Invisible Adjunct

I taught at a community college for low wages so I know a little about this subject for what that's worth. I think there are two issues: what will impact the school and what will impact the students. On the first question I think the stronger answer is don't take the job. If someone always take the job then the university will continue to pay poorly. On the second question I think the issue is professionalism. If you take the job you should do what is required. When I taught western civ and american politics at a community college, I did my best to communicate the content of the courses and help any student who requested it. I didn't spend hours working over the syllabus or search for new and innovative ways to present the material. If the school wants a full time professor they could have hired one, what they paid for was a competent and proffesional teacher. I tried to fit the role.

I am not sure what I would have done had the students overwhelmed me with requests for personal time and help . . .

Good question, with no easy answer. I'm going to dodge this by asking another question. To what extent would it be possible to unionize adjunct faculty? A strong union is the only possible solution I see to this mess.

Admittedly, if my pay were ever cut in half, my dedication to my students would be severely tested.

Why not inform the students of the situation? Tell them "I am being paid half (or whatever %) what I was being paid last term. Therefore, I will put in less effort, and will spend less time meeting with you etc. If this situation seems unreasonable, I recommend you mention it to the dean and the dept. chair. After all, you, the students, are the ones who suffer from Big State U's policy of hiring adjuncts."

Of course the adjunct him/herself faces the possibility of diminished future employment prospects, but is that really any different from what you'd expect anyway?

A union is no solution when little demand exists for its members' services relative to their numbers.

Academia is not exempt from the law of supply and demand. High supply and low demand is a recipe for disaster for job-seekers. Since the demand for tenure-track humanities professors is unlikely to increase much, the problem can only be attacked by reducing the supply of applicants. Until humanities doctoral program admissions are sharply limited and enough people abandon academia for more rewarding careers, the situation will not change, union or no union.

Those of you considering a humanities doctoral program, pay attention!

Chris' arrangement pays $3,000 for a course. This figure is not at all unusual these days. Assume that the semester is 15 weeks long. Also assume that 7.65% of his salary is lost to FICA and 10% of his salary is lost to federal, state, and local income taxes. Here are Chris' after-tax hourly wages according to the amount of time required for preparation, teaching, office hours, and grading each week:

10 hours per week: $16.47 per hour
15 hours per week: $10.98 per hour
20 hours per week: $8.24 per hour

Remember, Chris presumably spent five to nine years obtaining a doctorate after four years of undergraduate education, and he is likely a fine teacher.

The problem with withholding effort is that:

a)You hurt the students, who are not the ones underpaying you, and
b)You hurt yourself. It's hard to see how a serious professional, which I'm sure Chris is, could do this and not eventually have some impact on his self-image.

The partial exception to the above would be if you have an action plan to *get out* and need time to execute it (interviewing for jobs, writing a book, putting together a business plan, etc). The key is that it has to be something with a very finite time horizon. Otherwise, you can just go on year after year doing less than you know you can do...and what will that do to you inside?

Aha -- the toughest question in the adjunct book. I think that part of the difficulty lies in the fact that our answer defines us to some extent.

IMHO, as awful as it sounds, if you sign on the dotted line, you're in. It's a new contract where you are expected to do the same amount of work, despite the sucky conditions, and you signed it. That means you are obliged to fulfill your part. Nobody forced you, and there may be someone out there who will go the extra mile and whome you've kept from getting their foot in the door.

That said, it doesn't make it right and your case demonstrates clearly the evils of the adjunct situation. I'm full-time at the moment, and pray never to go back because I don't want to have to make those choices either. However, I know that one of the reasons I will continue to teach in whatever capacity until it is absolutely financially non-viable is that I know I'm good at my job. Also, I go the extra mile no matter what, partially because I want to have a good CV and because I want to continue to be a great teacher. One of the things I've noticed (and this really seems to happen a lot with ESL and Freshman comp people I know) is that there are tons of people teaching 2/3 time at adjunct wages who have been doing it for 10-15 years. They're burned out and resentful, and that can't be good for them or the students. Moreover, many of them think that they deserve the next tenure-track opening (this is at a CC, mind) by virtue of their relative seniority, and are horrible when someon who isn't burnt out and is more current in the field gets the job. I refuse to let myself fall into that trap.

I guess it depends on why you teach. I doubt it's for the bastards in admin, nor for the evil weasels in state legislatures and Congress who gut budgets. I hope it's because you love it and the connections you make with your students and colleagues. If that's so, then my advice is to ask yourself whether you take more pleasure in doing what you love well (and incidentally keeping yourself more marketable for the full-time position) or in sticking it to the man. 'nuff said, pontificating over.

I applaud Another Damned Medievalist's dedication:

"However, I know that one of the reasons I will continue to teach in whatever capacity until it is absolutely financially non-viable is that I know I'm good at my job."

Unfortunately ADM's comment shows exactly why the job market is so grim and why university teaching pays so poorly. Universities do not need to pay well because they do not need to do so to fill academic positions in the humanities.

The other day, my local newspaper published an interesting op-ed on job retraining. I believe it was in response to one of the many points raised in the State of the Union Address. The solution to having your job dry up, or be outsourced/offshored or whatever is retraining. This nation of entrepreneurs is full of people constantly reinventing themselves, seizing the next opportunity for the next big thing.

The author raised an interesting point. Job retraining really is not the cure-all, since there simply aren't enough well-paying jobs in this country.

I think of this whenever I read/hear yet another heroic entrepreneur encourage the rest of us mugs to abandon academia for the more rewarding careers. There are only so many "more rewarding careers" out there.

I do understand the concept of supply and demand, and that the overflow of Ph.Ds is a good way to bust or prevent the formation of adjunct/academic unions. Nonetheless strength in numbers is certainly a better option to fending for yourself in this cruel, post-Ph.D/adjunct world.

"A strong union is the only possible solution I see to this mess"
Perhaps, if there are enough adjuncts to play ball. However this probably wont happen. Adjuncts in other disciplines might be happy with what they have, thus have no reason to go along with this. Humanities adjuncts and perhaps some science postdocs probably have common concerns. Doubtful the same goes for business/engineering adjuncts. Some of these adjuncts have day jobs that pay more than enough.

Besides, the smaller humanities departments cant risk it. Colleges cannot cut the English department. They can cut gender studies, art history, etc. departments. Lots of places dont have them and are doing just fine. Even traditional independent departments like history or literature can be combined into one. Look at Caltech for example.

The notion of a liberal arts education has changed. Business or economics type undergraduate programs/classes are now more popular among students who whould have choosen humanities disciplines in the past. Do students really care if the guy teaching composition is an adjunt/puts in less effort/isnt paid/less qualified/overworked ? Afterall, isnt taking a class with some big-name business prof who is a lousy teacher but has industry contacts is a lot more "valuable" ?

That the humanities are not perceived as "valuable" is largely the fault of the humanists themselves, specifically the postmodern approach that is fashionable these days.

If you continually claim that all you can know about your subject is merely a reflection of your own personal characteristics or your views about power, why should the federal government, state legislatures, students, or anyone else give you money to research it?

"The notion of a liberal arts education has changed. Business or economics type undergraduate programs/classes are now more popular among students who whould have choosen humanities disciplines in the past." I wonder if this is really true. In the olden days, didn't many students major in career-oriented fields (agriculture, for instance, or journalism?) Weren't those who majored in liberal arts often those who came from affluent backgrounds and had no career worries--but had no clue about what they wanted to do and were majoring in humanities for that reason, rather than because of any real love of the subject.

Note also that the percentage of the population going to college is now much higher; thus, the threshold of effort and committment required to go is probably much lower than it once was.

I think the different workloads of adjunct faculty in different departments (or of different backgrounds) is what makes this question so difficult. In some situations, it is quite easy to spend only 10 hours a week teaching a class and, as someone pointed out above, that generates a reasonable (if not princely) wage. At a community college, I took French from a public school teacher, Chinese from a native Chinese speaker, and intro to computers from someone who worked in the field, and I'm sure none of them spent more than 10 hours on the class (maybe less). A friend of mine also went back and took courses in elementary ed, and the situation was the same there. I also have a friend who's a high school teacher and loves teaching religion courses at a local college.

These classes were all just fine - and very cheap. And this is important too: don't we want education to be accessible to everyone, which means, pretty much, making it as cheap as possible?

So the question is, what's wrong with this setup? I don't think there's any reason for colleges to double what they pay to the faculty I've described. The only thing that would be fair is to make some sort of assessment of how much time is spent on classes. But then you run into another problem: after you teach your English 101 course 5 times, even considering grading, you spend half as much time on it as you did your first year.

That said, I agree with the first response: be professional, realize that you consented to teach this course, use it to build up your storehouse of lectures and exercises for the future, and plan your exit strategy.

I am well aware of the reasons many would doubt a strong union ever materializing. As in many other cases, there will always be those who will tell you why something "won't work." They may be correct. Nevertheless I see only three possible reactions to losing half your pay/becoming an adjunct. Accept your situation, and work hard for slave wages; fight back; get out and find another career. For those who choose to fight back, strength through numbers will help.

I hate to admit it, but when I found out that the TAs for the tenure track faculty were making more than I was as an adjunct, it did dampen my enthusiasm, and I definitely stopped putting in 110% into teaching. It wasn't a conscious policy or a political tactic, but my lack of fair compensation certainly affected my teaching.

DM lays out three options:

1. Accept the situation
2. Fight back
3. Find another career

My responses to each one:

1. This option is fine if you enjoy earning poverty wages with no benefits.
2. Good luck. Adjuncts are such a diverse group and include so many transient employees that they have little time or incentive to take strong action together.
3. By far the best option. Get out of academia before you personally experience that the job market is really a lottery.

Don't get on a train headed nowhere!

I am an adjunct at a community college where adjunct faculty are part of the union. Since we joined the union, our wages have increased a little (more than enough to offset the union dues), we now get paid for required professional development activities, and we get paid sick time. So there has been some improvement, but no miracle. Just my two cents to the folks wondering about unionization.

I also teach freshman composition. I make less than $3000 per class, so my take-home is even more dire than Chris's. I reject the idea that once we sign a contract, we are obligated to give the class our all. The reality of trying to balance student needs and our own is much more complicated than that. I am always making pragmatic decisions like "I will only spend X minutes per paper on grading" and then failing to put them into practice. But I do embrace the notion that it is OK to be merely a "good enough" teacher. Nobody is ever going to make an inspirational movie about my life, and like a previous poster, I am content not to innovate but to merely present the material solidly.

Oh, and to another previous poster: while teaching the same class multiplie times does cut down on assignment prep time, in writing the big time-sucker is grading essays. And that doesn't get shorter no matter how many times you teach the class.

I thought I would pop back in an encourage those people still left in the field. Two things:
- If I could go back to it I would, but I am to ensnared in the financial aspects of my life (house, car, loans, etc) for that to be possible. I do miss the academy though.

- Journalism seems another bad path. I have seen adds for jobs that require a degree and start at $15,000 and jobs that require 2-4 years experience and pay $18,000 - $20,000. That means if you are putting in 15 hours a week as an adjunct you are making more than these jobs offer (if Red Barron's figures are right) At least with teaching you get some autonomy and control. You could be making low wages, working forty plus hours a week, and getting an editor coffee!

Indeed, unionization promises neither instant gratification nor some sort of magical solution. If there are better options out there, I am all for them. Accepting your situation is not an ideal alternative, and leaving academia places you into another world that relies on its own kind of magic. Decide what is best for you.

af, in regards to an expert teaching in his/her area of expertise, that doesn't necessarily make it that easy. I'm an experienced statistician, but would still have to spend a lot of time and effort teaching even a simple course in statistics (actually, the intro stats course for non-majors would be the hardest course to teach).

I knew a Ph.D. in statistics, who once taught a stats course at the local community college. This guy is the most eloquent statistician you'll ever meet; he could explain a concept clearly with one minute's preparation. And he still found it exhausting and difficult.

On the subject on unions, adjuncts in state colleges might have better odds of success. It is possible that they can be recognized as state employees and enjoy the certain benefits. (Due to the fact that they are part of a much larger body, not because they are adjuncts). Adjuncts in private colleges will probably have a harder time.

