Alliance Between TT and Adjunct Faculty That Benefits Both

[Kron3007]

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.

We also push for the same and I agree that in an ideal world teaching would almost exclusively done by full time faculty (except for situations where industry experience is really valuable and you have someone from industry interested in teaching a course here and there).  That being said, given that this is not the case in many areas I see why mahagonny focusses on unionization and pushing for better conditions.  Where I am, our adjuncts are few and far between, but they are unionized and have much of what he is fighting for.

Regarding funding and adjunctification in general, I think government funding for higher education has lagged over the years, especially in the US.  I guess bombs and such are just more important.

[polly_mer]

Regarding funding and adjunctification in general, I think government funding for higher education has lagged over the years, especially in the US.  I guess bombs and such are just more important.

If departments were really on the ball, then they could seize on Lisa Gordon-Hagerty's comments:

NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty has stressed the labs' growing workforce needs at several congressional hearings this year. Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee in May, she noted that more than 40% of NNSA's workforce will be eligible for retirement over the next five years at a time when the agency is facing its heaviest workload since the end of the Cold War.

"Los Alamos is looking to hire 1,000 people this year. Sandia is looking to hire 1,000 this year. Livermore is looking to hire 500 people," she told the committee. "We're talking about really thousands of people in our workforce, not only in the next five years, but now, in order to handle the increasing workload that's on us."

<snip>

She explained the agency is experimenting with new mechanisms to attract and develop technical talent. These include partnering with universities to develop training programs for specific areas of need, such as radiological technicians, and holding much larger recruitment fairs that leverage rapid hiring procedures.

source: https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201907/fyi.cfm

Those partnerships would do nothing for humanities adjuncts, but if the sole problem is educational funding for certain STEM areas, then this seems like an opportunity for physics, chemistry, mathematics, and some engineering areas.

I will also mention that, if push comes to shove, then isolated individuals can provide education to other individuals and the human race will continue onward.  However, there's no way to band isolated individuals into a true national defense absent large-scale funding and the technology to have a modern military.  Anyone who thinks it's just one-of-those-things that the US has not been involved in a war on its soil since the Civil War needs some targeted education in a thing called deterrence through superior force.

Citizens of other countries that want to brag about how they have less military might than the US are encouraged to read the treaties and alliances that the US has historically made for their defense.  One scary thing about having a US president who doesn't know about those treaties and alliances is what gets broken because people are undereducated in certain historical and politically important knowledge areas that aren't required general education courses because they're too specialized.

[Kron3007]

Regarding funding and adjunctification in general, I think government funding for higher education has lagged over the years, especially in the US.  I guess bombs and such are just more important.

If departments were really on the ball, then they could seize on Lisa Gordon-Hagerty's comments:

NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty has stressed the labs' growing workforce needs at several congressional hearings this year. Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee in May, she noted that more than 40% of NNSA's workforce will be eligible for retirement over the next five years at a time when the agency is facing its heaviest workload since the end of the Cold War.

"Los Alamos is looking to hire 1,000 people this year. Sandia is looking to hire 1,000 this year. Livermore is looking to hire 500 people," she told the committee. "We're talking about really thousands of people in our workforce, not only in the next five years, but now, in order to handle the increasing workload that's on us."

<snip>

She explained the agency is experimenting with new mechanisms to attract and develop technical talent. These include partnering with universities to develop training programs for specific areas of need, such as radiological technicians, and holding much larger recruitment fairs that leverage rapid hiring procedures.

source: https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201907/fyi.cfm

Those partnerships would do nothing for humanities adjuncts, but if the sole problem is educational funding for certain STEM areas, then this seems like an opportunity for physics, chemistry, mathematics, and some engineering areas.

I will also mention that, if push comes to shove, then isolated individuals can provide education to other individuals and the human race will continue onward.  However, there's no way to band isolated individuals into a true national defense absent large-scale funding and the technology to have a modern military.  Anyone who thinks it's just one-of-those-things that the US has not been involved in a war on its soil since the Civil War needs some targeted education in a thing called deterrence through superior force.

