<p>Many students take these lower division courses at community colleges before transferring as juniors to 4-year schools. Community colleges are likely to rely on adjuncts more than 4-year schools, although community college courses, like high school AP courses, are likely to be smaller than the common giant introductory courses at non-small 4-year schools.</p>
<p>Of course, the quality of the high school AP course can vary all over the place as well. Another variation is how well the AP syllabus matches up to a specific college’s course that it may place the student out of.</p>
One thing many posters may not realize - in an area with a lot of schools of various sizes and missions, it is very likely that some members of the faculty at School A are on the adjunct roster at School B. Especially if School B is a large research U, other faculty may adjunct there, picking up an occasional class or they may be involved in research projects there and get an “adjunct appointment” as a courtesy of sorts. I know a number of area faculty for whom this is the case.</p>
<p>Obviously if you don’t want your child to be taught by “adjuncts” then you don’t want them being taught by someone who is an adjunct anywhere - even if it is not the school which your child attends, eh? </p>
<p>Add to the question list:
4) How many of your faculty members are adjuncts at any other schools?</p>
<p>I find it naive to think that tenured professors are automatically better teachers than adjuncts or graduate students. </p>
<p>Tenured professors might have dynamic syllabi and reading lists…or they might use the same ones for forty consecutive years.</p>
<p>Tenured professors might be accessible on campus…or they might work from home every day or be away to Washington or their consulting businesses.</p>
<p>Tenured professors might be fascinating and engaging in class…or they might be deadly bores who wore out their welcome decades ago.</p>
<p>Tenured professors might be on the cutting edge of research…or they might not have published a word since they got tenure in 1980.</p>
<p>Most of my professors in grad school are adjunct and, frankly, they are the better instructors. In a highly technical field, the ones who are working in the field have kept up with technological advances. The full time profs keep referring to old technologies. Additionally, I’m currently interviewing for a fantastic position. One of my professors encouraged me to apply. I found out during the phone interview today that the hiring manager reports to that professor. He has told the hiring manager that I am a very strong candidate. That wouldn’t be happening with a tenured professor. The best a tenured professor can do is write a letter of recommendation. </p>
<p>I also aspire to being an adjunct for this degree program myself.</p>
<p>You’re right about this, of course, from the individual student’s point of view. We are at the point, however, where the profession starts to get hollowed out by the growing use of part-timers. There is a huge glut in academic labor. The desire of university administrations to save money will trump the long-term investment in academic programs and stable faculty. The problem, again, is not the use or existence of adjunct faculty themselves. The problem is the way in which adjuncts are being used to gut investment in full-time faculty, whether these are tenured, tenure-track, or lecturers (contract full-timers with no presumption of tenure). </p>
<p>The current TAs who are hoping someday to get full-time positions, or the adjuncts who are still in graduate school, are not being served by the expansion of adjunct teaching at the expense of full-time assignments. It means they will increasingly not get full-time jobs. When they get sick of doing wonderful work at poverty wages, or financially they simply cannot stay in the profession, even at its margins, they will just be replaced by others who are still willing to do so. This pattern of employment is not good for the profession and, ultimately, not good for the future of higher education.</p>
<p>^^The issue, in a nutshell, it too many grad programs (just like the over abundance of law schools). But unlike law schools, at least many PhD programs are funded. However, if the feds eliminated grad loans, many grad programs, particularly unfunded Masters, would disappear practically overnight.</p>
<p>We are in an environment of college costs endlessly outpacing inflation and of the unsustainable explosion of student loans. Something is going to have to give.</p>
<p>Greater reliance on adjuncts may be part of the solution, and may even improve day-to-day teaching in the process. </p>
<p>No one is forcing students into today’s graduate schools. It may well be that there are too many people in this country who seek the tenured professor’s life of limited commitments and extraordinary professional freedom. We may no longer be able to afford the model of the past–particularly at colleges and universities outside of the top tiers.</p>
<p>Yes, there are too many seats in graduate programs, partially because universities use their graduate students as cheap dead-end labor to staff first-year service courses. They justify this practice by claiming that the students are undergoing a form of professional apprenticeship, but this claim would only have meaning if there are full-time positions at the end of the training pipeline. I also agree that there are too many unfunded MA programs that are essentially professionally and economically worthless except for personal enrichment. Many faculty in the humanities (and other disciplines) don’t really like teaching undergraduates for general educational purposes; they don’t want to correct freshman usage errors; they’d rather train the next generation of professors because that work is more interesting to them. I certainly don’t hold current tenured faculty exempt from contributing to the problem of oversupply. Many of them don’t want to teach undergraduates, and they invent programs so they won’t have to.</p>
