Alliance Between TT and Adjunct Faculty That Benefits Both

[mahagonny]

What would it look like? Asking because I'm interested in what people think. The standard version, 'let's eliminate part time positions' does not look likely or even like it's seriously considered, in some cases. What else is there?
Or do tenure track faculty still think they don't need any allies? Maybe they don't.

[polly_mer]

The alliance I see that benefits all sides is between the professional fellows and the TT/T.  People who have long-standing professional interactions and a continued stake in the shared well being of the department are very likely to have shared goals on which the group can work.

The possibly revolving door of adjuncts who mainly cover service and general education courses don't share the same interests as faculty who mainly interact with majors, minors, and other students who are very interested in having a continuing relationship with faculty as the first step in a professional network.

We often talk about the adjunct situation in terms of the humanities and, to a lesser extent, the social sciences.  That's because the true adjuncts (i.e., separate, auxiliary, supplementary, not an essential part) aren't found in other parts of the university.  For example, physics and chemistry departments at research institutions commonly have contingent non-TT faculty who are full-time who are instructors of record for the big lecture intro sections and oversee the TA army for the lab sections.  Engineering tends to have many professional fellows along with the occasional VAP and non-TT, but full-time instructional support as well as TAs covering recitations and labs.

The 70% contingent figure often bandied about includes full-time non-TT as well as grad student TAs.  The AAUP put out a nice chart showing the breakdown of what percentage of overall courses are being taught by what category of faculty including TAs.  I see involuntary part-time armies being consolidated into far fewer full-time non-TT positions as much more likely than good part-time positions being shored up in the humanities.

Part of that prediction has to do with the changing landscape of US higher ed.

Of the 1,895,000 bachelor's degrees conferred in 2014–15, the greatest numbers of degrees were conferred in the fields of business (364,000), health professions and related programs (216,000), social sciences and history (167,000), psychology (118,000), biological and biomedical sciences (110,000), engineering (98,000), visual and performing arts (96,000), and education (92,000). At the master's degree level, the greatest numbers of degrees were conferred in the fields of business (185,000), education (147,000), and health professions and related programs (103,000). At the doctor's degree level, the greatest numbers of degrees were conferred in the fields of health professions and related programs (71,000), legal professions and studies (40,300), education (11,800), engineering (10,200), biological and biomedical sciences (8,100), psychology (6,600), and physical sciences and science technologies (5,800).

Source: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=37

The liberal arts education that relies heavily on the humanities is not the norm for many college-educated adults.  Any case that relies on how important the humanities are to general education is being edged out by the realities of what happens when the other professors sitting at the curriculum-discussion table are able to say, no, another disconnected humanities course is not nearly as useful as formal logic or intro to data use through statistics.  What general education has meant has changed dramatically since the early 1900s and I anticipate another big shift in the next 10 years or so.

[tuxthepenguin]

Or do tenure track faculty still think they don't need any allies? Maybe they don't.

This is a bizarre thing to add. Does that describe what some people think? Maybe, but that doesn't mean it makes sense. How is it beneficial to TT faculty for there to be an army of cheap replacements for you? As polly wrote, this is to a large extent a humanities thing, and I'm not in the humanities. If I were, I'd be doing what I could to increase the compensation of adjunct faculty (pushing for permanent positions, pushing for the elimination of unqualified instructors, helping them create a union, etc.) Students are getting ripped off by the current system.

[mahagonny]

Or do tenure track faculty still think they don't need any allies? Maybe they don't.

This is a bizarre thing to add. Does that describe what some people think? Maybe, but that doesn't mean it makes sense. How is it beneficial to TT faculty for there to be an army of cheap replacements for you? As polly wrote, this is to a large extent a humanities thing, and I'm not in the humanities. If I were, I'd be doing what I could to increase the compensation of adjunct faculty (pushing for permanent positions, pushing for the elimination of unqualified instructors, helping them create a union, etc.) Students are getting ripped off by the current system.

I agree with you. There isn't a real opportunity for mutual support.

