[quote]
We find consistent evidence that students learn relatively more from non-tenure line professors in their introductory courses. These differences are present across a wide variety of subject areas, and are particularly pronounced for Northwesterns average students and less-qualified students.
A major new study has found that new students at Northwestern University learn more when their instructors are adjuncts than when they are tenure-track professors.
The study -- released this morning by the National Bureau of Economic Research -- found that the gains are greatest for the students with the weakest academic preparation.
<p>My cousin is an English Ph.D. and teaches at a directional university. He was hired as a non tenured track professor, which really annoys him. He is worried about his job, doesn’t know if he will be hired back from semester to semester, and just in general has a sense of unsettledness. He is a full time father of an 11 year old girl (mom is almost out of the picture, just keeps in touch via FB and Skype, nothing in person).</p>
<p>I don’t know how adjunct professors like him can be better teachers when they are always worried about if there will be a next paycheck and spending time applying to places where they have a chance to be hired on a tenure track.</p>
<p>Another day TWO articles. So…what are the OP’s contributions to the discussion??</p>
<p>I’ll bite. My husband took some outstanding engineering courses from adjuncts who were still working in the field of engineering. He felt that these folks really understood what was happening in the real work world.</p>
<p>OTOH, he also took some outstanding courses with tenured faculty.</p>
<p>Sometimes there seems to be a conflict between wanting a prestigious degree for a child and concern the child may be corrupted by the university experience. Some think tenure increases the possibility there will be free dissemination of ideas, including objectionable ideas. If someone wants the prestige of the degree but not the potentially unsettling and challenging educational experience which may come with it, that might be a reason to attack the system. repeatedly. Otherwise, as PG frequently asks, why not just opt out?</p>
<p>This study was done at Northwestern, which can attract a certain level of adjunct/non-tenure track professors. At my equivalent university, non-tenure-track faculty are always PhD-level and usually researchers who are affiliated with some nearby research institute or hospital. They want to teach a class in our department, or they are tapped to teach a class because they have expertise, and so they do. They’re also longer-term, in general, than most adjuncts - the same adjunct has been teaching one section of introductory statistics for so long that even some grad students are initially unaware that he’s not permanent faculty. Likewise, we have a long-term, non-tenure-track faculty member who is in charge of the introductory psychology curriculum and teaches one or two sections a semester herself. That - aside from supervising our postbaccalaureate students - is her JOB by itself. She may not be tenure-track, but she’s been at my university in my department for 10-15 years at least.</p>
<p>And as thumper1 pointed out, sometimes the non-permanent, non-full-time NTT faculty in professional schools can be members of that professional community who bring their expertise into the classroom and teach excellently. Schools like Northwestern have a much better chance of attracting people like this to teach their classes (e.g., Petraeus teaching a class at NYU or Obama teaching classes at Chicago Law).</p>
<p>I don’t really think you can compare this to adjunct or non-tenure-track faculty at most places, where adjunct faculty may come and go after 2-3 years, don’t have offices and may be teaching at one or two other colleges in the same semester and so don’t have the time to devote to students. Your local directional state U is not hiring famous military generals to teach leadership classes, or probably even hiring permanent but NTT lecturers who only focus on teaching. Their adjuncts are much more likely to be the PhDs in the area who couldn’t find a job on the market this year (for various reasons) and are stringing together 6 classes a semester at 2-3 different colleges, or MA-level educators who they can’t hire on as tt faculty.</p>
<p>It’s not tenure or being tenure-track itself that makes a professor better; but having the time and the resources to work with students and plan classes effectively is necessary.</p>
<p>Even the article in IHE says it - they’re talking primarily about full-time designated teachers, not part-time adjuncts who pick up a class here or there. I honestly think that a hybrid department of some full-time designated faculty (whether they are tenure-track or NTT doesn’t matter, as long as the tenure process is adjusted for their teaching) and some research-oriented faculty is the best solution for everyone. There are some PhD holders who just want to teach, and there are some PhD holders who want to do primarily research but teach 1-2 classes a semester.</p>
