We live in a time of “adjunct plight” essays. This isn’t one of them. True, I am an adjunct, and I have much plight, but rather than be blamed for whining by you full-timers, let me scare you instead. I am an adjunct, and I’m making it much harder for full-timers to get a job, to get tenure, or to retain meaningful control over academic affairs.
Let’s be clear: I am a shill, a scab. I am the cheap, easy, powerless trump card that administrators can play against full-timers every single time in every single conflict. And I am legion.
The faculty will always be in retreat so long as the vast majority of teachers are held powerless. Adjuncts are too great a temptation, too convenient a solution for a budget-minded administrator. We’re too inexpensive, too controllable, too dispensable a resource to ignore. Full-timers should be involved in helping adjuncts, not out of charity or guilt, but out of direct self-interest.
It’s a simple process: When a full-timer retires, the position disappears, and the course assignments go to two or three adjuncts. Sure, the classes are still filled, but the committees that the retiree served on have one less member, students have one less mentor, the department has one less scholar or researcher, the union has one less powerful voice, and the administration has one less powerful opponent to worry about.
So far, the faculty response has been mostly to demand those tenure-track lines back, to redress the imbalance, but frankly, I don’t see that approach working. All administrations have to do is wait for enrollment to rise, then grudgingly add a few tenure-track lines to placate the faculty, and meanwhile, the proportion of adjuncts on the faculty continues to swell.
I propose another strategy: Make adjuncts less attractive to hire. Complaining about low standards of education won’t do it. Showing the plight of adjuncts won’t do it. I’m pretty sure administrators know that adjuncts sometimes have to go on food stamps, that they have to work multiple jobs to support themselves and their families, and that the life of an adjunct is often filled with isolation, disappointment, and anxiety. I just don’t think most administrators really care, and no amount of shaming and guilt-tripping will change the balance sheets they have to show to presidents and governing boards. I don’t think administrators are bad people; they just have priorities and perspectives that are different from those of faculty, and no amount of handwringing and ethical indignation will change that.
So if adjuncts are so attractive because we’re so cheap, powerless, excluded, and replaceable, the solution seems to be to make adjuncts more expensive, more empowered, more included, and more secure in our positions. One idea: Create a new faculty tier of “super adjuncts” who would teach three classes a semester, and be paid around $20,000 to $25,000 for the term—more than what adjuncts now make, but still less than a full-timer. Give “super adjuncts” a vote in departmental and faculty matters, require them to be involved in some modest sway in the academic life of the department (through mentoring, scholarship, research, or faculty development), and make sure they have some measure of real, contractual job security.
Now you’re probably saying “Well, isn’t that nicely self-serving for you, Mr. Adjunct?” Yes, God yes. Wonderfully, magnificently yes.
But it helps you, too. Instead of just filling a class or two, adjuncts can replace what has been lost by the slow extermination of full-timers, but only if we’re included enough in academic life to do so. This new tier would mean more people sitting on committees, more people advising student clubs and activities, more people contributing to research and scholarship, more people who can analyze and advocate when it comes to political fights with administrations, more voices in the discussions of curricula, course outcomes, and departmental goals, and of course, a better quality of education for students.
That isn’t a slam on the teaching skills of adjuncts. I’m an adjunct, and I’m an awesome teacher. It’s a matter of support. Take the same tenured professor and strip away his financial security, his office, his office hours, his opportunities to engage in scholarship, his professional relationships, and his academic freedom, and, yes, he will not do as good a job in the classroom. Now, imagine around 70 percent of your department in that outcast state, and you can see why faculty as a whole have been losing power and influence.
Part-timers and full-timers alike are fighting the same fight, but we are being maneuvered to fight it separately. We all want the same things: decent pay for what we do, job security, and the ability to provide the best education possible for our students. You full-timers don’t have to go through this alone. You have allies, two of them for every one of you, waiting and eager to share the burden.
It starts simply. Talk to us. Listen, too. Learn about who we are and why we teach and what we study. Include us in meetings. Involve us in your projects. Give us the opportunity to show you what we can do. Train us, support us, make us people you trust to make the important decisions and to have as allies when things are grim. We’re here and we’re not going anywhere. Use us.
