Alliance Between TT and Adjunct Faculty That Benefits Both

[marshwiggle]

May not "need" a union, but would benefit.  Why else would my faculty unions exist?  We meet all your criteria , and have tenure, yet decided to unionize.  The fact is that we have better bargaining power as a unit than individuals.

That's not entirely true.  As Polly pointed out:

You don't need a union if most of the workers are actually hard to replace because:

a) specific skills are needed that cannot be acquired by most humans of average intelligence in weeks/months. 

The most highly skilled and hard to replace workers don't need a union. The institution needs them and so they have bargaining power. Unions benefit the most easily replaceable workers most of all.  A union basically protects the most vulnerable workers at some expense to the most irreplaceable ones.

During a staff strike here, who do the union point to as evidence that "students are suffering"? Clerical workers? Nope- Lab instructors who are typically almost as qualified as faculty, and in fact some actually have PhDs. The leverage the union has mostly comes from the highly skilled workers, who could therefore negotiate well independently.

[tuxthepenguin]

Tenured faculty don't want adjuncts

mahagonny doesn't understand the distinction between faculty and administrators. He/she appears to believe individual faculty members have budgets and do the hiring, and thus benefit from cheap labor. That's obviously rubbish. But it helps to explain some of the confusion as to why he/she thinks tenured faculty are evil and benefit from hiring adjunct faculty and keeping their wages low. As I wrote at the start of this thread, it's just the opposite - tenured faculty have every incentive to argue for better compensation for adjuncts.

[mahagonny]

I'm only aware of these studies in the UK:
"according to research which describes "an epidemic" of poor mental health among higher education staff (note: in UK faculty are called staff). Freedom of information requests revealed that at one university, staff referrals to counselling services went up more than 300% over a six-year period up to 2015 while, at another, referrals to occupational health soared by more than 400%. " https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/may/23/higher-education-staff-suffer-epidemic-of-poor-mental-health

No wonder there are so many mental health issues reported by staff. There are people that you can report them to who are interested in hearing about them.
Hey look. In the UK you can get treated for depression, burnout, etc. Quote:

'Universities UK, the industry body, said the mental health and wellbeing of staff and students was a priority for universities. "Across the sector, there are many practical initiatives to support staff in mental health difficulties, to improve career paths and workplace cultures.

"Universities do recognise that there is more that can be done to create the supportive working environments in which both academic and professional staff thrive, including ongoing conversations about the structural conditions of work in higher education."

A Department for Education spokesperson said: "Universities, like all employers, have a duty of care to their employees. We expect them to take this seriously."'

Thanks for the link. what a difference. In my state university and adjunct could have a total mental breakdown and it's not even in the news. No counseling services, no health insurance.

I guess knowledge is derived from study, while feelings and state of mind are the result of life experience.

Mahagonny, in all of these discussions, I get a strong sense of what you see is wrong with the system. But what I am almost totally in the dark on is what the system ought to be, if it was as you think it should be. For instance, here are some questions I have:

• Should there be different categories of faculty, such as full-time and part-time? If so, in what sort of ratio?
• Should all faculty require a terminal degree, and if not, when should that not matter?
• When things like drops in enrollment happen so that sections are cancelled, to what degree should faculty be compensated?
• Should part-time faculty have some sort of "right of first refusal" for courses, and if so, what should be the conditions under which that is granted?
• Should part-time faculty get individual offices, computers, etc. like full-time faculty, and if not, what should they be given instead?

I'd honestly like to hear your version of a healthy institution because I realize I have no idea of what it would look like, even after tons of these discussions. I'd guess I'm probably not the only one. All I know is that it would have a single, powerful union. (But if it had good administrators, then the union wouldn't have many big battles in the first place.)

Obviously that's the next step. What would a better system look like? I don't have a good answer for you yet. A few points are easy:
1. it should be something where all faculty are seen as intentional and regular, not temporary.
2. All faculty should have a voice.
3. no one can take away your legal right to employer obligations/contributions to social security, especially not your own state!
4. Everyone gets access to the same benefits in some equitable structure. no one is seen as having no needs.
5. the school is not entitled to charity labor from the public.
6. Due process and hearing for firing.

