Who are the Strong and Weak Performing Adjunct Faculty?

[Wahoo Redux]

4. What are the best adjuncts likely to do in the near future?
5. What are the weaker ones likely to do in the near future?

These questions confuse me, based on this:

Your real interest is obviously in keeping the option of very low pay/no job security with no repercussions. Your sorting of adjuncts into good adjunct vs. bad adjunct groups is flawed and probably according to how easy it is for you to exploit and neglect them.

Since you criticize Polly for apparently "sorting" adjuncts, but you yourself "sort" them into "best" and "weaker", on what basis are you doing that, and how is it different? I honestly don't have a clue about what the distinction might be.

My friend Marshy, I frequently think you don't have a clue .

So can you explain what Mahagonny means by "best" and "weaker" adjuncts? And how that's different from "good" and "bad"? (You're right; I don't have a clue what the distinction is so please enlighten me.)

Shouldn't have to, buddy. 

But I'll give you a hint:

Is a "good" or "strong" adjunct:

• A: A capable teacher
  B: A lackluster teacher
  C: A researcher and writer as well as a capable teacher who has a terminal degree
  D: A teacher with minimal qualifications who does no professional development and who is not known as a good teacher by faculty and students
  E: All of the above
  F: None of the above

Hope that helps.  Now it's bed time.
[/list]

[marshwiggle]

So can you explain what Mahagonny means by "best" and "weaker" adjuncts? And how that's different from "good" and "bad"? (You're right; I don't have a clue what the distinction is so please enlighten me.)

Shouldn't have to, buddy. 

But I'll give you a hint:

Is a "good" or "strong" adjunct:

• A: A capable teacher
• B: A lackluster teacher
• C: A researcher and writer as well as a capable teacher who has a terminal degree
• D: A teacher with minimal qualifications who does no professional development and who is not known as a good teacher by faculty and students
• E: All of the above
• F: None of the above

Hope that helps.  Now it's bed time.

I'm assuming I'm supposed to pick C:
What about a capable teacher who doesn't have a terminal degree and does lots of professional development? Is that person "weak"? What about  a researcher and writer as well as a lackluster teacher who has a terminal degree? Is that person "weaker" or stronger than the other?

It's a really bad multiple choice test when a person doesn't have to know the material to be able to eliminate several of the answers because they are clearly stupid choices. (Such as "All of the above", since probably it's impossible to be a "capable" teacher and a "lackluster" one at the same time. Unless you're trying to be really tricky and allow the possibility that someone is, in fact, "capable", but doesn't choose to act that way and so in practice is "lackluster". Similar trick if a terminal degree IS the "minimal qualification".)

[mahagonny]

3. What are the beliefs we've had about quality in the adjunct world? Are they correct?

Many TT faculty look down on adjuncts (regardless of an adjunct's qualifications on paper): correct.
Many TT faculty automatically treat adjuncts as colleagues and give them respect: correct.
Many TT faculty are unconcerned about the adjunct army: correct.

In my experience, administration and its public representatives who talk to our union and the media play up the first scenario (italic). They have said things like "the talent [their term for the tenure track] thinks that adjunct faculty are less qualified." They don't have a questionnaire indicating such. They just throw it out there, like innuendo.
Or they say things to the media such as 'well, we would actually prefer not to hire adjuncts.' Which is, like a case of 'your actions speak so loudly I can't hear your words' for starters.
And in any case, "less qualified" than what? A person who is hired to do something you're not hired to do and paid ten times your wages? So what is the complaint? You don't want to see my research, if I had done any, but you want to complain that I may not be doing it or thoroughly trained to?

I'm assuming I'm supposed to pick C:
What about a capable teacher who doesn't have a terminal degree and does lots of professional development? Is that person "weak"? What about  a researcher and writer as well as a lackluster teacher who has a terminal degree? Is that person "weaker" or stronger than the other?

If you think my seven questions need tweaking, you could go ahead and show us your version of the right criteria.

