CUNY Adjuncts Refusing to Teach Spring 2020

[Wahoo Redux]

* the idea that a degree and gumption leads to one's desired outcome.  The strongest argument against the value of a liberal arts education is how many people are willing to take the crap adjuncting jobs (and not all adjuncting jobs are crap, but some definitely are) over doing something else that would qualify as professional and pay professional wages. All the death-marching folks who keep death-marching instead of striking or leaving are the ones propping up the system.  If they quit tomorrow and stayed out until the job was paid at a professional level worthy of one's education (however that would be measured), then the problem would be solved in the sense that no one is death marching.  However, many institutions would close with the result that fewer academic jobs would exist, but the ones that did remain would be better jobs.

I'm going to try to avoid getting involved in this again, but at this point, I have almost no idea what you are talking about. What does the fairy small number of PHDs who adjunct have to do with the liberal arts in general? You might as well tell us that the strongest argument against engineering degrees is that Tesla has quality control problems.

Also this model you have of everyone making individual decisions because it will benefit the common good is just bizarre. You've created this imaginary category of "death marching adjuncts." As far as I can tell you aren't in this category if for any reason adjuncting is not a insane plan that will result in poverty. At this point, the category probably includes just Hamburger and four other people living in Brooklyn, so I can't see how these people clearing out is going to fix this problem, even if that was the way markets worked in the first place.

Every once in a while the mask slips and Polly's true hysterical disdain for anything not STEM emerges. 

Her reasoning becomes so irrational that she actually blames the poor adjuncts for being adjuncts.

Hey Polly, if you want qualified pros in front of the classroom make it worth their while; at some point the problem really is that simple.

[Caracal]

Also this model you have of everyone making individual decisions because it will benefit the common good is just bizarre. You've created this imaginary category of "death marching adjuncts." As far as I can tell you aren't in this category if for any reason adjuncting is not a insane plan that will result in poverty. At this point, the category probably includes just Hamburger and four other people living in Brooklyn, so I can't see how these people clearing out is going to fix this problem, even if that was the way markets worked in the first place.

Apparently, Wahoo knows them all:

Nevertheless, these are what I would see on the chopping block if I could.  I DO suspect this is the sort of thing, however, that parents, voters, and alumni will object to if they knew about it----at least some would.  I don't think that parents or students who are working extra shifts to send their children / themselves through school in our depressed, largely blue-collar community would be cool with the concept of a uni spending money on amenities while their teachers make $19K a year. 

I'm not saying the system is fair. I'm arguing that there isn't this huge group of people making insane decisions. I'd like to be paid a bit more, get some more benefits and have a contract. However, at the moment this job seems better than the alternatives. I get to work in my field, I have a lot of control over my own time, and the money, while not amazing, is enough as the secondary income stream for us. Perhaps, at some point, I'll decide the trade offs aren't worth it. However, if I quit adjuncting, it won't be because I've decided to destroy the adjunct system by leaving. Nobody makes choices like that. That's why collective organizing and bargaining came into being in the first place. Rational individual economic decisions aren't going to always lead to acceptable outcomes for workers or societies as a whole.

[marshwiggle]

Hey Polly, if you want qualified pros in front of the classroom make it worth their while; at some point the problem really is that simple.

But that's the point; there are lots of "qualified pros" who want to be in front of the classroom even when they are being paid peanuts by their own estimation.  Apparently it's already "worth their while".

On the other hand, if most of the adjuncts doing it are doing a lousy job, then the sooner they are unemployed the better. Paying them more would make it worse.

[marshwiggle]

I'm not saying the system is fair. I'm arguing that there isn't this huge group of people making insane decisions. I'd like to be paid a bit more, get some more benefits and have a contract. However, at the moment this job seems better than the alternatives. I get to work in my field, I have a lot of control over my own time, and the money, while not amazing, is enough as the secondary income stream for us.

So, since it is presented as part-time employment, i.e. a secondary income stream, this sounds like it works pretty well for that.