<p>This response has nothing to do with the OP’s other posts or stated views on education, intelligence, etc. Also, I could not read the article because it said subscription was required. Just wanted to say that there is a difference between long-term instructional staff who are not on tenure track and the more nomadic adjuncts who are hired by year or even course in some cases. I dont mean differences in quality of teaching but in benefits and job security. But I am curious about whether this recognition of the value of non-tenure track faculty in terms of teaching quality is reflected in their pay and benefits and whether that was recommended in the article.</p>
<p>Best economics classes I ever took were from an adjunct. I’m not sure the drive to raise the number of PhD on campuses is driven by anything that has to do with teaching undergrads.</p>
<p>Mom3ToGo is a prof at a school that is raising it’s profile. She finds one of the most ironic things is over the last few years are the department meetings to discuss hiring and tenure decisions. All candidates need to have PhDs now, and yes they care where they come from (school or thesis adviser) … and at the same time the tenured faculty having these discussions includes lots of non-PhD folks … from an earlier time when the school was very teaching focused.</p>
<p>The obvious joke would be: did they check SAT scores? And I do wonder if the lure of these links (there was only one, initially,) is that it notes NU.</p>
<p>I agree. I don’t know how it plays out in a University setting. I would suspect that many of the adjunct professors are stressed out and feel like 2nd (or 3rd) class citizens, but I do know that we were very pleasantly surprised by the quality of my son’s teachers at community college, where the teachers are there to teach, not to do research.</p>
<p>Well at NU you have Chicago nearby, and people will teach a class there who have other successful careers. </p>
<p>I have taught at various places at times. I have no interest in a career in academia, but at times I’ve just been around and interested in a subject. H has done some business classes as a favor, but doesn’t want to be a prof. </p>
<p>This is different in tenor from the people who are currently trying to get into academia but can’t. I understand some adjuncts are unionizing with a certain amount of success in some places. </p>
<p>Does anybody have any insight as to why these teachers are being paid so poorly? It certainly argues for tenure in a way reasonable pay and three year contracts would not</p>
<p>“This study was done at Northwestern, which can attract a certain level of adjunct/non-tenure track professors.”</p>
<p>That’s a good point, and reflects both Northwestern’s stature and the fact that it’s located in a major metropolitan area with lots of experienced professionals.</p>
<p>I see this among my friends who teach, both as research faculty and as full and part-time teachers. Whatever track they are in, many would rather work at a third or fourth-tier school in NYC, Chicago, the Bay Area, etc. rather than a first-tier (or even top 25) school in a small market like Iowa City.</p>
<p>Poetgirl, if you’re referring to why the pay for adjuncts is so poor, it’s because the supply of phDs in many fields so far exceeds demand that phDs are willing to take anything on the off chance that they break into academia. Colleges know this and thus barely compensate them for teaching a class since if one adjunct won’t work for that wage, there will be a dozen other highly qualified adjuncts lining up at the door. </p>
<p>Last year, when my rural Georgian LAC (admittedly affiliated with a much more prestigious and optimally located university) needed to hire a TT philosophy candidate, we recieved over 200 applications for the position. We had candidates from Rutgers, Yale, and other prestigious institutions submit their CVs and of those we whittled it down to three finalists, all of whom had previous teaching experience (I served as one of the student evaluators since the finalists were judged on their ability to teach and assist UG in philosophy research). I asked one of the professors where the other candidates went and she remarked that they would attempt adjunct at various universities in the vain hope of getting a professorship. </p>
<p>On the other hand, in fields where there’s not an oversupply of phDs (math being the most obvious example), positions are more likely to be full time. Last year, my school needed to replace a math professor who was going on Sabbatical and given its teaching mission, tried to find a math phD who spoke English well enough, and the professors ended up having to buy out a math professor from another institution. Had they been looking for a one year English professor, there probably would have been 100 qualified candidates rather than zero. My uncle, a math professor at one of the more rural California CCs reports the same. He can easily find an econ, English, or history adjunct professor, but even after essentially agreeing to hire someone with a math masters, his search came up in vain and students at the school continue to suffer from a lack of math instructors. </p>
<p>TL;DR Supply exceeds demand. Colleges know this and pay adjuncts horribly.</p>
<p>I think they are looking at it wrong. The real issue at most large universities is they expect tenured faculty to do research and teach. What is forgotten is that there are some people who only want to teach and not work on research who tend to be really good. The schools need to be creating some tenure track positions for those who are excellent teachers.</p>
