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Adjunctification

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Adjunctification of the Faculty

The topic of “Adjunctification of the Faculty” has turned out to be a giant can of worms. Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

Really, I didn’t plan this! When, I saw that the first topic of my series of problems in American higher education turned out to be the “Adjunctification of the Faculty“, I knew it going to be complicated and involved. It wasn’t until I started writing this post did I realized how really complicated and involved it was, and how difficult it was going to be to write this post. It has turned out to be a gigantic can of worms.

Junctification: So much has been written – So much to read – So much work to do – So little time to do it!. Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

Where does one begin? In mathematics, we were taught that there were two places to begin to address a problem. The first was to find what others had done and written concerning the problem. In terms of the idea of adjunctification of the faculty, I found the first usage of the term only dated back to the 1980s. However, since its introduction to educational jargonese, much has been written about it. I had a great deal of reading and study to do on the subject.

Adjunctification: Too new and too specialized to be included in the dictionary. Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

Returning to my mathematical roots, the second place to begin trying to address problems was to define our terms. To understand the concept of “adjunctification of the faculty” let’s start with a definition. Since the term “adjunctification” is a very recent addition to educational jargon, I didn’t find one dictionary which included it.

Thus, we should probably start by looking at the definition of adjunct, the root word of adjunctification. The term adjunct has been used in the English language since the 16th century. It is derived from the Latin word adiungō, which means to “to join”.

An adjunct faculty member often feels like a homeless, second-class citizen in the academy, living out of a cardboard box. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

In many dictionaries, the word adjunct means “something adjoined or added to the essentials, usually as a supplement or subordinate.” In common usage, it often carries the dismissive or disparaging connotation of something that is less important or not essential.

If we were to rely on this common dictionary definition, an adjunct faculty member is someone who is added to the teaching staff of a college in a temporary or subordinate capacity. Unfortunately, as is often the case, higher education experts have added extra terminology to the discussion, which only confuses the matter more. One such term is contingent faculty.

AAUP definition of Contingent Faculty: Any individual who is non-tenure track faculty. Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

The word contingent is also a word which is loaded with negative connotations. One of its primary meanings is “occurring only if certain unpredictable conditions exist.” One of the premier higher educational organization, The American Association of University Professors (AAUP),  has stepped forward and planted its flag on the following definition of contingent faculty: “non-tenure track faculty, in all their various forms.”  

AAUP has set itself up as the organization to certify quality higher education in America. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

Since its founding in 1915, The AAUP has laid claim to the role of the standard bearer for academic freedom, shared governance, and quality in American higher education. In its mission statement, it sets itself up as the primary organizations which defines the fundamental professional values and standards of higher education, in order to ensure higher education’s contribution to the common good. 

The AAUP also functions as a labor union pressing for faculty rights. Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

In its mission statement, it also puts on a labor union hat. It asserts its duty and responsibility to the job of promoting the economic security of faculty, academic professionals, graduate students, post‐doctoral fellows, and all those engaged in teaching and research in higher education.

There are two bodies of research. The first establishes the fact that many part-time faculty are conscientious and are excellent instructors. The second establishes the fact that for some students alternative modes of instruction such as online education can be as, if not more, effective than the face-to-face mode.

It is a given that Face-2-Face instruction is the BEST! We can ignore other research because it’s wrong. Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

Much of this research is discounted or ignored by higher education commentators. Most of the articles on contingent faculty are written from the presumptive position that the best education is provided by full-time, tenure-track faculty in a face-to-face setting.

Given this starting position, it is natural to argue that it is in the best interest of everyone to increase the number of full-time, tenure track faculty and the availability of face-to-face contact between students and these full-time, tenure track faculty. Even if this statement is true, that does not prove or guarantee that its inverse is true. Thus we can’t assume that decreasing the number of contingent faculty and eliminating alternative modes of education will provide the best education possible for all students.

