Why do you adjunct?

[mahagonny]

And yet, we still see articles like: http://www.ccnycampus.org/2018/12/special-report-the-adjunct-crisis/

The observation continues that the problem is not too many PhDs, but hiring master's educated folk to do the teaching instead of the whole professor job.  While 80% of part-time CUNY faculty would take a full-time job if offered, it's also clear that a national search that prefers the PhD means those folks would not be eligible.

Incorrect. They would eligible for full time positions off the tenure track if there were not PhD's in abundance who want those same jobs, jobs which higher ed also would profit from creating. This is just a smear against the adjunct for not being qualified for a job he doesn't hold (tenure track). An attitude that informs most or all of your many posts on the

Degree does not designate teaching ability, of course, and I hope there'd be a place for the excellent teachers no matter their pedigrees.   I think we'd have more peeps seeking the doctorate too.

Well, maybe so.
Nevertheless, I'm old enough that I remember an era where some of the full professors had only the Master's Degree. Somehow it worked. It's a matter of what the culture decides. For a culture that fixates on diversity, it's odd that they would want to make employment for and delivery of education by children of the wealthy the more likely result. But then again, the diversity mania is a money maker and so is peddling PhD's, so in the final analysis, liberals are not different from conservatives, other than having an occasionally deliriously exalted view of themselves and their motivations.
I'm not talking about you, just general trends and ideas in circulation.

[downer]

Please preview your posts.

[Wahoo Redux]

And yet, we still see articles like: http://www.ccnycampus.org/2018/12/special-report-the-adjunct-crisis/

The observation continues that the problem is not too many PhDs, but hiring master's educated folk to do the teaching instead of the whole professor job.  While 80% of part-time CUNY faculty would take a full-time job if offered, it's also clear that a national search that prefers the PhD means those folks would not be eligible.

Incorrect. They would eligible for full time positions off the tenure track if there were not PhD's in abundance who want those same jobs, jobs which higher ed also would profit from creating. This is just a smear against the adjunct for not being qualified for a job he doesn't hold (tenure track). An attitude that informs most or all of your many posts on the

Degree does not designate teaching ability, of course, and I hope there'd be a place for the excellent teachers no matter their pedigrees.   I think we'd have more peeps seeking the doctorate too.

Well, maybe so.
Nevertheless, I'm old enough that I remember an era where some of the full professors had only the Master's Degree. Somehow it worked. It's a matter of what the culture decides.

Me too actually.  What I was thinking about is my recent experience with our graduate students in our lowly-ranked, poorly-run, underfunded MA program: The realistic negativity regarding the job market has actually infiltrated the ranks and people are foregoing doctoral programs.  In some instances (in a graduate program such as ours, for instance) and sometimes this a good thing----some of our graduate students (from our own uni) probably shouldn't have been given a BA, much less an MA.  On the other hand, we have a handful of top-notch people (well-read, great writers and thinkers, sometimes multilingual) who would be great additions to the academic world.  These we lose and it is a shame.  If we have more jobs for well-trained academics, more will enter the advanced programs.

I suspect the adjunct march is in the very first stages of turning around.  The conundrum is seeping out into the media and out into the mainstream.  For each Polly and Spork in the world there are a dozen academics very concerned about the situation.  Parents and students are becoming aware.  This is where things will change if they will ever change.

We have, for instance, new indoor tennis courts going up on the outskirts of campus.  Great.  At the same time, the administration is letting outgoing tenure lines die and making departments grovel for even NTT jobs.  The admin could care less what we think, but at some point parents, students and alumni will notice these sorts of imbalances, particularly if we help make them clear.  A lazy river is a great way to attract students, and some students will love the amusement park amenities, but there will be other students who actually are worried about tuition and the people at the head of the classroom.  Sure, different pots of money...but we all know a pot of money can be emptied into another pot; anybody whose been in academia for any length of time has seen this.

And yes, being FT makes a big difference.

Time has come to fight for change.

[mahagonny]

And yet, we still see articles like: http://www.ccnycampus.org/2018/12/special-report-the-adjunct-crisis/

The observation continues that the problem is not too many PhDs, but hiring master's educated folk to do the teaching instead of the whole professor job.  While 80% of part-time CUNY faculty would take a full-time job if offered, it's also clear that a national search that prefers the PhD means those folks would not be eligible.

Incorrect. They would eligible for full time positions off the tenure track if there were not PhD's in abundance who want those same jobs, jobs which higher ed also would profit from creating. This is just a smear against the adjunct for not being qualified for a job he doesn't hold (tenure track). An attitude that informs most or all of your many posts on the

Degree does not designate teaching ability, of course, and I hope there'd be a place for the excellent teachers no matter their pedigrees.   I think we'd have more peeps seeking the doctorate too.