<p>I found Stanford encourages some of this where good teachers are rewarded with tenure.</p>
<p>Texaspg, do you think the same pattern would hold if someone compared the teaching ability of TT faculty versus adjuncts at series of LACs or regional universities (excluding the super high PPE schools such as Amherst and Pomona which may not use adjuncts in the same capacity as say, Linfield College)?</p>
<p>In many universities there are full time, non-tenure-track, non-research faculty (usually with the title Instructor) who are hired on multi-year contracts precisely for their brilliant teaching, particularly for introductory courses. It’s not accidental that these are the best teachers, and students are lucky to get to learn from them. It should be no surprise that professors who are hired for their teaching skills are the best teachers. (These are NOT adjuncts hired by the course, but they are also not research faculty, and thus not tenure-eligible.)</p>
<p>whenhen - I think of teaching as an art form. You can take the most knowledgeable people in a field and sometimes they would really suck at teaching even if they have 20 million dollar research grants. They are suitable for teaching MS/PhD students who can learn on their own but them teaching undergrads is a crime against undergrads.</p>
<p>D had a 2 member tag team teaching chemistry, one a young lecturer (aspiring to be teaching faculty) and the other a tenured full professor and she said she hated the tenured guy because she had to go learn all the stuff again after class while the lecturer’s stuff pretty well understood within class. </p>
<p>I took 17 classes for my MBA a while ago. Strategic management was taught by an adjunct (only class I had taught by an adjunct) and this was by far the best teacher I had. He was a guy in his 60s with a thriving consulting business and taught this class for fun. If he was in his 30s and did not want to publish papers, I think the University should still have given him a tenure track teaching position.</p>
<p>I agree with those who said YMMV. IMO, it’s mainly dependent on the individual Prof…not necessarily his/her tenure/non-tenure track status. </p>
<p>However, someone with an insecure job situation like many adjuncts I’ve known are morel likely to not have the time or resources to help his/her undergrads as needed. </p>
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<p>One issue is that many research universities built their sterling academic reputations on the research output of their star faculty…along with the public and private grant monies to keep them going. </p>
<p>Another is the commonplace attitude I found within academia regarding the differing interest among aspiring academics. </p>
<p>For those who mainly want to teach, the stock answer I kept hearing was to go teach at an LAC, LAC-like university, teaching centered university, or community colleges. They felt research universities…especially research 1 universities are wrong places for those who’d rather teach than do research. </p>
<p>What’s more, if one teaches at a top 30 or so LAC, there’s still some research requirements to get tenure…albeit lower than at a research university. Along with that was the expectation of a 5 course/year load for everyone as it existed at my LAC unless one was part-time/retired. </p>
<p>A friend at an elite NE LAC recounted how several years ago while he was there that one English tenure track Prof was denied tenure despite excellent teaching awards and massive student demonstrations of support because she didn’t produce sufficient academic research to the satisfaction of the tenure committee. Despite the awards and student protests, she ultimately had to leave to seek other opportunities.</p>
<p>We recently had a thread where a student at a top LAC couldn’t get a senior project advisor because the professors were too busy with their own research. Professors posted that the student should have been offering to assist the profs with their own research, since that was the work the profs were really being paid to do. </p>
<p>I suspect that this exorbitant tuition has to do with rising admin costs and salaries. It seems to have nothing to do with actually educating the undergrads, even at the LACs.</p>
<p>I think there may be as many different reasons as there are schools. At some state schools, it seems to me it goes sort of hand in hand with overall university budget cuts since 2008. Some states are still cutting university funding annually. First there were hiring freezes for faculty. Then, when tenured professors retired or left for greener pastures, positions were cut. When a department loses a significant percentage of positions, someone must be hired to fill that void. (Unless they want to shut students out of classes. That is another option, of course.) If there is a large labor pool in the area, willing to work for essentially less than minimum wage, that is a pretty easy short term solution for the university. I am interested to see what happens long term. The switch to on-line education will be interesting. At that point, can’t the course be set up so that almost anyone can do the grading? I am wondering if the university will find it necessary to hire faculty to serve on various committees still. Maybe faculty
will become completely superfluous. I’m hoping to live long enough to see how it all plays out.</p>