The collection of educational data in the United States has a spotted history. One of the few specific responsibilities given the federal Department of Education at its founding in 1867 was the collection of annual higher education statistics related to the number of approved colleges or universities offering degrees, along with the total number of enrolled students, graduates, and faculty. Prior to  WWII, there were few organized attempts to count or track the number of faculty members employed by American institutions of higher education by classification. Since the end of WWII, the AAUP has been at the forefront of the effort to count and classify instructional staff at American institutions of higher education.  More recently the U.S. Department of Education has reentered the fray with its annual surveys associated with the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). The federal efforts are now coordinated through the efforts of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the statistical, research and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education. 

Data from the AAUP. Graph constructed by the blog’s author using an Excel Spreadsheet.

Since the late 1960s, the AAUP has been tracking and decrying the increasing reliance on contingent faculty in American higher education. For example, the AAUP released a copy of the graph to the right, representing the changes in the headcount of tenure-line (full-time tenured and tenure track faculty) and contingent faculty (all other instructors).

Although I am convinced the information presented in the graph is accurate, it is potentially none the less extremely misleading. A quick glance at the graph could leave one to believe that in 2015, only 30% of the classes taken by American college students were being taught by tenured or tenure-track faculty, while 70% were being taught by contingent faculty.

First of all, we don’t have that data. No one is collecting the data nationally on who is teaching whom. In the early 1980s, I was collecting that data for one particular college. That college was a small, baccalaureate-level, liberal arts college with no graduate programs. It offered tenure to faculty with the rank of Assistant Professor or above. Using AAUP definitions, of the 103 individuals who taught classes, 46% were tenure-line and 54% were contingent. 

With this data, one might be tempted to say that it was more likely for a student to be taught by a contingent faculty than one on the tenure-line. There is more to the picture. As a baccalaureate-level, liberal arts college, the faculty’s primary responsibility was instruction. For full-time faculty, the minimum teaching load was 12 credits per semester. Since course sections carried anywhere from 0 to 4 credits per sections, the average section load for tenure-line faculty was 4.3 sections per semester. Since there were only 4 full-time instructors who were not on the tenure-line, the average number of sections taught by contingent faculty was 1.5 sections per semester.

In addition to the fact that the average number of sections taught by faculty were heavily weighted toward the tenure-line faculty, the average enrollment per section was heavily weighted toward them also. It was also the case that the tenure-line faculty were more likely to teach the 3 and 4 credit sections, while the contingent faculty taught more of the 0 (science labs) to 2 credit sections.

1980 Faculty Data for a given liberal arts college. Data compiled by the blog’s author and graph constructed using an Excel Spreadsheet.

The graph to the left indicates the percentage differences between tenure-line and contingent faculty, if we were to look at faculty headcount, the number of sections taught, student section enrollments, and student credits generated. This graph paints a very different picture of how likely a student would end up with a tenure-line faculty versus a contingent faculty, even in a college where the contingent faculty outnumber the tenure-line faculty.

The AAUP as a faculty organization explicitly approaches situations from the faculty point of view. That point of view generally presupposes that a full-time, tenure-line faculty member is better than a contingent faculty member. One of the reasons given by an advertisement from the 1960 AAUP Bulletin for why faculty should join and support the AAUP indicates that the organization…”Tries to find common ground with administrators and trustees, for the establishment and observance of professional principles.”

Those professional principles were established from the faculty point of view. In my experience, this has meant that an institution’s first step should be to hire full-time, tenure-track faculty. For an institution that is operating a department of music, and not a conservatory, this is fiscally impossible and makes no sense for the institution. In this case, the AAUP response is to pay a private lesson instructor or ensemble conductor at the equivalent rate to a full-time, tenure-track individual doing that same duty. The absurdity of this idea is obvious when one tries to calculate equivalencies. 

A full-time, tenure-track faculty member is doing much more than just giving private lessons. He or she should be involved in scholarly and service activities. The AAUP response is to involve the contingent faculty in equivalent scholarly and service activities. Firstly, most private lesson instructors are doing this as a side gig and can’t find the time to engage in such activities.