[polly_mer]

What would it look like? Asking because I'm interested in what people think. The standard version, 'let's eliminate part time positions' does not look likely or even like it's seriously considered, in some cases. What else is there?
Or do tenure track faculty still think they don't need any allies? Maybe they don't.

For those who care about data and the broader prospective of the university, I will give this another shot.  The take-home message is the people who need allies to keep their full-time academic jobs are the folks in fields where the major programs are being cut nationally and the institution itself is in some trouble.

For example, https://www.aaup.org/news/data-snapshot-contingent-faculty-us-higher-ed#.XXzc4C2ZOi5 has a great set of graphics where one can see the rise in the part-time as one goes to lower research productivity.  R1s have graduate students and non-TT full-time faculty teaching in large numbers.  The associate's granting institutions have a huge part-time faculty.  It's true that the R1s have many contingent positions including graduate assistants, but R1s also have the highest percentage of multi-year/indefinite contracts for full-time non-TT whereas the associate's granting institutions tend to have a high percentage of annual contracts.

The humanities as a whole are doing quite well by some measures.  For example, https://humanitiesindicators.org/content/indicatordoc.aspx?i=485 shows all fields at the 4-year institutions as hiring more full-time faculty than left in the proceeding 2 years. However, that's not enough growth to provide full-time academic positions to those who want them and completely ignores the CC sector. 

I keep harping on the general education requirements as supporting adjuncts and yet the data are interesting. At 4-year institutions, about 3/4 of students in intro classes generally have an instructor of record with full-time faculty; non-intro-undergrad students are 86% taught by full-time faculty members as instructor of record (https://humanitiesindicators.org/content/indicatordoc.aspx?i=461).  Graduate courses at the 4-year institutions are taught almost all by full-time faculty (https://humanitiesindicators.org/content/indicatordoc.aspx?i=516), which makes me wonder about the discrepancy with the master's institutions for the AAUP data.

The individual people who need allies are in the programs that are being cut at the tiny SLACs. In 2011, https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201112/backpage.cfm appeared on the back page of A(merican)P(hysical)S(ociety) News to sound the alarm about how many small physics programs were at risk if number of graduates per year is a criterion for remaining open.  We're seeing those program closures now with physics, math, English, philosophy, history, and some languages tending to be the same programs being closed at small institutions everywhere. 

Some of the classes are kept for general education purposes, but the full-time faculty are generally not being replaced as they leave until the last qualified person leaves.  For those who are unfamiliar with how small some of these departments are, I give you Principia College (this is not Super Dinky, but is about the same size at about 500 students).  Clicking through majors (http://www.principiacollege.edu/majors) to see the faculty indicates:


8 art faculty including a visiting
4 English faculty
1 French professor and 1 visiting
1 history professor
3 mass communications faculty and 1 visiting
2 philosophy professors (both at the assistant level)
1 Spanish professor and 2 visiting

Art looks strong.  However, I am skeptical that some of the other majors are being completely delivered with only one or two full-time faculty members, especially if general education courses are offered by that department as well.

However, it's unclear to me how uniting with the part-time faculty members really help the full-time faculty members in those departments unless the part-time faculty members are doing targeted recruiting for the major and will bring in new students to the institutions as a whole.  Principia is a little unusual in being 100% one religion, but the basic distribution of faculty isn't unusual for an institution this size and is one reason why people are worried about this type of institution going under.

[apl68]

They offer three dozen majors for only 500 students.  With as few as one full-time faculty member in some departments.  That certainly does not look sustainable.

[mahagonny]

If I get time to look at Polly_Mer's data, I will. I doubt it will be an epiphany though.

My question is almost rhetorical. There is generally no alliance thought of or planned between these two segments of the workforce. Tenure track considers adjunct staffing unintentional, but the facts say otherwise. Meanwhile there's no way the garden variety part time faculty feels really welcome and secure in his role, despite having done everything available to have earned that modest advancement.
So the system is broken. That's my point.

