Hectic Adjuncts at the University

by Juliana Piccillo

There is an undeniable ill ease for many adjuncts working in Universities. As non tenure-track instructors, they may not have access to the many niceties given to their tenure eligible peers like teaching assistants or long term contracts. Lower salaries and tenuous job security remind them of their status ­ temporary help ranked slightly above graduate teaching assistants but not quite "real professors". Yet adjuncts carry out many (if not all) of the same responsibilities as their tenure bound peers.

When I was an adjunct in the department of Media Arts at the University of Arizona, I brought a $15,000 grant into my department, which moved the department into the newer digital video technology medium. I researched and recommend equipment purchases and wrote curriculum for several classes. In this way, I performed tasks usually thought of as those of a tenure track faculty person.

For the four years in spent in the department, I watched adjuncts shoulder a major part of the departmental teaching burden. I taught between two and four classes per semester (full time for an adjunct is four classes while it is two or three, every other semester, for tenure track or tenured faculty). All but one of my classes was required for the major, and I taught mainly juniors and seniors. I shepherded many of my students through as many as three of their core classes for the major, and many other adjuncts did the same. Adjunct faculty hugely defined the students' experiences in the major.

More than once, our department was called to task by upper administration for the ratio of adjuncts to tenure track faculty teaching degree courses (meaning adjuncts were teaching more than an acceptable percentage). However, adjuncts remained crucial to student and department development.

When you look at the fine arts, in particular, it is easy to see why non-terminal degree holding faculty is so desirable to departments. Filmmakers, out making and showing films, offer invaluable real world experience. Unfortunately, at about $25,000/ year for full time teaching (if they get four classes per semester) ­ they do not receive real world wages. And usually they don't teach full time so they are making $3000 per semester per class while juggling other jobs to make ends meet.

Although I acknowledge the phenomenon of retired professional that teach as adjuncts for pleasure rather than income, in my experience most of my peers took adjunct assignments for need of money. Most however realize before long they can’t remain in the job. When these experienced adjunct faculty find another job at real world wages, they leave, removing their increased (now experienced) teaching knowledge from the university.

In addition to the low salary for adjunct faculty, there is a somewhat hidden issue with benefits. Any half time employee of the university collects benefits right? Not if you are an adjunct with a semester-to-semester contract situation. You must be contracted for the entire year to get benefits.

Even if you teach two classes - the minimum to be considered half time and benefits eligible - or full time for that matter - if you are contracted one semester at a time, as many adjuncts are, you can be denied benefits. This is not a conspiracy against adjuncts per se but a case of human resources policy, federal hiring guidelines, and department privilege colliding. But no one has bothered to amend the problem.

Certainly, adjuncts individually have little influence. But these policies can and should be reconciled to guarantee benefits to all half time to full-time employees. They aren't because adjuncts provide very disposable, inexpensive and readily available labor. Simply hiring adjuncts with yearlong contracts would remedy the benefits problems, but some departments like to keep their options open and so are reluctant to do this. This allows them to juggle numbers of registered students against tenured faculties' class preferences and last minute budgeting issues.

I was frequently assigned classes as late as three days before the semester began. In fact, for the first class I ever taught (a required class for every student majoring in Media arts), I was hired two weeks before classes commenced and offered no existing curriculum.

After a few years of teaching, I negotiated successfully for a yearlong contract so that I could have health insurance and some job security. I liked my job. I was good at it, my end-of-the-year reviews were glowing, and I felt invested in the department's mission. But the low salary (and uncertain future) was not enough to keep me there.