<p>YouTube</a> - Part Time Prof: Hard Work, Little $, No Benefits</p>
<p>This is pretty depressing. Now, do all professors start out as adjunct professors? Personally, I want to be a professor. I didn't know it can be this bad. I thought that a professor that starts up at least gets minimum wage. I never cared for money, but I don't think I can live off of that little money.</p>
<p>But seriously? $230 a week?</p>
<p>Adjuncts are usually hired part-time to teach specific classes and that’s it. Unlike full faculty members, they are not paid to do research or serve on committees or advise students. Most of them have multiple jobs.</p>
<p>Not all adjunct positions are bad. For example, the math department at my college paid a full-time professor from a neighboring institution this past semester to teach an upper-level statistics course (we don’t have any statistis professors in our department). Our computer science department has in the past hired industry professionals to teach electives like web design or network security. The adjuncts come to campus once or twice a week to give their lectures (often at night), give and grade two exams or course projects over the course of the semester, and dedicate most of their time to their full-time jobs.</p>
<p>It becomes a problem when colleges hire adjuncts for most of their teaching and expect them to act like full professors on a part-time salary, which I think is what the youtube video was getting at.</p>
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No. The “normal” path is the following:</p>
<p>PhD -> Post-Doc -> Assistant Professor (tenure track) -> Associate Professor (tenured) -> Professor</p>
<p>If you were looking for tenure-track positions and find yourself as a part-time adjunct, it may be a subtle hint that it’s time for you to leave academia.</p>
<p>Actually, in this job market, many fine professors spend a couple of years working as adjuncts. And almost no one outside the sciences does a postdoc.</p>
<p>I shall stand corrected. IN THE SCIENCES professors don’t usually work as adjuncts early in their career. The term post-doc is used colloquially to refer to various FULL-TIME positions that a young scientist might have, whether they are hired as “post-doctoral research assistants” or “visiting professors” or “lecturers.” Whatever the title, these positions pay significantly more than $230 per week.</p>
<p>Oh, thank God. I will be double majoring in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.</p>
<p>Postdoctoral fellows generally don’t have to do any teaching. (Well at least not the ones I have known including dh.) But two or three years as a post-doc is nothing compared to being strung along as an adjunct because they don’t want to give you a tenured position. The post-doc is designed to give you a few years of intensive research experience without being bogged down by also having to teach.</p>
<p>I did know a scientist who worked as an adjunct. He job shared with his wife at Vassar, she got tenure he didn’t. He then was an adjunct at various NY area colleges. Eventually they found another pair of jobs in another part of the country. Part of the problem is that because they were at an LAC they weren’t doing the level of research that made them desirable at a university, so they only wanted him to teach lower level courses.</p>
<p>stradmom pointed out that conventions vary by field and this probably applies to the teaching expectations of postdocs as well. In math, for example, postdocs almost always have to teach. But the concept is stil the same as in the lab sciences where postdocs may not have regular teaching duties: to give young scientists a few more years to establish a research record before they compete for tenure-track positions.</p>
<p>Once I get tenured, do I have to stay with the same institution until retirement?</p>
<p>For those who want and need a full time professorship, it is a tough situation. I also hate it when there are adjuncts that are “fly by night”, hired for a short term need, and gone. However, I know some excellent adjunct professors who choose to work part time and some who have other full time jobs. My DH has been offered such jobs and maybe someday will take one. </p>
<p>The adjuncts that I know have been doing it for years and love their jobs, take the jobs serious and are doing this because they want to do it and enjoy it. Celebrities, former and current politicians, big time folks often teach a course here and there or continually. DS’s college has a flow of adjuncts and they are often great opportunities for the students to meet some hands on experts in a discipline. </p>
<p>So adjuncts can vary widely. It’s one thing if a school needs someone to take a course and just grabs someone that needs a job and is hoping for a full time position, but no commitment is wanted on part of the school and the adjunct is likely to be dropped at the end of the course. Another if it has someone in the community who is teaching a course because he wants to do so without needing the job.</p>
<p>My husband was an adjunct for several different colleges and universities - community colleges, state universities, and private colleges for several years before he got a full time position. If not for that experience, he probably would not have gotten his full time position which led to tenure track and ultimately tenure. The experience was invaluable and put him ahead of other candidates in a very competitive environment. He is in the humanities field.</p>
