By Darren Johnson
Campus News
I’ve been adjunct teaching as a side gig most of my adult life, usually a course or two a semester, at various colleges upstate and downstate, public and private. I even was an adjunct union rep for awhile. So I’ll take on this month’s adjunct column until I can find a new volunteer (want to write an adjunct column – let me know!).
In case you don’t know what an adjunct instructor is: We teach as freelancers. We just come in for the course we teach – go straight to the classroom, get paid a stipend (no real benefits) and get out. At many colleges, adjuncts outnumber the full-time faculty. Administrators see this as fiscally prudent, as adjuncts are paid a tiny fraction of what the full-times are, without the health-care costs. Full-time faculty, though, are expected to do more – advising, research, office hours, attending meetings, and so on. So comparing adjuncts to full-timers is apples to oranges.
I don’t fault full-time faculty for the fairer deal they collectively earned over many decades of negotiations. Adjuncts have been less cohesive, though Internet forums have helped us part-timers unite in recent years.
The problem is there is a glut of potential adjuncts (anyone with a related master’s degree can qualify), so they are easily expendable if they become too mouthy; whereas full-time faculty have much better protections.
Overall, I’m not as negative about adjunct teaching as some adjuncts. I view it purely as a side gig and teach courses I know inside out, anyway, so my prep time isn’t that cumbersome. I hate grading, but every job has items that don’t inspire joy. That said, I feel I’m good at adjunct teaching, and enjoy imparting my specific wisdom to the next generation of writers and journalists (and students from other majors who just want to hone their writing skills).
But, some things do need to be fixed for adjuncts.
Anecdotally, I’m finding that, since the pandemic, it’s the adjuncts who are going in and teaching the in-person classes while many of the faculty offices of full-timers are still shuttered. The stats aren’t in yet on whether my hunch is true – that adjuncts are disproportionately shouldering the load so that colleges can save face and say they are truly open, as admissions officers promoted – but what I’ve seen and read on adjunct message boards suggests I am right.
Even pre-pandemic, full-timers got to pick their course sections, times, and delivery formats (in-person or virtual in one way or the other – synchronous (think Zoom) or asynchronous (think online bulletin board)) before the adjuncts. I’ve been assigned 7 a.m. courses, Friday night courses … and mundane courses like Freshman Composition that the full-timers often don’t want. It’s almost impossible for an adjunct to be assigned one of the cool upper-level elective courses; for example, I once took a fun course on Orson Welles.
I have no fears about teaching in-person; on average, adjuncts may be younger than full-time faculty, so maybe we are less at-risk of having serious consequences if we contract Covid.
But, if we are going to now be the public face of the university, we probably should get a pay bump. Maybe call it hazard pay.
Also, if we’re going to be in harm’s way, we should qualify for the same health plan the full-timers get. Many colleges will let adjuncts buy health insurance through the college – but at the full rate. I inquired once about that and was quoted over $10,000 a year. The average adjunct doesn’t make much more than that per year. Full-timers pay far less of a share, if anything.
The pandemic could be a good excuse to fix the at-times exploitative adjunct situation.
Darren Johnson is publisher of Campus News and a longtime adjunct journalism instructor. Contact him at editor@cccn.us.
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