Well, maybe so.
Nevertheless, I'm old enough that I remember an era where some of the full professors had only the Master's Degree. Somehow it worked. It's a matter of what the culture decides.

Me too actually.  What I was thinking about is my recent experience with our graduate students in our lowly-ranked, poorly-run, underfunded MA program: The realistic negativity regarding the job market has actually infiltrated the ranks and people are foregoing doctoral programs.  In some instances (in a graduate program such as ours, for instance) and sometimes this a good thing----some of our graduate students (from our own uni) probably shouldn't have been given a BA, much less an MA.  On the other hand, we have a handful of top-notch people (well-read, great writers and thinkers, sometimes multilingual) who would be great additions to the academic world.  These we lose and it is a shame.  If we have more jobs for well-trained academics, more will enter the advanced programs.

I suspect the adjunct march is in the very first stages of turning around.  The conundrum is seeping out into the media and out into the mainstream.  For each Polly and Spork in the world there are a dozen academics very concerned about the situation.  Parents and students are becoming aware.  This is where things will change if they will ever change.

We have, for instance, new indoor tennis courts going up on the outskirts of campus.  Great.  At the same time, the administration is letting outgoing tenure lines die and making departments grovel for even NTT jobs.  The admin could care less what we think, but at some point parents, students and alumni will notice these sorts of imbalances, particularly if we help make them clear.  A lazy river is a great way to attract students, and some students will love the amusement park amenities, but there will be other students who actually are worried about tuition and the people at the head of the classroom.  Sure, different pots of money...but we all know a pot of money can be emptied into another pot; anybody whose been in academia for any length of time has seen this.

And yes, being FT makes a big difference.

Time has come to fight for change.

I can see why you believe in the PhD especially if it was a life transforming experience for you. I also pose this thought: some people have had life transforming experiences other than that one that have given them the opportunity to become either highly effective teachers presently or potential highly effective teachers with the support of a realistic way to do their work, including decent wages and a developed ongoing relationship with the department. Decades ago adjunct job applicants used to be described more this way, positively, and it's valid, and many have been well trained by this type of instructor. One problem though is they frequently give up teaching. And why wouldn't they?.
There are also lackluster teachers who could be better teachers but they are calculating that it isn't necessary for their security and/or advancement, so they don't bother. This is not necessarily a stupid conclusion.
Speaking for myself, hoping the everyone who is an excellent teacher can get work teaching at an accredited institution seems like more of a wish than a goal. If the day comes where I can't get work with college teaching I'll do something else. C'est la vie.  A little long in the tooth to go back to college.

One of Aster's disqualifiers, an attribute that I do not have, (but I know some who do):

5. This person has ludicrously high RMP ratings (yes, I check RMP its very effective in ferreting out severe grade inflators)

[Wahoo Redux]

I wouldn't say that the doctorate was transformative, at least not for me, simply that it is the most appropriate degree for adult education.  If nothing else, it instills a depth of knowledge. 

I simply predict that, as the bar has been successively raised at every stage of advanced education, the doctorate will be the default for any FT work in the future and often PT work.  Often it is now. 

I had a campus interview at a 2 year satellite campus several years ago for FT work, and the SCC told me (muttered is more like it) that they were simply turning away anyone without a doctorate.  For the NTT job I now have I got a hold of my competitor's CVs (spouse on the faculty): all PhDs with experience and publications for a 5/5 mostly gen ed position for a low-ranked school in an undesirable location. 

At the same time, I would suggest that teaching is something like 50% dedication, 30% personality, and 20% subject-knowledge; the doctorate does not guarantee teaching ability----so there is always that to consider.  One of the conundrums of hiring I guess.

[marshwiggle]

I wouldn't say that the doctorate was transformative, at least not for me, simply that it is the most appropriate degree for adult education.  If nothing else, it instills a depth of knowledge. 

I'm curious about this one. For my undergraduate degree, I had to take around 20 courses in my discipline. For my Master's, I needed to take another 4, and would have needed a further 4 for a PhD. You could argue that the graduate courses were at a somewhat higher level than the undergraduate ones, (although not much above the 4th year courses, I'd say), but at 6 courses a term as an undergraduate all of grad school accounts for only about one more year's worth of courses.  Studying for a comprehensive exam would certainly require revisiting all kinds of earlier material to be familiar with it, but overall the vast amount of subject knowledge that someone with a PhD would have seems to have been (at least in principle) covered during the undergraduate degree.