<p>davidthefat ~ of course you do not need to stay at the same institution until you retire. But it can be risky to leave a tenured position unless the new institution takes you as tenured (and we have seen that happen). Since my H got tenure, he is very reluctant to look for positions at any other college if he would have to go through the tenure ordeal again.</p>
<p>Tenure only guarantees the employee that the institution will not dismiss them except for cause. It’s a way to protect academic freedom.</p>
<p>However, many institutions are playing with the idea of getting rid of tenure, both for economic reasons, and to keep faculty on their game throughout their careers. By the time you finish your education, it’s conceivable that tenure-track positions won’t be as common as they are today.</p>
<p>Davidthefat, many adjunct positions used to be filled mainly by “trailing spouses,” by people whose main career was elsewhere, and by those who hadn’t finished their terminal degree. A lot of departments that didn’t have graduate programs use adjuncts instead of graduate instructors–so, whereas at, say , Berkeley, Yale, or UVA, your freshman comp teacher is likely to be somebody working on his or her PhD in the department, at, say, James Madison U. or American U., which don’t have big grad programs in English, that teacher will likely be an adjunct instead.</p>
<p>Things have changed since the recession; it’s much cheaper for a college to staff a course via adjuncts because the pay is dramatically lower and most of these positions lack benefits. Also, there’s rarely any job security, or any raises based on experience or performance; adjuncts typically have no say whatsoever in setting department policies. In recent years, tenure-track college-level teaching jobs in some fields have become so scarce that those who would previously have been qualified for them are forced to teach as adjuncts instead, unless they wish to leave academia altogether. It can be a pretty miserable way to make a living and the only people I know who seem to make it work for more than a few years are those who have a source of income elsewhere (for instance, a spouse who makes a good salary).</p>
<p>As to your other question: if you are a tenured professor already, you would ordinarily not apply for or be considered for untenured positions at another university. If a university does want you, it would normally offer immediate tenure as part of the “senior hire.” In other words, the hiring university would perform a regular tenure evaluation of the candidate (examination of their teaching, scholarship, professional service, etc. by a series of committees) prior to the offer being extended. There are occasional exceptions to this rule at the associate professor, or “middle” level. At most schools associate professor is a tenured rank but at a few, such as Carnegie Mellon and I believe MIT, it is an untenured rank. </p>
<p>The general effect of the tenure system, however, is to create what some people see as “stability” and others see as “rigidity”. On the one hand, once you get tenure, you are likely to have a job for life unless your school gets into financial difficulties, or you stop doing your job in a satisfactory way. This security can be a good thing for the institution–people who know they are going to be sticking around are often willing to pour uncompensated time and creativity into their university’s programs because they know they will benefit along with the rest of the community. On the other hand, if you don’t like where you are, there aren’t many places to move TO. There are many fewer senior positions than junior positions on offer, because most colleges’ senior faculty are just their junior faculty who have gotten promoted. And things get even more complicated when two academics are married or partnered and therefore need to be hired at the same time. So people tend to stay put, for better or worse, more than they do in industry.</p>
<p>David thanks for posting that youtube video. It’s an eye opener and we parents should be concerned that colleges and Universities are exploiting labor.</p>
<p>The YouTube video leaves out many details. His $3400 figure has to be for one three-credit class, so he teaches three hours a week for fifteen weeks for the $3400 plus his planning and grading. He also says that he teaches from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Has anyone ever heard of a professor teaching that many hours in a day? Usually full-time university faculty teach three courses per semester. They may also be doing research or holding office hours, but teaching from 8 to 6? I don’t believe it.</p>
<p>Adjunct positions are supposed to be part time. At my community college, adjuncts are not hired to teach more than five courses per year. They do not get benefits nor are they expected to publish or attend meetings or serve on committees. Most of our adjuncts teach or work full-time in the community or are retired. Or they only want to work part time.</p>
<p>I think this guy is not very credible.</p>
