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Adjuct or "Faculty"

  • I need advice from the academic mefi community: Should I leave a faculty position at a community college to adjunct at local universities? I'm ABD in lit and probably will remain so, thanks to habitual procrastination and two small children. I currently squeeze a full-time community college job (5/5 courseload) into part-time hours, teaching afternoons, evenings, weekends, and online, so I can stay at home with the kids as much as possible. My salary is pathetic; it works out to about 3K a class, not to mention committee work and other administrivia. Our state doesn't like to fund education, so no one makes much money, even folks who have been working here for years. Our literature department is slowly being decimated, so I mostly teach comp. I like my students, enjoy the company of most of my co-workers, and believe in the community college's mission. But I'm getting burned out, I've noticed that many of my co-workers are miserable, and I'm sick of the micro-managing that the state imposes on our classroom. I realize that adjuncts are considered the "bitches" of the academic world, having worked as one at 2 and 4-year colleges, and as one, my complaints of being powerless wouldn't exactly evaporate. But I have contacts at two local colleges and one university, places where I'd actually get to teach some interesting classes (interesting = not comp), my salary would not diminish too much, and my time wouldn't be streched so thin with meetings and the like. I don't need benefits, and my husband is the main breadwinner, although his salary is modest. But I'm nervous about giving up the safety of a faculty position and jumping back into the uncertainty of adjucting. Am I crazy for leaving a sure thing, or am I just exchanging one low-level job for another, more palatable one? Sorry this explanation is so rambling - I'm failing miserably at balancing work and parenting, but despite all my bitching, I love teaching, and I can't imagine doing anything else.

  • Answer:

    Do you have tenure at the community college? I am guessing you don't. If you have tenure, I probably wouldn't give that up if I were you. Also weighing against giving up the community college job, is that, from my observation, adjuncts are unmoored from any sense of solidarity with other instructors at the colleges where they teach. Adjuncts come in to teach their classes, then they leave. They're not available for appointments with students, except immediately before and after class, so it's harder to form relationships with students. They're not on-site enough to get to know other faculty well. I didn't like that. I taught adjunct at a college for several years and got to know only one other instructor during that time---and that was by happenstance; he had a class right after mine in the room where I taught a class, and we somehow hit it off. I didn't even learn the names of other instructors. I also think that the educational experience offered by adjuncts is often inferior to that offered by full-time faculty. Not because the adjuncts are incompetent, but because they don't know the institution, are not available to their students every day, and don't have as much invested in that institution. Adjuncts have to deal with various sorts of indignities. I remember having to argue with the library about things they wouldn't let me put on reserve, because I hadn't gotten the materials to the library by the deadline (which was never told to me). Or how furious I was, one semester, when I came into the administration office during one of the last days of the exam period, and finding ALL adjunct mail dumped into a big box, not separated in any way. If we wanted our mail, we had to get down on our knees and fish through it, examining every piece to see if it was for us. The reason? They couldn't allow us to keep our mailboxes past the exam period; they had to rearrange the boxes to make way for the new crop of adjuncts. I was waiting for notes and papers from students who needed extensions, and who knows if I got them. My students were not allowed to have supervised testing in the Testing Center (when they couldn't make my regular exam time) because I was never told there were special requirements for reserving that center in advance. Those were the kinds of indignities that were common for adjuncts. As a full-time faculty member at the community college, you have the advantage of being a part of that academic community. Students can find you. Faculty members know you (even if they are an unsatisfied group). You are in a position where you can make a change, and positively influence the institution---rather than being a warm body filling a place on a roster (which adjuncts often are). I realize my gloomy depiction of adjuncts may not be accurate for the positions you have been offered---but it is a fairly common situation for adjuncts to find themselves in. I would be careful about giving up the full-time job.

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Adjunct salaries vary widely across universities and even within a university. What also varies widely is the selection of courses that adjuncts teach. From what I have seen and what you describe, the move you are interested in is not likely to bring you more job satisfaction or more money. What has emerged at some research universities are adjunct positions that morph into a tenure track teaching position. The teaching load is larger than the other faculty (5-7 courses per year rather than 3 courses per year), there is no support for research and the pay is less all along the ranks. However, my sense is that this is more desirable than adjunct teaching or teaching at a 2 year college. I guess it depends on what you are looking for - being an adjunct would give you more flexibility about your schedule but would not have the security you now have.

bluesky43

Sorry to continue the gloom, but add to the indignities above that you will likely not have any office space of your own if you adjunct. And parking. Oh, the parking squabbles. Perhaps when the kids are a bit older you can do both...keep your community college job but pick up a few college adjunct gigs?