[marshwiggle]

Mahagonny, in all of these discussions, I get a strong sense of what you see is wrong with the system. But what I am almost totally in the dark on is what the system ought to be, if it was as you think it should be. For instance, here are some questions I have:

• Should there be different categories of faculty, such as full-time and part-time? If so, in what sort of ratio?
• Should all faculty require a terminal degree, and if not, when should that not matter?
• When things like drops in enrollment happen so that sections are cancelled, to what degree should faculty be compensated?
• Should part-time faculty have some sort of "right of first refusal" for courses, and if so, what should be the conditions under which that is granted?
• Should part-time faculty get individual offices, computers, etc. like full-time faculty, and if not, what should they be given instead?

I'd honestly like to hear your version of a healthy institution because I realize I have no idea of what it would look like, even after tons of these discussions. I'd guess I'm probably not the only one. All I know is that it would have a single, powerful union. (But if it had good administrators, then the union wouldn't have many big battles in the first place.)

Obviously that's the next step. What would a better system look like? I don't have a good answer for you yet. A few points are easy:
1. it should be something where all faculty are seen as intentional and regular, not temporary.

But what does that mean? What about sabbatical replacements and increased enrollment? How can all of the people be seen as regular (i.e. not temporary)????

2. All faculty should have a voice.
3. no one can take away your legal right to employer obligations/contributions to social security, especially not your own state!
4. Everyone gets access to the same benefits in some equitable structure. no one is seen as having no needs.

What constitutes an "equitable structure" when some people work a few hours a week and others work full time???? This is on ongoing problem since it's hard to figure out what it means. What specifically would you suggest?

5. the school is not entitled to charity labor from the public.
6. Due process and hearing for firing.

The big issues in here are big issues precisely because it's hard to have consensus on them. I would like to hear your specific suggestions to see where you're coming from. 

[pedanticromantic]

None of this argument really matters. If you don't want to be an adjunct go do something else. You're tilting at windmills here. The life of the professor that the general public or movies portrays just isn't a reality anymore, if it ever was.
I've been on both sides, as I've said, and I see now that there was so much I didn't understand when I was an adjunct. I can't make anyone understand those things: it's just lived experience that takes years to fully get how the system works.  I think, and hope, that Mahoganny's experience wasn't that faculty had any disrespect or animosity for adjuncts. Even our oldest faculty understand the statistics as far as how few PhDs land TT jobs. We're interviewing people with Ivy league PhDs who have a couple post-docs, and often at least one or two books out already and can't land a job. So I think most faculty understand how much it sucks--in fact, most of my department were adjuncts themselves for at least a couple years before finding a job. The more likely case is that we are all just too busy to spend energy on yet another battle: we are fighting battles all day long as it is: for space, for resources, etc. I simply have no energy left for anyone else's battles.

[Deacon_blues]

Professor A has his research project hot on the burner. He needs someone to cover for him. The chair, wanting to see the right guy promoted, hires the adjunct. Next Professor B wants a course release and he doesn't quite have the energy of 'A' but the chair wants to appear fair and, face it, he's only chair for a few years and then he'll be coming to the new chair with needs. And the administrators will use the scenario to pin adjunct use on others and expand it. All of this can happen without tenure, but it happens worse with tenure, because assistant professor is not where anyone wants to be, and publishing and promotions are so ponderous and overbearing. And some will make it to the top and take advantage of their status because others did it to them  and become expensive deadwood in the twilight of their career, which can linger. Why be in a hurry to retire if you're hardly working?. And somebody will be 'temporary', dead end employed, neglected, overtired and conspicuously not part of the community. And TT faculty will care, but they will always have something they care about much more that perpetuates the cycle. Sounds bitter? Do you expect people to be applauding?

I'm at an R1, and this description of research leaves does not come close to reality even at an institution that prioritizes research.  Tenured and tenure-track faculty do not ask for or receive course releases just because they want them, or their research is "hot," or one back scratches another.  We are hired to teach as well as to research, and that course release has to be covered by a grant or some other mechanism (like service).  In turn, our course releases are unlikely to involve adjuncts--we will give the lower-level classes to grad students so they can gain teaching experience, and the upper-level courses simply won't run.

[Kron3007]

May not "need" a union, but would benefit.  Why else would my faculty unions exist?  We meet all your criteria , and have tenure, yet decided to unionize.  The fact is that we have better bargaining power as a unit than individuals.

