My freshman year, I took Existentialism with a professor named Curtis Bowman. He had that quality of the fun and truly interesting intellectual -- quick to derail his lecture for rants about the movie Babe and how much he hates those stores in the mall that sell nothing but socks.
But his most heartfelt rant was the one about why he loves teaching and hates his job.
Bowman is an adjunct professor. That means he gets paid by the course -- about $3,000 each going by the national average, which amounts annually to about what he would make flipping burgers full-time. Except without the benefits: no insurance, no vacation, no oak bookshelves for his office. In fact, for many adjuncts, no office.
It gets worse for Curtis, and a lot worse for us. According to a recent Modern Languages Association survey, part-time, non-tenure track professors now hold more than half of all university teaching positions nationwide, with an even higher number in introductory classes -- and the statistics hold equally true for Ivies as for smaller schools and public universities.
Since these adjuncts tend to teach at three or four different universities they have little time or incentive to know a particular university's values or departmental curricula. They are not paid to hold office hours, have no voice in departmental affairs or school politics and have little latitude to make academic waves (non-standard teaching, non-standard grading, non-standard beliefs) since they can be "not renewed" at any time.
The implications go beyond being unqualified to advise about curricula and academic resources. Adjuncts running from school to school are inaccessible anyway, while the lower relative number of tenured faculty becomes less accessible in kind. They avoid giving grading-intensive assignments like essays, and the grades they give are inflated by the need to avoid controversy and complaint. And Salon has reported, only half-jokingly, that these stressed-out teachers talk about "going adjunct" the way postal workers "go postal."
There are reasons for all of this. Despite rising tuition, universities cite the need to cut costs to pay for technology, increase endowments and keep the research wheels turning. They will not as readily admit that keeping research wheels turning amounts to keeping academic powerhouses happy by upping their salaries. Many of those academic big shots do not want to teach introductory classes, which creates the need for what? More adjuncts.
There's an irony here: the cited justifications for the adjunct system seem like pretty good ends. Helping the school get high rankings and a good name, thereby attracting the best students and then helping them pay for their education. Luring the best professors and making them want to stick around. Making the school a better place.
But the real effect is lowering the value of our very expensive degrees: we pay the same $6,000 or so per credit whether we're getting professors at the top of their fields or pissed-off adjuncts whose degrees are still warm. And it's not clear what's so great about having better students and more computers while the quality of teaching at all but the highest levels is going down. The problem is not the adjuncts themselves. Adjuncts may have the best of intentions: indeed, they must love teaching to tolerate their status. But those intentions cannot give them any more time to talk to me about my final essay and likely make them more bitter, not less so, about their pay and lack of job security. Ask an army general about the relationship between morale and performance.
It turns out that Penn now pays its adjuncts about $5000 a class -- somewhat better than average. But Curtis Bowman is still overworked, undervalued and just getting by. And he's a good teacher, as evidenced by his student evaluations. Is it possible that the administration is cutting the fat in the wrong place? If you think they are, bear in mind that only you can change it. The adjuncts cannot (speak up and you're not renewed faster than you can say "this is bullshit"), the tenured professors have no interest in changing the status quo (money and big offices) and the administration put the adjunct system in place. Who does that leave?
It leaves us, and we have some options. Make a fuss. Demand to pay far less per credit when being taught by adjuncts. (The savings should trickle down, right?) It will never happen, but it will turn some heads. And with the right audience, maybe we can redirect cost-cutting toward, say, our already troubled dining system or failed college houses. Then start phasing out the adjunct system and give some of our best teachers the treatment they deserve. I heard Stouffer has some extra space that would make great faculty offices.
Ken Millstone is a senior Comparative Literature major from Potomac, Md.