Citizens of other countries that want to brag about how they have less military might than the US are encouraged to read the treaties and alliances that the US has historically made for their defense.  One scary thing about having a US president who doesn't know about those treaties and alliances is what gets broken because people are undereducated in certain historical and politically important knowledge areas that aren't required general education courses because they're too specialized.

Yes, but these problems are most pronounced in the humanities, so that doesn't address the issue at all.  It would just help increase support for some areas of STEM, which is good but does not address a generally underfunded education system.

As for military, I am not arguing that the US dosnt need a strong military, but when military spending comes at the expense of education, health care, and other social programs I think it is time to take stock and ask, for example, if redistributing 10%. Of the military budget would make sense.  You would still be outspending anyone else by a lot....

More importantly, it is interesting that you mentioned that there have been no wars on US soil, but the reality is the US has almost always been at war somewhere, which is not cheap.  Some of these may be justified, but many I would argue were not.  Maintaining hundreds of military bases around the world is not about defense, it is to project US power and influence.  I think Carter's comments about China were pretty spot on. 

[mahagonny]

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

I don't know that they benefit from that situation by cost savings more than they suffer from it in some other way. But why should an outsider care about the problems the insiders of academia have constructed for themselves? We are doing all the work on our contracts. It's a reputable transaction. You think you're entitled to charity.
Further, even if we do extra work for the good of the department, there will be those who will object to to that. that is 'normalizing' adjunct staffing - making it a cheaper version of the full time position. what they seek, and have, is a prolonged situation where there's a perceived deficit between what the adjuncts do and what is needed, which they can then complain about, as a way to contemplate eliminating the adjunct's job. If you, the adjunct, start doing his work for him, you are taking away his right to complain about your presence.
There is no
*right* thing for the part time adjunct faculty member to do other than to distance himself from the adjunct group. That is class war. There's a best alternative that he can choose for himself, but there's no way he as a typical adjunct is legitimate to the tenure track. Since there is no way by which the adjunct population becomes legitimate to the tenure track, there's no reason for the adjunct union to accept tenure, and there could easily be sensible discussions about opposing it.

[tuxthepenguin]

I don't know that they benefit from that situation by cost savings more than they suffer from it in some other way. But why should an outsider care about the problems the insiders of academia have constructed for themselves? We are doing all the work on our contracts. It's a reputable transaction. You think you're entitled to charity.
Further, even if we do extra work for the good of the department, there will be those who will object to to that. that is 'normalizing' adjunct staffing - making it a cheaper version of the full time position. what they seek, and have, is a prolonged situation where there's a perceived deficit between what the adjuncts do and what is needed, which they can then complain about, as a way to contemplate eliminating the adjunct's job. If you, the adjunct, start doing his work for him, you are taking away his right to complain about your presence.
There is no
*right* thing for the part time adjunct faculty member to do other than to distance himself from the adjunct group. That is class war. There's a best alternative that he can choose for himself, but there's no way he as a typical adjunct is legitimate to the tenure track. Since there is no way by which the adjunct population becomes legitimate to the tenure track, there's no reason for the adjunct union to accept tenure, and there could easily be sensible discussions about opposing it.

I think you are confused about the difference between faculty and administration. The "cost savings" that you discuss as a benefit is not related to the tenure track faculty. That is a budgeting issue for administrators.

[mahagonny]

I don't know that they benefit from that situation by cost savings more than they suffer from it in some other way. But why should an outsider care about the problems the insiders of academia have constructed for themselves? We are doing all the work on our contracts. It's a reputable transaction. You think you're entitled to charity.
Further, even if we do extra work for the good of the department, there will be those who will object to to that. that is 'normalizing' adjunct staffing - making it a cheaper version of the full time position. what they seek, and have, is a prolonged situation where there's a perceived deficit between what the adjuncts do and what is needed, which they can then complain about, as a way to contemplate eliminating the adjunct's job. If you, the adjunct, start doing his work for him, you are taking away his right to complain about your presence.
There is no
*right* thing for the part time adjunct faculty member to do other than to distance himself from the adjunct group. That is class war. There's a best alternative that he can choose for himself, but there's no way he as a typical adjunct is legitimate to the tenure track. Since there is no way by which the adjunct population becomes legitimate to the tenure track, there's no reason for the adjunct union to accept tenure, and there could easily be sensible discussions about opposing it.