As I have mentioned earlier [#9], it is possible that some smaller departments will be shut down if they cost too much to run. Does anyone know of any example of this happening?

I quit teaching in an under-served public high school full of kids I loved, because they were paying me as a teacher's aid (no BA required) and working me like a teacher (and I had an ABD at the time). The way I saw it, I was doing the kids no favors by tacitly allowing the school system to short-change them by not putting out the money for the teachers they actually needed. In other words, I concluded that the only effect my "selfless sacrifice for the kids" would have, would be to skew the true demand in a supply-demand scenario.

I would never adjunct more than one class per semester because of the very scenario Chris describes and for similar reasons as the ones for which I quit the high school. I would never sign in a single student over the freshman comp limit (yep, me too) because once ten adjuncts did that, one adjunct lost a job.

As for the students you currently have in your care, I think you owe them your best. But the moral of the story is don't do this again. Keep to a one-class limit and do something else for the extra money in the future. I was a copyeditor two days a week on a magazine. It kept a roof over my head (barely), but it paid about twice what teaching did.

My financial circumstances also made for interesting classroom discussion. My students were aying about $100 per hour of my class (each) and I was getting about $10 per hour of my teaching labor (once I figured in grading, etc.). I told them that one day and it started a great conversation about where the rest of the money was going.

Isn't part of this the idea that adjunct teaching is a kind of apprenticeship - a bargain where the university doesn't pay you much but you get to learn how to teach. Of course if you end up doing it for years and tenured positions are very thin on the ground you are being used, but that's the origin of the problem. If by putting in the extra hours you are becoming a better teacher and therefore more employable (another questionable assertion) then you are at least getting something out of the deal...

David mentions teaching as an apprenticeship. This is a wonderful idea if humanities tenure-track positions were plentiful relative to the number of people receiving humanities doctorates. But the reality is simple: they are not plentiful.

Humanities doctorates have nowhere near the job prospects of business, dental, law, or medical students, not to mention people working in fields like nursing. Can you imagine if people in any of these fields had to complete a six to nine year training program to compete with 75 to 250 people for each entry-level job that paid $40,000 per year and had no control over where in the United States they lived? Applications to these programs would plummet. And yet people continue to flood into humanities doctoral programs. As long as they continue to do so, it will be a buyer's market in the academic labor market.

Don't get on a train headed nowhere!

I totally empathize with Chris' dilemma. I have been an adjunct, taught multiple sections of freshman comp, made half what he is being paid per class and struggled with the same issues. So, I do understand the struggle. (I have primarily worked in the CC realm)

I am fulltime now, and one thing I would throw out is that in my fulltime position, I am required to be on campus 5 days a week, serve on 2 committees (or more) and do multiple other things in the name of service to the college. We have a full time temp who is required to do all of that as well.

Our adjuncts are expected to teach their classes. They have the opportunity to participate in professional development opportunities sponsored by the college, but they are not required.

While 1/2 the salary is a significant difference, there are less expectations outside the classroom for adjuncts. As faculty, there are many more expectations of time and effort at my school.

With that said, as an adjunct, I wouldn't do more than teach my classes and the grading and prep that was required for that. That is what I would be contracted to do.

I adjuncted for two years while finishing my Ph.D. With the exception of a new prep, I probably never put in more than 10 hours a week for a class. At $4000 a class, it was perhaps not a princely wage, but certainly fairly well-paid, part-time employment.

As part-time work for those finishing up, on the job market, or for a parent needing a flexible schedule, adjuncting is wonderful, offering a great hourly wage doing something that is field-related and has extremely flexible hours.

The problem is that the "adjunct" is structuraly designed as part-time employment primarily for ABDs and recent Ph.D.s transitioning into the labor market. As such, it works pretty well, offering maximum flexibility and a fairly decent part time wage.

The fundemental problem then again becomes one of excess supply: too many Ph.D.s for too few tenure track positions, leaving many to resort to trying to make a full-time salary as adjuncts. Because alternative careers for humanities graduates often also pay poorly, there is little incentive for adjuncts to leave the ranks when full-time employment isn't found.

I'm convinced that while unionization will stop some of the worst excesses of university exploitation of adjuncts, it cannot change this fundemental fact: too many people want to be full-time college professors in the humanities. Nothing fundemental is going to change until fewer people start entering the profession and many others leave.

With regard to knocking yourself out for low pay, I tend to agree with those who say that once you've voluntarily signed a contract, you've committed yourself to doing your job well. I do think, however that there are significantly diminishing returns to time spent on teaching, and there creative ways to structurally design a class so that what diminishes your workload is also in the students best interests.

I've used this case as an example of what might be done using existing legal strategies on my site. Some commenters here have come close to recognizing one of the issues, which is overtime. It depends on how involved Chris wants to get, but whether it's Chris or someone else, this kind of situation is going to result in somebody suing someone someday -- all to the good, I would think.

Academia as a career propect and especially the humanities seems a lot like art, acting, publishing etc. where a lot of people want to get in, a very few are stars and a lot of people spend a long time not going very far. Art and acting are both probably much worse as far as the aspirants/prospects ratio goes...

But remember that in art, writing, and acting, there are lots of players who are out to exploit the aspirants. Just look at the "agents" who want to charge you to read your manuscript, and I would assume equivalent acting "schools" and other scams. The universities are certainly running an exploitation game in part on these aspirants, not really different from vanity publishers or phony "agents".

But also, someone may aspire to be Meryl Streep, but there's only one of those, and only a small number of actors or actresses of that stature. On the other hand, there are many thousands of tenured professorships. I may aspire to be the Chairman of GE, but if I don't make it, I can still be an accountant or whatever and make a decent living, and the gradations of success in such an environment are fine enough that I can trade off my disappointment.

I would suggest that the academic world offers a quasi-corporate employment environment to the winners, but to the losers (who don't understand the odds when they go in) a much higher disappointment cost. I would go as far as to think that there is a bait-and-switch often in operation here.

The lack of a non-academic market for the humanities makes the "winner-takes-all" academic market worse than it is. A series in slate has something on a political science phd who moved into the coporate world. http://slate.msn.com/id/2094743/entry/2094767/
He seems to be doing pretty well. This is the kind of thing that humanities phds might be able to do besides teaching. Perhaps humanities phds should start requiring students to take a business course or two before graduation?

As far as I can see, the intellectual content of much humanities work (I can certainly speak for English) is essentially vapid. A couple of courses in business (not necessarily valuable in any case) won't make up for years spent doing Freudian parsing of the phenomenological intent of quasi-imagistic construction, or whatever. This has no use outside its own limited field, and there's no way you can sell the idea to anyone that you'll be helpful -- unless it's to a crooked CFO who needs a yes-man.

Well, I'm actually full-time temp at one of the places I've been an adjunct, and I have to say, I do have a lot more responsibility in terms of committee work, etc. On the other hand, I also have an office to myself, which helps immensely. One thing I do find interesting is that anyone in the humanities could spend only 10 hours per class in prep time. I've been teaching for a while now, and am still revising preps, finding new primary sources, reviewing alternative texts, and re-reading and revising my lecture notes -- not to mention the additional work required when integrating new technologies (in my case Blackboard for quizzes and discussion). I would say my regular work week averages about 50 hours, including prep work, grading, committee work, and trying to keep up my own reading in my field. That's for a three class, two prep quarter load.

The big difference (other than the pay) that I've noticed is that I spend about the same hours as I did adjuncting, but more on things that are good for my career and less on commuting.

Oh -- and I belong to a union shop, but my experience of my fellow adjuncts is that, were there to be a strike (oops -- illegal. It would have to be a massive refusal to sign contracts), there are plenty of people to step in. Part of it is that my state doesn't require more than "an MA" -- so that the administration (our full-timers would almost all support an adjunct walk-out, since most of them are ex-adjuncts) would feel free to hire whoever wanted the job. The students would probably not know, because they and their parents assume that the person in front of the class is qualified, and the losers really would be the students, the adjuncts who are trying to get TT jobs, and the full-timers, whose authority within CC governance is minimal at best.

Thanks, Red Baron: I think you say it all when you suggest people not get on a train which is headed nowhere. Fundamentally, that is what long-term adjuncting is. There are better alternatives out there.

I want to address what I view as the carping and moaning here about how humanities PhDs can't find jobs in the non-academic world, as mentioned by DM. This is garbage. I speak as a humanities PhD who found two jobs in the non-academic world. Both of the jobs I found valued my education and my training. Both were well-paid and both were in a region in which I wanted to live.

Was it easy to find these jobs? No, not really. I had to work very very hard. I spoke to everyone I knew. I called people cold and requested informational interviews. When I was told that my resume was lacking in certain areas, I became a volunteer at a charity (a few hours a week) and I beefed up my skills.

I thought long and hard about my abilities and my training. No, I did not find jobs which valued my knowledge of Foucault but I did find employers who valued my analytical skills (developed while reading Foucault).

I have to ask all these people on this site and the Chronicle's who are saying "there are no opportunities/jobs for humanities PhDs in the non-academic world" a question: have you really searched for a job outside of academia? I mean really searched (it took me a year). Have you spoken to people in the non-academic world about their backgrounds? Most people do not follow straight career paths and most people do not have jobs which neatly mirror their training/education. I know a lawyer who works in product development, an archaeologist who works as an FBI agent etc. These people are very happy; they love their jobs and none regret their education.

Some might say that these people don't use their education in their work but these people would all disagree (these people think widely about their education and how to use it in their jobs).

For those of you who feel that there are no jobs for humanities PhDs, I would suggest that you actually explore the non-academic job market. Speak to people and you will be stunned, as I was, to discover that there are literally thousands of humanities PhDs out there who do all sorts of jobs. You will also discover, as I did, that most management types have very different backgrounds (I don't know many MBAs). If you have not done this and you remain convinced that there are no jobs for humanities PhDs...well...let's face it. You really don't know what you are talking about.

I also want to say one other thing. Searching for a job is difficult. It's not even easy for MBAs. But you have a choice: you can take an adjunct job, carp and moan or you can get out there, search for a job and...ultimately find one which values you and your education.

It's a choice between passivity and activity. You can be an adjunct and blame your graduate school (not very productive) or you can move on with your life.

John Bruce wrote: "As far as I can see, the intellectual content of much humanities work (I can certainly speak for English) is essentially vapid. A couple of courses in business (not necessarily valuable in any case) won't make up for years spent doing Freudian parsing of the phenomenological intent of quasi-imagistic construction, or whatever. This has no use outside its own limited field, and there's no way you can sell the idea to anyone that you'll be helpful -- unless it's to a crooked CFO who needs a yes-man."

If the statement above is really true, then retrain to do something else. Plenty of people work full-time jobs and go to school at night and on weekends.

John's post does, however, point to the real solution to the supply/demand imbalance in the humanities job market.

Since the demand for humanities professors is not likely to rise, the only solutions are 1) to reduce the supply of prospective humanities professors (unfortunately, this solution will not work because universities have no incentives to reduce graduate admissions), or 2) for humanities Ph.D.s to pursue careers outside of academia (the only real solution).

Don't get on a train headed nowhere!

Are non-academic job opportunities for social science Ph.Ds better than those for humanities Ph.Ds, or are they the same? I'm a political scientist in a tenure-track job, but this career path is beginning to feel more and more like a dead end. I don't have much of a passion for either research or teaching, but I don't know what else to do. Quite frankly, I don't really care if I wind up in a field where I never use my skills acquired in grad school.

I've had experience of this kind of problem, although outside the American university system. Being treated badly sapped my will to do my best for the students. It was my fault for agreeing to those kinds of working conditions but basically my employer was receiving the students' fees and ultimately it was my employer's responsibility to make sure the teachers were motivated.

Gollum: I suggest that you subscribe to the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation's list serv. This list serv has discussions between non-academic PhDs who work in the "real world" and PhDs anxious to leave academia. The list serv will help you to market yourself and to find a job which uses your training (or not).

I'll be candid. A site like this can be interesting but if you are serious about leaving academia, you'd be better served by speaking to people in the real world.