Perhaps, at some point, I'll decide the trade offs aren't worth it. However, if I quit adjuncting, it won't be because I've decided to destroy the adjunct system by leaving. Nobody makes choices like that. That's why collective organizing and bargaining came into being in the first place. Rational individual economic decisions aren't going to always lead to acceptable outcomes for workers or societies as a whole.

In an extreme case where people choose something like slavery over starvation, this may be true. But in a free society, highly educated (as some would say "privileged") people are not in that kind of extreme situation. They are mainly trapped by their insistence on having a specific type of employment. Does that still count as "rational"?

[mahagonny]

On the other hand, if most of the adjuncts doing it are doing a lousy job, then the sooner they are unemployed the better. Paying them more would make it worse.

I don't think so. After we got a union and a schedule for incremental raises the department got on one adjunct who always had poor student evaluations. In my estimation, he was a good practitioner but an ineffective teacher who lacked imagination. They moved to fire him. The union defended him as they should, because he was paying for it, but he lost the appeal and was sent away. He was considered good enough when the pay was worse. The union, like all of us grownups, expects to win some and lose some.

[ciao_yall]

On the other hand, if most of the adjuncts doing it are doing a lousy job, then the sooner they are unemployed the better. Paying them more would make it worse.

I don't think so. After we got a union and a schedule for incremental raises the department got on one adjunct who always had poor student evaluations. In my estimation, he was a good practitioner but an ineffective teacher who lacked imagination. They moved to fire him. The union defended him as they should, because he was paying for it, but he lost the appeal and was sent away. He was considered good enough when the pay was worse. The union, like all of us grownups, expects to win some and lose some.

Paying them more makes the job more attractive and the competition gets steeper. So theoretically, performance improves.

[marshwiggle]

On the other hand, if most of the adjuncts doing it are doing a lousy job, then the sooner they are unemployed the better. Paying them more would make it worse.

I don't think so. After we got a union and a schedule for incremental raises the department got on one adjunct who always had poor student evaluations. In my estimation, he was a good practitioner but an ineffective teacher who lacked imagination. They moved to fire him. The union defended him as they should, because he was paying for it, but he lost the appeal and was sent away. He was considered good enough when the pay was worse. The union, like all of us grownups, expects to win some and lose some.

Paying them more makes the job more attractive and the competition gets steeper. So theoretically, performance improves.

Absolutely, but so far I haven't heard anyone claim that the "adjunct problem" is mainly the low quality of adjunct teaching;  the main complaint seems to be the low pay for people whose teaching is of good quality. If that's the argument, then performance improvement isn't necessary.

[mahagonny]

Internalized shame. Look at your signature line. The adjunct who believes he is competent feels the need to identify himself as 'an adjunct who is not like most adjuncts.'

[Wahoo Redux]

On the other hand, if most of the adjuncts doing it are doing a lousy job, then the sooner they are unemployed the better. Paying them more would make it worse.

I don't think so. After we got a union and a schedule for incremental raises the department got on one adjunct who always had poor student evaluations. In my estimation, he was a good practitioner but an ineffective teacher who lacked imagination. They moved to fire him. The union defended him as they should, because he was paying for it, but he lost the appeal and was sent away. He was considered good enough when the pay was worse. The union, like all of us grownups, expects to win some and lose some.

Paying them more makes the job more attractive and the competition gets steeper. So theoretically, performance improves.

Absolutely, but so far I haven't heard anyone claim that the "adjunct problem" is mainly the low quality of adjunct teaching;  the main complaint seems to be the low pay for people whose teaching is of good quality. If that's the argument, then performance improvement isn't necessary.

My God you are dense, Marshmellow.  Seriously.  Again, I skip whenever I see your log-on and then occasionally read your dross by accident.  You clearly don't know what you are talking about...but somehow that doesn't stop you.

Again (and I'll try to make it very simple), the problem is that we have parceled out teaching instead of creating career paths. 

