The barriers that exist between full-time and contingent faculty members are very unfortunate. But whenever I try to breach them, I discover myself in the midst of such a negative, overwrought environment that I can’t take it for very long.
I just had to listen to an endless discussion of how everything is horrible and our university is about to be closed down and finally just gave up on trying to reach out to contingent colleagues.
Clarissa's Blog 
Many of the contingent people I know have no PhD and no research agenda and in some cases, no interest in learning anything new. They are very vulnerable to textbook vendors, MOOC-speak, and so on, and may be downright anti-intellectual. I know several who do not have current library skills. I know they are faculty and we should have solidarity, but their aims often do not resemble mine at all.
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This is exactly the people I’m talking about. I’m trying to have solidarity but it’s hard because there is so much difference between us.
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Remember, adjuncts get paid garbage. I taught a course back in 2012 just because I wanted to do it. I got paid a whopping $2,400 for the semester, which my research tells me is in line with what these people get. So, image for four courses per semester a total annual compensation of maybe $28,000. Just how positive would you be?
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These are adults who chose this life, chose this profession. If they hate it so much, nobody is forcing them to stay.
I used to work for a minimum wage and I was then, as I am now, a very happy person. A choice to be miserable gets made (or not) irrespective of one’s salary.
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I enjoyed teaching the class and had a few really good students. However, I won’t do it again. I can’t afford to do it.
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Yes. Adjunct pay is terrible. I personally think adjuncts only make sense for highly specialized courses that the faculty can’t cover themselves but need to offer. In that sense, adjunct pay should be very high (say $8000 a class);; adjunct should be limited to one class (to ensure it’s only a very specialized thing), and used only very sparingly by the university (which high pay would encouage.)
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Here is the problem: we have to teach 25 sections of Spanish 101 every semester. At other universities, the number often gets much higher. There can be up to 100 section of Spanish 101. And if we are honest, it makes zero sense to hire six tenure-track professors (and up to 30 professors at other universities) to teach this course. It does not require huge expertise or people with PhDs. And paying $50,000 per year to somebody who will teach 3 or even 4 sections of Spanish 101 is just bizarre. This is why contingent faculty members are hired.
This is a reality that no movement in support of adjuncts is trying to address. I would love to hear at least 1 alternative to hiring contingent workers to cover these courses. But nobody is suggesting anything.
As for specialized courses, there is only a handful of departments in my discipline on the entire continent that do anything specialized at all. Our problem is not with finding people for specialized courses. Our problem is with the high enrollment basic-level courses. All we do for the first 3 years of college is remediation of the most basic kind. The last time I taught a course in my area of specialization was almost a decade ago, and the enrollment was tiny.
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Well we have something similar in English and that’s Freshman Composition. I still think we should hire full time faculty for those courses– just not tenure or tenure track faculty. Hire full time people (PhD not required–though a Master’s degree should be) and have them teach a 4/4 or perhaps even a 6/6 of the same prep and pay them a decent wage ($45,000 or so.) Also, I think all faculty should participate in teaching this introductory courses themselves to some degree. It doesn’t have to be constant but faculty need to know what the introductory level looks like in my opinion.
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“It doesn’t have to be constant but faculty need to know what the introductory level looks like in my opinion.”
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“Our problem is not with finding people for specialized courses.”
Oh I agree. That’s why I suggested it should be a very rare instance. I was thinking for maybe something more professionally oriented. For instance, teacher training programs sometimes hire adjunct instructors who are full time teachers to teach about specific issues related to the field. That sort of thing.
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You made the right decision and now don’t have to persecute everybody around you with stories of your intense misery and their impending doom.
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I never did that anyway. Came to campus, met with the class and went home.
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Contingent people are not just adjuncts. Anyone not on the tenure track or tenured, people on year to year appointments, are contingent. Such people do have full benefits, and more, and are on salary, not teaching by the course.
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I am glad someone is admitting to feeling like this. I don’t know if you remember but there was an “adjunct walk out” day a few months ago. And I wanted to be supportive and was going to show their recommended presentation to my students so they had some context with the issue. But I found the presentation to be quite offensive (posted at the bottom if you are curious) and elected not to discuss the issue.
I understand that adjunctification is a problem. And I think adjunct pay is embarrassing. But adjuncts reputedly pit themselves against tenure/tenure track faculty. The presentation makes tenured faculty seem spoiled for getting a salary or having office. The problem is not with tenured faculty; it’s with an administration/regents/political system who would prefer to hire adjuncts (who are cheap, and generally–though this is unpopular to say– marginally qualified) than tenure track/ tenured faculty. We need MORE tenured faculty– not to represent faculty as spoiled.
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“The problem is not with tenured faculty; it’s with an administration/regents/political system who would prefer to hire adjuncts (who are cheap, and generally–though this is unpopular to say– marginally qualified) than tenure track/ tenured faculty.”
Our contingent faculty are represented by a union that I fully support and that is doing a great job. So I don’t know what is expected from me at this particular point that could ease the plight of contingent faculty.
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Exactly. They pit themselves against other faculty and join with administration against them. I could go on and on.
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