Can Academia Treat Adjunct Faculty Fairly?
Dear friends of women in science,
I almost entitled this thread "Does academia treat adjunct faculty fairly?" but then I realized that the answer is obviously no. They are treated to the institution's benefit, not to the adjunct faculty's benefit. Almost always they are paid poorly. I noticed that when I was VP for academic affairs and hired adjuncts. I got the Claremont Colleges to raise the pay per course from 4 to 6K, which it still is some 12 years later. More recently, I've talked with some adjuncts who are replacing faculty in science at Pomona and heard similar stories, although letting adjuncts accumulate enough courses to be full time is more prevalent now. When on the visiting committee for my alma mater, I heard complaints from the regular faculty that there were too many adjuncts so their advising loads were rising rapidly. The administration said it was a money-saving move and necessary. Also, I did a semester as an adjunct teaching Rhetoric and Writing Studies at SDSU in my final year of MFA work. I showed my students my paycheck, and they laughed. I could laugh with them only because I had another job.
Another issue is access to resources. When I was academic VP, adjuncts who were around for at least two years could apply for research committee and teaching committee funds. Evidently, that access has been removed more recently, and young adjuncts thus lose a chance to improve their status in the job market. So often the adjunct is a spouse of someone with a more permanent job, and of course, many are women. Closing the doors to their self-improvement seems mean and short-sighted, and I wish we didn't behave that way.
Some adjuncts have research projects going. Institutions may or may not allow them to have students do senior theses in their labs and get any funding associated with those projects. Again, saying no is mean-spirited and is a cost-saving device that hurts.
Adjuncts can be hired part time or full time. In LA, part times ones are often called "freeway flyers" because for a lot of their lives, they sit in traffic trying to go from one college to another university in time for the next class. Of course, they need to teach six or eight classes at 4-6K each to make enough to avoid food stamps. And their employees don't have to pay benefits to part timers who work only 1/6 time or so.
What other issues about adjuncts are you aware of? How are adjuncts treated in your experience? Is there an adjunct equivalent in industry?
cheers,
Laura
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Hi friends,
Marion for Math just shared with me a very interesting report on the status of adjuncts (contingent faculty) compiled by the US House of Respresentatives. You can download it here: http://www.npr.org/2014/02/03/268427156/part-time-professors-demand-higher-pay-will-colleges-listen?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=share&utm_campaign= It supports the view that most have no benefits, are extremely well trained, and are women.
cheers,
Laura
Laura
Before taking a position as an adjunct, I had no idea of the dire situation. I am fortunate enough that I don't need much in the way of income at this stage in my life. We have lived frugally, saved, and my husband's job provides good benefits. Therefore, despite all the bad, I am enjoying myself.
However, I can't help but feel for those who are not in my position, who are trying to survive on the impossibly low adjunct salary, and who are trying to get a toehold in academia and not going anywhere. It is crazy. And, yes, women are more likely to be in this position because of taking time off for child rearing.
Marian
Hi Marian,
Wow. I knew you had a bad experience but it sounds like again, there's no flexibility in matching pay to qualification and no support, not even academic support for proper teaching. That " office" sounds like a nightmare for sure. I'm even more convinced that, for the good of the adjuncts and their institutions, this situation must be addressed and improved. So sorry to hear.
best,
Laura
Laura,
The adjunct situation is a disaster!
My plan in life was to be a university professor, but life, in the form of a husband, mortgage, child, and trying to find two career positions got in the way. I took an alternate track, working for industry. I am not some lowlife scum (I have a PhD from a top 10 university in Mathematics) and would argue that some of the work I did in industry is every bit as groundbreaking as that in academia, it just doesn't see the light of day.
After 30 years, the last half in increasingly responsible management positions, the most recent position with 170 people and many millions of funds under my direction, I called it quits. My body was no longer up to the fight
Rather than quit working altogether, I took a position as an adjunct at my local college where I am allowed to teach up to 10 units a semester. The pay? $51 per classroom hour, with each unit being approximately 1 classroom hour. That is a maximum of $500 per week! And, of course, I don't get paid for preparing lectures, grading tests, etc. I figure I am earning approximately minimum wage. I am certainly earning less than I did when I started work over 30 years ago. Furthermore, adjuncts get no benefits, and are docked if they miss class.
Adjuncts (in the Los Angeles area) do often work for multiple colleges, flying from one school to another to get to class. I see them with stacks of papers to grade, sneaking an apple for lunch as they work. They lead exceptionally grueling lives with no time for family, let alone research.
Many adjuncts lead student clubs, serve on committees, etc. They are trying to get "points" so that when a full-time position opens up they might get it. As an example, adjuncts are a majority in our faculty senate. (Now that they have been allowed in.)
Then there are facilities! The school where I teach has close to 1000 adjunct professors. They are assigned ONE converted classroom as an on-campus office. Half the room is filled with file cabinets -- no space available for late comers. There are 5 antique computer terminals and a central table where adjuncts hold office hours. Can you imagine working in that environment? Adjuncts carry their lives on their backs -- you can always spot them, they are the adults dragging a large rolling suitcase of papers, computer, and books all over campus.
As for research or lab space? You have got to be kidding! These professors are so busy trying to stay off food stamps that they don't have the time to do research or lab work, even if they had the space! As for research funding? Hah...
