Adjunct Addresses Students

This is a letter published in the campus newspaper of the University of Akron, penned by an adjunct who had to give up her "part-time" (read: adjunct) position at the school after the beginning of the semester in order to take a real full-time job so she could support her family. Her letter points to a number of the major issues affecting adjuncts across the country, and she has given permission to post for the purpose of educating students and other faculty.


Dear Students:


As I told you on Friday, I will not be returning as your instructor this semester. I have taken an "emergency" full-time position at Cuyahoga Community College for the fall semester, effective immediately. I'd like to explain how this situation came to pass, as I believe you should be informed about university policies and conditions that affect your education.


I am (or was!) a part-time instructor at the university. In practice, "part-time" is an odd designation that really does not refer to the number of hours we work or the number of courses we teach; most part-time instructors teach the same number of classes as full-time faculty, but for about 1/3 the pay and without benefits, even though we bear the same responsibility for your education. Part-time instructors usually have to work at multiple campuses simply to approach a living wage; at this university, we are paid what comes out to about $10-12/hour -- for many of us, even less. We are referred to as "part-time" -- I think -- because we are not paid to engage in non-teaching activities like working on faculty committees or doing research in our fields -- even though it is understood that to be the most effective teachers possible, professors need to engage in these activities. So it is a situation that really makes no sense.


You should know that this situation is not unique to this university; it is typical of colleges and universities around the country, and it is recognized as a serious problem that needs to be addressed, though people can't for the life of them seem to figure out how! Nearly 70 percent of all teaching faculty at colleges and universities nationwide are either part-time or full-time but not eligible for tenure (a form of job security earned by professors to ensure that they are not fired for doing research or expressing opinions that administrators or others might not like -- it's a way to protect academic freedom and intellectual inquiry). You should also know that most full-time instructors and tenure-track professors are paid two to three times as much as we are in part because they are unionized; part-time college instructors in Ohio cannot do so because of a strange provision in the law that we are trying to get overturned.


Many studies are showing that this system of academic employment is having a negative effect on teaching and learning conditions; the situation you are facing with my departure is a perfect example of this. I love teaching and would prefer to remain at the University of Akron, teaching all of you! However, I cannot support my family on what they pay me, and so I cannot afford to turn down Tri-C's offer of full-time employment. I have raised this issue publicly and been told that this is simply how the free market does and should operate. However, as a direct result, your semester -- your education -- is being disrupted. Fortunately, you will have an excellent instructor; however, he is at a disadvantage because he did not start the semester with you, and you are at a disadvantage because you will all have to spend valuable time making adjustments.


For the last year, I have been involved in speaking out about this issue, and I am now the president of a national organization dedicated to improving teaching and learning conditions for "contingent faculty," as we are sometimes called, and our students. You can see our web site at www.newfacultymajority.org. On the state level, where we are lobbying to change the law regarding unionization, our site is www.optfa.weebly.com. I have also written an essay on this topic that will soon be appearing in a publication called Inside Higher Education (www.insidehighered.com). (I was hoping to show you how I went through the drafting and revision process!)


As you know, I have three children; it's because I am a parent that I am most concerned about this state of affairs. I could always quit teaching but that wouldn't reform this system -- it has gotten too big and out of control. I don't want my kids to be taking courses from people who are not being given the support that they need and deserve to do their best and not have to leave in the middle of the semester to be able to support their families. Colleges and universities claim that they don't have the money to pay us living wages, but I don't believe that; I believe it is a question of having political will and recognizing that institutions need to invest in the people and activities that are their core reason for existence -- in this case, teaching and learning. Solutions to problems can always be found when people of good will exercise creativity and good judgment in their decision-making.


When I was in college, students demonstrated and pressured our universities to stop doing business with the government of South Africa because it still officially espoused Apartheid -- legally sanctioned racism. Our actions helped to end Apartheid! Many college students today boycott their campus stores and refuse to buy campus apparel that is produced in sweatshops that illegally employ children or otherwise engage in unethical business practices. By those actions, students have actually helped improve the lives of people around the world. I think that students are our only hope in finally ending this system of exploitative employment of college teachers. If you have any interest in learning more about this issue and joining other students who are concerned about it, I know that there are some students trying to form a new student organization dedicated to raising awareness about this problem and, ultimately, to persuading the powers that be to work on solving it. Feel free to contact me at this email address if you'd like to get involved or learn more. I have enjoyed getting to know you all and I truly regret that I will not be able to continue the semester with you. I wish you all the best of luck and encourage you to stay in touch if you would like to. I have explained to your new instructor what we have done and have told him that I will be available to help him and you in whatever way I can to make the transition as smooth as possible.


Take care and keep reading and writing!


All the best,
Maria Maisto

Marketing College Classes: Sex It Up!

This story about attracting more students simply by changing a course's name from something blah ("Victorian Novels") to something a bit more snazzy ("Sex, Lies, and the Cinematograph") isn't really surprising. Part of it stems from the corporatization of the university: if you need more students (customers) to take your course (to buy your product) so that the school does not pull your class from the schedule (so that the company don't take your product off the market), then you need to entice the young ones (the people who have lots of money/the people who have parents with lots of money/the people who are going to be saddled with lots of debt for a really long time). Even I am teaching a course now that I could have just labeled "The Gothic in Literature and Film," but I named it "MONSTERS!" (yes, with the caps and exclamation point).




But I do wonder sometimes if this kind of marketing of classes can get out of hand. I think that posting innovative (but accurate) course descriptions and using fun course titles are fine strategies for filling classroom seats, but when I was asked this past summer to film a short video describing a seminar I would be teaching this fall, I found it slightly odd--it seemed too much like I would be recording one of those old-school video personal ads ("My course is about . . . and I like candlelit dinners, long walks on the beach . . . "). That's not the kind of relationship I want to establish with my students! Even watching some of the videos of other professors confirmed my impression: you could see one or two instructors had dressed up a bit more than normal, and several could not hide a slight sense of embarrassment beneath the veneer of confidence. Not that I'm criticizing or even mocking those teachers who decided to participate, but the context of the videos themselves made me uncomfortable. And since most of the professors were simply reading from cards or had memorized the same course descriptions that were already sent to students in email/text form, I wasn't sure that the videos were not just redundant--or were not just encouraging students to choose their courses according to the "hotness" factor of the instructor (cf. Rate My Professor's creepy little chili peppers).




Speaking of which, I would hope that students do not always correlate the attractiveness of the teacher with the quality of the teaching. I mean, don't get me wrong: many of us can better appreciate being lectured to on the Napoleon's nostrils/adenosine triphosphate's merry travels/the white whale's blow hole if there's a pretty face at the front of the room. But surely learning is not predicated upon the presence of eye candy? If a professor is "hot" yet cannot put together a proper lesson plan, cannot articulate clearly his/her expectations for major assignments, does not clarify the basic concepts of the course, etc., then I sincerely hope that "market forces" don't intervene so that participants in the course nevertheless give him/her more positive evaluations than the instructor who does achieve those goals but may have bad (or no) hair, may not have six-pack abs, or may not resemble Angelina Jolie or that twit Edward from that ridiculous Twilight movie. Students sometimes complain that they are unfairly assessed, but isn't beauty an unfair criterion for evaluation of teaching?




Then again, maybe it's time for plastic surgery . . . *sigh*