That's not entirely true.  As Polly pointed out:

You don't need a union if most of the workers are actually hard to replace because:

a) specific skills are needed that cannot be acquired by most humans of average intelligence in weeks/months. 

The most highly skilled and hard to replace workers don't need a union. The institution needs them and so they have bargaining power. Unions benefit the most easily replaceable workers most of all.  A union basically protects the most vulnerable workers at some expense to the most irreplaceable ones.

During a staff strike here, who do the union point to as evidence that "students are suffering"? Clerical workers? Nope- Lab instructors who are typically almost as qualified as faculty, and in fact some actually have PhDs. The leverage the union has mostly comes from the highly skilled workers, who could therefore negotiate well independently.

Ours is a faculty unions, 99% of us have PhDs and would be difficult to replace.  As a union we negotiate as a group and definitely benefit.  Individual negotiation may benefit some, but the overall situation would not necessarily improve.

Part of our union focus is on preventing adjunctification, which benefits is as a whole in the long run but could not, or would not, be addressed without a union.

[mahagonny]

Mahagonny, in all of these discussions, I get a strong sense of what you see is wrong with the system. But what I am almost totally in the dark on is what the system ought to be, if it was as you think it should be. For instance, here are some questions I have:

• Should there be different categories of faculty, such as full-time and part-time? If so, in what sort of ratio?
• Should all faculty require a terminal degree, and if not, when should that not matter?
• When things like drops in enrollment happen so that sections are cancelled, to what degree should faculty be compensated?
• Should part-time faculty have some sort of "right of first refusal" for courses, and if so, what should be the conditions under which that is granted?
• Should part-time faculty get individual offices, computers, etc. like full-time faculty, and if not, what should they be given instead?

I'd honestly like to hear your version of a healthy institution because I realize I have no idea of what it would look like, even after tons of these discussions. I'd guess I'm probably not the only one. All I know is that it would have a single, powerful union. (But if it had good administrators, then the union wouldn't have many big battles in the first place.)

Obviously that's the next step. What would a better system look like? I don't have a good answer for you yet. A few points are easy:
1. it should be something where all faculty are seen as intentional and regular, not temporary.

But what does that mean? What about sabbatical replacements and increased enrollment? How can all of the people be seen as regular (i.e. not temporary)????

Well that was over fast. We had about four hours of adjunct-free higher ed before the burst of outrage came. And just after I'd finally gotten it into my thick skull that adjuncts were brought by Martians.
What did I tell you?

[polly_mer]

Obviously that's the next step. What would a better system look like? I don't have a good answer for you yet. A few points are easy:
1. it should be something where all faculty are seen as intentional and regular, not temporary.

But what does that mean? What about sabbatical replacements and increased enrollment? How can all of the people be seen as regular (i.e. not temporary)????

This appears to be one of the straightforward problems to solve: put enough slack into the system and you don't need temps for minor fluctuations.  You don't need an outsider as a sabbatical replacement if enough people have overlapping expertise for absolute requirements and the sabbatical schedule is planned so that not everyone with the expertise gets to go on sabbatical at once for extended periods.  Even the medical emergencies can be covered if enough overlapping expertise exists for all areas and people aren't already working at the human maximum so that other duties can be shifted and classes/research groups covered for unforeseen circumstances.

Enough slack means the department also doesn't have to hire for minor increased enrollment.  Planning for a future with enough slack may mean hiring people with the intent of being permanent and then having to re-evaluate every couple of years.  The vibe is very different for everyone being hired with the expectation of being permanent unless the situation changes versus insisting for the Nth renewal that this is really a temporary solution to an unexpectedly high enrollment.

It's also possible to limit enrollment for a year or two based on current capacity and then hire for later years when it's clear that the demand is not a one-time fluctuation.  Good business practice is managing growth by being purposeful on what capacity exists and how to grow in sustainable ways instead of hoping that a fad continues forever.

All of Mahagonny's list is reasonable in isolation.  The questions that still remain unanswered in my mind can be summarized as "After we magically implement all of Mahagonny's list so that all the academic jobs are good ones, what do we do about the fact that there will remain tens of thousands of people who want those jobs, can't have them, and really aren't suited for comparable other professional jobs for various reasons?"

I was accused upthread of disliking freeway fliers.  What frosts my cookies is people who state a particular goal, take observable actions that cannot possibly meet that goal, and then complain that someone else must change the world to accommodate the mismatch between their personal actions and inability to reach the goal. 