<p>MD, he says that is *the average<a href=“$3400/semester”>/I</a> so I assume that is for adjuncts in general, or for himself over some number of semesters. Maybe he has 3 courses in one semester and only one in another, etc. He said the 8 to 6 hours when he was talking about the year he cleaned bathrooms. I don’t take it that he was TEACHING from 8 to 6, but that he was working at the teaching tasks (classroom, preparation, grading, driving from school to school) for that long - i.e. that this was his teaching workday. I don’t think that is unreasonable, depending on how many courses one has going.</p>
<p>I found him very credible.</p>
<p>The hosts, on the other hand, did not seem to be clear on the fact that most professors do not start out as adjuncts and then move into tenured positions. That isn’t really the path, at least in most fields, although with today’s economy there is probably more of it than in the past.</p>
<p>Adjunct teaching is part-time. If the guy wants to make more money, he should work full time. It is not easy to get a full-time position at a college or a university. With this post on YouTube, the guy will probably never get a job at a university.</p>
<p>It depends very much on one’s field. In my field(s), almost everyone coming from a top 50 school in my field will end up with a tenure track post after graduation. Occasionally people will take “visiting positions” or “post-docs” if they are not happy about the job offers they received. But this is unusual to academia. Though professional schools- such as engineering and computer science- typically have much stronger job markets (and higher faculty salary) than in fields in the arts and traditional sciences. This is largely because those with PhDs in professional fields can and do also take positions in industry and thus the academic world is competing with the non-academic job market. </p>
<p>Likewise, it’s extremely common to move from one tenure track job at one university to another. In all cases I’m familiar, one takes a one year leave of absence unpaid from their university, uses that year to work at the new university and come up for tenure in that time. That way you do not jump ship until you have a new tenured position. But this is unusual to academia. Though professional schools- such as engineering and computer science- typically have much stronger job markets (and higher faculty salary) than in fields in the arts and traditional sciences. This is largely because those with PhDs in professional fields can and do also take positions in industry and thus the academic world is competing with the non-academic job market. </p>
<p>What one is paid as an adjunct depends upon field, university, official position, and whether someone is paid by contract, per course, and how many courses they teach. </p>
<p>The job titles vary at different schools but you can also have non-tenure track full time positions as well (where you only teach- no research requirements but you may do committee work) and you are paid a salary for teaching a guaranteed number of courses per year. I know adjuncts at some schools who are paid $3000 a course and may teach 4 courses a semester and that would be a full-time position. I also know full-time non-research non-tenure track faculty that make $300,000 a year teaching MBAs and executive education. It very much depends on a lot of factors. </p>
<p>No one will ever get rid of tenure. I’ve been in academia for decades and there is always a slight murmur here and there, and its never gone anywhere. The minute a school even discusses the idea out in the open, faculty start to flee— no better way to lose your best talent and be unable to attract more. It would only work if most of the top universities went this route simultaneously and I just don’t see that ever happening.
Moreover, tenure really is far more than only being able to be fired with cause. I’ve never heard of someone in my field who lost their tenure track job (including complete slack offs that come in only to teach a few times a year and do a shoddy job with it). “Cause” would have to be pretty extreme to lose a tenure track job and I’ve just never seen it happen. </p>
<p>If you are interested in an academic life, talk to the professors in the fields you are interested in working. They can answer your questions far better than we can because, again, it is so dependent upon particular field job markets.</p>
<p>A pretty typical rate is about $500-$750/credit, so to make $3400/semester, that adjunct is probably teaching two courses. Even if you can teach 4 courses and make $3000/course, this is an tremendous amount of work for $24,000 per year.</p>
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<p>Most of the talk on here has been about universities, but this statement is not true of community colleges. Many of the community colleges in Maryland do not have tenure. The one where I work has 2/3 tenured faculty and 1/3 contract, plus adjuncts, of course.</p>
<p>Oh, I think tenure is very much under threat. Those who have it now at specific institutions will not lose it; but as tenured faculty retire, they are being replaced by term-contract labor who can be laid off if enrollment contracts or if institutional priorities change (i.e. they eliminate humanities to divert resources to proto-vocational or STEM fields). I believe that as time goes forward, universities will have a cadre of professional administrators (who may teach one class a year for good form’s sake) supervising the scholar/teachers. The age of shared collegial self-governance is passing and the creeping erosion of the percentage of tenured faculty at universities is a symptom.</p>