This year's report examines two major aspects of the recession's impact: the ongoing expansion of contingent academic employment and growing salary inequality, both within the faculty and between faculty members and college and university presidents. . . .Here are some highlights:
I'm pretty sure that most of the above holds true at my school. What about yours?
My Dept is currently in a nuclear debate over us hiring our first NTTF (we can't call them adjuncts). There are two schools of thought: 1) this is a bad idea, hire them to tenure-track, support them in their efforts versus 2) hmm, they are cheap and will teach the courses I don't want to, this allows me more time to do my research. Plus the personal comm will always rate them the lowest, so we all get better raises.
ReplyDeleteGuess which school will win?
@honest_prof: tell the #2s that contingents get fractious and hard to manage after a while if treated as you describe. Actually, even if the department (like my own) has considerably better intentions, we still get fractious. Or split the difference and think about what a teaching-intensive tenure-track position, a la the conversions the AAUP is suggesting, might look like.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure we would keep NTTF's at less than 20% of the total faculty numbers, a permanent lower caste class. Economics is overriding any rational discussion in this arena.
ReplyDeleteMy department is limited, by university regulations, to a percentage in that general neighborhood. Let's just say that there have been years when the math used to claim we were within bounds was, um, creative.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, permanent underclass is a very good description of our situation. The higher teaching loads, lower salaries (which pretty much require summer teaching) and lack of paid research leaves pretty much guarantee it.
Oh, to have a 20% or even "in the general neighborhood of 20%" set of contingent faculty would set my heart aflutter. Our system has decreed that at least 50% of all sections must be taught by adjuncts. We held the line at 40% for years, but now because of the budget, the floodgates have opened. When we were actually hiring for TT, we had our pick of quality adjuncts because people knew we were a good place to work for the most part and that they'd have a foot in the door for at least an interview for full-time work. Now that we aren't allowed to hire anyone but adjuncts unless a position is deemed "critical" (which generally happens only for administrative positions--surprise!), good adjuncts are leaving in droves for greener pastures. Other CCs, SLACs, and the three big state unis within decent driving distance all pay about as well or more than we do, and some of them even offer benefits.
ReplyDeleteThis week, we're supposed to be getting our system's definition of "financial exigency." Apparently it's going to be different from AAUP's. I'm sure our recent TT hires can hardly wait to see how long it will be before their positions are converted to adjunct.
@Englishdoc: actually, our limit is on the percentage of full-time faculty who can be contingent; as far as I know, there's no limit on part-time contingents/adjuncts. Although I'm not absolutely certain, I think the incentive for having full-time contingents (as opposed to a lot of part-time contingents/adjuncts) is accreditation, and perhaps US News and similar rankings, both of which look at the percentage of full-time vs. part-time faculty. I think the cap on full-time contingents is mostly at the insistence of the TT faculty, who don't want to see tenure abolished stealthily, by attrition (though I suspect US universities are headed in that direction anyway). Doesn't your institution care about that? A friend who works for a CC that is up for accreditation told me that her department is getting pressure from the accrediting body to up the full-time percentage, so I don't think this is only a 4-year issue.
ReplyDeleteAs a full-time contingent myself, I have to say that I don't think we entirely fulfill the criteria that accreditors and US News are thinking of when they give institutions credit for "full time faculty." My position doesn't include service, so I'm not nearly as plugged in to the institutional conversation as my TT colleagues, nor can students who enjoy my class usually take another from me, since the bulk of my 4/4 teaching load is taken up by a single required class. And, of course, any attempt I make to keep up the skills I'm teaching by practicing what I teach (research and writing in the humanities and other disciplines) is entirely on my own time.
I hope the job market, or the accrediting body, or somebody, forces a change to the policy at your CC; 50% adjuncts can't be good for anybody (except, perhaps, budget/power-hungry administrators and politicians).