The Ideal Adjunct

post by Jennie Shanker

When adjuncts point to their inability to thrive on the low salaries they receive from their work, they are often met with the same argument:

This work is meant to be part-time. We never intended for anyone to make their living from it!  

Indeed, there are some people who teach as adjuncts who don’t particularly need the work or the money. They may have their own business, a well-paying job elsewhere, or another breadwinner in the house whose income covers the family needs. These are the professionals the administration will assert as their consummate adjuncts. They are the ideal candidates, receiving pay as a token of thanks for their generous service.

This faculty member, however ideal, is not representative of the vast majority of adjuncts. Any administration even minimally engaged with its educators knows this. The extensive number of courses taught by part timers cannot be filled with these outside professionals.

On Campus: We Are All Contingent

 This post was originally published in the American Federation of Teachers’  higher ed publication: On Campus, Summer 2014 issue.

by Gary Rhoades

The shape of higher education, as of society, is changing. In our not-for-profit institutions, policymakers and managers are working to reorganize academic employment to at-will, just-in-time, pay-for-“performance” work. They are reorganizing colleges and universities to operate like businesses seeking to maximize institutional revenues and minimize investment in instruction. This model serves corporate business’s needs. But it’s a disservice to a large portion of our student populations, particularly the growing number of low-income, underserved populations that are seeking educational opportunity. Read more

Hunger Strike

post by Wende Marshall

I was recently invited to participate on an Anthropology Association of America panel about food and identity. I was slow in responding, and as I pondered the invitation over several days I realized that the idea of the panel was deeply disturbing to me. I realized that my experience as an adjunct struggling to survive without a full time permanent job had significantly altered the way that I think about the academy and about academic research and writing. There was a time when I might have jumped at the chance to be on the panel, when I would have been honored to have been asked to join colleagues working on issues similar to mine. But as I considered the invitation what I felt was a chilling sense of how inadequate the academic response has been to the crumbling structures of higher education and to the growing wealth and income gap.

What Can I Do? How Full Time Faculty can Help Adjuncts

 

Post by Jennie Shanker

Summer is here! Our three-month span off campus is called a vacation, and indeed many faculty members are able to travel, have time to focus on their scholarly work, and enjoy great freedom in their schedule. It’s important for teachers to have a break from the responsibilities and demands that accompany each school term. Without it, the research and creative endeavors of the faculty are diminished, ultimately affecting what they have to offer the institution and their students.

Certainly for those of us who teach on a part-time basis, there is no summer vacation.