One can pick at the exact details of what constitutes a full-time academic job at what type of institution depending on a variety of factors.  However, the bitter reality is many of the kinds of skills one acquires by doing tasks in academia other than pure classroom teaching are exactly the kinds of skills that help one obtain a professional class job outside of academia.  No, people shouldn't work for free when they need the money, but there's the standard trade-off that related experience (even unpaid, volunteer experience) is generally a more compelling entry on a cover letter and resume than unrelated formal credentials that aren't particularly rare--again, the statistic that 13% of the US population over age 25 have a graduate degree comes immediately to mind.

One of my continued choose-to-laugh-instead-of-cry observations is that those who tend to argue most vehemently for why everyone should have formal classes in the arguer's subject and that college is not for job training are often the same people who assert that they are not qualified to do anything else and therefore must continue to teach in wretched conditions as the only way to be employed.

So, do I dislike freeway fliers?  Only those who complain up-down-and-sideways that they personally have no other options and the system must change to accommodate their preferences.  One of the things about which I am bitter is all the tasks that are dumped on me and my colleagues because inadequately paid freeway fliers refuse to take good enough middle-class jobs and teach one class on the side for personal satisfaction.  If nothing else, having enough people leave the pool voluntarily would change the dynamics in the academic job market for those who are left.

My personal interest remains getting more educated, competent people doing the jobs outside of academia that need doing by educated people so that we're all better off, especially the individuals who might really like something else if they explored the big world instead of focusing on one thing they found and stopping looking for anything else.  Even people who don't love their job might benefit from having enough extra money and free time to devote to the research or teaching they love that can be done without a formal academic job.

[marshwiggle]

Obviously that's the next step. What would a better system look like? I don't have a good answer for you yet. A few points are easy:
1. it should be something where all faculty are seen as intentional and regular, not temporary.

But what does that mean? What about sabbatical replacements and increased enrollment? How can all of the people be seen as regular (i.e. not temporary)????

This appears to be one of the straightforward problems to solve: put enough slack into the system and you don't need temps for minor fluctuations.  You don't need an outsider as a sabbatical replacement if enough people have overlapping expertise for absolute requirements and the sabbatical schedule is planned so that not everyone with the expertise gets to go on sabbatical at once for extended periods.  Even the medical emergencies can be covered if enough overlapping expertise exists for all areas and people aren't already working at the human maximum so that other duties can be shifted and classes/research groups covered for unforeseen circumstances.

But this requires very rigidly-specified department size and makeup. For instance, if sabbaticals are every 7 years, then each department must have a number of faculty divisible by 7, AND they must have not merely overlapping expertise, but sufficiently overlapping expertise that all of the courses can be taught by any  6/7 which remain. It's theoretically possible in some situations, but unlikely to occur often in practice.

(With some flexibility in teaching loads, i.e. that  a person's load only has to average out over 2 or 3 years, and with possibilities like offering certain courses in alternate years, it becomes a little more possible, but still requiring extremely careful hiring and scheduling.)

[mahagonny]

Obviously that's the next step. What would a better system look like? I don't have a good answer for you yet. A few points are easy:
1. it should be something where all faculty are seen as intentional and regular, not temporary.

But what does that mean? What about sabbatical replacements and increased enrollment? How can all of the people be seen as regular (i.e. not temporary)????

This appears to be one of the straightforward problems to solve: put enough slack into the system and you don't need temps for minor fluctuations.  You don't need an outsider as a sabbatical replacement if enough people have overlapping expertise for absolute requirements and the sabbatical schedule is planned so that not everyone with the expertise gets to go on sabbatical at once for extended periods.  Even the medical emergencies can be covered if enough overlapping expertise exists for all areas and people aren't already working at the human maximum so that other duties can be shifted and classes/research groups covered for unforeseen circumstances.

But this requires very rigidly-specified department size and makeup. For instance, if sabbaticals are every 7 years, then each department must have a number of faculty divisible by 7, AND they must have not merely overlapping expertise, but sufficiently overlapping expertise that all of the courses can be taught by any  6/7 which remain. It's theoretically possible in some situations, but unlikely to occur often in practice.