[lightning]

It's the tenured faculty members who will be getting in administrator's faces about creating more full-time positions, instead of hiring adjuncts & paying for scoreboards, canoe trips, therapy dogs, etc. I just got into an admin's face last week about hiring more full-time faculty, instead of any army of adjuncts, and explaining the advantages. Of course, he said there's no money, the same BS they've been saying for the last decade.

[ciao_yall]

It's the tenured faculty members who will be getting in administrator's faces about creating more full-time positions, instead of hiring adjuncts & paying for scoreboards, canoe trips, therapy dogs, etc. I just got into an admin's face last week about hiring more full-time faculty, instead of any army of adjuncts, and explaining the advantages. Of course, he said there's no money, the same BS they've been saying for the last decade.

When there are no faculty and they have to turn away tuition-paying students, they will start listening.

[polly_mer]

It's the tenured faculty members who will be getting in administrator's faces about creating more full-time positions, instead of hiring adjuncts & paying for scoreboards, canoe trips, therapy dogs, etc. I just got into an admin's face last week about hiring more full-time faculty, instead of any army of adjuncts, and explaining the advantages. Of course, he said there's no money, the same BS they've been saying for the last decade.

When there are no faculty and they have to turn away tuition-paying students, they will start listening.

Where will that happen?  The tiny schools are already closing through lack of students and CCs are already understaffed for the students they have.

[polly_mer]

The AAUP has a report on the status of part-time faculty that might make for relevant reading for those who are more narrative-driven and less data-interested.

A recurring theme in that report is

The categorization we have offered is based largely on the part-time faculty member's own commitment. The subcommittee believes that, when a faculty member's primary commitment is to an institution, the institution should make a corresponding commit­ment, particularly in terms of security of employment and of financial compensation. The difficulties arise in determining the specific circumstances in which the commitment by the university should arise and what form it should take.

Meanwhile there's no way the garden variety part time faculty feels really welcome and secure in his role, despite having done everything available to have earned that modest advancement.

Why should the TT people be trying to make the garden variety, part-time faculty feel secure in that role if the faculty member is not investing in the department/program/institution for whatever reason?

Again, I go back to the professional fellow system because that's where I've seen full-time and part-time faculty work well together because they do have similar goals and investment in the program, even if not at exactly the same level.

The part-time faculty get the benefit of working with very early career folks either at professional undergrad or grad level.  Being able to access the pool of upcoming professionals and have a step up in the network is very useful, especially for the professions where the formal education is only the beginning of having excellent colleagues.  Helping guide the curriculum as the world changes and normal professional practice is modified by newly available technology helps keep the formal education in-line with professional expectations.

The students benefit because they are often offered internships, co-ops, or other extra mentoring activities to help them develop into competent professionals outside the classroom by virtue of the relationship between the department and other employers.  Having a handful of required classes taught by the currently practicing professionals ensures that students are getting a good mix of theory and practice.  Having regular discussions with practicing professionals reinforces the need to go beyond each class in isolation to have a true education, not just accumulated credits.  The consistent reinforcement of how important a professional network is and the opportunities to be building that network while in college helps make a strong program that places students into good next steps, even if the degree itself is secondary to the next steps.  For example, good BS engineering graduates often choose a career outside of engineering because they can do far more than just the formal education in engineering, if they took advantage of the extra networking opportunities.

The full-time faculty benefit from having reinforcement of how the formal curriculum interacts with practice to build depth in the aspiring professionals.  Students often come back from internships either excited to learn more and ready to tackle harder problems or knowing that they as individuals need to change to something else because this field is not what they expected (very common in engineering and K-12 education programs).  In addition, full-time faculty can sometimes fill important gaps in the curriculum with well-chosen part-time faculty expertise instead of trying to figure out how to make several disparate classes into a full-time load that will convince an administrator to give another full-time line.

