was hired as one of the several authors in the cluster due to Alex's ongoing productivity in publishing a novel a year.  Dana applied, but wasn't in the top several applicants, but Dana's materials remain on file because Dana is a publishing author who has an MFA from a good program.

The contract with Alex is year-to-year for 2 sections each term with the agreement that Alex's name and likeness can be used to promote the program. Alex gets paid $4000 per section (full parity for teaching duties) and has an agreed upon cap of 20 students so that Alex can provide good feedback to the students and yet has plenty of time and energy left to continue writing novels.  About once every two years, Dana gets a call about a week before classes start with "could you pick up a section for us for the upcoming term?  We've got about 30 students already enrolled and we'll bump the rate to $2500 over the standard $1800 for being last-minute at a full cap." 

One fine day, Administrator P is doing some local market research on comparable programs and sees that Alex is also teaching 1-2 sections at two other institutions for a total load of about 5 sections every term.  That's a full-time load by assembling together three part-time jobs.  Because Alex is listed by name on all the courses and has a picture on all the websites, every institution is trading on Alex's name and likeness.  In contrast, Dana might be teaching at all those same places, but Dana's name never goes on the class schedule and Dana has no presence on any institution's webpage.

Administrator P is then concerned because, while students haven't complained about Alex's teaching, people's time and energy is limited and scaling back on feedback to students is one common way that professors make room for their own writing.  In addition, the 20-student cap on Alex's sections haven't been reached for several terms while some of the "staff" sections have filled at 30.  Administrator P had been chalking up that discrepancy to time slot, but perhaps Alex isn't nearly as good a draw now that Alex is teaching several places with Administrator P's institution being the most expensive to students.

Administrator P calls a meeting with Alex to gather information.  Alex seems taken aback by the questions of what Alex is doing with all of Alex's work time because Alex doesn't consider Administrator P's institution as a primary employer, but is instead one income stream among many.  Administrator P is not happy because Administrator P hired an author who would do a little excellent teaching special for just Administrator P's students.  That's why Alex got a much better, ongoing deal at more than double the standard rate for a lower cap. 

Administrator P then give serious consideration to giving Alex one 20-person section at the $4000 rate per year so that Alex's name and likeness stay on the website, but Administrator P is paying in better accord with what the program is getting from the relationship.  If more sections fill, then Dana or the next name on the warm body list can be called and offered less money for equally good quality of teaching based on student feedback and observations.

[downer]

Is there some secret location on the internet where adjunct faculty do actually talk with each other?

I suspect not. I certainly haven't seen a place. I'm not sure why there is no such place, but I entertain a few hypotheses.

It would be great if there were such a place.

I have started a thread: https://thefora.org/index.php?topic=543.0 for such a discussion.  I agree to not post anything further to that thread so that the thread can function as a support group.

Out in other parts of the internet:

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Adjuncts/

Adjunct Nation: https://www.adjunctnation.com

New Faculty Majority: http://www.newfacultymajority.info

The CHE ChronicleVitae/Adjunct Life: https://chroniclevitae.com/groups/adjunct-life?cid=VTXGROUP_GROUP_BY_TOPIC was a place, but it seems dormant now

Twitter brings up many entries for #adjunct #adjunctlife #adjunctprofessor

The American Association of Adjunct Education: http://adjuncteducation.weebly.com has newsletters that might help make more contact.

Thanks. Not all of those have spaces for discussion.

Reddit has discussion, and seems like the main place there would be among adjuncts. I've gone this far in life without ever posting to Reddit. I may have looked at their Adjunct group before. It's not a very active forum there, surprisingly. I don't see much sense of community there. Lots of angst of course. 600+ members of the group. It's not a lot really.

[tuxthepenguin]

Is there some secret location on the internet where adjunct faculty do actually talk with each other?

When you say "actually talk with each other", does that mean actual conversations about actual topics, or is it just a steady stream of complaints about how tenure track faculty are the enemy, how administrators are the enemy, and how students live better than them?