Who suffers here, besides the professors, of course? The students. The average adjunct is as well educated as the full-time teacher. Many are passionate about their students, but the situation is becoming impossible. Yes, some adjuncts are retirees, looking to keep active, but they are a minority. Most adjuncts are young, recent PhDs, trying to make a start in the world. For what they are earning, and what little they are doing to advance their careers, they would be better served with a full-time job in retail or fast-food. At least then they might get benefits that help support their families.
Adjuncts in industry?? They wouldn’t be allowed! Federal labor laws would kill the concept. Industry tries hard to bring in young, bright people – they are the future. They get full benefits, and a lot of encouragement. The closest thing to adjuncts are “consultants”, usually retirees with exceptional expertise, who are hired on an hourly basis. Many are government retirees who provide invaluable skills to industry. Most have pensions or other forms of support.
However, with the current economy, and companies striving to improve their near-term bottom line, more and more employees in their 50s and 60s are being laid off. They are often hard to employ. If their numbers increase, given the disappearance of pension plans, etc., we might find industry packing its benches with these senior part-timers, and treating them as badly as schools treat adjuncts. But, hiring lower-level part timers is currently not a common practice.
Marian
Dear Denise,
Thank you for putting a clear focus on how the treatment of adjuncts can trap a good woman scientist into non-tenurable positions if she chooses that route to make child care easier for a time. I have been uneasy about that for a long time, but have heard brief snippets and not a career-long perspective like yours. I agree that more flexibility would be good. I've been uneasy about some very strong women in our science division who I fear may be entering this tunnel. I hope they can pull out and get a real job before it's too late, but more, I wish for those us of who can, let's put this on college and university agendas as a women's issue that needs urgent attention.
best,
Laura
This is going to be a bit of long post, but please bear with me.
I have been an adjunct most of my career, having started out as a tenure track professor at an Ivy League university. So I think I can speak to both sides of this issue.
The first thing to appreciate is that today's adjuncts are "not your father's adjuncts". They are not just people who are not good enough to get a "real job", and they are not just people who are gypsying around, being paid on a per-course basis. Many are full time professors with benefits, quite substantial vitas, and decent salaries. But they are working outside the tenure stream and are routinely denied access to competitive resources (such as research space and research funding). In fact, the majority of professors at American universities fit this description. Here's why.
As budgets tightened, administrators tried to find ways to cover course demands while still funding research interests of tenure stream faculty. At the same time, women entered the academy in ever increasing numbers. Hence, the rise of the adjunct class in academia.
The traditional workplace is based on the assumption of a career trajectory that is rapid, unbroken, and constantly accelerating. But for most women, their preferred career trajectory is one that starts out like that (when there are no children), levels out or declines (when children are young), and then resumes acceleration (when children reach school age). The only viable way to do that when one is a scientist is to reach tenure before childbearing (the holy grail in a time of "no early tenure", "eight years to the PhD", and precious few tenure-track jobs), or to take an adjunct position until one's family demands subside.
The problem occurs at the third point in this trajectory, when children reach school-age and she tries to re-enter the workforce in a professional capacity. At that point, women discover that their career trajectory is frozen at their current level for the rest of their lives.
As someone who stepped off the tenure track and into an adjunct position to care for her special needs kids, I can state with the confidence of experience that such a move is a career killer--even if you continue to publish quality work.
One senior female professor put it this way when I asked for advice about getting back onto the tenure track: "You'll never get another tenure-track position because you wasted the first one. Your vita doesn't show the normal progression from assistant to associate to full professor. Instead, you went from assistant to adjunct. That will be interpreted to mean that you failed or that you weren't serious about your career."
Years later, another colleague who is also a department head, told me "There is no point in your applying for a tenure stream position because you would not be competitive." This was a particularly interesting comment given that my H-Index is equivalent to all of the associate professors in his department and some of his full professors. I had even been inducted into a prestigious science society in recognition of my contributions to the field.
To put it more colorfully, being an adjunct is like having a scarlet A sewn onto your shirt: It is a mark that keeps you forever on the periphery of the academic world. And that is a serious waste of female talent.
According to many, an academic who did not climb the ladder is a failure. Yet climbing that ladder usually demands draconian sacrifices that young female scientists are loathe to make. This does not make them poor scientists. It makes them unemployable scientists in a rigid academic hierarchy.
Claudia Goldin, Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University, argues that a large part of the gender salary gap is directly attributable to the lack of flexibility in the workplace. Women are severely penalized in terms of earnings and advancement for taking time off when they have children, and even short breaks come at huge cost.
The solution, according to Goldin, is for the workplace to embrace flexibility. Outdated notions of traditional career trajectories should be discarded, and emphasis should instead be placed on results regardless of where or when the work was done. The academy would do well to take her recommendations seriously.
So here is one simple solution to the problem: Stop routinely rejecting adjuncts as serious contenders for tenure-stream positions. All those women who hold such positions now in your departments? Are they really so unworthy of tenure-track positions?
Laura---this one makes me feel bad. I never hat to do this, but so many of the friends I knew in grad school (almost all the women) have ended up in this trap. Whatever universities can do to help people move through this stage into regular appointments would be worthwhile. Extra training, funding to go to meetings for interviews, research support seem important. But business orientation in academia is ever more prevalent, to the loss of our original values.
CB
