Dust (Adjunct Professor) in the wind
The increasing job instability is a hallmark of our times. In science and higher education this translates to seemingly endless years of postdoctoral positions or working as an adjunct faculty. People become Adjuncts for various reasons. Dr P, after a move was looking for permanent teaching position at a primarily teaching university, but they were not interested because of her lack of track record in undergraduate teaching. Teaching a number of classes at a community college aimed to fix that gap. Another example would be an oral surgeon who is the product of the Honors Collage at USF signed up as an adjunct to give back to the program.
Historically part-time (or Adjunct) faculty supplemented the in-house knowledge at post-secondary institutions. They were retired engineers telling students about real life projects, lawyers and physicians teaching a class or two on their specialty at professional school. While this still seem to hold true in some professional programs, increasingly Adjunct faculty is recruited to provide inexpensive, easy to dismiss and manage teaching workforce in the higher education industry.
The increasing use of Adjunct faculty is not very new; it’s been happening for at least 40 years now. According to the US Department of Education Institute of Higher Education since 1970 the number of full time faculty at universities doubled, while the number of part time faculty went up six fold (1), reaching nearly the same number as the full-time faculty. In the same period of time the number of students enrolled at these institutions increased the same as full time faculty, i.e., it doubled.
A 1999 survey found that part-time faculty on average taught 41% of the undergraduate classes. (2) Part-time faculty does work part time: 50% teaches only one class and 32% teaches two classes (unlike other industries where so-called “part-time” workers may work as many hours as full-time employees). There might be local limitations on the number of hours taught, for example, in 2008, California raised the maximum for Adjuncts from 60 to 67% of what a full time faculty teaches. This made a big difference for those who taught a 5-credit class out of the standard 15-unit load who before the limit was raised had to commute far to a different community college to be able to teach a second similar class.
Let’s consider the key issues for those involved in the educational process. From the perspective of part time faculty: equality in compensation, job security, academic freedom, professional advancement and development, benefits; from the perspective of the students: access to faculty, quality of instruction. Issues for the administration: an efficient way of dealing with budget difficulties, with fluctuation in enrollment, easier to deal with lecturers balanced with potential accreditation issues. Full time faculty gets larger flexibility of picking the most desirable courses in exchange for an increase in administrative burden. Out of these issues I will discuss a few in the following paragraphs.
In private industry typically temporary workers are paid similar salary as full time workers. The saving in using a temporary worker comes from that they are not paid benefits and can be employed on an ad-hoc basis. According to a survey by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources typical Assistant Professor salaries are in the low 50 thousand dollar a year range (3) and benefits add a substantial amount to this. Adjunct median salary per course $1500-2500, so they would have to teach over 20 classes for a similar income. A study from the fall of 1998 found that in full time faculty tends to hold higher academic degrees than part time faculty, in 2 years institutions 20, 62, 18% (Doctorate, Masters, Bachelors, respectively) as oppose to part time, 11, 59, 31%. In 4 year institutions the numbers were as follows: 78, 20, 2% vs. 39, 51, 11%. (4) However, the difference between educational backgrounds is not the reason for the salary discrepancy, full- and part-time faculty with the same educational degree are still paid differently.
If hiring Adjuncts is a money saving tool, perhaps it would be fair to pass this savings on to the customers. Could there be a system where a student may pick a class taught by a full time faculty member for the standard fees, and this comes with the benefit of regular office hours, the potential of recommendations, etc; or one with an Adjunct for less, without the guaranteed out of class room benefits? Alternatively, is the public willing to take on new taxes to pay for a higher percent of full-time faculty at public post-secondary institutions?
Accreditation is key to success for a University if it wants to recruit students who are in need of federal student loans. The regional accreditation boards are slow to respond to the increasing use of part-time faculty. Not having a standard definition of full-time faculty further complicates the issue. As Dad (5) pointed out, if the accreditation agencies would establish an arbitrary percentage of full-time faculty that needs to be maintained to keep accreditation, collages can easily re-classify lab techs and other full time employees to meet the quota without changing hiring policies.
The phenomenon of using large number of part-time faculty is likely here to stay and there is no incentive for most of the key players to address the top problem that these teachers raise, i.e. the pay inequity. Realistically what we may hope for is a system of quality control and transparency, which would help Adjuncts to develop professionally (and perhaps help with getting full-time employment). This would also help students to make choices based on knowing who are going to be their teachers and be reassured that these individuals are supervised as teachers. Finally, this system could ease the concerns of accreditors.
1) Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d06/tables/dt06_231.asp Sept 15 2010
2) Townsend, 2000. Summary of data from surveys on the academic workforce. Retrieved from http://www.historians.org/caw/cawreport.htm 2010 Sept 15
3) Retrieved from http://www.higheredjobs.com/salary/salaryDisplay.cfm?SurveyID=3 Sept 15 2010
4) Background Characteristics, Work Activities, and Compensation of Faculty and Instructional Staff in Postsecondary Institutions: Fall 1998 Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2001152 Sept 15 2010
5) Retrieved (Sept 15 2010) from http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions_of_a_ community_ college _ dean/adjuncts_and_accreditation April 2008
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