<p>This is likely true. I would prefer, however, to retain the norm of full-time employees with benefits, occasionally supplemented by adjuncts for specialty courses. These full-timers don’t need to be tenured. They can teach a 4/4 load and do advising and committee work on a term contract basis (say, every three years) so that departments can handle scheduling and staffing in a stable, predictable manner. They would be eligible for institutional support for research (most adjunct faculty aren’t). These jobs will not be as good as the sweet gig current tenured faculty have, but they are far better than having more than half of courses delivered by part-timers. When the majority of instruction is delivered by part-time casual labor that can be fired (or can leave) at any time, it’s not good for students. Many people want to avoid “commuter schools” because they lack a sense of community and spirit. For the same reason, I would want my student to avoid schools with a preponderance of “commuter faculty.”</p>
But where is this now the norm, really? It seems to me that adjuncts are being utilized for a lot more than the occasional specialty course, and have been for some time now judging from the fact that I have been working as one for nearly 15 years. (And isn’t 3/3 typically considered a full load?)</p>
<p>It’s still the norm at LACs. Perhaps I should have said, “retain or restore.” There will always be TAs at large research universities that train graduate students; this practice can be justified as a form of apprenticeship, but only if there are full-time jobs for these students at the end of the process.</p>
<p>The institutions that have employed me have always defined a full teaching load as 4/4 (for instructors who are teaching faculty only). 3/3 is for faculty whose job description includes research, scholarship and committee work. Tenure-track faculty have typically had 3/3 or 3/2. Tenured faculty who are also administrators (chairs, program directors and the like) have had 2/2 or 2/1 loads.</p>
<p>At a certain point in my work life, I have hired adjuncts as an administrator. I didn’t mind the adjuncts themselves, many of whom were terrific. I detested the system that required their use. They were frustrated and after a while, bitter. Few could afford to work for years at adjunct pay and levels of instability. I had to lay off adjuncts after add/drop period when their sections weren’t full, or a full-time faculty member took their courses to make up his contractual load after he decided not to take that sabbatical after all. I had them in tears in my office because they were counting on that money. It was awful. It’s a dreadful system, and its ill effects outweigh the short-term savings to the institution.</p>
<p>If someone is happy adjuncting for years because she’s happy with the part-time pay and hours, that’s one thing. But most long-term adjuncts I know have not chosen these work conditions. Most would take a full-time faculty job in a heartbeat.</p>
<p>^I’m curious, in the institutions you have worked for - how were the adjuncts treated in general? I have found that schools have widely varying approaches. One of the schools I am at now IMHO does their best to pretend we don’t exist (we’re the mole people). I don’t have an office space, I don’t have university email, I don’t have keys to anything, I don’t get campus notifications via the email address they DO use for me, I don’t get invited to any faculty-related events. </p>
<p>I have a student parking pass and faculty borrowing privileges at the library. Around the second week I stop in to see the secretary and sign a contract. That’s about the extent of the college’s interaction with me. Otherwise everything is handled by the only full-time physics professor.</p>
<p>At a large state school I once worked at, the adjuncts were treated largely as you have described. At a medium-sized private I have worked at, the adjuncts were given office space that they shared, and they had access to a desktop computer when they were in their offices. They got university email addresses, mailboxes in the department mailroom, dedicated phone extensions, and a key card to the faculty lots. They were included on the general faculty email list. At any place I have worked, adjuncts were not required to attend faculty senate or general department meetings.</p>
<p>Where I work, it’s pretty much as NJSue describes it - shared office space, access to a shared computer and phone, faculty email and parking. We don’t ask our adjuncts to attend meetings but several of them choose to do so anyway - our department has numerous dedicated part time faculty who have been at the school longer than many of our full timers. While not required to hold office hours, many of them do so voluntarily. They clearly love what they do and are devoted to the students, because no one would put in that kind of time and effort for the pittance of a salary they’re given.</p>
<p>When I worked as an adjunct years ago, I had no office, no phone, no email, but they did let me park on campus.</p>
<p>I recently became an adjunct.With 30 years experience in the industry I bring real world expertise and other assets that my 30 yr old PhD colleagues can’t.I am not knocking their qualifications or their dedication we supplement and compliment each other.</p>