Secondly, an institution couldn’t afford to hire full-time faculty for each instrument that students might desire to learn. A small to medium sized music department would be fortunate to have one or two student harpists. The harp is such a specialized instrument that a school would also have to be fortunate to find a harp instructor, who could also handle other string instruments. A good music student would want and seek out an institution that has an excellent specialist in his or her instrument.

Thirdly, in terms of equivalent service, particularly to the department, it has been my experience that the “regular full-time faculty” do not want “outsiders interfering with departmental business.”

Similar situations occur in other disciplines such as art, theater, physical education, and health sciences.

One final concern in looking at everything from the faculty point of view is that it is easy to lose track of the students’ points of view. In forty plus years of experience in attempting to schedule classes to fit the needs of faculty and students, I have seen many impasses. At one institution where I served, the student body was almost 60% commuters and more than 25% were working more than 20 hours per week. The full-time, tenure-track faculty was similar in makeup to the faculty from the example presented above. The students kept asking for evening classes to accommodate their personal and family situations. However, the full-time faculty refused and insisted on offering classes only between the hours of 8 AM and 4 PM. Needless to say, this institution had a serious retention problem. As word spread in the community of the inability of students to get classes when they wanted them, it also turned into a serious student recruitment problem.

There is no doubt that faculty are a necessity to the success of a college. However, for most colleges students are even more of a necessity. With the exception of a few elite colleges, the concerns of both groups must be carefully balanced.

This has been a difficult and gut-wrenching post to write. I couldn’t have planned it worse if I tried. The next higher education trainwreck post on my schedule is on Faculty Rewards and Priorities. I need a short break from these difficult topics, so I am going to take a week’s reprise from tackling that subject. My next post will return to an easier subject for me. It will be about the crazy mathematician Archimedes.

 

 

 

           

 

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A New Millennium – The Same Old Story, Part I

Many in American Higher Education were looking forward to the 21st Century, hoping it would bring back the good old days. Unfortunately, after the cork was popped, the new drink fizzled. Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

In spite of the high hopes and great expectations of many in American Higher Education, the end of the 20th century and the beginning of a new millennium brought little relief to the beleaguered systems of AHE. In my previous post The First Age of Disruption in American Higher Education we left American higher education in a precarious situation. It was buried under numerous train wrecks brought on by many training storms or crises. Unfortunately, the incessant crises have not stopped during the first two decades of the 21st century. Not only have they continue unabated, but the frequency of their occurrences has also increased. 

The future outlook for American Higher Education is dire! Another scandal rocks AHE! The image is the author’s interpretation of current events in AHE. Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

Instead of the period of recovery hoped for by the academy, the new millennium brought an unrelenting season of storms and turmoil to American Higher Education. A cursory examination of the reports and articles out of the general public and higher education media outlets during these first two decades of the 21st century yields an abundance of fuel for the argument that American Higher Education remains in deep trouble.

Just what I need – another project! Image courtesy of Presenter Media

The following list highlights some of the various crises that have made headlines in the 21st century. I have labeled many of them using academic code words. The task of explaining all the academic jargon associated with these code words would fill a book which I may write (Just what I need another writing project! – Is there anyone out who wants to help me?). In the meantime, to bring the project within manageable limits for this blog, I will provide a reasonably short synopsis of my take on each crisis and its immediate effects on AHE in separate posts which will follow.

The crises hit AHE repeatedly and rapidly. There was no time to rest. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

For those too anxious to wait for my follow up, I am providing an example of a commentator or the media’s interpretation of the crisis. The list is in chronological order according to the appearance of the media article that I reference. I have chosen to list the topics in this manner to show the rapidity and pervasiveness of crises in higher education which were occurring during these two decades.

