Rick:
I'm writing to seek permission to forward your letter to Dr. Olan Ray who
resides over the junior college board in MS. I'm hoping it will make an
impression. I never fully appreciated the plight of the adjunct/part-timer
til now.
JL Edwards
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (home)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"A great many people think they are
thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices."
William James
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 2:00 PM
Subject: RE: adjunct faculty
> Paul wrote:
>
> > At doing _what_?
> > The job descriptions are not the same -- full-time faculty do
> > much more than just teach courses. What this means is that
> > the few remaining fulltime faculty have to spend more time on
> > committees, admionistration, advising, etc, and with neglect
> > their teaching and professional competence, or work unpaid
> > overtime (the latter is probably your administration's wish).
> > Basically, what many institutions are doing is hiring temp workers.
>
> It has another effect as well--it discourages people from
> entering academia in the first place.
>
> When adjunct teaching was still a "stepping stone" to a full
> time teaching job, many excellent teachers used that approach to enter
> into their careers. Today, with the adjunct trend, those same people are
> looking at jobs in the private sector instead.
>
> I've been an adjunct for ten years--and in that time I've seen
> the institution where I teach go from a primarily full-time-faculty
> taught environment to one in which the majority of instructors are now
> part timers. Has it made a difference? Perhaps not from the academic
> perspective--most adjuncts have the same education as the full time
> faculty. But from a teaching perspective it certainly has.
>
> For those who are full time faculty, try putting yourself in an
> adjunct's position for a moment. What differences would you see:
>
> 1. Your salary would drop radically (at my institution the top
> pay for an adjunct with several years experience and a doctorate is
> $29.50 per contact hour with no pay for hours spent counseling,
> preparing or grading tests, etc.).
>
> 2. Your benefit package would disappear (few institutions, mine
> included, offer any form of insurance--even if the adjunct is willing to
> pay for it--and there are no "sick days," sabbaticals, paid trips to
> seminars, etc.).
>
> 3. You would have to do all student counseling in your classroom
> or in a lounge (most institutions don't provide offices for adjuncts),
> and without compensation.
>
> 4. You would have no requirement to participate in
> committees--but neither would you have any way of providing professional
> INPUT into the system.
>
> 5. You would be expected to adhere to a departmental syllabus,
> with no discretion as to text, etc.
>
> 6. You would have no opportunity for research.
>
> 7. You would be expected to teach classes at any time and on any
> subject your department chair decided to assign you. Some chairs will
> take into account your strengths and weaknesses, others won't.
>
> 8. You would receive none of the usual "perks" of serving as
> faculty (i.e., faculty parking space, ability to put materials on
> reserve in the library for students, etc.) and would be expected to make
> use of such general resources as the print shop or computer lab on your
> own time (without compensation). In many institutions, you wouldn't even
> have use of the department secretary to handle your office needs.
>
> Perhaps none of those is a reason for an _institution_ to object
> to a change-over to an adjunct based approach, but they are certainly
> reasons for opposing it as faculty members. More importantly, quality
> education requires more than academic qualifications on the part of the
> faculty--it requires commitment, a time investment, and the exclusive
> focus of the instructor--none of which is really practical or possible
> for an adjunct who must focus instead on his/her primary source of
> income--something most of us originally expected would be teaching full
> time.
>
> I suspect the "quality" factors will start changing fairly
> rapidly. Many of us are looking at leaving teaching out of a sense of
> discouragement--we went to grad school to become academics, not "second
> class teachers" as adjuncts are often treated in academia.
>
> Just a few thoughts to consider,
>
> Rick
> --
>
> Rick Adams
> Department of Social Sciences
> Jackson Community College
> Jackson, Michigan
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> ". . . and the only measure of your worth and your deeds will be the
> love you leave behind when you're gone." --Fred Small
>
>
>
>
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