I feel bad for anyone trying to live off the salary of a low-paid adjunct...but the constant complaining inserted into every discussion gets tiring in a hurry. Maybe it's hard to find a place to talk because nobody finds it interesting.

[downer]

Is there some secret location on the internet where adjunct faculty do actually talk with each other?

When you say "actually talk with each other", does that mean actual conversations about actual topics, or is it just a steady stream of complaints about how tenure track faculty are the enemy, how administrators are the enemy, and how students live better than them?

I feel bad for anyone trying to live off the salary of a low-paid adjunct...but the constant complaining inserted into every discussion gets tiring in a hurry. Maybe it's hard to find a place to talk because nobody finds it interesting.

"I wish to register a complaint!" Again and again.

You might like this blog post: https://www.adjunctnation.com/2011/09/12/if-youre-complaining-maybe-its-time-for-a-new-job-2/

Personally, I'm looking for an adjunct pride discussion. Sort of an analogy with Mad Pride.

[mahagonny]

The contract with Alex is year-to-year for 2 sections each term with the agreement that Alex's name and likeness can be used to promote the program. Alex gets paid $4000 per section (full parity for teaching duties) and has an agreed upon cap of 20 students so that Alex can provide good feedback to the students and yet has plenty of time and energy left to continue writing novels.   [corrected to] Alex gets paid more and has a smaller cap because that's what Administrator P calculates he will need to offer to get Alex's interest. [end correction] About once every two years, Dana gets a call about a week before classes start with "could you pick up a section for us for the upcoming term?  We've got about 30 students already enrolled and we'll bump the rate to $2500 over the standard $1800 for being last-minute at a full cap." 

You guys are always making it sound like you're thinking of someone else's needs.

Administrator P is then concerned because, while students haven't complained about Alex's teaching, people's time and energy is limited and scaling back on feedback to students is one common way that professors make room for their own writing.

...which Administrator P expected would happen all along, but the students would put up with it because, who would they be complaining about it to, anyway? Administrator P, who doesn't care all that much.

Personally, I'm looking for an adjunct pride discussion. Sort of an analogy with Mad Pride.

There is plenty of adjunct pride around. What there isn't much of is admiration and gratitude to the tenure track and administration, which they try to use against you and make the discussion about you, alleging depression, false consciousness, propensity to complain in general, etc.

[FishProf]

So, here's an answer to the original thread question.

In my state, there was an attempt to treat working at multiple state institutions (at all levels - CC through Flagship) as if they were all one employer, as the pay ultimately came from the State coffers.  That would have meant that an adjunct could teach at an essentially unlimited number of private institutions, but teaching at more that one public institution would be prohibited b/c the adjunct would very quickly hit the teaching cap.

That was ultimately DOA b/c of the work of our (FT and Adjunct) union.  Why?  Primarily b/c it would hurt adjuncts.

[downer]

So, here's an answer to the original thread question.

In my state, there was an attempt to treat working at multiple state institutions (at all levels - CC through Flagship) as if they were all one employer, as the pay ultimately came from the State coffers.  That would have meant that an adjunct could teach at an essentially unlimited number of private institutions, but teaching at more that one public institution would be prohibited b/c the adjunct would very quickly hit the teaching cap.

That was ultimately DOA b/c of the work of our (FT and Adjunct) union.  Why?  Primarily b/c it would hurt adjuncts.

So who proposed the policy in the first place? And who endorsed it?

[FishProf]

So, here's an answer to the original thread question.

In my state, there was an attempt to treat working at multiple state institutions (at all levels - CC through Flagship) as if they were all one employer, as the pay ultimately came from the State coffers.  That would have meant that an adjunct could teach at an essentially unlimited number of private institutions, but teaching at more that one public institution would be prohibited b/c the adjunct would very quickly hit the teaching cap.

That was ultimately DOA b/c of the work of our (FT and Adjunct) union.  Why?  Primarily b/c it would hurt adjuncts.

So who proposed the policy in the first place? And who endorsed it?

State Level bean-counters.  It was a sidestep of ACA eligibility calculations (or so we were told).