desuetude

You seem pretty clear-eyed about your options here. You understand that adjuncting at an institution almost never leads to a tenure track job there, especially for a terminal ABD, right? If you get off the tenure track, you are never getting back on. Maybe that is OK. Before leaving your current position you should take a long hard look at what you are giving up, not so much now but in the future. Can you move up the ranks at you CC without the PhD? What would your job there be like in 5 years? Ten? What would the salary be at the associate professor level? Are your kids in school? If not, how will your schedule change once they are? I take it that most of your time is spent grading comp papers, is there any chance of developing a system to make this go more quickly? I teach a lot of freshman history sections and grade papers using a rubric with a grid of check boxes. (Email me and I will send it to you.) I also take a few of the better student papers, black out the names, and hand these out in class and lead a discussion about why they are good. This is not only way more efficient than my old method of marking every error with a red pen (since few students ever really look at the marks), and it seems to improve their writing. Also, just how dead is your dissertation really? Have you written anything? Do you even want to finish? Would adjuncting help you finish? If you are close, it seems a to walk away from it. A PhD is not only a job ticket, it is also a credential for getting grants, other positions in academia, etc. No answer here, just some things to think about. On the other hand, if it has reached the point where you hate getting up in the morning, then your choice is pretty clear.

LarryC

Also, what others have said about the indignities of adjuncting. An adjunct is not a member of the department. But if you are not trying to earn a living, it might be pleasant.

LarryC

I've known one adjunct who did eventually get on the tenure track at the university he taught at, and now he's full-time and tenured. It took many years, though (at least ten), and he's the only example I can think of. So it's unusual, but at least not 100% unheard of to get back on the track. But yeah, everyone else I know who's adjuncted for more than a few years has found it pretty nightmarish. However, it's possible you might find that the pleaure in teaching other subjects offsets the downsides for at least a couple of years. I don't know that I'd see it as a long-term solution, though.

scody

Keep in mind that "adjunct" is a lot being being a "contractor." You probably won't be eligible for benefits (you say you don't need them, but what if he loses his job? what if he is hit by a truck?). You can be fired -- excuse me, they can "choose not to renew your contract" -- at the end of any semester. If you do this, you need to do it with an eye towards being continually searching for a tenure-track position. You might also consider posing this question to the nice fellow at http://suburbdad.blogspot.com/ I mean, unless he's your boss, or course.

ilsa

Yeah, the big question to me seems to be, why is the PhD dead? Finishing that is really the only way your options will expand. Personally, I'd take the adjunct work and use the extra time to get your dissertation on track again. Maybe teaching interesting courses will get you motivated, or having more intellectually acute students will challenge you a bit. Basically, the stable/secure answer is staying at the cc, but it doesn't sound like you're really satisfied there, and it is not going to change/get better. So my vote is, go for it. so you know where I'm coming from: I teach adjunct at a community college at the moment (while in grad school) so I don't know if the downsides of my teaching experience are more due to being adjunct or being at a cc or just the particulars of where I'm teaching. However, I had a friend who had a full time position at the same cc until she defended last spring, and now she is tenure-track at a state U - from her account, the atmosphere of teaching at the 4-yr is just completely different; she felt stressed and overrun at the cc, whereas now she is still very busy but "in a good way." She's doing a lot of her own work, getting involved; the students are all really engaged, and apologetic if they ever miss class (where I teach, it is a miracle if every student shows up on a given day), etc. Your experience may be totally different, but I still think the school itself can be more important than your status there.

mdn

I'd just like to say I have nothing but sympathy for your situation. Whenever us scientists think we're being screwed by the academy, we only have to look to the arts to realise how much deeper the gutter gets and that the fuckers are plumbing new depths as we speak. 3k per course? 5/5 load? jeesus. Have you thought about private tution (e.g. kaplan/gre prep)? At least the students are motivated. Keep your eye posted on http://chronicle.com/ as well - there may be jobs in your area that aren't quite as brutal as the ones you describe. Good luck - Nil Illegitimo Carborundum

lalochezia

I've been an adjunct teaching comp for the last few years and I make a pitiful salary but have lots of time for doing my own work and I enjoy the teaching and the students a lot. One thing I do to make comp classes more interesting -- I know this isn't your question -- is selectively ignore the department issued instructions for teaching the courses. One adjunct I know was primarily interested in African American literature so she turned her comp class into an A-A literature class. As long as the students are writing a lot and getting a lot of feedback, what difference does it make what the content is? Me? I can't deal with those freshman composition "readers." My fellow adjuncts, those who've been doing it for longer than me, seem very tired and maybe a little resentful, which sort of makes me want to get out. (Want to trade positions?)

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