Are there any websites or discussions like that for British academics? Would love to know.

I will echo Red Baron Fan. The idea that humanities Ph.D.s have no skills that are relevant outside academia is complete rubbish.

If this statement is really true in your case, then retain yourself to do something else so you can get yourself on a train headed somewhere.

If you completed a doctoral program, then you are more than capable of doing this. Plenty of people--most of them without doctorates--do it all the time. I am sure they would agree with me when I say

Don't get on a train headed nowhere!

If you are uneasy about retraining yourself, consider the following:

1. You will be competing with 75-250 people for every tenure-track job opening. This is not a job market, it is a lottery.

2. If you win the lottery and get a job, you will likely have no choice about where in the United States you will live.

3. If you win the lottery and get a job and love where you live, you will be paid about $40,000 per year for your first seven years, after you have spent between six and nine years obtaining your doctorate. Try raising a young family on that level of income. It's not pretty.

The humanities job lottery makes retraining look like a cakewalk.

Don't get on a train headed nowhere!

Red Baron: I truly am a fan.

I think one of the points which needs to be made in this broader discussion is the failure, not of graduate programs, but of PhDs to understand the value of their training. I am amazed when I see academics who seem to feel that their knowledge and skills are limited to an in-depth understanding of the French Revolution or whatever. That's a person whose education has failed them miserably (or it's a person who has failed to think critically about his or her education and its value).

How much of this is the fault of PhD programs? Some of the blame does lie with these programs and the culture of academia which tells people that only professors are well-read, intellectually curious and able to indulge their intellectual passions. If you believe that, why would you want to leave academia?

But there is also a tendency in academia (especially pronounced in the best graduate programs) to tell PhDs that their skills will only be valued within the academic setting and that PhDs must remain in academia if they are to be valued and if they want to do work which reflects their training. This is utter nonsense, of course, yet it's a view which is held by many young PhDs.

However, I would also say that a great deal of the responsibility for this failure does lie with graduate students and young PhDs. Fundamentally, there does come a time when you have to take responsibility for your life and your career. It's scary but it's the adult thing to do.

If you want to carp and moan about being an adjunct, do so. But don't say that being an adjunct is your only option. Don't look at others and whine that "it was easy for so and so to find a job because he or she has x skill and I don't have that skill." I started out being very sympathetic to people who were adjuncts and who complained about their lives but I must confess I am beginning to lose sympathy. I am especially tired of people telling me that it was easy for me to find my non-academic job. In the short-term, it was the most difficult thing I ever did but in the long-term, it was the best thing I ever did.

Don't look for a job which requires "a knowledge of Foucault" but do look for a job which requires "analytical skills, the ability to write well, to think creatively" etc. My job is satisfying in a way that teaching disinterested students never was. I have challenging work and I'm not teaching Western Civ for the billionth time in a row.

No one has it made in the academic or non-academic world. In the short-term, the easiest thing you can do is adjunct (there are always openings) but in the long-term it's the hardest you will ever do.

I'm a little curious. For those of you who see your training in such narrow terms, are you able to explain to an undergraduate why he or she should take courses in the humanities? Can you justify why you teach what you teach? Do you think all history majors should be historians? All philosophy majors should be philosophers?

RBF: I'm honest with my undergrads. I tell them not to go to grad school, and I tell them I wish I had the information 10 years ago that I have now.

To Red Baron fan: "Carping and moaning!" Sigh...

You are entitled to your opinion, but if you interpret my skepticism as "carping and moaning", than you are sadly mistaken. I will never carp, moan, gripe, bitch, bellyache or whatever about my situation in life. Forgive me, though, if I greet these heroic sermons of yours with some skepticism. Life is rough, inside and outside of academia. We all make our choices, and we are all accountable for them. I have no objections to a mass exodus of Ph.D.s from academia; heck, the more the merrier as far as I am concerned. Don't fault me, however, if I don't see this as the magical solution for everyone's problems. Some will do well outside of academia; others won't. That's life.

I'm enjoying my train ride, by the way.

Here's my question, DM: Have you looked at non-academic jobs or are you just going on what academics tell you about the world outside of academia?

Forgive me, if I find it difficult to muster sympathy for people who fail to think broadly and to investigate their options and who then complain about having no options.

How much do you really know about the world outside of academia? Have you spoken to PhDs in your field who work outside of academia? Have you held a job outside of academia with an advanced degree? And have you held said job within the last three years? If the answer to these questions is: not much, no, no, no, and no, then I must dismiss your skepticism completely and I really can't be very sympathetic.

I know I sound extremely cruel and harsh but I find it really difficult to be sympathetic to someone who insists on drowning and then refuses to grab a rope. If you are serious about getting out of adjuncting, then you need to open your mind (it's rather frightening to see how many close-minded PhDs there are out there---I thought education was about opening one's mind).

There are lots of jobs which emphasize teaching (I know---I found them) and there are lots of jobs for people who have advanced degrees in the humanities (I know---I spoke to people who happily hold these jobs). No graduate school is going to steer you to those jobs and no organization is going to come to beg you to apply for their job. You do have to work at it. I am not advocating a mindless heroism (I must say, I rather resent that comment--I am telling you this is hard to do, not advocating blind heroism for no reason). If you prefer to apply for adjunct jobs, if you believe that an intellectual life is only possible in academia (a really naive and arrogant belief)...then okay...but don't complain about your poor salary, job insecurity etc. You have made a choice about your life and your options.

Red Baron Fan, send me an email message. I'd like to chat privately outside of this group about your experiences.

DM, are you sure you are happy with your job? In my experience, people who are waiting for unions to step into their workplaces usually are not too happy about their jobs.

I said it before and I say it again:

Don't get on a train going nowhere!

To Red Baron and Red Baron fan:

First, I hope not to seem too hostile to either of you. You both mean well, and your sermons probably resonate with many. All I am doing is making it clear that when you preach, don't expect everyone in in the audience to accept your sermon. Another problem I have is that you both draw too many conclusionns about those on this list. Pay more attention to your audience, and you will receive better feedback. Remember, as you both proudly proclaim, it is all about accepting responsibility for the choices you make. That means there will always be those out there in cyberland, who greet your sermons with a dose of skepticism. If this bothers you, take some of your own advice.

And about unions, we apparently have a philosophical difference. I find it absurd to think that wanting to unionize means being unhappy with your job. Again, life is just not that simple.

Finally, sermonizing about the need to consider all the options out there is simply restating the obvious. Despite your conclusions, we really aren't idiots.

"If you want to carp and moan about being an adjunct, do so."

Well, I suppose one person's idea of a reasonable and fairly low-key discussion of a teaching dilemma is another person's idea of carping and moaning.

Which is to say, of course, that I don't see a whole lot of carping and moaning in this thread. That said, let me emphasize that any adjunct who wishes to carp and moan on this weblog is free to do so to his or her heart's content, provided he or she abides by the posting policies.

Let a thousand webflowers bloom (or, uh, something like that).

To RBF (#41): In fact, I do have a very difficult time justifying being an English major to prospective students who don't first indicate their intentions to go to law school, go into journalism, or gov't policy, IR, non-profit work etc. I have, however, taken to advising students who are so inclined to either minor in English or double major in it and some other more vocationally oriented discipline. My reasoning is that on its own, majoring in English is a tremendous waste of a college tuition. On the other hand, if studied along side of poli. sci., or econ., or some other related discipline, the kinds of knowledge and critical acumen one can acquire studying English and Cutlural Theory etc. can, in certain instance, become very useful. (the same holds true for History, too)

Credentialing and certification is the issue here. The degree with Economics inscribed on it carries greater weight -- whether artificial or not -- than the degree with English inscribed on it. Again to RBF: how can I, in all good conscience, not explain this to my students?

Lastly, on the matter which began this thread, I've decided that the purchaser of my labor power -- the University -- will simply get what it paid for. Last semester they bought and paid for $6300 worth of my expertise, creativity, time, and energy. I know what that looks and feels like. Now, paying me half that rate, they will in turn receive half of what I offered them, and their clients (students), last semester. How could they expect or demand more?

Thanks, IA and DM!

RB and RBF -- I've been thinking a lot about what you and many others have said, and frankly, I think there's a really high BS level. You apparently don't know your audience very well. And if you aren't teaching, I'm glad, because I think that there are far too many people adjuncting (or even in Tenure-track, teaching-focused jobs) who really aren't doing it because they love it and are good at it, but rather, because they don't know what else to do.

There are more than a few of us who teach at CC or above for a living who have worked in the "real world." I did, and was very good at my better-paying-than-teaching job. I was also very happy to get a chance to go back to academe, even when the situation is absolute shite, because I can think of no better way of life.

It's not all about the money, and telling people to get out if they don't like it isn't dealing with the fundamental problems of the casualization of academic labor both here and in the UK. Most of us know it's a crap shoot, but that doesn't mean we're not willing to keep throwing the dice as long as we can pawn ourselves for more chips. Frankly, I consider the constant doom and gloom, get off the train mentality to be the whiney one. Or perhaps you're just cleverly trying to get rid of the competition??

Speaking as a representative of one of the last Boomer years, I say, "we should be able to teach for a respectable wage, with at least a modicum of job security, and not have to make choices that leave our students to those who think they have no choice." Dude, it's a vocation thing, but that's no reason not to fight the abuse of those who think education is a commodity.

PS. If it were a commodity, students and their parents would fight against the use of adjunct labour because it is detrimental to their education and future careers in the long run.

adjunct unions are forming all the time.
from the ground up -- red baron's fantasy
of "waiting for a union to step in" has
nothing to do with it -- by people who
*love* their jobs but are tired of being
prevented from doing them as well as they'd like
because dog-wagging administrative tails
have hijacked the academy and have succeeded
to an alarming extent in taylorizing it as if
education was just another branch of industry.

i consider the focus on contracts
for part of this thread to be,
i don't know, take your pick:
tragedy or farce.
we were talking about *ethics* . . .
surely the law has essentially nothing
to do with it. certainly in my own case,
the so-called contract issued (mid-quarter)
each quarter by the community college
where i make most of my living explicitly
retains the right to change the rules
in midstream at the whim of the bosses --
taking on *no* responsibilities, in other words,
while proporting to impose obligations on me.
to speak of *my* duties to an entity that
admits outright that it owes me nothing?
well, go ahead if you want to . . .
but i probably won't take it seriously.

that management insists on trying to destroy
the collegial system that worked for centuries
is hardly grounds for taking on their models
like some divine right of kings. look:
*they're* supposed to be working for *us*!
we (teachers) *are* the college.
they (bureaucrats) are the hired help.
we are many (but rapidly growing fewer)
they are few (but nowhere near few enough).

god knows i never wanted to get into politics.
forming unions was the last thing on my mind
when i was earning my stripes in grad school.
but it's better than becoming what i hate.

what the heck possesses red baron
to think we want his/her/its "sympathy"?
what's more puzzling: why go to the trouble
of participating in threads about people
whose very mode of existence one is hostile to?
christ, buddy . . . i don't go onto the
"cheerleading for the economy" boards
to promote workplace organizing.
yrs in the struggle.

A famous historian, friend to my mother, gave me the advice once: "neglect your students."

Sometimes I wonder if there is an even bigger pyramid scheme than our beloved academy. I refer to the whole of American society. Don't get me wrong; I love the openness of this country and the opportunities out there, including the ability for many different groups to enjoy a higher education. However, we have destroyed our manufacturing base, outsourced/off-shored quite a few good jobs elsewhere, and replaced them with McJobs/Wal-Mart jobs or whatever. While doing this, we blame the victims, i.e., those who have been downsized, for not creating a better mousetrap. This is why Oprah-style motivational speakers like those we've seen on this thread bother me. While meaning well, their sermons divert too much attention from the many abuses out there, allowing all the garbage to continue.

I feel compelled to respond to some previous postings:

Another Damned Medievalist writes:

RB and RBF -- I've been thinking a lot about what you and many others have said, and frankly, I think there's a really high BS level. You apparently don't know your audience very well. And if you aren't teaching, I'm glad".