(With some flexibility in teaching loads, i.e. that  a person's load only has to average out over 2 or 3 years, and with possibilities like offering certain courses in alternate years, it becomes a little more possible, but still requiring extremely careful hiring and scheduling.)

And why be so fixated on a goal of not using temporary faculty when everyone's already doing it, and it's going to be blamed on 'defunding of higher education' and/or administrative bloat, football stadiums and other perceptions of skewed spending priorities anyway. It would just be extra work.

[aside]

Obviously that's the next step. What would a better system look like? I don't have a good answer for you yet. A few points are easy:
1. it should be something where all faculty are seen as intentional and regular, not temporary.

But what does that mean? What about sabbatical replacements and increased enrollment? How can all of the people be seen as regular (i.e. not temporary)????

This appears to be one of the straightforward problems to solve: put enough slack into the system and you don't need temps for minor fluctuations.  You don't need an outsider as a sabbatical replacement if enough people have overlapping expertise for absolute requirements and the sabbatical schedule is planned so that not everyone with the expertise gets to go on sabbatical at once for extended periods.  Even the medical emergencies can be covered if enough overlapping expertise exists for all areas and people aren't already working at the human maximum so that other duties can be shifted and classes/research groups covered for unforeseen circumstances.

But this requires very rigidly-specified department size and makeup. For instance, if sabbaticals are every 7 years, then each department must have a number of faculty divisible by 7, AND they must have not merely overlapping expertise, but sufficiently overlapping expertise that all of the courses can be taught by any  6/7 which remain. It's theoretically possible in some situations, but unlikely to occur often in practice.

(With some flexibility in teaching loads, i.e. that  a person's load only has to average out over 2 or 3 years, and with possibilities like offering certain courses in alternate years, it becomes a little more possible, but still requiring extremely careful hiring and scheduling.)

And why be so fixated on a goal of not using temporary faculty when everyone's already doing it, and it's going to be blamed on 'defunding of higher education' and/or administrative bloat, football stadiums and other perceptions of skewed spending priorities anyway. It would just be extra work.

There is nothing wrong with having "temporary" faculty who are truly temporary, such as folks hired to cover courses because a faculty member has taken a leave (for health, sabbatical, family, whatever) and is expected to return.  It becomes wrong (in my opinion) when faculty are hired as "temporary" and are treated as such (no access to pro rata benefits, disproportionate wages, no office space, whatever) even though the institution intends to keep hiring multiple "temporary" positions indefinitely to avoid the expense of hiring full-time faculty.  It is not wrong to hire a long-term adjunct who can repeatedly cover a course or two that otherwise the department could not staff or who has special expertise to bring to the table as a retiree or full-time employee elsewhere.  It is wrong (in my opinion) when such folks are not treated well (no access to pro rata benefits if desired, disproportionate wages, no office space, whatever). 

[mahagonny]

There is nothing wrong with having "temporary" faculty who are truly temporary, such as folks hired to cover courses because a faculty member has taken a leave (for health, sabbatical, family, whatever) and is expected to return.  It becomes wrong (in my opinion) when faculty are hired as "temporary" and are treated as such (no access to pro rata benefits, disproportionate wages, no office space, whatever) even though the institution intends to keep hiring multiple "temporary" positions indefinitely to avoid the expense of hiring full-time faculty.  It is not wrong to hire a long-term adjunct who can repeatedly cover a course or two that otherwise the department could not staff or who has special expertise to bring to the table as a retiree or full-time employee elsewhere.  It is wrong (in my opinion) when such folks are not treated well (no access to pro rata benefits if desired, disproportionate wages, no office space, whatever).

Makes sense.

[mahagonny]

There is nothing wrong with having "temporary" faculty who are truly temporary, such as folks hired to cover courses because a faculty member has taken a leave (for health, sabbatical, family, whatever) and is expected to return.  It becomes wrong (in my opinion) when faculty are hired as "temporary" and are treated as such (no access to pro rata benefits, disproportionate wages, no office space, whatever) even though the institution intends to keep hiring multiple "temporary" positions indefinitely to avoid the expense of hiring full-time faculty.  It is not wrong to hire a long-term adjunct who can repeatedly cover a course or two that otherwise the department could not staff or who has special expertise to bring to the table as a retiree or full-time employee elsewhere.  It is wrong (in my opinion) when such folks are not treated well (no access to pro rata benefits if desired, disproportionate wages, no office space, whatever).