I will have more to say on this topic later when I have time to reflect on the matter. Image courtesy of Presenter Media

The particular article I have selected may not necessarily be the first time the topic is addressed in public. However, I believe the articles selected are repesentative examples of the treatment which the topic has received. In some cases, the article referenced reflects my views on the topic. In other cases, it doesn’t. I will reserve my comments until I have the time and space to more fully explicate them.

  • Adjunctification of the faculty threatens academic quality across all of AHE is a theme that began appearing in higher education circles in the 1980s. It has exploded with much force in the new millennium. Gabriela Montell begins her December 15, 2000 article A Forecast of the Job Market in English in The Chronicle of Higher Education with the conflicting statement: “It would be an overstatement to say the job market for faculty members in English is booming, but scholars have reason to be mildly optimistic…” Later in the article, defining the term adjunctification, she notes that “Many professors also say they are concerned about universities’ reliance on part-time and temporary faculty members…the great worry…is adjunctification, which could keep students from getting the proper tenure-track jobs they clearly deserve.”
  • Faculty Reward Systems and Faculty Priorities are subjects of internal and external heated debates. Three researchers, Cathy A. Trower, Ann E. Austin, and Mary Deane Sorcinelli, collaborated in the study Paradise Lost: How the academy converts enthusiastic recruits into early-career doubters. This paper “captures the sense of dreams deferred as well as the tension between ideals and reality that young scholars face as they move through graduate school and into faculty posts … if they move into faculty posts.” It appears in the May 2001 issue of the AAHE Bulletin.
  • The Academic Lattice is the seemingly constant expansion of administrative support structure to handle tasks and duties seen by many as not directly related to teaching and learning. It is very frequently blamed for unneeded increased costs. This phenomenon is often derogatorily called “administrative bloat”. The study The Cost of Prestige: Do New Research I Universities Incur Higher Administrative Costs? by Christopher C. Morphew and Bruce D. Baker seems to say it does apply to some institutions. However, it leaves the question open for others. The paper appeared in the Spring 2004 issue of Review of Higher Education, Volume 27, Number 3.
  • Basic questions concerning College Admissions which have been around for hundreds of years remain tauntingly unanswered: “Who should go to college?” “How should a college decide to whom they offer admission?” Ross Douthat addresses one particularly sticky question in his article Does Meritocracy Work? His article concerns the fierce competition among prospective students to gain entrance into elite institutions, and the extensive pressure on elite institutions to enroll a more diverse student population. The article appears in the November 2005 issue of The Atlantic.
  • Since the Reagan tax revolution, many public higher education officials and commentators have debated the issue of whether the privatization of the academy threatens public higher education. In 2005 Ronald G. Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute, published the white paper The Perfect Storm and the Privatization of Public Higher Education, a version of which appeared in the November 2005 issue of Change Magazine. Ehrenberg argued that the privatization of public higher education and the shrinkage of public support threatened to do irreparable damage to public higher education. In a November 2009 blog post Reality Check: The Privatization of Public Higher Education, Travis Reindl partially rebuffs the Ehrenberg arguments. In the decade since Reindl’s post, public support of public higher education in terms of government funds have continued to decline. So where are we?
  • Sweeping demographic changes are altering the face of AHE. These changes began in the last half of the 20th century with the entrance of women and some minority students into our colleges and universities. However, they have picked up steam heading into the new millennium. Rob Jenkins sketched the new “traditional student” in his October 2012 article The New ‘Traditional Student’  in The Chronicle of Higher Education. This new student is married, living at home, and working. Within a few years, the majority of students will be over 25 years of age and a person of color. 
