PREVIOUS: The Endangered Adjunct, Part 2

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. 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.

Thanks so much for agreeing to speak with me. I know you want to keep your institution private, but can you give me a little bit of background on your relationship to adjunct teaching?

Absolutely — I’m an adjunct professor of Political Science at a school in the Metro Atlanta area of Georgia.

I’m the child of immigrants, and my parents have this love of America that has really resonated with me. That’s a huge part of why I initially wanted to teach people. I specifically teach political science because that’s what my degrees were in, and because I’d wanted to show people about how important it is to understand how our society or government functions.

It’s really important for me that I teach my students in a way that is respectful of their viewpoints, but also helps to shape them into proactive members of society. I always start out class by looking at the preamble, because the most important words are the first: “we the people”. That means all of us.

How has the pandemic affected enrollment rates at your school?

My school’s registration has dropped by 20%.

I’ve spoken to a number of adjuncts who feel disadvantaged by their institutions because they’ve never been paid at the same rate as their full-time faculty peers.

Oh, one-hundred percent. I think it’s appalling, honestly. You do the same work, you perform the same tasks. You get paid much, much less. I have to tell you, the amount that I make in one hour-and-a-half long training at my company is the same amount that I make in one month as an adjunct. And I have to invest far more time into preparing classes and lecture materials.

You need at least a Master’s degree to work as an adjunct professor, so I often think about how much we adjuncts have paid for our education and how little we’ve seen come out of that investment. Compared to our school’s salaried faculty, there’s an incredible imbalance. It’s far more profitable for me to find a client and say, you know, “this is my base rate”. And again, for just an hour and a half of my time, I’ve then made the same salary that an adjunct would make in a month.

What would you say that your administration, or administrations at schools around the nation, could be doing to better support adjunct faculty?

We need to re-imagine what being an adjunct professor actually means — what they do differently from full-time faculty, and how fairly they’re being compensated for that work. So we have to rebuild this economic task structure. If you’re a single parent, or if both parents are adjunct professors, then someone has to give up their career to care for the kids. Losing that adjunct pay means living in actual poverty.

I would implore school administrations to think about all of the time that adjuncts spend with their students, whether that’s virtually or in person. Virtual teaching requires more time to prepare — even with my previous knowledge of Zoom, I have to take a certain amount of time to answer emails, make sure assignments are ready to go, and host office hours.

Really what kills me the most is that when you’re an adjunct, you don’t do it for the love of the money. You really don’t. You do it because you love it. And if you want to do something you love — if you want to educate, empower, and inspire young people to be their best — you have to give up every thought of achieving financial independence by yourself. All of this work, work you’re passionate about, starts to become taxing when you are unfairly compensated for it. It takes a toll on your mental health. •

NEXT: The Endangered Adjunct, Part 4

Adjunct faculty member? Share your experience with me at sanna@campuswire.com, or on Twitter at @sannasharp.