In those circumstances, someone who comes to campus only to teach classes and has minimal interactions with students outside of the classroom is not nearly as valuable to the full-time faculty as someone who negotiates for a higher pay rate for the extra work or is essentially a volunteer working for well under the professional rate while performing pro-rated duties outside the classroom.  Someone who has several income streams related to working in the field is more valuable to students as a role model/mentor than someone who has pieced together 2-3 part-time academic jobs to make full-time academic employment in terms of course load without the accompanying extra duties related to advising, curriculum development, and general faculty governance of the program/department/college.

The AAUP recognizes the distinctions along the part-time faculty spectrum, although they refuse to give illustrative names, as level of commitment by individuals for their own reasons.

[fast_and_bulbous]

The AAUP has a report on the status of part-time faculty that might make for relevant reading for those who are more narrative-driven and less data-interested.

That document was written 40 years ago!

This page has more modern statements from the AAUP concerning contingent faculty:

https://www.aaup.org/issues/contingent-faculty-positions/resources-contingent-positions

[mahagonny]

The AAUP has a report on the status of part-time faculty that might make for relevant reading for those who are more narrative-driven and less data-interested.

A recurring theme in that report is

The categorization we have offered is based largely on the part-time faculty member's own commitment. The subcommittee believes that, when a faculty member's primary commitment is to an institution, the institution should make a corresponding commit­ment, particularly in terms of security of employment and of financial compensation. The difficulties arise in determining the specific circumstances in which the commitment by the university should arise and what form it should take.

Meanwhile there's no way the garden variety part time faculty feels really welcome and secure in his role, despite having done everything available to have earned that modest advancement.

Why should the TT people be trying to make the garden variety, part-time faculty feel secure in that role if the faculty member is not investing in the department/program/institution for whatever reason?

Well, a little perspective helps.

1. He is nevertheless doing everything he is paid for and that appears on his contract, you handed him the contract, and there's no reason you are entitled to charity from strangers.

2. you gave him a five minute interview, you barely know him, and you're already calling him 'warm body' because you fully expect the presence of people you've looked around for, and you've hired that you need to refer to as 'warm bodies.'

3. He has limited time available. Again, for the third time, this was your idea, because you advised him to maintain full time outside employment.

[polly_mer]

The AAUP has a report on the status of part-time faculty that might make for relevant reading for those who are more narrative-driven and less data-interested.

That document was written 40 years ago!

Yes, and yet somehow that statement made almost no difference in what happened to the part-time faculty, did it?  That statement clearly laid out how part-time folks who'd rather be full-time folks should be integrated into departments and yet here we are.

That document indicates it's been at least forty years since anyone can really say, oh, I didn't know that a significant fraction of part-time folks would rather be full-time: 30% is a non-negligible number.

That document indicates it's been at least forty years since anyone could credibly say, I started my graduate work and had no idea that many people with this degree in this field end up as involuntarily part-time if they want to stay in academia.

[polly_mer]

So, Mahagonny, make the case for why the full-time folks benefit from having garden-variety, part-time folks who only teach classes.

I can make a case for why TT/T folks benefit from having full-time folks do the intro classes at a research university, which frees up TT/T folks to do research and teach upper-division classes for majors confident that the students have a solid background.  Having enough full-time folks with a variety of duties also allows the department to function as each tenured person takes a sabbatical and a full-time person or two rotates duties to cover the classes and advising load.

I can make a case for why TT/T folks in certain fields benefit from having specific part-time folks who are willing to each teach a really specialized class once per year without much other involvement because that's good for the students and then the TT/T folks don't have to flip a coin for who will teach a required class that would require a lot of prep for them.

I am at a loss as to how TT/T folks benefit from part-time faculty who are cheaper per class and do none of the additional faculty duties where the choices have rapidly become far too much university/departmental service per full-time faculty member or ceding many of those duties to hired-for-the-purpose administrators.

If we're paying people to do administrative tasks or particular service tasks that don't require a PhD in a specific field, then we're likely going to just hire full-time administrators who will tackle the tasks with more interest than part-time faculty member who probably want to teach and do research over these boring tasks almost never cited as being the reason someone wants to be faculty.