I will not bother to respond to statements like these.

ADM continues:

"I was also very happy to get a chance to go back to academe, even when the situation is absolute shite, because I can think of no better way of life. . . . Most of us know it's a crap shoot, but that doesn't mean we're not willing to keep throwing the dice as long as we can pawn ourselves for more chips."

These statements are even more evidence for the broader points that I raised earlier. Why is anyone surprised that conditions in academia are the way that they are?

DM writes:

"First, I hope not to seem too hostile to either of you. You both mean well, and your sermons probably resonate with many. All I am doing is making it clear that when you preach, don't expect everyone in in the audience to accept your sermon."

You do not seem hostile at all. I certainly do not expect everyone to accept my "sermons"; I do not recall ever writing that I was expecting such a response.

DM continues:

"This is why Oprah-style motivational speakers like those we've seen on this thread bother me."

I am flattered that you have compared me with Oprah Winfrey. Thank you. And if I have motivated anyone through this thread, I am glad to have done so.

Vlorbik writes:
what the heck possesses red baron
to think we want his/her/its "sympathy"?

I never once asked for anyone's "sympathy" in this thread. You must be mistaking my postings with someone else's.

Don't get on a train that's going nowhere!

"Vlorbik writes:
what the heck possesses red baron
to think we want his/her/its "sympathy"?

I never once asked for anyone's "sympathy" in this thread. You must be mistaking my postings with someone else's."

Not to nitpick Red, but you can do better than this.

We live in different worlds.

Apparently we do!

"Not to nitpick Red, but you can do better than this."

I am merely setting the record straight. I never asked for anyone's sympathy on this thread. If you want to disagree with me, fine, but please represent what I say accurately.

i never said red baron seeks *our* sympathy.
rather, i thought he'd spoken as if
they believed we were seeking theirs.

my error: RBF (red baron's fan) had said
/*
I find it difficult to muster sympathy for people who fail to think broadly
*/
and
/*
I find it really difficult to be sympathetic to someone who insists on drowning
*/
-- so, assuming that RB and RBF
*are* actually two different people, i erred.
not as badly, mind you, as RB did
in the bizarre misinterpretation
RB put on *my* words . . .
but badly enough to require correction.
sorry. now: what are you doing here again?

Uh, Red,

Again, please take your own advice, before you make an even bigger fool out of yourself. Vlorbik mistook you and your fan, probably through an honest typo. No one ever wrote that you are asking for "our sympathy." And I really think you should reread ADM's post, as you have quoted her out of context. That happens to be one of my big pet peeves.

Vlorbik,

I stand corrected, and I do apologize. I never thought that anyone was seeking my sympathy. I am sorry if I gave that impression.

Also, for the record, the postings by Red Baron Fan are not mine.

I never imagined that I would be the subject of so many insults and personal attacks on this thread. It's a sad commentary on the quality of discourse in academia today.

Question: How do you think a grad student union will affect adjunct attempts to unionize for higher pay? I ask because as an econ grad student I receive a stipend that is nearly twice that of English & Anthropology PhD students. Some students are attempting to start a grad student union with higher stipends for some departments and full insurance for all TA's. I also recently learned that it costs the econ department more to support a grad student, than to hire an adjunct (since none of the grad students in this department qualify for in-state tuition.) Despite this, the department is committed to full funding for 5 years and is expanding its recruiting efforts for grad students.
If stipends for grad students in the humanities are increased, what do you think will happen to the drop out rate for grad students? What do think will happen to the demand for adjuncts? Would a grad student union help or hurt adjuncts?

I am interested in hearing what people think.

I probably should just let Red's comments go. If criticism this tame offends him/her, I wonder what might happen if faced with someone who is genuinely nasty. Red, get a grip!

Good question Jenna. I can give you a partial answer. Back when the grad students were unionizing in my system, we were warned that this could convince departments to hire more adjuncts and fewer TA's. It has not happened yet, but it certainly could. There will always be consequences to unionization, and there will always be administrators who care more about the bottom line. Unionize, and be prepared to fight hard and not gain any quick and easy victories. Our grad students prevailed initially only because of sympathetic state legislators.

Will grad students unionizing help or hurt adjuncts? I honestly don't know. But maybe someday, a union that includes grad students and adjuncts might be possible. It certainly won't be easy, combining these groups into a larger union; it may be impossible given all the differences that will arise. Nonetheless, it is worth trying.

I dont really buy the arguement that unions will solve anything.

Lets assume that the union of adjuncts exists and they demand higher salary and better health benefits, which effectively raises the running costs of the university. To cover for this increase, what options are avaliable?
1. Raise tuition costs.
2. Redistribute wages from faculty to adjuncts.
3. Shut down/scale down the department.
4. Departments have to find govt/coporate funding.

Probably all four will be implemented. Tuition costs rarely fall regardless, thus #1 probably will happen anyway. One can argue that #2 isnt so bad either. Adjuncts lowers the teaching burderns of faculty so an adjustment of wages can be argued as fair. Dont think there is enough money for the humantities for #4 to make much difference.

It is #3 that is the kicker. Colleges dont need that many departments. Smaller departments will close down when they become too expensive to run. Existing department will scale down operations to reduce cost. For example, a history department currently has various sub-fields, each dealing with a different period, with different profs/adjuncts teaching them. By reducing the number of sub-fields, departments can enjoy economies of scale.(it is cheaper to hire 1 person to teach more sections of the same class than it is to hire 3 people to teach 3 different classes. Insurance costs are calculated on per person basis once a certain number of hours kick in.)

Some adjuncts will enjoy higher salaries and benefits at the expence of others. Is this the outcome we desire?

Since Jenna mentioned that the econ grad studetns get more money than the English students, does the same happen for adjunct faculty in different disciplines? If so, why? I am sure that "administrators who care more about the bottom line" wont be pay them any more than they can get away with. ;)

Good points passing through. The only reason I encourage unionization is that I can think of no better alternatives. It is apparently an ongoing struggle for a bigger piece of the pie, and the maybe the best way for adjuncts to get theirs is in greater numbers.

Someone has to pay for the comfort/services we enjoy in this country. For Wal-Mart's prices to remain dirt cheap, it has to rely on a domestic labor force that receives substandard wages and sweatshop labor from overseas. Someone, mainly our children, will have to pay for these great big tax cuts, increased military spending, domestic giveaways, and lack of preparation for the upcoming retirement of the baby boomers. And in academia, someone - adjuncts I guess - has to pay for lower tuition and for departments to offer a variety of courses. It's how things operate in this country.

Now I am preaching. I just don't think this sermon will make Oprah.

I'm not sure there is any clear correlation between grad. student unions and adjuncts. The unionizing efforts of the former seem to have little to no impact on salaries of the latter. And if unionization has resulted in lower numbers of funded grad. student TA's (I'd like to see the statistics on that), how is that a bad thing?

Working just with one scenario, fewer grad. students may indeed lead to an even more wide spread use/exploitation of adjuncts; but a greater need for and use of adjuncts also means an increased reliance upon adjunct labor, and this increased reliance may, slowly, lead to an increase in their clout, and thus their ability to one day unionize.

Emphasis on the word 'slowly' above, and I probably won't be around to see it come about, but I'll smile when it does.

Yes, for the record, I am not Red Baron altho' I admire his or her postings.

Oddly, I don't want anyone's sympathy---I love my life, my job, my high salary, where I live, and what I do in my personal. I have no complaints but I do think people posting on this site and carping about their low salaries and the fact that they are treated badly as adjuncts are looking for sympathy (why else are you griping?).

Reading this site and the postings, I now realize that many of you want to be adjuncts. Okay. But don't complain about it then. Does that sound harsh?

As for teaching, actually I teach in my current job (it's a component of my job---teaching is not confined to people who hold the title "teacher" or professor--my 7 year old niece understands this concept so I think it should be fairly self-evident). But I also taught for several years as a tenure-track professor. I won teaching awards and I was able to explain to my students why and how a degree in the humanities would help them in the future. I believed (and believe) that training in the humanities gives you fantastic analytical skills---skills which can be used in a range of professions. I think this is true whether we are talking about a BA, a MA or a PhD. Oddly, my students---many of whom went on to become engineers, physicians, lawyers, social workers etc., valued and thanked me for this. I am still in contact, five years after leaving academia, with four of my students. I am amazed and puzzled as to why you think I am a bad teacher simply because I am trying to impart a lesson which you don't want to hear (a degree in the humanities provides you with training for life).

Call me Oprah---I am not a fan of hers but I think she serves a purpose. I don't think there is anything wrong with telling people that there are options and I am puzzled, over and over, as to why adjuncts resist being told that they have options. Why is it scary to acknowledge that you have a choice in your life?

For people who really do want to think broadly, I suggest you got to the Woodrow Wilson site and for those of you teach, I really hope you can do a better job explaining why your students should value their education than you do here. I don't know enough about you or your teaching to launch an attack and scream "It's a bad thing that people like you teach!" but I do hope that you are more open-minded in the classroom than you have been here.

I will most certainly let the previous comments by DM go. They reveal far more about DM than they do about me, Red Baron Fan, or anyone else on this posting.

I am curious about the benefits people believe that unions are bringing or would bring to adjuncts. Would it be thousands of dollars more per course? Employer-paid health insurance? Paid vacation time? Travel and research allowances? How much more attractive would they really make adjunct employment?

Don't get on a train headed nowhere!

"I have no complaints but I do think people posting on this site and carping about their low salaries and the fact that they are treated badly as adjuncts are looking for sympathy (why else are you griping?)."

I read things differently. I don't see anyone "carping" and "moaning," and I don't see anyone asking for sympathy. But then, I don't interpret the discussion of a problem as a personal bid for sympathy. More broadly, I don't tend to view systemic problems involving thousands of people as matters of individual will. To each her own.

"Reading this site and the postings, I now realize that many of you want to be adjuncts. Okay. But don't complain about it then. Does that sound harsh?"

Again, I don't share your interpretation, and I have to wonder how carefully you have read the site. The people who post here range from graduate students to tenured professors to postacademics. While I don't (and can't) know about the silent readers, I do know that most of those who post comments here are not adjuncts.

You are of course free to interpret this site according to your own lights, and to read or not read, comment or not comment, as you see fit. As I've said before, anyone is welcome to post here so long as he or she abides by the posting policies. That said:

Not to sound snarky, but if you're so irritated by this site -- and you seem bothered, even somehow offended, by its very existence -- there's a pretty simple and painless solution. I personally do not visit, much less comment at, weblogs that annoy the hell out of me (and there are many weblogs out there that would annoy the hell out of me if I bothered to visit them). Rather than attacking the site and its visitors, why not stop visiting a site that clearly annoys you so much?

Assume that a humanist begins graduate school at age 22 and earns $0 per year on average during a seven-year graduate program (fellowships and employment balance out tuition and fees--some will do better than this scenario, others worse), gets adjunct positions paying $25,000 per year for two years, wins the lottery and gets a tenure track job paying $40,000 for the first seven years, $55,000 for the next five years, and $70,000 for the rest of his or her career until age 60 (assume 2004 dollars throughout).

The average annual earnings of this humanist from age 22 to age 60: $47,821 per year.

The average annual earnings of this humanist from age 22 to age 40: $26,053 per year.

The value of lost wages and foregone retirement plan contributions from ages 22 to 30: hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement.

If you want to raise a family on the income levels above, go for it. Just go for it with your eyes wide open.

Yes, I am wondering the same thing myself. I visited the site because a friend who is eager to leave academia found it and suggested it. I don't think, in view of DM's comments and similar comments, that the site is very helpful to people who are genuinely eager to move on with their lives. I also find it very very strange that people seem to be so threatened by the idea that adjuncts have choices and that the lifestyle is not one which is forced upon people.

When I read about people who are discussing whether to short-change their students (or not) and who seem to be in the process of being exploited by administrators (and who are aware that they are being exploited), I cannot help but assume that these people are not that happy. How happy can you be with your job if you are contemplating short-changing some poor student because you feel you have been screwed by a dean? But that's my weird take on things. I genuinely assume when I see someone posing that kind of question that that person is not that happy---if he or she were happy, he or she would be prepared to give their all to their teaching, regardless of the pay etc. because he or she would say "so what, I love my work so much it's a non-issue for me."

