<p>Great post, juliet, and fairly consistent with my experiences. I do think that as the job market gets worse, more people are starting to come around to need to leave academia. But for the purposes of a discussion with my dissertation committee, I would never give the impression that I could imagine anything other than life with a tenure track job. It would risk suggesting that I was on a less serious track than the other members of my cohort.</p>
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<p>Considering that each tenured faculty member at a research university can mentor 20 to 40 PhD students to PhD graduation over his/her career, that means that this definition of “success” means that “success” is very rare, because the rate of PhD graduate production is 20 to 40 times the rate of tenured faculty retirement at research universities.</p>
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<p>Even in comparison to the unemployment line, or the adjunct jobs that pay less than TAs/GSIs that are the subject of this thread? The numbers make it seem like tenure-track faculty employment is a “reach for everyone”, especially in fields where there is not a lot of field-specific non-academic employment demand to lure some of the PhD graduates away from the applicant pool for tenure-track faculty employment.</p>
<p>I’ve attended academic conferences on behalf of a corporate employer where we are trying to “snag” post-docs and early stage professors, and can confirm that the forces Juilet describes are definitely at play. My company wanted to sponsor a cocktail hour-- the conference organizers seemed lukewarm on the idea, even though cash is cash. But we were looking for PhD’s who would not be working in their field (many corporations attend but specifically for applied research positions which are much less controversial. If you are big bank hiring a PhD in Econometrics, the professional associations are thrilled to have you attend or sponsor. If you are a hedge fund hiring someone to trade natural gas futures… not so much).</p>
<p>So yes, it exists. But- someone smart enough to complete a doctorate also needs to look at a set of facts and draw a rational conclusion. Fact- you have a doctorate in French literature or Electrical Engineering. Plan A was to teach at the university level- and at some point (3 years? 5 years?) you come up with Plan B.</p>
<p>I know a lot of happy adjuncts. None of them need to rely on the salary to pay the mortgage or put shoes on the kids feet. If you are a successful real estate developer and someone at NYU approaches you to teach a class or two in their real estate Master’s program, it’s a real ego boost, and fun, and a great way to get a look at the next emerging generation of talent.</p>
<p>But to teach 5 seminars on Camus at 5 different campuses with zero benefits, barely a living wage, and no job security? At some point in year 5 or so doesn’t rationality kick in???</p>
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<p>This doesn’t affect folks in engineering or other pre-professionally oriented fields like business. In fact, some topflight engineering departments like the one an older cousin attended for his PhD promote going into industry just as equally as going into academia. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, for natural sciences like biology or moreso…humanities/social sciences like poli-sci, not so much. </p>
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<p>It’s very difficult to deprogram oneself from around a decade or more of socialization which may have started as early as undergrad and continue through completion of the PhD. It’s even worse if the PhD graduate concerned is a child of tenured faculty parents as that socialization could have extended to childhood. </p>
<p>Especially if the given PhD graduate focused on the PhD from freshman year and had little/no non-academic work experience or a break between undergrad and PhD. </p>
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We see this phrasing time and time again, and it’s very interesting to me how it’s often expressed. Here we have the dichotomy of “experts who are active in a profession like business or law or nursing, say, who bring “real-world” experience into the classroom” vs. “folks who want a tenure-track position and simply can’t get it”. </p>
<p>Notice the wording: “experts” vs “folks”; “bring…experience into the classroom” vs “want … and simply can’t get it”. On one, the emphasis is on what he/she contributes, for the other on what he/she wants. The not-so-subtle message is not really so subtle. Somehow it continues to be insulting.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s quite as dichotomous as WasatchWriter would have it. People take adjunct positions for all sorts of reasons. Some are highly skilled professionals who just want to teach a little on the side. Others would prefer to be in a tenure-track (or better yet, tenured) position but haven’t been able to land that elusive job, and find themselves needing to piece together enough adjunct gigs to pay the rent. Some in each of those groups are outstanding teachers with a lot to offer their students; others, less so. (Same is true of tenured and tenure-track faculty, by the way). </p>
<p>But I’ve known people who have worked as adjuncts for lots of other reasons, too. Like the Ph.D. who is basically a full-time stay-at-home parent, but who can get sprung by her partner one night a week, has something to offer in the classroom, and needs that creative and professional outlet–and probably doesn’t mind picking up a few thousand for it. Or the retired academic who just wants to keep mentally active and in tune with recent developments in the field by teaching one course a year and coming in to hear guest speakers and such; they’re usually listed as “Professor Emeritus” but at least where I am, they’re paid at adjunct rates for the courses they do teach. Or the all-but-dissertation Ph.D. candidate whose main focus is on completing the dissertation but who has exhausted grad school residency requirements and eligibility for GSI pay, and in the meantime can pick up a few classes (and a badly needed few thousand dollars) at the local community college or directional state U. Or the full-time writer, or visual artist, or actor/director who earns a living piecing together odd jobs and paid gigs, for whom the adjunct course is no odder an odd job than the rest, and possibly more reliable and more mainstream (and for some, more remunerative) than many of the other things they’ve been willing to do for pay.</p>