Since I didn't do the PhD, I'd be happy to get perspectives on this from people who did.

I simply predict that, as the bar has been successively raised at every stage of advanced education, the doctorate will be the default for any FT work in the future and often PT work.  Often it is now. 

It's always requested for part-time work, but I think it depends a lot on the discipline as to whether there will be enough candidates to actually require it. In a lot of STEM fields that would be too restrictive.

I had a campus interview at a 2 year satellite campus several years ago for FT work, and the SCC told me (muttered is more like it) that they were simply turning away anyone without a doctorate.  For the NTT job I now have I got a hold of my competitor's CVs (spouse on the faculty): all PhDs with experience and publications for a 5/5 mostly gen ed position for a low-ranked school in an undesirable location. 

At the same time, I would suggest that teaching is something like 50% dedication, 30% personality, and 20% subject-knowledge; the doctorate does not guarantee teaching ability----so there is always that to consider.  One of the conundrums of hiring I guess.

No snark intended, but would you say teaching ability falls under "dedication" or "personality"? I've known lots of people, (including on threads here), who seem to truly care about student learning but don't seem to automatically connect the dots between how they run their courses and how engaged their students are. (I think your 20% subject knowledge is about right; over the years I've realized that my organizational ability is far more critical to my success than detailed knowledge of the subject matter itself.)

[mahagonny]

I wouldn't say that the doctorate was transformative...

But didn't it make you years older?

At the same time, I would suggest that teaching is something like 50% dedication, 30% personality, and 20% subject-knowledge; the doctorate does not guarantee teaching ability----so there is always that to consider.  One of the conundrums of hiring I guess.

I once complemented a family counselor for her work, noting her training and keen perception. She answered: half of it is just being willing to do the hard work.

I simply predict that, as the bar has been successively raised at every stage of advanced education, the doctorate will be the default for any FT work in the future and often PT work.  Often it is now. 

I think you are right, but also conclude this means that the tenure track's influence in wanting its PhD programs to stay populated has driven adjunctification and the consequent devaluing of teaching.

[Caracal]

  Studying for a comprehensive exam would certainly require revisiting all kinds of earlier material to be familiar with it, but overall the vast amount of subject knowledge that someone with a PhD would have seems to have been (at least in principle) covered during the undergraduate degree.

Definitely not in my field, but this probably varies. In history, there's just no way an undergrad could read enough to really get an in depth understanding of the historiography. I can't imagine that I would really be able to teach college classes without all of that reading and discussion of historiography. It isn't just about having read a lot of stuff, that helps, but it is also about an approach to historical argument.

All of that was comps, though and if I had never finished my dissertation I still would have the masters. The dissertation part is less directly relevant to my teaching. I suspect people tend to prefer Phds for basically the same reason so many jobs require a college degree. The idea is that just having finished the thing means something about the person's competence. Perhaps, on average, that is true, but I'm not sure you can really justify it as a qualification.

[Wahoo Redux]

Some fair questions.

The PhD put years back on me after the Cube Farm acted like the Life Sucking Machine in The Princess Bride and prematurely aged me.

Personally, my Big Bang of knowledge came with the master's degree, but the details and depth and clarity came with the doctorate.  The master's gave me a lot of names and titles and theories and such, but it really was the extra work of the PhD that brought it into perspective and really explained the things I'd leaned on the MA level.

Obviously, I think, a master's degree gives one breadth enough to teach a lower-division gen ed in most disciplines.  Still, it is good to have someone who has the bigger picture or someone who has a depth of knowledge to draw from when doing curriculum and such.  And sure, education is not the only way to acquire knowledge, yet it is one of the best ways and a degree is a measure of that.

I feel the same way with writing, actually.  Writing and researching is a great way to learn stuff.  I know writing is not part of the adjunct job, but publication does demonstrate someone engaging with the discipline, meeting editorial standards, staying current and increasing his/her own knowledge base.  If I were on a HC I would look for these even on a teaching or NTT job.

[ciao_yall]

I wouldn't say that the doctorate was transformative, at least not for me, simply that it is the most appropriate degree for adult education.  If nothing else, it instills a depth of knowledge. 

I'm curious about this one. For my undergraduate degree, I had to take around 20 courses in my discipline. For my Master's, I needed to take another 4, and would have needed a further 4 for a PhD. You could argue that the graduate courses were at a somewhat higher level than the undergraduate ones, (although not much above the 4th year courses, I'd say), but at 6 courses a term as an undergraduate all of grad school accounts for only about one more year's worth of courses.  Studying for a comprehensive exam would certainly require revisiting all kinds of earlier material to be familiar with it, but overall the vast amount of subject knowledge that someone with a PhD would have seems to have been (at least in principle) covered during the undergraduate degree.