I find it strange, as well, that when people are casually discussing short-changing students, I get attacked for being a bad teacher because I left academia. One of the reasons that I left was because after several years of teaching, I felt burnt out. I didn't think I could continue to give everything to my job and I felt it was time to move on. I was such a good teacher I knew when to give it up--which was when I wasn't prepared to give 150%. I genuinely felt I owed my students that much. So, the logic behind DM's comment that I must have been a bad teacher baffles me. Obviously the person who made that comment and I don't share the same definition as to what makes someone a good teacher, a great teacher and a teacher who is just marking time.

I think some people enjoy the righteous anger which permeates academia. I found it exhausting and it didn't seem to get anyone anywhere but that's me.

Obviously, if you want to shoot me as a messenger, okay. So much for free speech, an open mind and all the other things academics believe that they have a monopoly on.

You do have a choice, you know. The reason administrators exploit adjuncts is because adjuncts allow themselves to be exploited. A harsh truth but talk to your tenured colleagues and you'll see that it's true.

Let me say that I am a fan of Red Baron Fan. There are many trains--headed somewhere, by the way, not nowhere--that humanities Ph.D.s can climb aboard to get out of academia.

Red Baron Fan mentions:

if he or she were happy, he or she would be prepared to give their all to their teaching, regardless of the pay etc. because he or she would say "so what, I love my work so much it's a non-issue for me."

It is amazing how often I have seen people change their views on this issue from ages 18-22 to, say, ages 28-35.

Don't get on a train that's headed nowhere!

In answer to the original question: I certainly wouldn't put in as much effort. I thought comment #1 was actually pretty interesting in that regard. They are paying for $3000 worth of effort; that's what they should get. If they want more effort, they can pay more for it.

oh, and by the way . . .
what *i* would most look for
in negotiating a contract
(given the power so to negotiate,
i.e., a recognized adjunct union)
would certainly be *seniority rights*
-- which no doubt would lead inexorably
to the decline of the west as i'm sure
some walzerite freemarketeer will
be very quick to explain to us all;
nevertheless. wouldn't cost the college
a dime. if they had any sense, they'd
put 'em in now. more money would be nice;
so-called "benefits" like access to MDs
would be nice; but these things are expensive
and so that much harder to get in the best case.

I see Red and his/her/its fan are back, loving themselves and preaching to the rest of us. The comments are now getting weirder. So now I am telling that fan that it must have been a bad teacher?! Where did I post this? Do you two bother to carefully read our comments, or are you two so in love with yourselves and your preaching, that nothing else here matters?

Sorry IA, I am trying to be nice. It's just that the red twins here are getting a little too weird.

No, Carla, I must disagree. Teaching is not about being paid by the amount of effort one puts in -- at least, good teaching isn't. Adjuncts are paid per class. The discrepency that causes the problem is what a "class" entails. Recently a case came before the Washington State Supreme Court on whether or not an adjunct should be paid for the extra time she put into course syllabi, grading, etc. The adjunct side was that teaching a class well requires more than just the contracted number of class and office hours. The state's attorney pointed out that, if the adjunct wanted to shorten his or her hours, they could use the lecture materials and presentations provided by publishers and give scan-tron tests.

Clearly, many of us think that that kind of teaching is not what we were trained for, and is not what our students deserve. OTOH, it's the kind of attitude and ignorance about teaching in general at decision making levels that makes the adjunct's job so difficult and puts many adjuncts in the moral quandary with which Chris started this thread. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think that tying the quality of what we provide our students to how much we are paid is moral or ethical. Last year, I adjuncted at 3 different colleges. I taught the same Western Civ class at all three, because that's the class they hired me for. I certainly did not give the students at the lowest-paying CC less of my time and energy than I did at the Small Private Liberal Arts College that paid $400 more. Although I have serious problems with RB's and RBF's presuppositions about most of the posters, they are both right that adjuncts can refuse contracts -- kind of.

Frankly, I'm not sure anyone WANTs to be an adjunct. But many of us do want to teach at the college/university level because we love it. Many of us do know that we can have financially (and often emotionally) better lives by packing it in and getting jobs outside academe, but most of the people I know who have been adjuncting for less than 5 years are actively on the market and hope to move beyond part-time work. At the CC where I am employed this year, all but one tenured faculty member of my acquaintance "did time" as an adjunct.

So I expect what my objections to the naysayers are is that first, it's not that people want to be adjuncts, but they see it as a step or stop-gap measure. Second, just because people work for crap wages, etc., it doesnt mean they have to be happy about a bad system -- that's like saying that people with few job skills shouldn't work at certain southern-based big box stores because they have a reputation for treating their employees badly. Finally, I expect that the reason I find RB's comments especially unhelpful is his assumption that any of us are on a train going nowhere. Like DM, I think that perhaps we just have a different idea of what defines "somewhere." Oh -- and for RBF's umbrage about my comment about being glad he'she is no longer in academe -- sorry, but as I noted, I think that teaching is really a vocation. Yes, we get burnt out -- sabbaticals are one of the greatest advantages of tenure. However, if a person resents the pay and the system so much that he/she is willing to compromise his/her standards, then he/she should get out and leave it to the people who continute to care despite the crap situation.

Sigh---I'm not preaching to anyone, especially those who don't want to hear it. There is no point to it.

And, okay, it was Another Damned Medievalist who made the silly crack about teaching (infered but there for anyone to see). I apologize to you, DM.

As for loving myself, I think it would be better to say "I don't hate myself" and I would hate myself if I earned $3000 for a course and short-changed students (and if I spent my time looking for people to validate my desire to short-change my students).

It's the business of short-changing students, to be honest, which really bugs me. Why are you working as an adjunct if you are going to short-change students? No one becomes an adjunct for the money so I assume, foolishly, that you are in it for the teaching---and yet you seem willing to betray your desire to teach very very quickly. So, what's the allure here?

And, if we want to talk about weird...what does downsizing the economy, the Walmarting of America etc. have to do with encouraging people to leave a profession which exploits them? This is the kind of ignorant and silly rant which makes academics look like fools to the rest of the world. What exactly is the connection here between the Walmarting of America and your hatred of people like Oprah Winfrey other than a hatred of ordinary people? I read that comment and have been puzzled by the connection ever since. If I follow your logic, a union organizer who tells workers to strike, to demand better wages and to demand better training so that workers can leave dead-end jobs is...what a...traitor to the working class? Evil? Vile? All of the above?

This whole conversation is obviously a conversation between people who hold very different values. I think people should teach if they love it and if they are willing to give it their all. I have never viewed it as a profession in which you can get rich so I am deeply puzzled as to why people continue to do it if they are not willing to give it their all. You really aren't doing anyone any favors if you short-change your students (and you aren't getting back at the dean who screwed you).

If you are working as adjunct because you believe it is the only way you can be an intellectual and not because you genuinely care about teaching (how much do you care if you are willing to cut corners?) then I feel sorry for your students...and, yes, even though you may not want me to feel this, I do feel sorry for you because you seem clueless about the "real world" and its potential for intellectual endeavor.

Red Baron and fan, I think part of what annoys some of us about you is not your message, per se (which is certainly not without merit for many), but your proselytizing tone, complete with your closing slogan. It's really kind of annoying.

And for the record, I'd agree with you a lot more if your standard 0 dollars earned line was true. I would strongly advise against anyone going to a grad school that doesn't cover tuition and fees for you, and give you a stipend pretty close to what you can live on. At my pretty-good-but-not-great public research university, this was rare, even in the humanities. Most in programs are able to net at least 13,000 a year. Supplemententing my wages with various forms of unglamorous summer employment, I've averaged 16,000 (otoh) a year in grad school. I've loved it, and I won't regret it even if I can't find a job and completely switch careers. I'd feel pretty different if I'd gone into debt to fund the whole thing. But that said, just because there's more money out there and some of us knowingly forgo it, doesn't mean there's we've got no right to complain about being shabbily treated. It should probably effect the tone and tenor of our complaining, but at least on this website/thread, that tone is pretty low key. I don't think we're out of line.

On to the actual question:

The problem, of course, is that reasonable tasks to support teaching can expand to fill all available time. There are basics I'll never not do, and noone whose serious about teaching should ever skimp on: prep, grading, office hours, a few other things. Beyond that, what I'm getting paid makes a big deal. If I've got a prep that worked well for a course before, I'm not going to overhaul that course and try to make it better on 3,000. If it didn't really go well last time, than my basic obligations change and i should probably try to fix it. Same with reviewing alternative texts--as long as the current one is working well, I'm not going to go out of my way to do this until I'm full time. Of course, exceptions to this abound--the alternative text may also be of interest to my research or to me personally, which changes the equation.

If people think this approach is too limited or unfair to students, they should hear what the full time faculty in my PhD granting department tell me, which amounts to "you seem to be a talented teacher, so you really should put as little time as possible into teaching to get decent evals, and use that time for research/publishing." I find this position deeply troubling (especially since I get nearly 5000 a course from this department), but it seems to be held across the board in my department, including some great and devoted teachers.

RBF,

If you don't see yourself as preaching to those who don't want to hear you, then WHY are you still coming back for more? And don't blame me if you don't understand the connection between Wal-Mart and the adjunctification of academia. It is simple. There are costs to everything in this society. To continue giving Americans the cheap goods they love, someone has to pay. At Wal-Mart that means underpaid domestic labor and sweatshop labor abroad. And in academia, for departments to apparently to continue providing the services people are used to, someone has to pay. That means more adjuncts. By the way, that comment was in response to someone else, and not to your points. It really isn't all about you.

DM -- I think RB or RBF confused you with my abbreviation!

DJW: I applaud your comment that you are troubled by the tenured faculty in your department who say that you shouldn't put effort into your teaching. To be honest, these were the kind of people who pushed me out of the profession.

Like you, I was a "natural" teacher. I could get high evaluations with very little effort; I got along with my students and I genuinely enjoyed teaching in the early years of my career. When I got a tenure-track job, I pulled out all the stops. I constantly re-worked my syllabi. I arranged historical debates, searching for and giving every student an individualized reading packet and then writing a two page essay explaining the grade I had given for their oral work during the debate. I labored over my students' papers, correcting their grammar, their logic, and their writing style. I met with students in my off-hours as well as my office hours. I had students over for dinner because my professors had done that. I had students tell me that they were pregnant, suicidal, hated their room-mates, were afraid of failing etc. I listened, I wiped their tears, I sent them to the Medical Center for counseling and I followed through on this by meeting with deans etc. to make sure my students were okay when the students asked me to do so. These are the things which make a good teacher. They also make for burn-out very very fast. I saw myself as a martyr to my students and I was one.

I did it because I loved teaching, because I was passionate about my subject and because I saw myself as being on a mission to educate people as to the value of the liberal arts. Even as a tenure-track professor, I didn't do it for the money: I had a hard time paying my bills (I was busy buying the books which the library couldn't afford so my students could do the work I wanted them to do). Not having money was okay when I was 29 but when I became 33 and saw my friends buying houses, I wondered a little about my choices (I agree with Red Baron: your views on money change as you age).

I was very discouraged by year three of tenure-trek-la-la-land (most people who haven't been there have a fantasy as to what it is really like). I was taken aback by my colleagues' disdain for my efforts (I still love the colleague who told me my first year "Teaching is easy---I try to learn their names in my seminars. I don't always learn their names [seminars were capped at 20] but it's something you should try to do." Oy!).

I guess because I was so passionate about it all and because I dropped into this site out of curiosity and stumbled across a conversation about short-changing students, I find myself irritated. I left academia when a student called me and as I reached to pick up the phone, I thought "God, what now?"

Growing up I had some fabulous teachers. They gave it their all. I admire them tremendously. They were also smart enough to get out when they couldn't give it their all. Sabbaticals are nice but they don't come very often and they never come for adjuncts...so my question remains: why do this if you don't love and don't give it your all? All of this brings me back to the original question: If you are prepared to short-change your students, why are you teaching?

