We all know that Higher Education’s dependence on adjunct labor is bad. Clearly, the labor conditions for adjuncts are a problem. Despite having PhD’s many adjuncts make between $20k-30k a year with no benefits. Adjuncts are also bad for institutions. Because adjuncts are paid so little and have only a term-long commitment to any given college, they don’t serve on committees, or help with assessment, or develop new programs. I don’t want to suggest that adjuncts are not quality teachers. Many of the best teachers I know are adjuncts who really deserve full-time roles…but they seldom volunteer for more unpaid work! (And I’d feel bad asking them to take on more unpaid administrative or service roles given how poorly they are paid!)
So why do we use adjuncts? They’re cheap. Many 4/4 institutions get about 24 adjunct sections a year for the same price as 8 assistant professor sections. In small schools where money is tight, adjuncts are the easy answer.
But the hidden cost of adjuncts is far higher than many people realize.
As an assistant professor in a small college, I started out managing about 8 adjuncts in my department. Then, this year, I was given oversight for 3 additional programs, which means I now oversee close to 20 adjuncts a term. Hiring (and occasionally firing) adjuncts, observing lessons, approving syllabi, providing instruction regarding course and program content, and maintaining good relationships with local graduate programs to keep the supply of adjuncts flowing takes up a significant part of my life. While I manage to keep all the plates spinning between teaching, research, advising, administering programs, and being human outside work, I imagine that we could improve the quality of education with a committed team of professors who shared the work and contributed their own expertise and experience to the long-term planning of the department or the institution as a whole.
I also imagine that our institution as a whole would be much more efficient without so many adjuncts. Every new adjunct requires a copious HR process, a new IT setup, a new entry with the registrar, a new meeting with security, new keys and parking passes, new training across so many platforms and departments, and new office/cubical space. And adjuncts don’t stick around forever. So when they leave, much of this work has to be undone.
Business managers and accountants must have done the math and determined that, even with these hidden costs, adjunct labor makes financial sense. But in all this start-up and tear-down, people get tired. What’s more, it’s hard to build toward a future, to imagine new programs and develop new systems, when the only guarantee is that most of the people teaching classes today won’t be teaching in two-years time. Adjuncts may keep the ship afloat this term, but over-reliance on adjunct labor prevents small colleges and universities from addressing the questions of purpose and effectiveness that plague higher education.
One way to end our addiction to adjunct labor is to reduce the need for adjunct sections by better utilizing the resources we have. I wrote about this a bit in my previous post. One way to do this is to eliminate programs and courses that have a great deal of content overlap. But there are a couple other ways to do this, too.
One idea is to work toward combination classes. For example, rather than running a South American literature class through the English department and a Spanish literature class looking at the same authors in Spanish, develop a bilingual class where Spanish majors read the texts in Spanish, English majors read the texts in translation, and papers are written in the appropriate language for the student’s course of study. This arrangement allows for the careful study of literature and exciting conversations about translation, culture, and context. Or run the Business Department’s cross-cultural marketing class and the Psych Department’s cross-cultural communication class together with a bit of team teaching or guest lecturing. While such programs might take a bit of coordination, if we can better fill our sections, eliminate adjunct roles, and develop cross-disciplinary relationships, everyone wins.
Another idea is to strategically develop lecturer positions. As lecturers, instructors have ongoing, longer-term institutional affiliation. This means instructors aren’t teaching 7 courses a term at 3 institutions to make ends meet, so they’re more available for their students and the institution. Lectureships are also ideal for some instructors because not everyone wants to maintain a high-level research agenda. Many academics discover during the dissertation process that they’re real desire is to teach…really well and all the time. Lectureships remove the pressure of publishing and the heavier administrative tasks, freeing people to do the teaching they love. Naturally, lecturers are paid less than tenure-track professors for these more limited roles. But if the employment conditions are humane (ie, involve a living wage and benefits), then institution may find they end up with excellent, highly qualified teachers out of such arrangements. What’s more, departments can plan on lecturer’s expertise for future terms when developing programs. This means that departments can build an educational experience for students with an eye to the future. While not as cheap as adjunct labor, lectureships can be great for academics and institutions…and they might help us end our addiction to abusive adjunct dependence.
grace & peace,
Follow me @