This means that we have to hire a lot of people to cover the mass of classes offered, particularly lower division.

When you do that, particularly in rural or economically depressed areas, you will end up with the whole spectrum of teaching ability and credentials. 

In my department at my semi-rural / semi-urban de-facto open-enrollment university we employ between 60 and 80 adjuncts depending, and we literally have everything from published authors with PhDs down to people who barely earned an MA in our own awful master's program or MAs from a similar regional institution.  At my old toxic rural uni we sometimes had to hire phys ed masters and, in one instance, an adjunct who held a "doctorate" from an on-line propriety school to staff the classes, otherwise they would have had to cancel them; these folks worked alongside PhDs and ABDs working to finish at the big highly regarded flagship down the road.

If we could boil down the majority of the PT jobs we could eliminate the phys ed majors and the terrible teachers and give career jobs to the good qualified teachers and scholars.  There are enough good people out there to do this, but we have relegated a great many of them to PT status because of the system we now have. 

We have the potential to stop the decline of our higher ed system, the declining birthrate notwithstanding.  We simply have to get the word out and help our marketing departments college admins to make good decisions. Now please pay attention.

[Caracal]

Absolutely, but so far I haven't heard anyone claim that the "adjunct problem" is mainly the low quality of adjunct teaching;  the main complaint seems to be the low pay for people whose teaching is of good quality. If that's the argument, then performance improvement isn't necessary.

These kinds of faux supply and demand arguments only seem logical because you've accepted the system in place. For example, apparently there is something of an oversupply of lawyers and a law degree doesn't give people the clear path to a job that it once did. However, to my knowledge, law firms haven't responded to this oversupply by creating tons of part time low paying lawyer positions that allow no opportunity for advancement. If you think it is important that the people doing a job be good at it, you try to attract and retain skilled people. Sure, plenty of adjuncts are quite good at their jobs, but the system doesn't allow for a lot of quality control as Wahoo says. Worse, the people who are good aren't being incentivized to stay. Some good people will stay for their own reasons, but over time you'll lose a lot of quality instructors who eventually decide that they want to do something that pays more and provides more security.

The basic assumption imbedded in systems that rely so heavily on adjuncts is that none of this matters, because instructors are just cogs you can slide in to classes.

[mahagonny]

Absolutely, but so far I haven't heard anyone claim that the "adjunct problem" is mainly the low quality of adjunct teaching;  the main complaint seems to be the low pay for people whose teaching is of good quality. If that's the argument, then performance improvement isn't necessary.

These kinds of faux supply and demand arguments only seem logical because you've accepted the system in place.

If you had my experience you would be prompted by this to point out that many of the tenure track faculty (I know it's blasphemy to criticize your superiors, but there are no other conclusions available) accepted the system in place when they started their own unions 30+ years ago and pointedly agreed to exclude adjunct faculty, making an unlevel playing field where offsetting the tyranny of the free market is concerned. So it shouldn't surprise us to hear voices from all over who insist on repeating the supply and demand mantra. They've been reinforced by arguments and working examples.

[Morris Zapp]

Absolutely, but so far I haven't heard anyone claim that the "adjunct problem" is mainly the low quality of adjunct teaching;  the main complaint seems to be the low pay for people whose teaching is of good quality. If that's the argument, then performance improvement isn't necessary.

These kinds of faux supply and demand arguments only seem logical because you've accepted the system in place. For example, apparently there is something of an oversupply of lawyers and a law degree doesn't give people the clear path to a job that it once did. However, to my knowledge, law firms haven't responded to this oversupply by creating tons of part time low paying lawyer positions that allow no opportunity for advancement. If you think it is important that the people doing a job be good at it, you try to attract and retain skilled people. Sure, plenty of adjuncts are quite good at their jobs, but the system doesn't allow for a lot of quality control as Wahoo says. Worse, the people who are good aren't being incentivized to stay. Some good people will stay for their own reasons, but over time you'll lose a lot of quality instructors who eventually decide that they want to do something that pays more and provides more security.