DJW writes:

And for the record, I'd agree with you a lot more if your standard 0 dollars earned line was true. I would strongly advise against anyone going to a grad school that doesn't cover tuition and fees for you, and give you a stipend pretty close to what you can live on.

I was averaging here. Many people do indeed pay tuition and fees in graduate school, while many others do not and receive various forms of support. Even if one were to raise the $0 per year to $10,000 per year for the first seven years, it would only add a couple thousand dollars to the age 22-age 60 average.

Don't get on a train that's headed nowhere!

In answer to DM's comment as to why I come back (my goodness, read your comments and tell me again that you aren't an angry person; you seem extremely hostile to me):

I guess I come back for DM to scream at me for the same reason that some people adjunct, the desire to be a martyr. I read this stuff and thought foolishly "well here are some people who don't seem to be enthusiastic or to give a crap about teaching...maybe...just maybe...they don't know they have options." But obviously I was mistaken. Clearly, you know that you have options and you believe that it's preferable to short-change students rather than explore those options.

I keep coming back to the students, I know, but, you see, I really don't understand why anyone who is willing to short-change students works as an adjunct. You can't love teaching, working with undergraduates or even your subject if you don't care about short-changing students. It's that simple.

And for the Walmart question...okay...so what are you doing to stop the exploitation of adjuncts? Are you striking?

For the record, post 82 was by Red Baron Fan, not by me.

Yes, sorry that was Red Baron Fan.

For the record and for those who fantasize about being tenure-track, I want to remind you that when you become tenure-track, you give up buckets and buckets of time doing "service." I served on every committee known to man and/or woman and every week brought endless committee meetings. Sure, I had a light teaching load, especially as compared to the adjuncts who worked in my department, but I also spent hours and hours sitting at conference tables with my colleagues debating curriculum changes, the university's recycling policies (yup, that was a big one---hours were spent on that one every semester), the hiring of a new dean etc. etc.

And, oh yeah, I sat on hiring committees for faculty which is why I agree with Red Baron. I watched my colleagues dismiss, time and time again, the applications of adjuncts, both within and outside of our department, for full-time jobs. They dismissed the in-house adjuncts because they figured they had hired these people already and for a paltry wage: why waste a higher paying tenure track slot on these folks when they had already proven they would do it for less? I know it sounds and is horrible but it was true. I watched them do it twice, once to a faculty member's husband (and they blithely had dinner with that colleague at her house the next week).

They also dismissed outside applications from people who had been adjuncts for two or more years. The applications from these people were chucked in the throw-away pile with only a cursory glance. The attitude of the department (stupid or not) was that if they could get someone who was "fresh" they would take that person over someone who had been adjuncting for years. I'm sure that they missed great candidates for the job but...that was what they did and that is what tons and tons of departments across the country do on a pretty systematic basis (it may be different at community colleges---if so they are a lot smarter than 4 year schools). This is why, whether you want to hear it or not, Red Baron is right about the train which isn't going anywhere.

I think this discussion raises a very interesting question, "under what conditions is a worker being exploited?"

The market for a tenure-track position in the humanities resembles in many ways the market for classical musicians, artists, and stage actors. A great many people want these jobs, a great many more than can actually be professional employed as full-time actors, artists, musicians, or tenure-track literature professors. The fact that chances for success are poor, and that more likely than not the return years of training and work is to be poor or none, does not prevent people from enrolling in music conservatories or waiting tables for years while auditioning for roles. Nor, as many would-be graduate students posting to this site alone can attest, does it prevent them from enrolling in graduate school. While ex post they may regret having taken that path, they do enter it open-eyed about the risks of pursuing a creative career. Are these people truly exploited?

Undoubtably, those who were encouraged by faulty job market forecasting to enter graduate school didn't enter graduate school thinking they were participating in a market like that of would-be actors and musicians. But the facts about the humanities job market have been known for more than a decade, and students continue to enroll in graduate school. What can explain this but the youthful enthusiasm to risk one's youth in pursuit of a highly desirable career that may not work out?

I realize I've strayed from Chris' initial inquiry whether one should do less for less pay, but his situation raises an interesting question for me - how is a humanities adjunct different from someone who studies music for 10 years and fails to get a spot in the symphany?

I'd be interested to hear other's thoughts on this.

Well, medievalist, I have to take some (polite) issue with you. I did, in fact, teach as an adjunct, as I finished my dissertation and immediately afterward, and I didn't take (or even know about, frankly) any of the shortcuts you mentioned. Then I found another job (after a year of unemployment and temporary secretarial work and extreme poverty). There weren't enough open adjunct positions where I lived to have anything resembling an adult life, and I didn't have anyone else to support me while i waited for the job market to open up. (I also got tired of participating in what I saw as my own exploitation, but that's a different rant.) I liked teaching and was good at it, but I also had limits, and their evolution came precisely from the recognition that substantially similar (or even superior) work in the classroom was being compensated at a wildly different rate. If I thought--then or now--that this was, indeed, an apprenticeship of sorts, to be followed by a full-time, tenure-track position, I would be more lenient. But it's not that any more. Many colleges and universities regard students as tuition-paying units, and they look for the cheapest way possible to appear to meet the needs of those TPUs, and adjuncts are the cheapest possible way. As long as adjuncts put in all those hours, essentially for free, then institutions will continue to chip away at tenure-track positions--I think one can, in fact, argue that superior adjunct teaching can lead to a further erosion of teaching jobs that pay a true living wage. Are students being short-changed? Depends on what they expect. if they really care, they should inquire about the people teaching their classes--preferably before they even apply to an institution.

Dang, RB, RBF or whomever you may be, if you call this screaming, then you really, really, need to get a grip. Ask yourself why you expect a lovefest from people whom you attack? Ask yourself why you become so defensive when others simply disagree with your ideas or the way you present them? I guess to each their own.

I and others have said this before: if you had bothered to pay more attention to the people on this list, you would have received a much friendlier reception.

Enjoy your martyr complex, I guess.

"Don't get on a train that's headed nowhere" generalizes a bit but not much. If some people think that my postings constitute preaching, then so be it.

Of course there will be people who:

1. Obtain a doctorate with at least three strong faculty supporters for the job market (This is no small feat, as I have personally witnessed talented doctoral students being forced out of their programs by their own advisors. Of course, advisors or faculty members can also die, transfer, or quit during the process, and a lot can happen in six to nine years.).
2. Win the lottery and beat out 75 to 250 applicants for a tenure-track position.
3. Love the area of the country in which they get their job.
4. Love both their job and raising a family on $40,000 per year (plus whatever a spouse may earn) for the first seven years after six to nine years of their doctoral education.

My main point is that these people are very few in number. The massive supply/demand imbalance in the humanities will not change because there are absolutely no reasons for employers--universities--to change it. Many employers can only dream of having 75 to 250 applicants for each of their openings! Betting on job seekers--in this case, humanities doctorates--to be able somehow to change fundamentally the training practices and hiring processes of the field in which they seek employment--in this case, universities--is not a bet that I would care to make, unless the job seekers (humanities doctorates) start abandoning the employers (universities) and thus collectively force them to change the rules of the game.

Many of the sciences, economics, business, engineering, and other fields have a far different supply/demand situation. Why? People with PhDs in these fields recognize that they have other options outside academia, which forces employers to change the rules of the game. The game is different in these fields not because their adjuncts and graduate students are unionized or they have better mentoring in graduate school! It is different because of external options.

If you want to earn a humanities doctorate because you love your subject and you want to learn and write about something fairly specific, fine. Go for it! But do not go for it because you will get a tenure-track job when you finish. The odds are stacked overwhelmingly against you in meeting the four conditions that I described above.

Finally, I endorse everything that Red Baron Fan wrote about adjuncts and the hiring process. I have seen exactly the same things myself.

Don't get on a train that's headed nowhere!

Let's see, DM. You have sneered "I see Red Baron and Red Baron Fan are back loving themselves and preaching to the rest of us." You have told me "It really isn't all about you"---something I've never maintained (in fact, I was trying to understand your argument which seemed to make no sense to me). You have compared me to Oprah Winfrey, a person you clearly despise (which would lead me to think that you intend to insult me) and so forth. Oh yes, you have basically told me to shut up and leave etc. The overall tenor of your comments has been that I am weird, ignorant (about the real world no less!), arrogant, a preacher, a Pollyanna Oprah Winfrey type etc.

Do you treat your students that way? Or your colleagues?

I really am flabbergasted by this entire experience. Fiddling around on this site was really a non-productive way for me to spend my day off!

To ADM (#75): In principle I agree with you. It is a shame that the students are caught in the middle of this contractual tension between me (the adjunct) and the strange bed-fellows, administration/department. And yet caught they are. But to say that I owe the students my $6300 all, even though I am only being paid half that amount is not only a shame, it's wrong.

One could make the following argument: one could claim that the "market" went through a rapid downward adjustment, and my labor power, which last semester was worth $6300, is now only worth $3000, and thus I owe the students and the university the same effort I put forth last semester at $6300. However, that's not true. There was no market correction. On the contrary, what happend was simply an arbitrary decision to ofer me a position, albeit at half the pay of last semester. One could also argue, and several have, that I had a choice to accept or decline the position. However, I would respond that in the absence of a trust fund, the need to pay rent plus the heating bills, and in the absence of any other immediately viable employment prospects, my so-called choice was not much of a choice. And so I took the job.

However, the entity that gave me the job, the university, which is clearly operating on a free-market system, must realize that they are only going to get what they pay for. If last semester they paid $6300, they cannot possibly expect that they will receive the same "product" for half that amount -- unless they're just plain dumb -- when they are still paying others, equally as qualified as I, the same $6300 per class that I received last semester.

Do I worry about the students in this equation? To be honest, no, not all that much. Not any more. Freshman Writing is a required course, and I would venture to say that only 20% of each class actually cares about the course. The rest just want to get through it as painlessly and expediently as possible. The odd thing about teaching Freshman Writing (in my opinion, that is) is that the more motivated the students are, the easier, not harder, the course is to teach. The true difficulty of teaching Freshman Writing lies in the arduous task of trying to motivate the unmotivated. In my estimation, what the university sacrificed by paying me half as much as they did last semester is the amount of energy and effort I expend to motivate all, and not just the few.

And I told this to the class. I explained to them that I will put forth as much effort toward them as they demonstrate toward the course. No more and no less. And so far, just as expected, the spilt is about 20% to 80%.

And that, I told them, is life in the big city.

This whole posting is amazing! Some of DM’s comments about Red Baron and Red Baron Fan follow below. Do you do this to your students, DM?

posting 8—I think of this whenever I read/hear yet another heroic entrepreneur encourage the rest of us mugs to abandon academia for the more rewarding careers. There are only so many "more rewarding careers" out there.

posting 43—Forgive me, though, if I greet these heroic sermons of yours with some skepticism.

posting 46—Another problem I have is that you both draw too many conclusionns about those on this list. Pay more attention to your audience, and you will receive better feedback.

posting 46—Finally, sermonizing about the need to consider all the options out there is simply restating the obvious. Despite your conclusions, we really aren't idiots.

posting 52—This is why Oprah-style motivational speakers like those we've seen on this thread bother me. While meaning well, their sermons divert too much attention from the many abuses out there, allowing all the garbage to continue.

posting 57—Again, please take your own advice, before you make an even bigger fool out of yourself.

posting 62--I probably should just let Red's comments go. If criticism this tame offends him/her, I wonder what might happen if faced with someone who is genuinely nasty. Red, get a grip!

posting 74--I see Red and his/her/its fan are back, loving themselves and preaching to the rest of us. The comments are now getting weirder. So now I am telling that fan that it must have been a bad teacher?! Where did I post this? Do you two bother to carefully read our comments, or are you two so in love with yourselves and your preaching, that nothing else here matters?
Sorry IA, I am trying to be nice. It's just that the red twins here are getting a little too weird.

posting 78--By the way, that comment was in response to someone else, and not to your points. It really isn't all about you.

posting 87--Dang, RB, RBF or whomever you may be, if you call this screaming, then you really, really, need to get a grip. Ask yourself why you expect a lovefest from people whom you attack? Ask yourself why you become so defensive when others simply disagree with your ideas or the way you present them? I guess to each their own.

