PREVIOUS: The Endangered Adjunct, Part 1
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.
Hi David, thanks for agreeing to speak with me! Could you start by telling me a bit about your relationship to adjunct teaching?
Sure. I teach art and art history at the Community College of Aurora and Aims Community College.
When you’re an artist, you have to do graphic design so that you can have a job. So that’s what I did, I worked for newspapers and ad agencies. This was back in ’08, so I was laid off — twice––when the recession happened.
I thought, well, I’ve always wanted to teach. So I got a Master’s Degree and started teaching right away. At that time, I had no idea what an adjunct was. I really had this idea of academia, that it was, you know –– you become a professor and then you teach, and it’s generally full-time. I didn’t expect to receive tenure, but I did figure, oh, I’m going to be a teacher. Because that’s how it works. Instead I was immediately hired as an adjunct, and had to learn what an adjunct was. It was immediately clear that this was not enough money to survive on.
But I also thought: I’ve got my foot in the door now. At some point a full-time job will come around.
So you’ve actively sought a full-time faculty position while adjunct teaching?
Yeah. Maybe once a year I can apply for a job or two, but there are always too many applicants competing for that one job.
How many courses do you teach between CC Aurora and Aims CC?
I generally teach seven to eight courses between the two schools.
Would you be willing to disclose how much you earn per course?
Pay tends to range anywhere from $800 per credit hour to $1100 per credit hour. So if I’m teaching what is usually a three credit course, I’d be paid $1100 times three. That’s on the high end –- I’ve made everywhere from $375 per credit hour to over $1100 dollars per credit.
Let’s assume you’re making that high end of $1100 per credit hour – in comparison to what students are paying to take your course, do you think that $3300 per course is reasonable compensation?
Generally speaking, only the money that one or two students pays for the course actually goes to me. The rest of their money goes straight to the school.
Where does that money go within the university system?
The money is gone. You know, administrators’ pockets. Lately I’ve seen a lot of investments made in pointless technology.
How was your experience moving online this past spring? Have you introduced any of those technologies to your courses?
It’s been difficult. We have an online learning management system that we use, and luckily I’d been using it already. But I had to redesign my in-person course to better fit that online environment, which has been difficult.
Several adjuncts have mentioned that. It seems there’s this common theme of, you know, they’re making so much less money — a third, at some schools, of what their full-time faculty colleagues are making — for the same work. And they feel it’s unfair.
Absolutely. They’re absolutely doing all of the same work, if not even more work than full-time faculty members. Adjuncts are often working in multiple colleges, multiple school systems, sometimes adjunct-ing in addition to holding other full time jobs — and then they’re being paid so much less for doing that same work.
There’s always been this practice of over-relying on adjunct faculty, and underpaying them, but the pandemic seems to be exacerbating that difference.
Our workload has at least doubled or tripled. It takes so much more time to redesign your course, redesign your assignments, redesign how you grade them… like class discussions, for instance.
In class, discussions happen organically and everybody’s involved in them. That makes them easier to grade. Now I have my students making posts online and replying to other students’ posts, and it’s much less fluid. It takes more time to grade every single post and every single response. It’s a lot more work to take on with little to no compensation or preparation.
And so we’re being asked to do this impossible job for very little already, right? And you do it because, you know, you love the work. And you should do it because of that love, not because of the pay. And because we all love the work, we buy into that idea. But now we’re being asked to do so much more, during really hard, stressful times –– with the zero, zero, zero help.
On the subject of help — I’ve read that nearly one-quarter of adjunct faculty members rely on public assistance.
It’s too many. I’ve been on unemployment before, I’ve applied for food stamps before –– I’m on partial unemployment now. So yeah, I’ve had to rely on public assistance for sure.
And I really have to say that, you know, I’m a white man. I walk into a job interview and am already at an advantage, because of the way our society operates. So if I’m struggling with this face, with the benefits of my privilege, then imagine how older women are struggling, and how people of color are struggling.
Definitely. Do you currently teach any in-person classes, or have they all moved online?
I’m faced with the choice of either losing a class — because not all classes can be reconstructed for online learning, and somethings are preferable to do in person, especially in the Arts — or agreeing to teach in person.
The administration essentially is saying, “well, here’s a figure drawing class. You can have no money, or a bit of money with the added risk of contracting COVID.”
And you know, I’m 42. I’m relatively healthy, but I am at that age where it’s hard to know what’s going to happen. And I can’t afford the hospital bills. I’ve tried to buy health insurance, but it’s not cost-effective or helpful.
I also take care of my eighty-year-old mom. She’s in good shape, but I still have to go down to her place to help her out. You know –– if she says that her plumbing is broken, then she’s probably going to call a plumber. And because of COVID, I don’t want people coming into her small house. So that means I have to go down and do it myself, which means that my partner and I have to be extra careful about who we interact with. That makes teaching in person harder. Trying to keep us safe means I don’t get a paycheck.
What do you think college and university administrators could be doing to better support adjunct instructors at this time?
Offering any kind of benefits would help. Or additional pay. Or, I mean –– just pay us for the work we’re doing.
That’s the bare minimum, right? Adjuncts are no different than Uber drivers or food delivery drivers. We’re risking our lives to earn a paycheck during this pandemic, and we’re not earning much. And while Uber drivers, or delivery men, don’t necessarily love their work — we do.
Adjuncts are a class of gig workers that go ignored, I think, because working in Higher Ed is typically viewed as esteemed, as a privileged position. But the truth is, we’re being exploited. We love what we study and teach –– and that passion is being taken advantage of. •
NEXT: The Endangered Adjunct, Part 3
Adjunct faculty member? Share your experience with me at sanna@campuswire.com, or on Twitter at @sannasharp.