I think you are confused about the difference between faculty and administration. The "cost savings" that you discuss as a benefit is not related to the tenure track faculty. That is a budgeting issue for administrators.

So every department could afford to go all TT, just by changing how they spend? No one's going to believe that.

[tuxthepenguin]

I don't know that they benefit from that situation by cost savings more than they suffer from it in some other way. But why should an outsider care about the problems the insiders of academia have constructed for themselves? We are doing all the work on our contracts. It's a reputable transaction. You think you're entitled to charity.
Further, even if we do extra work for the good of the department, there will be those who will object to to that. that is 'normalizing' adjunct staffing - making it a cheaper version of the full time position. what they seek, and have, is a prolonged situation where there's a perceived deficit between what the adjuncts do and what is needed, which they can then complain about, as a way to contemplate eliminating the adjunct's job. If you, the adjunct, start doing his work for him, you are taking away his right to complain about your presence.
There is no
*right* thing for the part time adjunct faculty member to do other than to distance himself from the adjunct group. That is class war. There's a best alternative that he can choose for himself, but there's no way he as a typical adjunct is legitimate to the tenure track. Since there is no way by which the adjunct population becomes legitimate to the tenure track, there's no reason for the adjunct union to accept tenure, and there could easily be sensible discussions about opposing it.

I think you are confused about the difference between faculty and administration. The "cost savings" that you discuss as a benefit is not related to the tenure track faculty. That is a budgeting issue for administrators.

So every department could afford to go all TT, just by changing how they spend? No one's going to believe that.

I think I'll step away from this discussion. Maybe it's too early in the morning, but I don't understand your response.

[polly_mer]

As for military, I am not arguing that the US dosnt need a strong military, but when military spending comes at the expense of education, health care, and other social programs I think it is time to take stock and ask, for example, if redistributing 10%. Of the military budget would make sense.  You would still be outspending anyone else by a lot....

The question isn't who is spending the most; the question is who has an effective military.  The US is falling behind in some military areas because we're spending wrong, the same way we're spending wrong in education and health care by not prioritizing based on goals and effective actions that might help achieve the goals.

For example, Mahagonny keeps focusing on the teaching faculty side related to areas where we have such an oversupply that good enough to excellent people will work for peanuts just to be allowed in the classroom.  There's no need to fix the problems of not paying enough or not having stable enough employment when people are still lining up to take the jobs offered.  In contrast, some STEM areas are unable to get enough faculty to meet student demand, like computer science.

The changes in the world educational landscape, recent US changes in immigration processes, and the recent enforcement of policies restricting foreign influence on US R&D mean we're even more short on faculty and students in some key areas because we had been propping up those areas through use of foreign nationals.  This isn't all STEM; it's a few key areas, which is another problem as students continue to flock to the STEM areas that are oversupplied with faculty and researchers while tending to drop out of the undergraduate paths that lead to the undersupplied areas that need additional graduate-educated researchers inside and outside academia.

The humanities are not in danger of being lost through lack of people to teach or lack of people wanting to learn.  The evidence is very clear that we have an oversupply of people willing to teach and learn in those areas, even at great personal expense.

In contrast, other parts of the university are facing shortages because qualified people don't apply for the academic jobs and don't have enough interest in teaching.  We're short on some areas of STEM out in the world because we let people choose what they want to study and whether they want to go to college at all.  That's a huge problem when China, India, and Russia have invested in those areas of education and have more people as well as better funded researchers in those technical areas.

If we're reallocating money to get more and better teachers as well as more and better researchers, then the money can't go to the part-time humanities folks; the money has to go to making other academic TT/T positions attractive enough that qualified people will take the jobs.