[Wahoo Redux]

3. What are the beliefs we've had about quality in the adjunct world? Are they correct?

Many TT faculty look down on adjuncts (regardless of an adjunct's qualifications on paper): correct.
Many TT faculty automatically treat adjuncts as colleagues and give them respect: correct.
Many TT faculty are unconcerned about the adjunct army: correct.

In my experience, administration and its public representatives who talk to our union and the media play up the first scenario (italic). They have said things like "the talent [their term for the tenure track] thinks that adjunct faculty are less qualified." They don't have a questionnaire indicating such. They just throw it out there, like innuendo.
Or they say things to the media such as 'well, we would actually prefer not to hire adjuncts.' Which is, like a case of 'your actions speak so loudly I can't hear your words' for starters.
And in any case, "less qualified" than what? A person who is hired to do something you're not hired to do and paid ten times your wages? So what is the complaint? You don't want to see my research, if I had done any, but you want to complain that I may not be doing it or thoroughly trained to?

Not sure I followed that.  I simply meant that there are some TT professors who, no matter what one's achievements, will always act superior to adjuncts----and I guess in the context of university hierarchies these folks are higher up the totem pole and there might not be any way around that.

I'm assuming I'm supposed to pick C:
What about a capable teacher who doesn't have a terminal degree and does lots of professional development? Is that person "weak"? What about  a researcher and writer as well as a lackluster teacher who has a terminal degree? Is that person "weaker" or stronger than the other?

If you think my seven questions need tweaking, you could go ahead and show us your version of the right criteria.
[/quote]

I knew this young person in college who fell in with our social set by a virtue of being a roommate to one of us.  We were hardly cool kids or mean kids or socialites, but this person was so insecure that hu felt the only way to interact was to start arguments so we would pay attention to hu.

It was ridiculous and sad and eventually hu fell out of our set and was not missed.

[mahagonny]

3. What are the beliefs we've had about quality in the adjunct world? Are they correct?

Many TT faculty look down on adjuncts (regardless of an adjunct's qualifications on paper): correct.
Many TT faculty automatically treat adjuncts as colleagues and give them respect: correct.
Many TT faculty are unconcerned about the adjunct army: correct.

In my experience, administration and its public representatives who talk to our union and the media play up the first scenario (italic). They have said things like "the talent [their term for the tenure track] thinks that adjunct faculty are less qualified." They don't have a questionnaire indicating such. They just throw it out there, like innuendo.
Or they say things to the media such as 'well, we would actually prefer not to hire adjuncts.' Which is, like a case of 'your actions speak so loudly I can't hear your words' for starters.
And in any case, "less qualified" than what? A person who is hired to do something you're not hired to do and paid ten times your wages? So what is the complaint? You don't want to see my research, if I had done any, but you want to complain that I may not be doing it or thoroughly trained to?

Not sure I followed that.  I simply meant that there are some TT professors who, no matter what one's achievements, will always act superior to adjuncts----and I guess in the context of university hierarchies these folks are higher up the totem pole and there might not be any way around that.

I often wonder which, if any, tenured people in my department have much of any idea what I do. I don't mean in the classroom as much as out in the field. Some, without a doubt, do. But in some fields the adjuncts are the practitioners and the tenured are...well, the academics. Not that I am world class. More that they are riding the wave of a popular trend, and have all the qualifications needed for that.

[marshwiggle]

I'm assuming I'm supposed to pick C:
What about a capable teacher who doesn't have a terminal degree and does lots of professional development? Is that person "weak"? What about  a researcher and writer as well as a lackluster teacher who has a terminal degree? Is that person "weaker" or stronger than the other?

If you think my seven questions need tweaking, you could go ahead and show us your version of the right criteria.

I knew this young person in college who fell in with our social set by a virtue of being a roommate to one of us.  We were hardly cool kids or mean kids or socialites, but this person was so insecure that hu felt the only way to interact was to start arguments so we would pay attention to hu.

It was ridiculous and sad and eventually hu fell out of our set and was not missed.

Are you responding to Mahagonny or to me? I can't tell by your reply. Your posts often have misplaced quote tags and things like that that make things confusing.