  • Scandal after scandal rocks AHE and drags its reputation through the mud. Prior to the dawn of the new millennium, AHE was not immune from scandalous activities. However, as social media access has accelerated the news cycle, information about scandals has become more available, more quickly. A Google search for “college scandals” took less than 1 second to produce over 75 million results. One of those results was a Harvard Business School Working Paper The Impact of Campus Scandals on College Applications, which was published in 2016. The abstract of this study by Michael Luca, Patrick Rooney, and Jonathan Smith begins with the provocative statement: “In recent years, there have been a number of high profile scandals on college campuses, ranging from cheating to hazing to rape.” In their paper, the authors attempted to answer the question “With so much information regarding a college’s academic and non-academic attributes available to students, how do these scandals affect their applications?” The authors looked at the top 100 American universities ranked in the 2015 U.S. News and World Report, “Best Colleges.” They then constructed a database of reported scandals on these campuses between 2001 and 2013. They found that during these dozen years, 75% of the top American universities reported at least one major incident. Since their databased cut off in 2013, they didn’t include recent major scandals including the Michigan State gymnastics incident (2014), the Baylor football scandal (2016), University of North Caroline cheating scandal (2017), the fraternity hazing death of Timothy Piazza at Penn State (2017), the Ohio State sexual abuse scandal (2019), and the Varsity Blues Admissions fiasco (2019). It also doesn’t include the Louisville basketball scandal (2017), Temple falsification of USNWR data (2018), or the implosion and collapse of ITT (2016) since these schools were not in the top 100 universities on the USNWR rankings.
  • Are athletics taking over the academy? Many including Richard Vedder, the director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, think so. He presents some ammunition for his opinion in the op-ed piece Athletic arms race hurts academics, which appeared in the December 31, 2013, edition of the Omaha World-Herald.
  • The Academic Ratchet tightens its grip on AHE. The automatic response of many within the academy to solve every budget or enrollment deficit is to seek new students via the addition of new programs and faculty, or an increased effort by the admission, recruitment, and fundraising offices. “To solve our problems all we need to do is rachet up our efforts, programming or personnel.” The obvious problem with this solution is that for most institutions it just doesn’t work. There aren’t enough funds, faculty, and students to satisfy all of AHE. In addition, institutional personnel doesn’t have the time nor expertise to do all of the necessary work. To help alleviate the academic rachet problem, in the late 1990s Robert C. Dickeson developed a process he called Program Prioritization. He outlined it in a 1994 book which was later updated in 2010. It is titled Prioritizing Academic Programs and Services: Reallocating Resources to Achieve Strategic Balance, 2nd edition. Over the next 25 years since Dickeson’s process was first released, more than 500 institutions attempted program prioritization. Some were successful in achieving a strategic balance. Many were not. In January 2014, Alex Usher, a consultant with Higher Education Strategy Associates, wrote a blog post Better Thinking About Program Prioritization critiquing the Dickeson plan.
  • As Academic Arms Races heat up in all segments of AHE, the burning question is “What is the price of prestige?” Kevin Iglesia attempted to answer that question in his 2014 Seton Hall University dissertation The Price of Presitge: A Study of the Impact of Striving Behavior on the Expenditure Patterns of American Colleges and Universities.
  • The question: “Is virtual teaching a replacement for the traditional classroom?“ has perplexed higher education since the University of Illinois created an Intranet for its students in 1960. It was a system of linked computer terminals where students could access course materials as well as listen to recorded lectures. It evolved in the PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations) system which at its height was operating on thousands of computers all over the world. By the time we entered the new millennium, millions of students were not only using computer-aided instruction for supplemental course work, but they were also taking entire courses and even degree programs online. Faculty members and universities were asking the question of whether these students were getting a quality education. Along the way, faculty began to worry about whether they were becoming viewed as superfluous. Universities became concerned about whether their brick-and-mortar palaces would be ghost towns replaced by a new costly virtual infrastructure. In a June 23, 2018, blog posted on the eLearning Industry website, Allistair Gross asked the direct question Is Virtual Teaching A Major Threat To Teachers?
For the past two decades, have educators been running from crisis to crisis trying to save American higher education? Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

Having reached 10 crises and running out of room in this post, I have decided to save another 10 crises for a Part II of A New Millennium – Same Old Story. Tune in next week for more troubles, calamities, cataclysms, emergencies, and disasters in 21st century American higher education.