Makes sense.

Incidentally, aside, (and I appreciate that you have made you position clear) the TT faculty where I teach would not agree with you, according to statements regularly published in their collective bargaining agreement and viewable online, which state that part time faculty should not have access to any employee benefits.
There's really no reason anyone wouldn't want a pension benefit that I can think of. Unless, God forbid, you're terminally ill. If the employee wants to give back to the college  he can collect his full pay and then make a cash lump sum donation to the college. Or have a little deducted each pay period as a donation, as they're frequently inviting us to do.

[polly_mer]

There's really no reason anyone wouldn't want a pension benefit that I can think of.

Retirement income can be annoying when one ends up with just a bit too much that triggers tax-consequences, especially if that little bit was unexpected instead of a planning income stream.  A public employer that still offers a pension plan, albeit often with the requirement that no social security taxes will be paid on behalf of the employee, is trying to keep full-time people for a career.  Some recent scandals on how little some part-timers/temporary people had to work to become vested in the public pensions likely have prompted some revision of the rules.

However, the quoted statement indicates a focus on why the part-timer would want benefits instead of why full-timers would very much prefer to have either additional full-timers or part-timers who are doing a different job and thus are not cheaper piecemeal replacements for the full-timers jobs. Retirement benefits may be less of a sticking point than health insurance, which continues to soar as an overhead expense.  Using last year's numbers, a typical family of four costs $14k per year.  My total combined employer + my contribution for next year in health premiums will be almost what I took home the year I supplemented my income by adjuncting.

Again, from the full-timer position, there's a benefit in having a professional fellow who brings something particular to the curriculum that is otherwise hard to cover and provides a node in a professional network for the students.  There's a benefit in having a truly temporary employee for a sabbatical, medical leave, or one-time unexpected overenollment in a particular course.

Depending on department needs, there can be a huge benefit to the full-timer who has to meet research expectations by having a consistent pool of other full-timers who are focused on teaching with no research expectations and are paid to do general academic service for the department and the university.  Having that extra capacity designed into the system so that good planning the year before the term results in everyone permanent having a full load and necessary leaves are easier to grant.  My last regional comprehensive experience, even without significant research expectations, was very pleasant because they planned for more than the bare minimum in staffing and were thus able to accommodate the occasional last-minute change as well as the planned-well-in-advance leaves.

There's much less of a benefit to the full-timer at a teaching-mostly institution for the garden-variety adjunct who is more or less permanent and yet truly an adjunct (supplemental, extra) instead of being fully fractional in duties including advising and regular service and being paid to be fully fractional.

There's no benefit to the full-timer at a teaching-mostly institution in having part-timers be cheaper and doing large portions of the same job.  In fact, at the resource-strapped CCs where the majority of the faculty are cheaper part-timers with no benefits, the full-timer is worse off by having to do all the service aspects and possibly getting course releases to do the scheduling so that others can teach.  Some people love being administrators, but it's a crummy deal to be classified as faculty, be at an institution where faculty should be focused on teaching, and be doing mostly service and administrative work.

Thus, teaching-focused folks who are experiencing adjunctification are very likely to be pushing hard for additional full-timers doing the whole job instead of stabilizing part-timers to have a lion's share of the satisfying parts of the job while leaving the full-timers with a lion's share of the necessary, but unsatisfying, parts.  Research-focused people often would prefer to limit their teaching to free up enough time to do good research and welcome options that help them free up that time.  Teaching-focused people who end up with a lot of administrative-focused service tend to be much less satisfied with their jobs and view use of part-time faculty as undermining the full-timers' working conditions.

Therefore, the problem still comes down to:

a) very few people want to be part-time academics with fully fractional duties and benefits.  Many more people want to be full-time at one institution or be able to pick and choose the interesting parts because they are employed elsewhere, have multiple income streams, teaching for experience as a caregiver for now, or teaching for a bit of money and personal satisfaction as retirees.

b) very few full-time, TT/T faculty want armies of part-time faculty to be cheaper doing the teaching while leaving all the service work.  If anything, most faculty who should be doing a lot of teaching would prefer to buy out of the service work that isn't directly interacting with students and focus on the teaching.  Thus, the rise in low-level administration may just be met with just grumbling while the shifting of teaching to adjuncts is a direct threat to the full-time faculty's jobs.