[Kron3007]

As for military, I am not arguing that the US dosnt need a strong military, but when military spending comes at the expense of education, health care, and other social programs I think it is time to take stock and ask, for example, if redistributing 10%. Of the military budget would make sense.  You would still be outspending anyone else by a lot....

The question isn't who is spending the most; the question is who has an effective military.  The US is falling behind in some military areas because we're spending wrong, the same way we're spending wrong in education and health care by not prioritizing based on goals and effective actions that might help achieve the goals.

For example, Mahagonny keeps focusing on the teaching faculty side related to areas where we have such an oversupply that good enough to excellent people will work for peanuts just to be allowed in the classroom.  There's no need to fix the problems of not paying enough or not having stable enough employment when people are still lining up to take the jobs offered.  In contrast, some STEM areas are unable to get enough faculty to meet student demand, like computer science.

The changes in the world educational landscape, recent US changes in immigration processes, and the recent enforcement of policies restricting foreign influence on US R&D mean we're even more short on faculty and students in some key areas because we had been propping up those areas through use of foreign nationals.  This isn't all STEM; it's a few key areas, which is another problem as students continue to flock to the STEM areas that are oversupplied with faculty and researchers while tending to drop out of the undergraduate paths that lead to the undersupplied areas that need additional graduate-educated researchers inside and outside academia.

The humanities are not in danger of being lost through lack of people to teach or lack of people wanting to learn.  The evidence is very clear that we have an oversupply of people willing to teach and learn in those areas, even at great personal expense.

In contrast, other parts of the university are facing shortages because qualified people don't apply for the academic jobs and don't have enough interest in teaching.  We're short on some areas of STEM out in the world because we let people choose what they want to study and whether they want to go to college at all.  That's a huge problem when China, India, and Russia have invested in those areas of education and have more people as well as better funded researchers in those technical areas.

If we're reallocating money to get more and better teachers as well as more and better researchers, then the money can't go to the part-time humanities folks; the money has to go to making other academic TT/T positions attractive enough that qualified people will take the jobs.

Just because someone will work for low wages does not justify the practice.  Likewise, just because you can fill positions using part time employees without providing benefits or job security does not mean you should do so.  This just becomes a race to the bottom with an obvious outcome.  A role of the government should be to protect people from such exploitation, so public universities operating like this is a shame.  Obviously we have different world outlooks and I can see your logic, I just dont agree.  I used to be much more aligned with your world view, until I moved from Canada and lived in a very conservative "right to work" state and saw the results of such policies, at which point I gained a lot of appreciation for labour laws and more socialist policies.   

Regarding military, which is obviously mostly off topic here, you are right that it is also about how you spend.  You can choose to maintain hundreds of military bases and invade countries all over the world like the US, or you can avoid war and use those savings to build high speed rail etc like China.  I would posit that long term, investing in infrastructure, education, etc., would be the better choice, but it depends on your priorities I guess.                 

 

 

[marshwiggle]

Just because someone will work for low wages does not justify the practice. 

If the government decided to have a program where stay-at-home-parents were given $100 per month for each kid at home, then you could consider that as "paying" them for childcare. The amount is obviously way less than the true "cost" of the childcare if it had to be procured any other way. Would such a program be worse than the status quo, because all of the people who continued to be stay-at-home parents would now be "working" for low wages?

[Kron3007]

Just because someone will work for low wages does not justify the practice. 

If the government decided to have a program where stay-at-home-parents were given $100 per month for each kid at home, then you could consider that as "paying" them for childcare. The amount is obviously way less than the true "cost" of the childcare if it had to be procured any other way. Would such a program be worse than the status quo, because all of the people who continued to be stay-at-home parents would now be "working" for low wages?

That is not the same at all.  That is a subsidy to help someone out, not an employment contract. 

Adjuncts are not out there teaching courses for free, they are doing it for money as an employee. 

   

[marshwiggle]

Just because someone will work for low wages does not justify the practice. 