I may regret entering into this discussion, but this one line, by Fan, bothered me:

"I don't think, in view of DM's comments and similar comments, that the site is very helpful to people who are genuinely eager to move on with their lives."

I politely disagree. I found it very helpful. If nothing else, it was reassuring to learn that the problems facing me as I confronted a future outside of academia were systemic, not personal, in their root causes.

Perhaps, though, I am/was not "genuinely eager" to switch careers. Indeed, my move out of academia was by no initial choice of mine. So maybe I am not among those Fan and Baron believe they are addressing. But then, I don't think many of IA's audience are, something Fan and Baron seem to have difficulty grasping.

This site is not about switching careers. It is not about academic la-la-land. It is about real people who have invested time and money in an ideal coming to terms with the fact that the ideal not only rarely exists, but is in fact being subverted by many of the institutions that get great mileage out of promoting it.

In other words, the people who visit this site have, for some reason, a vested interest in academia (and not ONLY the teaching side of it, even though this thread began with a focus on that). Assuming that those of us who chose to "ride a train headed nowhere" are too dumb to get off unless told repeatedly that they should will win no friends here.

(Having that line at the end of each post is really irritating, by the way -- argument by repetition is not the most effective strategy, ya know?)

I understand, Baron and Fan, that you probably mean well. As I see it, you're having trouble understanding why people would stay in a situation like adjuncting where abuses are many and when there are alternatives. But.

Okay. Here's the debate as I currently see it. Baron and Fan, your take is: "The academic train is going nowhere. Disgruntled PhDs should find another train." Some of us disagree. It's not because we're stupid, or masochists, or because we couldn't imagine another job if it came up and bit us. It's because we still hold to the ideal that has been subverted.

The "train to nowhere" analogy is flawed; academia is a bus that has been hijacked, or which is being dismantled piece by piece, not a train whose destination was fixed when we got on. If you want to jump off at the next stop, fine. If you can persuade some people to go with you, or to not get on the bus in the first place, fine. (I don't think you're going to make many more converts at this point, by the way.) But stop arguing with the people who've made it abundantly clear that they want to keep trying to turn the bus around. Their job is hard enough as it is!

Thank you, Red Baron and Red Baron Fan. You are telling it like it is!

Rana, the people who will turn the bus around are not graduate students, adjuncts and visiting professors. They don't control the bus! The people who control the bus are universities and tenured profs! Only they can turn it around, and they won't do it because it's not in their interests to do it.

To Bemused Observer,

Why would I treat my students in whatever way you are describing?

I guess crossing swords with two people who refuse to see the world beyond their own little reality is entertainment, then I am happy to have pleased you.

Oh, and RBF, I too, am flabbergasted. You enter this domain ready and willing to cross swords, and are upset when someone responds.

While Rana is certainly correct that not everybody wants off the bus (and that those who don't aren't necessarily "dumb"), I've seen plenty of posts on this blog from people who say that they *do* want off the bus at this point, but don't feel qualified to do anything except perhaps work at Borders or Starbucks. Chris, in fact, as I recall, has made a number of posts to that effect. And others have responded with success stories that were well received. IA has posted links to "escape route" items as well. So, the statement that "[t]his site is not about switching careers" doesn't ring true to me. Switching careers is certainly not the only or even main focus of the site, but it's something that seems to come up quite frequently.

The posts of Red Baron and Red Baron Fan alluding to their success stories in pursuing other endeavors are certainly in harmony with those of others who have described similar experiences and can perhaps provide some inspiration for those who do wish to hop off the bus but have no idea how to do it. Which is, of course, not to say that anybody who'd rather stay on the bus for whatever reasons should feel compelled to try to move on. Or that they shouldn't gripe and vent about the problems associated with their situations.

For those who are unhappy with their academic situations, but see them as better than any of the alternatives, perhaps RB and RBF have nothing to offer. And it hardly seems fair to complain about them blowing off steam here. But RB and RBF probably do having something to offer for those who would like to make a change. Live and let live!

Matilde (#85): I think you are unintentionally importing a meritocratic framework in which you then draw your analogy. Are hirings for seats in classical orchestras made on political or meritocratic bases? My guess (I could be wrong) is that orchestras, operating within their respective budgetary restrictions, hire the best player available. I doubt politics comes into play, at least not the kinds of "politics" that always influence academic hiring. (taste is obviously an issue in the hiring of musicians, but I would hasten to add that the "politics" in this context are fairly rarefied)

Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps there are 200 to 250 applications for every orchestral seat advertised. And, like academia, perhaps after eliminating, say, 75 to 100 applicants for clearly failing to meet the minimum requirements, orchestras are left with a pool of 100 to 150 performers whose abilities to perform as required are barely indistinguishable from one another. And perhaps to make dsemi-ethically appearing decisions in this situation, orchestras, like academic departments, invent a series of fluctuating, subjective, arbitrary, often narcissistically composed, and pathologically determined standards to aid them in making those very fine distinctions amidst the pool that only the Shaman-like hiring committee can truly divine.

I realize musicians can be a persnickety bunch, but in an esoteric way. Have they really entered into the big leagues of persnickety that is academia?

Rana, thank you for putting so eloquently much of what I was trying to say.

My own background is as musician (I was a concert bassoonist). Part of the reason I left music was watching very talented people not get work after many, many years of hard labor. I'm not sure that music is a pure meritocracy either, in fact, I'm highly doubtful - but the fundemental problem that drives people out of the music profession isn't the flaws in the auditioning process, it's that the number of highly talented, hard working people far outnumber the number of orchestra seats.

That to me seems to me very much like the situation in the humanities as well.

My question about unions for grad students & adjuncts was not clear enough. I am more concerned that unionizing grad students (and raising the stipend of humanities grads) will only make the adjunct problem worse by increasing the number of humanities phds. I think it might do this by making it easier for them to get through without a second part-time job.

In response to RB & RBF, I am not sure it is fair to compare science/engineering/econ to humanities. Cetainly grads in those fields have outside options, but their skills are more easily translated to jobs outside academia than the humanities. Most scientists/engineers/economists have good quantitative/statistical/data analysis skills as well as critical thinking. Being able to say "I know SAS, STATA and Gauss" makes it easier to sell your skills to a potential employer than "I can think critically". Selling skills developed as an historian is a harder task.

I agree with Mathilde, the market for humanities is like sports or music or art. How many audition tapes could you listen to in a row before they start to sound the same? I have no doubt that there are talented, hard-working people that never really make it in these fields. So, if we accept that, what would a grad student union do to the "adjunctification" of humanities departments?

Jenna writes--In response to RB & RBF, I am not sure it is fair to compare science/engineering/econ to humanities. Cetainly grads in those fields have outside options, but their skills are more easily translated to jobs outside academia than the humanities. Most scientists/engineers/economists have good quantitative/statistical/data analysis skills as well as critical thinking. Being able to say "I know SAS, STATA and Gauss" makes it easier to sell your skills to a potential employer than "I can think critically". Selling skills developed as an historian is a harder task.

Is "critical thinking" all a historian has to offer a non-academic employer? What about writing skills, research skills, foreign language skills, statistical and database skills (yes, it's not fashionable these days with all the culture/race/gender/sexuality history floating about, but some historians do use masses of quantitative data in their work), and teaching skills? All of these things are applicable in non-academic jobs.

If you can write anything longer than two pages in crisp, clear, grammatically-correct English, you are ahead of about 90% of the American population! And who is to say you can't learn things like statistics and SAS if you are historian? If you don't know something, teach yourself or take courses to learn it!

If you think that historians have so little to offer outside of academia, how on earth do you justify teaching it and encouraging students to major in it?

Red Baron Fan writes:

"...I was a "natural" teacher... When I got a tenure-track job, I pulled out all the stops. I constantly re-worked my syllabi. I arranged historical debates, searching for and giving every student an individualized reading packet and then writing a two page essay explaining the grade I had given for their oral work during the debate. I labored over my students' papers, correcting their grammar, their logic, and their writing style. I met with students in my off-hours as well as my office hours. I had students over for dinner because my professors had done that. I had students tell me that they were pregnant, suicidal, hated their room-mates, were afraid of failing etc. I listened, I wiped their tears, I sent them to the Medical Center for counseling and I followed through on this by meeting with deans etc. to make sure my students were okay when the students asked me to do so. These are the things which make a good teacher. "

Really? *Are* these the things that make a good teacher? If a teacher can't or won't do all these things, should they really stop teaching?

Strikes me as obsessive -- and more about the teacher and his/her self-esteem and sense of being needed, than what students themselves may really need.

There's something in the rhetoric here, about the near inevitability of burnout if teaching's going to be done right, that manages to be both sinister and implausible at the same time.

Another thought: isn't this the mentality (teachers must be martyrs to the cause, good teachers will *want* to be martyrs, if you don't like to suffer, you must not be cut out for teaching) that allows administrators to pay slave wages to humanities teachers in the first place? After all, if the "good" ones do it for love...

Just wondering.

"And who is to say you can't learn things like statistics and SAS if you are historian? If you don't know something, teach yourself or take courses to learn it!"

Sorry I think you have the wrong idea about phd level work. A history undergraduate can take a class or two in statistics and be as good as a economics undergraduate. He can take classes in some programming language and maybe match them engineers.

But when you get to PhD level it is a whole new ball game. The training you get at the PhD level in stats or programming isnt something you can pick up in a class or two. Some history phd who takes a class in statistics is not even close to what a econ or math phd student knows. (there are historians who are great at stats, but they probably are economists by training). A short class in SQL doesnt even come close to what comp. sci. guys do in databases. PhD training for better or worst has become very very specialize. Thus different PhDs have different niches. Some MBA-type classes might come in handy to make historians more aware of the outside market. But to think that a phd is just another fancy liberal arts degree is silly. The old notion that a liberal arts education can train you for many jobs doesnt happen for technical stuff and not at the phd level.

From Jenna's example of SAS, STATA and Gauss, my guess is she is probably does something in econ, public policy or sociology. Engineers doing stats stuff are more likely to use mathematica or matlab. Even a general topic like statistics have different fields using different tools.

I just want to make one more point before doing my part to let this thread die. Two posters (or two versions of the same poster, heck, I don't know), have asked me if this is how I treat my students or colleagues. Hmmmm....

This is the Internet. To a certain extent (we've discussed this before) we here in cyberland are relatively anonymous. Would I respond to a colleague who is preaching to me in the way RB and RBF have? I honestly don't know. Would RB and RBF every waltz into a room of people discussing the adjuntification of academia, launch into a wonderful heroic sermon that restates the obvious? Would they repeat themselves incessantly and treat their audience like a bunch of idiots? Would they be horrified when their audience falls asleep, walks out, or reacts in a frosty manner? I honestly don't know. Some people behave the same in cyberland and in the real world. Others don't. Life is just not that simple.

And that is the point. We all do not have the same personal situations. Some want to get off the bus, while others want to regain control of it. Some are fresh out of grad school, others are tenure-track/tenured professors and others are adjuncts. I think we are here for a similar reason, in that we are at the very least, concerned about the current state of higher education, and are sharing our thoughts and finding a sympathetic community. This certainly does not mean we don't get it, whatever it may be.

Matilde, but the issue that drove you from music is in fact not the same as the current academic situation. I can well imagine that there are far more talented musicians than positions for them, which is a result of the woeful levels of support given to the arts. But in academia this isn't the case. The fact is there are positions -- many of us on this list are teaching in these positions. In fact, it's very easy to get some combination of adjunct and non-tenured full-time work. The problem is not that there is a lack of positions; rather, the problem is a lack of appropriate salaries for those positions. (that there is no shortage of people willing to take these positions is another matter)

Again, I think this is slightly different than the arts and music.

In this respect too are the markets for artists, musicians, actors, and literature professors similar. Most aspiring musicians, actors, and artists can get work, they just can't get enough to make an adequate full-time living at it. Thus, the 'day job'.

