In their annual Adjunct Faculty Quality of Work/Life Report, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) refers to our nation’s higher education system as being perpetuated by an “army of temps”.
In 1969, 80% of faculty members held tenure-track positions. Today, contingent faculty accounts for 70% of all faculty in the United States — and that number is quickly rising. Between 2008 and 2012, the number of part-time faculty positions at academic institutions increased by 18%. Comparatively, tenure-track faculty roles positions increased by just 1%.
Entrance into the ivory tower has grown more accessible over the past century, while opportunities to rise to the tower’s top — to achieve success within the professorial career path of Academia — have stagnated. The resulting adjunct crisis has created a ‘gig economy’ for hiring short-term university instructors at part-time prices, as well as a highly saturated pool of doctorate-holders who must compete for just a handful of tenured positions.
I know you’ve requested anonymity in this interview, but could you give us a general idea of your adjunct teaching background?
I’ve been adjunct teaching for twelve to fifteen years, specifically at a community college. I previously had a career in journalism but moved into adjunct teaching because it pays the bills… and because I like it. To give you some context, the college I teach at is just west of Chicago and caters to students from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. I personally teach Composition.
Can you tell us how much you earn for each course you teach?
I can give you an estimate. Depending on how many classes I teach, I make somewhere between $22k and $26k per year. Generally I teach one course in the summer, then teach between two and three courses per semester. But these past two semesters, because of low enrollment numbers, I’ve lost two of the classes I was meant to teach.
What do full-time faculty members at your school earn in comparison to yourself?
A lot more. I’ve heard that we adjuncts earn about one-third of what full-time faculty members make.
What do you think college and university administrators could be doing to better support adjunct instructors at this time?
Pay us. Pay us what we’re worth. They always should have been paying us appropriately, but we need it now more so than ever. We are doing more work now than we ever have been before, and we’re still being paid the same inadequate rate.
Do you feel that your job is secure?
Not really. If the enrollments aren’t there — and they aren’t — then adjunct faculty members will be the first to get cut. While I’ve lost some of my class sections, I haven’t yet been let go. But in most departments at my college I know adjunct professors who’ve lost classes, or who’ve lost their jobs entirely, because giving their courses to full-time faculty members became the administration’s priority.
Do you hold the ongoing pandemic responsible for those low enrollment figures and loss of earnings?
Yes. I’d thought there might be an uptick in enrollments because, you know, kids entering school right now aren’t getting that full college experience. Why go to a four year school for your Gen Ed requirements when you’re not staying in a dorm? When you’re not participating in on-campus activities? You’re not getting this, you’re not getting that. You’re just not getting the full experience. So we thought we may see an uptick, but we didn’t.
Does your institution provide you with any form of health insurance?
No, not at all. I had surgery in June, and around this time I was really, really sick, so the doctors gave me three COVID tests — all of which came back negative. Shortly afterwards I went to my general practitioner, who found COVID in my blood. Somewhere along the line I had been infected. My medical bills were paid for partially by my personal insurance, and partially out of pocket. Later in the summer, I got better and went back to teaching online.
If you had come down with COVID-19 after the start of the summer term, do you believe your college would have allowed you to take time off, with pay?
No. I’ve always had to take the Jewish holidays off, because my school doesn’t recognize them –– which seems to be in total violation of both state laws and my college’s own diversity policy. I also had to take time off for my surgery. So yeah, if I were to have come down with COVID-19 while actively teaching, I would have probably had to use my personal days to cover the time missed. And again, adjunct instructors don’t receive health insurance or benefits from the school.
I’ve made it clear on many occasions that this isn’t okay. I’ve spoken to my union rep, I’ve spoken to my department head. Here I am, putting in more work to move online and not being fairly compensated for it, getting paid significantly less than my full-time colleagues, and using my personal days to celebrate my beliefs.
The thing that bothers me the most is how my school handled the eLearning training. We’d had to do all of these tutorials before teaching online, and these things were time-consuming. We had to go through all of these practices, exercises, and quizzes. At the end of each unit we’d have to take a test to pass the training, and you had to get 90% on each one to pass. I wasted an entire Sunday just taking and retaking this test, because I kept getting 85%. And I was just so angry and upset watching the clock, watching me lose the day.
After I failed to hit that 90% several times, I started going right to the test, screen-shotting my answers and trying out different combinations. Which is essentially me, an adjunct professor, cheating on an exam.
And here’s the thing — for us adjunct professors, the eLearning training is mandatory. If we don’t pass the training, we don’t get classes in the spring. My friends who are full-time or standard professors? They don’t have to do it. They’re at no risk of losing their jobs for not completing it. And this training was instituted after we’d already moved online and were familiar with the tools. Some of my adjunct colleagues have been using these same tools since 2003. So there’s a lot of anger and resentment. We’re professionals, teachers, experts in our fields — and we deserve to be treated as such by the administration.
Did you and your union act on these concerns?
We tried to, but our contracts carry a no-strike clause. So beyond making complaints, there wasn’t a lot we could do. And I suspect that they’re pushing the envelope with the adjunct faculty now to see what they can get away with doing to the full-timers as student enrollment continues to dwindle.
At the end of the Spring, I turned in a write-up of the work I’d done that term. And as I filled it out, I noticed more and more that my work was not aligned with my pay-grade. I sent an email expressing these thoughts to my union rep, CC’ing my department head, and…. No response. I wasn’t really expecting one. But it’s a bit funny, because it was around the same time the college started sending out those fundraising emails requesting donations.
I know a lot of excellent adjuncts who just say, you know, “I can’t do this anymore”. I’m at that stage myself — completely burned out. I’m currently working on developing a business plan for online tutoring. Since I started tutoring online, I’ve been struck by how much easier the work is and how much more I get paid. I’m making way more money, and I have more time to work on my writing.
Come May, once my plan is finalized, I’m going to walk away from adjunct teaching completely. •
NEXT: The Endangered Adjunct, Part 2
Adjunct faculty member? Share your experience with me at sanna@campuswire.com, or on Twitter at @sannasharp.