Since I didn't do the PhD, I'd be happy to get perspectives on this from people who did.

A Doctorate is a different type of study.

Undergrads are presented with reasonable framework of a subject area and asked to learn and analyze fundamentals. With a Master's the work is more advanced in that it expects prior exposure to the undergraduate work, as well as the ability to integrate other subject areas (like gen eds, interthreaduality).

With a Doctorate, one is expected to read the research and create new knowledge for the field. Shorter-term doctoral programs typically expect a Master's degree in hand upon acceptance, so it's not realistic to say a PhD or EdD has "less" knowledge than an undergrad or even a Master's.

[Wahoo Redux]

I wouldn't say that the doctorate was transformative, at least not for me, simply that it is the most appropriate degree for adult education.  If nothing else, it instills a depth of knowledge. 

I'm curious about this one. For my undergraduate degree, I had to take around 20 courses in my discipline. For my Master's, I needed to take another 4, and would have needed a further 4 for a PhD. You could argue that the graduate courses were at a somewhat higher level than the undergraduate ones, (although not much above the 4th year courses, I'd say), but at 6 courses a term as an undergraduate all of grad school accounts for only about one more year's worth of courses.  Studying for a comprehensive exam would certainly require revisiting all kinds of earlier material to be familiar with it, but overall the vast amount of subject knowledge that someone with a PhD would have seems to have been (at least in principle) covered during the undergraduate degree.

Since I didn't do the PhD, I'd be happy to get perspectives on this from people who did.

A Doctorate is a different type of study.

Undergrads are presented with reasonable framework of a subject area and asked to learn and analyze fundamentals. With a Master's the work is more advanced in that it expects prior exposure to the undergraduate work, as well as the ability to integrate other subject areas (like gen eds, interthreaduality).

With a Doctorate, one is expected to read the research and create new knowledge for the field. Shorter-term doctoral programs typically expect a Master's degree in hand upon acceptance, so it's not realistic to say a PhD or EdD has "less" knowledge than an undergrad or even a Master's.

I learned the most in graduate school.

For me, at least, I had to learn a great deal in order to create new knowledge for the dissertation.  If nothing else, I needed to find out what had already been found out in order to find something new.  My dissertation was a very narrow subject, of course, but I had to do a great deal of broad reading to figure out how my new idea fit into the big picture and then a great deal of narrow reading to figure out if my new idea really was new.  I think my qualifying exams were my next Big Bang of knowledge acquisition. 

The majority of my knowledge was definitely not gained at an undergraduate level.  Not even close.

[mahagonny]

I learned the most in graduate school.

For me, at least, I had to learn a great deal in order to create new knowledge for the dissertation.  If nothing else, I needed to find out what had already been found out in order to find something new.  My dissertation was a very narrow subject, of course, but I had to do a great deal of broad reading to figure out how my new idea fit into the big picture and then a great deal of narrow reading to figure out if my new idea really was new.  I think my qualifying exams were my next Big Bang of knowledge acquisition. 

The majority of my knowledge was definitely not gained at an undergraduate level.  Not even close.

This certainly sounds exciting, I am honored to make your acquaintance. But it still doesn't show me why the real reason everyone ought to get a PhD isn't so the tenure track can keep its PhD programs populated, because (a) that's what the cool people want and the more cool people you have, the more fortified the tenure dynasty is, and (b) there's some belief going around that any reform to the tenure system is some kind of attack against truth, progress and the future of humanity, and this kind of belief gives people a lot of power. In the words of Gsawpenny 'tenure is the tyrant that supports nothing but itself.'

[Wahoo Redux]

Yup.  Hit a nerve.  Figured this would happen at some point.  The adjunct jungle is a perilous landscape. 

I was thinking neither pro nor con regarding tenure.  Wasn't actually thinking about tenure at all. 

But I don't think the PhD is a tenure factory and GSAWpenny is not the most reliable source.

[mahagonny]

Right, there are plenty of nerves to hit in this world of scarcity, strong-willed competitors, change, convention, confidence and insecurity.

Whether tenure will be around for another 1000 years or just fifteen more? It's fun to speculate. You can go to realclearpolitics or other and read about the 2020 election. Half of them say Trump just lost the election with what happened yesterday and half say the democrats did. They're not all correct. Intelligent people disagree.

Good luck to you Wahoo. There have been interesting discussions here, I've enjoyed reading your remarks.

[Wahoo Redux]

Has been a good time.  A lot of good opinion.  We shall see each other around, no doubt.