It's quite plausible, even reasonable, for the market for literature scholars to resemble the market for writers and artists in general, just as the market for economics scholars and engineering scientists shares many of the characteristics of the markets for business and engineering.

The life of a literature professor appeals to far more people than the life of an economist, but it appeals to far more people than full-time livings exist for them. The adjunct crisis in the humanities exists, in part, because a great many people are willing to work for very little for a long time for a shot at a full-time living. Many people here express similar sentiments to my friends who are actors and musicians - they love the work, but hate the poor pay and insecure living.

To me it seems that the best distinction between the two is that actors and musicians know they are pursuing an uncertain path where talent is no guarantee of success. But I'm less certain that such an awareness exists among humanities scholars. The new graduate students who have posted here certainly *do* seem aware that they are embarking on a path with no certain road to full-time employment, I sense from them a hopeful opptimism similar to my actor friends - they know the road will be hard and uncertain, but they love their craft too much not to risk trying.

Chris wrote :
"The problem is not that there is a lack of positions; rather, the problem is a lack of appropriate salaries for those positions"

Actually Chris, the problem is not the lack of appropriate salaries for those positions. The problem is there are too many qualified people for those same positions. Universities dont get together and agree to lower salaries for humanities because they dont like them***. The supply of and demand for humanities phds determines the salary to a large extent.

As an example. Economics and history both found in liberal arts departments. Both probably produces the same number of phds each year. Both disciplines attract probably teach the same number of undergraduate students across the country. Yet, econ departments have to compete with business schools, government agencies, private corporations for the same group of phds. This is on top of the demand for american-trained econ phds abroard. What entities does the history department have to compete over each batch of history phds?

The academic market in history isnt all that different compared to economics. Looking at the placement records of any econ. programs, you will see that a large proportion of them dont go to other econ deparments. In that sense, the history academic market isnt "broken" at all. There isnt anything to fix.

The heart of the matter is that lack of non-academics positions for history phds. Either reduce the number of history phds produced each year, or increase the number of non-academic positions avaliable. Simply jacking up the salaries for adjuncts isnt going to solve the problem. As some have pointed out, this will likely reduce the number of adjuncts, but at the cost of more unemployed history phds. Are we willing to have higher wages at the expense of another's job?

*** On a side note, I have been told that liberal arts departments dislike econ. more than any other department because they are too expensive and demanding. Any truth to this?

The problem *is* a lack of positions -- or rather, the conversion of Full-time, Tenure-track positions to cheaper, non-benefit carrying, adjunct positions. It's not that adjuncts are paid badly, although they are, it's that there is such a large shift to casual labour. And I've seen little evidence that this is an attempt by the tenured and senior to keep others out. Instead, it's often to a reaction to administration and board demands to raise class caps to preserve FTEs. Class caps get raised, numbers of sections are cut (because with an enrollment cap of 40, the classes often don't "make" with less than 25) and the books look better (the admin people can talk about how they are cutting deadwood courses that can't support their own existence). The reality is that faculty are then supposed to be focusing on active learning in an environment not geared to it, students can't find classes that they need, and when a tenured person retires, he is replaced by adjuncts, because the number and breadth of course offerings goes down and the department cant justify a TT line.

Or something like that. Talking mostly of CCs and small 4-years here. Also, it's all a smokescreen. Most the History adjuncts I know teach full-time on the freeway flyer plan. The really awful part is that, at least in our state, there are generally enough adjunct sections to justify full-time positions. The union managed to get adjuncts who teach over 50% at any one CC health benefits after two consecutively emplyed quarters (not necessarily at the same CC even, but you lose the benefits if you go below 50% at any one CC. However, once you've done the two consecutive quarters above 50%, you are also enrolled automatically in the state teachers TIAA-CREF plan, and that doesn't go away. SO, departments try to keep their best adjuncts at 2 courses (66%) and will even try to get them a course somewhere close so that they can make a semblance of a living. There are tons of cases where adjunct a teaches 2 courses at CC X and one at CC Y, while Adjunct B teaches two course at Y and one at X -- because if they were to teach a 100% load for 3 years, they would have to be considered for tenure anyway!

The students and taxpayers are unaware, and the legislators, when asked, talk about achieving pay parity over the next 7 years, but no one wants to talk about what the academics see as an elephant, because the administrators, boards, and legislators see it as a dust mote.

"On a side note, I have been told that liberal arts departments dislike econ. more than any other department because they are too expensive and demanding. Any truth to this?" - Passing_through.

I don't know about demanding, or 'more than any other department' but it's certainly true that economists tend to attract a certain amount of resentment due to differences in pay. I've heard stories from friends of mine who are economics professors at small liberal arts colleges where fights have actually broken out when the salaries of the economists were revealed. I recall one story where a literature professor anounced that clearly the economists were guilty of using their scholarship to manipulate the market for economics Ph.D.s!

Of course, the truth is that non-academic careers for economists pay much better than academic work, and that salaries for liberal arts professors are much lower than for economists generally (I make almost twice what a friend of mine at a liberal arts college makes, and my salary isn't considered high for an economist). Deans often don't understand when their faculty chairs come to them and say that the salary offers have to be increased or they will attract no candidates whatsoever - deans, particularly at liberal arts colleges, aren't used to competing with the private and public sector for Ph.D.s.

"The heart of the matter is that lack of non-academics positions for history phds. Either reduce the number of history phds produced each year, or increase the number of non-academic positions avaliable."

Bingo.

The number of Ph.D.s will not be reduced. Graduate students without funding pay professors' salaries so they can teach graduate courses, and many graduate students are needed to teach high-revenue producing courses at low cost. Universities have absolutely no incentive to reduce the number of Ph.D. admissions.

That leaves one solution: finding non-academic positions for history Ph.D.s. If there aren't any of these positions, well, then there's no real solution to the problem, and it will continue indefinitely.

Don't get on a train headed nowhere!

Response to #88

In our job search last year for 2 positions - open rank in economics we got about 40 applicants. In Australia in environmental studies, we were lucky if we could get 30 applicants for a job. Due to my greencard application I now know who applied for my job. None were very qualified compared to me - some better ones applied and then withdrew. I am sure at better Econ departments they get more applicants.

Pay is much higher in econ too...

As I am interdisciplinary I have had a harder time getting jobs and this is my first tenure track job. I've had fixed term jobs at good institutions. I got my PhD 10 years ago.

moom

Why would I think of changing texts or revising my course unless it would significantly improve the course? I figure the first semester or year teaching a course is a big investment but after that you only want to revise the material as the subject matter itself changes or if things clearly don't work. After the first couple of times the time needed is actual class time, grading time, office hour and sending e-mail to student time, and rewriting exams (just to prevent too much cheating). If in the course of my general reading and research I see that something needs revising or adding I'll do it. Or revise a couple of sessions as the need arises...

I'm not sure how far into this limb of the discussion I want to go, as it just frustrates me. But, here goes.

If, by the accounts of several above, it is all too possible to cobble together 5 courses per semester, and do so each and every semester, albeit at 3 schools, then there is in fact no shortage of jobs/positions. On the contrary, there are plenty of positions.

The problem, as someone else made clear, is not that there is a shortage of positions; rather, the problem is that there is a shortage of tenure track positions. But this is a shortage that has been carefully and quite consciously crafted to take advantage of the the percevied over-supply of qualified employees.

This said, I think at this point there is no way to alter this perception. And thus the only alternative is to halt the process by which adjuncts are produced -- i.e., the production mill of graduate programs.

This said, I think at this point there is no way to alter this perception. And thus the only alternative is to halt the process by which adjuncts are produced -- i.e., the production mill of graduate programs.

Chris, I do not think the influx of students entering graduate programs in the Humanities and Social Sciences will end in the foreseeable future (I don't mean it will never happen). Thus, the proliferation of graduate programs will remain because the bottom line imo is money. As long as its profitable to have a number of graduate students in programs regardless of whether they finish and find jobs, there will be little incentive to change the system.

Imho, changes have to come from within and there has to be a willingness to work with contingent faculty to implement these changes. In the meantime, the only viable solution I see for myself is to leave academia. Opportunites in the private sector are lacking (at least in this area) right now and making that transition is very difficult. It is easy to say get off the train and I mean no disrespect to Red Baron, etc, nor am I whining, I am just saying it is difficult.

Allow me one brief comment. Much has been said about the pay of econ profs. The areas where there are jobs - econ, business and engineering, are areas where the curriculum is in constant flux. The profs in those areas keep the curriculum current so that their students will have jobs. An econ dept that ignored the job market and kept the same curriculum for 100 years would not produce graduates that industry wanted to hire.

In short, the graduate students and adjuncts on this blog have been shortchanged by the tenured professors. They have skills that are valued by society. They have difficulty marketing those skills because ultimately their profs don't care about them enough to teach them marketable skills.

Don't believe me? Go to a search engine and type in 'Knowledge Management'. Ask yourself why this particular field, which is growing like crazy, is off-limits to humanities students. There are always new opportunities opening up. Unfortunately, the humanities profs just don't care.

Interesting discussion.

I'm positive there are non-academic positions out there for PhD’s and other advanced degree holders in the humanities. There will always be demand for smart, capable, and dedicated people. It just may not be where you expect it, and thus you'll have to look harder for it and market yourself well. The world has a great need for people who can think and communicate well, but its not necessarily going to come looking for you.

I think Dick's comment in the prior post about humanities profs not caring about new fields such as Knowledge Management is accurate. They didn't get to where they are by paying attention to non-academic fields, so why should they pay attention to them now? Some undoubtedly do, but the outside world is not their world so much. That’s my experience.

I believe that life is pretty much what we make of it, so waiting around for someone else to clear the path to success and happiness is unlikely to work. Blaze your own trail and create your own value. Harder, yes, but ultimately more satisfying.

At the risk of expressing the same above-the-fray, last-word condescension of the last two posts on this still hot topic but now cold thread, I humbly submit the following:

Dick: "Don't believe me? Go to a search engine and type in 'Knowledge Management'. Ask yourself why this particular field, which is growing like crazy, is off-limits to humanities students. There are always new opportunities opening up. Unfortunately, the humanities profs just don't care."

What a public service Dick provides: I encourage all IA readers to utilize their ISPs SE to review the literature on KM ASAP. Never again need any MLA or AHA members feel embarrassed by any of the CRAP published in their fields over the past twenty years--this stuff takes the prize. Of course, if your idea of collegiality is hanging out with hucksters, then KM may be the field for you.

I'll stick to teaching Comp in the CC, TYVM.

David: "There will always be demand for smart, capable, and dedicated people."

"I believe that life is pretty much what we make of it, so waiting around for someone else to clear the path to success and happiness is unlikely to work. Blaze your own trail and create your own value. Harder, yes, but ultimately more satisfying. "

Smart and capable, I can cover, but dedicated is where I get into trouble. Dedicated to what and to whom?

Who believes more stridently that the world and our lives are constructed-- what we make of them--than the comtemporary (I almost wrote 'modern') humanist? Yet many economists tend to treat markets and corporations and workers and consumers as elemental, immutable. The sooner we accept the harsh realities of the market, they seem to say, the sooner we can get on with successfully blazing a valuable trail to our happiness--or is that happily blazing a successful trail to our values?

Is there an SUV or an IRA or a 401k at the end of this trail of bliss?

As the distinctions between the academy and the modern corporation continue to be blurred, as students become customers, and teachers become service providers, many of the economic issues of the corporation--particularly the continuing pressure to increase productivity by reducing the cost of labor--have been imported from the outer world.

If we complain, the harsh 'realities' are blamed, as if we might as well rail against the periodic chart. But do I think ours the best of all possible economies? No.

Does David imagine, as the revolutionaries who founded our nation did, that the prevailing political and economic realities can be remade to advance both individual freedom and the common good?

Freedom to choose among different forms and degrees of exploitation is not the freedom our founders craved. And while analyzing the systemic exploitation of labor and the impediments to personal freedom and fullfillment wthin the academy, may seem an effete exercise to an outsider, what better arena to develop those arguments?

In the academy, moreso than in the outer world, a sense of shared values still remains, and also, we can hope, a sense of shame.