If the government decided to have a program where stay-at-home-parents were given $100 per month for each kid at home, then you could consider that as "paying" them for childcare. The amount is obviously way less than the true "cost" of the childcare if it had to be procured any other way. Would such a program be worse than the status quo, because all of the people who continued to be stay-at-home parents would now be "working" for low wages?

That is not the same at all.  That is a subsidy to help someone out, not an employment contract. 

Adjuncts are not out there teaching courses for free, they are doing it for money as an employee. 

But they are also driven by much more than a simple calculation of hours worked versus wages received. How many complain about an effective wage which is below the official minimum wage, and yet they continue? They wouldn't do that to work at Walmart. Since there is a lot of variation in how much "unpaid" work someone may put into a course, it would be very hard to establish a "fair" wage since individuals would have vastly different ideas of how much time they ought to be paid for.

Saving people from themselves is much harder than saving them from unscrupulous employers.

[Kron3007]

Just because someone will work for low wages does not justify the practice. 

If the government decided to have a program where stay-at-home-parents were given $100 per month for each kid at home, then you could consider that as "paying" them for childcare. The amount is obviously way less than the true "cost" of the childcare if it had to be procured any other way. Would such a program be worse than the status quo, because all of the people who continued to be stay-at-home parents would now be "working" for low wages?

That is not the same at all.  That is a subsidy to help someone out, not an employment contract. 

Adjuncts are not out there teaching courses for free, they are doing it for money as an employee. 

But they are also driven by much more than a simple calculation of hours worked versus wages received. How many complain about an effective wage which is below the official minimum wage, and yet they continue? They wouldn't do that to work at Walmart. Since there is a lot of variation in how much "unpaid" work someone may put into a course, it would be very hard to establish a "fair" wage since individuals would have vastly different ideas of how much time they ought to be paid for.

Saving people from themselves is much harder than saving them from unscrupulous employers.

True, but we know how many courses are considered full time at any given university.  If 5 courses is considered a full time job, it is pretty easy to break it down to see how your adjunct pay stacks up.  If you are paying $2000/course, teaching 5 courses per semester equals 20k, which is hardly a livable wage.  This also dosnt factor in the value of health care, benefits, job security, etc.

[polly_mer]

Just because someone will work for low wages does not justify the practice.  Likewise, just because you can fill positions using part time employees without providing benefits or job security does not mean you should do so.  This just becomes a race to the bottom with an obvious outcome.  A role of the government should be to protect people from such exploitation, so public universities operating like this is a shame. 

The problem is the university does not operate in isolation.  The question still remains "what's a good use of resources to achieve the goals we want?"

From the non-university side, we have jobs unfilled--middle-class wages with full benefits-- that could be done by college-educated people who are willing to learn something new.  Having that reality smack me in the face nearly daily makes me much less sympathetic to fixing the broken adjunct system by paying those folks more instead of simply eliminating the option and pushing hard to get those folks into other jobs that need doing that can be done by people with their background.

From the undersupplied-STEM-field-side, my employer does a lot of HS and college internships in an effort to have a recruiting pipeline at the PhD level.  College freshman in the relevant fields are telling us that a measly $25/h is not competitive as a way to spend their summer before sophomore year.  Recent BS graduates are telling us that $50k/year with 3 weeks of paid vacation and full benefits is not competitive with their other offers.  Again, I have to wonder why we're even discussing paying part-time faculty more so they can have the job they want when those realities are so stark about what we have to pay to get anyone even remotely qualified in jobs that need doing.

To be clear, we need faculty in all fields; this is not a call to eliminate the humanities in favor of undersupplied STEM fields.  This is instead a call to reallocate resources in the university to meet greater societal needs in areas of human knowledge where people aren't racing to the bottom just to be allowed to teach in a classroom setting.

[mahagonny]

Saving people from themselves is much harder than saving them from unscrupulous employers.

So we agree there are unscrupulous administrators in our midst?

There's a to way to work on that. Just classify 'warm body' as a reference to person who isn't offering to donate extra unpaid labor to your academic department, because 'woe is me, I am underresourced and I need help' as hate speech. Removing the most virulent things from the category of accepted speech would bring incremental improvement to the culture.