PREVIOUS: The Endangered Adjunct, Part 3
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-holding applicants who must compete for just a handful of tenured positions.
How did you initially become an adjunct professor?
I attended graduate school at University of Delaware, so I actually had the chance to teach a few introductory courses before they hired me specifically to instruct. My masters was in Organizational Leadership, focused on public administration and public-private partnerships.
At that time, my focus wasn’t at all on becoming a full-time faculty member. After graduating I started my own company within the private sector, advising other companies on how to make their workplace cultures more lively. I worked as the CEO Managing Partner of that company for five years –– experience which really leant itself to my work now.
I’ve taught as an adjunct within the University of Delaware’s Entrepreneurship program for the past four years. I always try to set up any classroom I’m in — whether virtual, live, or some hybrid of the two — holistically, in a way that promotes students’ growth.
As an adjunct professor at U. Delaware, how much do you make per class you teach?
I’ve made anywhere between $6,000 to $7,000 per class, but it really varies between departments. University of Delaware practices a tiered pay system. If you’re a full-time and tenured professor you’ll make well above what an instructor makes, and significantly more than an adjunct instructor does.
Your university compensates you very well in comparison to most other schools in the country.
U. Delaware is a huge, publicly-funded university with a lot of grant money. I think we’re one of the very few universities that has land, air, sea, space, and other such grants. That grant money attracts a lot of higher-level faculty who are mostly focused on doing research, while adjunct faculty take on more of a teaching role. So I feel that they [the administration] have done it right, in terms of paying adjunct faculty better than the national average.
At the same time, I’m really lucky: the entrepreneurship program, which I helped design, is a little bit unique within Delaware. Our department treats us more like ‘CEOs in Residence’ than like typical adjunct professors, and that’s because our adjunct faculty members usually hold secondary jobs in consulting or investing –– which, in turn, makes us less dependent on our adjunct earnings. I’ve heard from colleagues who work outside of my program that this kind of ‘CEO treatment’ doesn’t happen in their departments. So it’s certainly harder for my colleagues who teach in the arts, for example, and who may rely entirely on adjunct compensation for income.
I’ve read that historically, in times of recession and economic insecurity, students have turned to higher education as a means of bettering their chances within the competitive job market. You teach courses focused on entrepreneurship and the workforce — I can see how students would find those topics especially valuable now.
U. Delaware’s enrollment has suffered nearly across the board –– but not in the entrepreneurship program. Making the switch to online learning has been tough on a lot of students, not to mention faculty members. I’d imagine it’s harder to learn from, or teach, say — a virtual chemistry class –– than it is to teach or learn business remotely. Maybe that’s why our program’s enrollment numbers have continued to steadily grow. It’s fascinating.
In the meantime the pandemic, and its resulting low enrollment and returning student numbers, have caused U. Delaware to let go of dozens of adjunct staff members from other departments.
Back in May, U. Delaware laid off over 1,100 part-time employees — but promised that these cuts would not affect adjunct faculty. Has that changed?
They laid off support staff and froze hiring and pay, but the school is still at a deficit due to low enrollment numbers. The decision to begin firing adjunct faculty members was made in September. Even after the firings, all of U. Delaware’s non-union employees took a pay cut.
Would you consider continuing to teach your classes online in a future, post-pandemic world?
We actually had the choice whether to host a hybrid section of our intro class or remain completely online for the Spring term. I chose to remain online. I believe that we, as a team, have been able to adapt to this — and that adoption has been rewarding.
A year ago, would I have said that to you? I doubt it. In March I would have said, “this isn’t working!”
But — you know, you flow. And I’m always looking on the bright side of things. I don’t believe the value of my teaching, or my lessons, have decreased in any way. We’ve done this for three terms now — we’re prepared. We can do it.
So you’ve become accustomed to teaching online and may even prefer it. Do you believe your students feel the same?
There are positives and negatives to attending school online. I feel that teaching online has given me a better opportunity to get to know my students and understand their personal situations.
To make virtual class sessions more engaging, I break my students into cohort groups based on their availability. I hold a few sessions at different times with these groups each week — usually five to ten students will attend a session. Having that smaller group really allows for the conversation to flow, and gives everyone the opportunity to participate. It makes the class more of a Socratic-style seminar than a lecture, and I can see every student’s face on screen. Having these more intimate conversations is, I think, a more effective way to teach.
On the flip side, my students are taking their college classes — but not having their college experience. The college experience has been completely broken down, and now students only get this remote learning component. Every social situation outside of the classroom is gone.
As adjunct professors, we’re experts in our fields; not professionals who have been trained to fill the void and assuage the emotions brought on by campus closures. There are statistics that we’re aware of ––and that we’re sharing to make each other aware of, as a team — about how depression has become more common in response to the pandemic-induced isolation.
The cost of attending university in America is astronomically high. I wonder if that “traditional college experience” is worth the “nickel-and-diming” of students’ on-campus lives, which we see so many administrations practice.
That’s a good question. I think that for some students, participating in the campus community is key to their success in higher education. But I also believe that some students — especially some shyer students, who may not want to raise their hand in a lecture hall setting — have been emboldened by the new virtual classroom. It’s easier to speak up in front of a seven-person cohort group, from the comfort of your own home, than it is to answer a question in class. So some students may very well learn more from this online format. •
COMING SOON: The Endangered Adjunct, Part 5
Adjunct faculty member? Share your experience with me at sanna@campuswire.com, or on Twitter at @sannasharp.
