Eye Opening article on Adjunct Faculty in The Atlantic
I came across this article in The Atlantic’s archives. I was reading an article that referred me to this one. Some of the most eyeopening and shocking facts I came across in this article is that some adjuncts get paid less than minimum wage, and some get paid $2700/semester for teaching a course. Although this article looks at this from the effect of adjuncts on students, I really really feel for the adjuncts. In undergrad, I had 2 professors who were adjunct. They were both good… But my favorite was my psychology teacher… She was really passionate about the material and she was a very good teacher… However, she also worked as a full-time Psychiatrist. It shocks me that these people, like the referring article stated (that I couldn’t find after going to The Atlantic’s article), spent many years of their life in school, working on a higher degree. They don’t *just* have a bachelor’s. They’re spending their precious years of their youth perusing their PhD… Definitely not to end up getting paid less than minimum wage.
According to the Atlantic’s article, 3/4th the professors fall under either temporary, adjunct status, or aren’t tenure track. Only 1/4th of the professors in the academia, according to The Atlantic are on tenure track. I’m someone who loves teaching, and I’m into the academic track to teach one day… Reading this makes me feel like either I’d be on tenure track one day, or I can be adjunct if and only if it’s a night job… However, I’d avoid the adjunct part…
Especially that according to the article, adjunct faculty are missing out on a lot of different things… Such as advising students, writing recommendations, and even having a place to hang their hat or put their books. It’s crazy to read that a professor would have to go around with her books in her trunk… and meet her students there… We have the best education in the world, and we must compensate teachers accordingly… We must make teaching be a job both in traditional schools and colleges, to be a job where people can live a good life… People shouldn’t have to worry about making ends meet… By raising the generation to come in their own ways, they deserve a good life. At least, that’s my personal view… However, we are the future of academia… and we can make it better in the same ways there are people who are working hard to make it better!
November 1, 2015 @ 11:37 pm
This is saddening to know that some of the faculty gets paid even below the minimum wages. But unfortunately that is the truth of the times we live in. This system of paying academicians lower wages says something about the present-day culture. I was talking to a few friends of mine about how the annual compensation of VT football team coach is a lot more than the VT president. I think soon academia will have to face the side-effects of this when talented people will stop going to the academia. I hope some steps are taken before such a condition arises.
November 2, 2015 @ 1:43 am
Thanks so much for the comment, Ashish. I totally agree with you. The real-world is a lot more tempting in many ways than the academia… Especially if the making money part of the job is the most important part to people… After all, people want stable and rewarding jobs. People, with PhDs, deserve to be appreciated!
November 10, 2015 @ 9:38 pm
There was only one time I’ve ever heard anything contrary to what you’ve discussed in your post about adjunct professors. I wrote a short entry that links to the Kevin Carry article http://blogs.lt.vt.edu/blogblog/?p=79 which basically advocates adjunct positions, and essentially says that the “brass ring of tenure” is over-rated. I’ve never, heard anyone take this stance, nor do I personally know of any adjunct professors who don’t feel a little screwed over. In a way, after reading your post, and the Atlantic article it sort of make the article I posted seem like a lot of bull. I agree with you, we do need to figure out how to pay our teachers more, especially our elementary and high school teachers. Ashish makes a good point about possible side-effects resulting from this. It seems especially possible when you consider the silicon valley start-up successes who have become role models for the up and coming minds of the future.
November 22, 2015 @ 5:25 am
Very interesting article, I think in general adjunct professors might put more effort than other faculty in making their teaching successful, mainly because adjunct professors most likely enjoy teaching a lot more than tenured faculty, who is usually more research oriented with no real intentions of teaching. It sounds unfair that they would get paid so low, and face all types of difficulties like not having a space to talk with students or a place where to put a book. I agree that the salary, benefits, and policy in general should be revised, especially because of the big percentage of adjunct professors.
I agree with Ashish with the example of the unfairness in assigning salaries to some jobs compared to others, but unfortunately that won’t change.
Liz also brought the issue of similar situation with some high school teachers, I imagine teachers for arts like music, paint or even sports, might be under a similar situation because they are like “adjunct” to their high schools.