The basic assumption imbedded in systems that rely so heavily on adjuncts is that none of this matters, because instructors are just cogs you can slide in to classes.

Actually, the assumption is that instructors are 'content delivery vehicles' and that provided the content is delivered, it doesn't actually matter who is delivering it.

[mahagonny]

Absolutely, but so far I haven't heard anyone claim that the "adjunct problem" is mainly the low quality of adjunct teaching;  the main complaint seems to be the low pay for people whose teaching is of good quality. If that's the argument, then performance improvement isn't necessary.

These kinds of faux supply and demand arguments only seem logical because you've accepted the system in place. For example, apparently there is something of an oversupply of lawyers and a law degree doesn't give people the clear path to a job that it once did. However, to my knowledge, law firms haven't responded to this oversupply by creating tons of part time low paying lawyer positions that allow no opportunity for advancement. If you think it is important that the people doing a job be good at it, you try to attract and retain skilled people. Sure, plenty of adjuncts are quite good at their jobs, but the system doesn't allow for a lot of quality control as Wahoo says. Worse, the people who are good aren't being incentivized to stay. Some good people will stay for their own reasons, but over time you'll lose a lot of quality instructors who eventually decide that they want to do something that pays more and provides more security.

The basic assumption imbedded in systems that rely so heavily on adjuncts is that none of this matters, because instructors are just cogs you can slide in to classes.

Actually, the assumption is that instructors are 'content delivery vehicles' and that provided the content is delivered, it doesn't actually matter who is delivering it.

It does if, for whatever reason he gives only the quality of service that his pay justifies or allows.

I think one thought process is that the part time instructor is eager to 'give back to the community' an appealing bit of magical thinking that means, hopefully, that the poor compensation and lack of advancement don't have any bad effect on the instructor, his morale or his work. The arrogant sense of entitlement behind this assumption is painfully clear when the professor wants to give back to the wrong community, i.e. his colleagues, with activism, unions, maybe even strikes and he becomes the enemy.

[polly_mer]

The vote is in:  75% of those eligible to vote did so.  The contract passes with 86% of those voting in favor of the new contract.  CUNY has 12k adjuncts out of 30k total faculty.

The terms, for those who want to be outraged, include:

* In fall 2022, the minimum is $5500/three credit class, but that also includes one office hour per week and the instructions for those who don't have an office are to tell students to meet you in the library/cafeteria, etc.  The angry folks at Twitter have repeated pointed out that, factoring in inflation, this results in more work for less money and is nowhere near the $7k/three-credit class now that was still poverty level for people teaching only a couple classes per term.  The angry folks at Twitter are really, really angry that this is being billed as a 71% increase instead of not even keeping up with inflation.

* There is back-pay involved for those who were adjuncts since this is a delayed negotiation.  However, the back pay for those making the minimum is $1.43 per contact hour for some parts of some semesters and then applying a 2% raise across the terms as the steps indicate.  No calculation I've managed comes up to more than $100 for one three-credit class, although people who taught several classes for a couple terms will get a one-time check of several hundred dollars.

Nothing on the Twitter feeds I've been monitoring indicate that the 7k or Strike! folks even admit the vote is over and No lost.  What I've seen instead is outrage that tuition is being increased at CUNY and that one of the proposed increased fees is a wellness fee for more counselors.

I don't care what anyone majors in.  I care a lot that people are being sold a bill of goods about the relative value of some types of education that rely heavily on having a good social network and other social capital when the individual students are in college for the hopes of a better job.

[Caracal]

I don't care what anyone majors in.  I care a lot that people are being sold a bill of goods about the relative value of some types of education that rely heavily on having a good social network and other social capital when the individual students are in college for the hopes of a better job.

Sigh, this is just nonsense. Nobody is being sold a bill of goods, students are way too aware of the value of degrees and given the quite small number of liberal arts majors, there's no reason to think that students who choose to major in liberal arts subjects are being duped.