<p>The adjunct market has always looked like this. Here’s what’s changed: cash-strapped colleges and universities are increasingly reluctant to give faculty life tenure, and increasingly stingy about offering entry-level tenure track positions that hold out the prospect of life tenure. That’s an awfully big commitment; it locks the school into paying out literally millions in salary and benefits over the course of an academic career, and it leaves the school less flexible and less nimble in its ability to adapt to changing market demand and/or financial reversals. And they feel increasingly less constrained to make that commitment, because there’s such a huge and willing and qualified pool of potential adjuncts out there, willing to work on year-to-year contracts, and it’s probably easier than it’s ever been to find them. This is partly a function of an oversupply of Ph.D.s. That problem may eventually correct itself; many baby boomer academics, who came into academia during a period of rapid expansion of college and university enrollments, are now at or rapidly approaching retirement age, and at the same time many of the most reputable producers of Ph.D.s are shrinking their graduate programs, recognizing that they’re doing their graduate students no service if the jobs just aren’t there and that they stand to lose reputationally if too few of their newly minted Ph.D.s get jobs. (It’s true, though, that it will usually be the newly minted Ph.D.s who get first crack at the jobs that do come open; those who have spent years as adjuncts and are seeking a job upgrade will rarely get a serious look). But it’s also partly a function of uncertain higher education finances and demand-side market forces that impel colleges and universities to seek a more flexible workforce than the traditional life-tenure model provides. For those who aspire to be on the life-tenure track, that’s disheartening. For many of the others who work as adjuncts, it’s scarcely a matter of concern.</p>
<p>@davorin,</p>
<p>Some CCer posted this link recently:</p>
<p><a href=“How A Nobel Economist Ruined The Residency Matching System For Newly Minted M.D.'s”>http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/04/15/how-a-nobel-economist-ruined-the-residency-matching-system-for-newly-minted-m-d-s/</a></p>
<p>“This year, 5.6% of US allopathic (MD) seniors did not match, and 22.3% of US osteopathic (DO) seniors did not match. On the whole, 25.0% of applicants (I think this percentage includes those graduated from foreign med schools as well as some of practicing physicians from an English country like UK, Australia, or Canada.) in the NRMP Match did not match – with a 25% unemployment rate, how successful is the Match, really?”</p>
<p>Oops…I meant to write “English-speaking country” rather than English country.</p>
<p>I have to say that I think there is a pretty clear dichotomy, and it’s not really insulting to anybody to say so. One kind of adjunct is sought out by colleges because the person has work experience that informs the teaching in the classroom–often, these are practical subjects, and even clinical courses. The other kind of adjunct is sought out by colleges because they represent a lower-cost option to fill teaching needs–often for introductory classes. The first group contains essentially nobody who is hoping to obtain tenure–they have a day job, and the adjunct teaching is something they do because it’s interesting, or because somebody asked them. The other group may contain people who don’t hope for tenure, either (like some of the people bclintonk listed), but it also contains people who want an academic career–and many of whom don’t have some outside work experience that informs their teaching. What they have is a graduate degree in English, or a foreign language, or history, or whatever, that allows the college to use them to teach that subject. I see a much bigger issue with the growth of the second kind of adjunct teaching.</p>
<p>The reason that this situation exists is because there are a lot of takers for those positions. Let’s start at the top: I know any number of famous people, powerful people from ex POTUSs to others in many fields to take an adjunct position. They do so for a number of reasons, but money is NOT, absolutely NOT one of them. Many donate their salaries to a favorite cause or back to the school. This causes a trickle down effect where it is a prestigious thing that any number of people with very full careers, plenty of money also want to do the same for a course here and there, particularly for their alma mater, a prestigious school, one that has some connections to them. I know a number of retirees who had great careers who want to teach a course or two. Some people just like to teach, like to part of a college., want that luster. So, there is a market for those who feel that way. </p>
<p>Then I know many, many women of my generation who found that adjunct positions worked well in terms of keeping a foot in the door for employment and yet permitted them to be SAHMs. I say “women” because that has been my personal experience but many who are not fully employed but are otherwise occupied with things in life, find this a great way to keep in the stream of things. And again, many enjoy this. </p>
<p>Then there is that situation where folks are under employed, and though they have jobs, they need more money, and moonlighting as and adjunct works well with their schedule and carries more panache than showing up at the window of the local fast food place. My friend worked several adjunct position while paying for her kids in private school while her husband was struggling with a job that didn’t pay well. It’s some extra money that is easy to snag for some with the degrees and qualification and it looks good to boot.</p>
<p>Then there is the fact that there are so many out there with advanced degrees who are under and un employed, hoping to get a full time job at a college and look at this as the foot in the door to bring them into the fold. It’ beats being unemployed or working somewhere that doesn’t sound so good.</p>
<p>So the reason adjuncts don’t get the pay,the hours the entry into full time jobs is because there are too many available. So many, many people are out there with the credentials to teach the course and willing to do so on the cheap. The old “why buy a cow” when the milk is so cheap and conveniently available adage comes to mind. First principals in econ and the market at play here. </p>
<p>I was told about an adjunct positon once. I mulled it over. Honored, liked the idea, could fit well in my life. Ha! Would likely not ever gotten it. It was gone six times to Sunday before i got around to following up with it. G-O-N-E and this was not for any name school or anything, and the person who took the job was 70 times better of a catch than I would have been. IT was laughable for me to have even considered myself in the running for the position.</p>
<p>Another adjunct here! I teach a few courses in an RN to BSN program at a local university, am very well-paid, at least according to salaries quoted here and love every minute of it. Of course, I have very highly motivated students who will probably lose their own jobs if they don’t get their BSNs within 5 years, so that makes for interesting classes. I teach on-line so when I come home from my day job, I spend an hour or so a night posting on our discussion boards. The courses are fast paced, lasting 8 weeks. I have no benefits, no job security but I have among the highest student evaluation ratings every time I teach and am not worried about not being picked up for another course. </p>