4 ms·

I feel for Ms. Vojtko's family, but I don't feel like complaining about adjunct professor salaries is being fair. These positions are short term contract (6 mo

by davis_m 13y ago

I feel for Ms. Vojtko's family, but I don't feel like complaining about adjunct professor salaries is being fair. These positions are short term contract (6 months-1 year) and are not meant as long term employment. These positions are meant for people from industry to come in a teach a class on a specific topic they are experienced in. These positions are not research positions, or anything of the sort. Many of the people in adjunct positions have a completely separate full-time jobs, or perhaps are retired. Offering them health-care seems silly, because a large number of them already receive health care. So parading one lady who treated the position as some kind of career path as proof that professors at college's need to get paid more is silly. I understand that my professors are going to be higher paid than most (Software/Computer Engineering) but earning upwards of $200k with a great deal of perks is fairly common.

johndavidback 13y ago
I think reading between the lines a little bit should indicate that because 50%+ of professors are adjuncts means that universities are proactively attempting to keep professors with that status. It means they can pay them less both in salary and in benefits. Hence why Duequesne would want to avoid unionization of it's adjuncts. I don't know the statistics of adjuncts who have full time jobs as well, so take that with a grain of salt.
- davis_m 13y ago
  That statistic of 50% professors being adjunct is not cited, and from searching online appears to come from the SEIU, which is a group who's goal is to unionize adjunct faculty. The report it self is not available, and it has been quoted in articles as "part-time faculty held 50 percent of teaching jobs at colleges" [1] and "adjuncts held 50 percent of teaching jobs at colleges" [2] Neither of those statements are the same as "Adjuncts now make up well over 50 percent of the faculty at colleges and universities." as stated in the article. [1]http://www.boston.com/yourcampus/news/bentley/2013/06/as_bentley_adjuncts_push_to_unionize_school_approves_wage_increase.html http://www.boston.com/yourcampus/news/bentley/2013/06/as_ben... [2] http://www.boston.com/yourcampus/news/tufts/2013/07/adjunct_faculty_at_tufts_vote_on_whether_to_unionize.html http://www.boston.com/yourcampus/news/tufts/2013/07/adjunct_...
sergiosgc 13y ago
Your reasoning is correct, if and only if adjunct professor positions are filled as intended. The article mentions that adjunct professors make up over 50 percent of faculty at various colleges and universities. If it is so -- I am not qualified to evaluate -- then your argument falls at the base. If adjunct professors are over 50 percent of faculty, then the position is being used by universities to hire cheap. This leads to obvious problems for professors but, ironically, in time kills higher education. Higher education requires individuals who are free from the worry of making ends meet, so they can pursue knowledge. They need not be rich, but they can't be counting pennies. In time, a staff made up of strapped professors hurts the teaching quality, destroys the perception of quality at universities and scares students away.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  Why do professors need to "pursue knowledge"? What is wrong with having a corp of workers who's sole goal is to transmit knowledge? To avoid status quo bias, do primary school teachers also need to "pursue knowledge"? Since most primary school teachers do no research, should we fire them and replace them with researchers?
  - auggierose 13y ago
    That's a very simple thing to answer. If your sole goal is to transmit knowledge, then you don't know how to teach to create knowledge. And that would be the end of "innovation".
  - sergiosgc 13y ago
    Every good teacher you had in your life knew much more than the level at which they taught you. You can't teach effectively if you don't master flawlessly the subject you teach. You achieve that level by going way beyond what students learn. At the basic education levels, this is easy to achieve. At the University level, you can only guarantee this elastic push by heading into research.
    - yummyfajitas 13y ago
Thrymr 13y ago
Whatever these positions were "meant for", the reality is that an ever larger share of classes are taught by people in these positions. Some of them are retired from other jobs; some are postdocs or working on the side; some are trying to cobble together a full time job. In many fields there is no "industry" from which to draw instructors. No one is claiming these are research positions, but if universities are going to take teaching seriously, they have to address who is doing the bulk of the teaching.
Tloewald 13y ago
Are you implying there are adjunct professors receiving $200k with perks? I imagine it's possible that you can find an example somewhere (probably earning $197,000 p.a. from another job and teaching a course as a hobby). Whether adjuncts are poorly paid on a short-term basis is surely irrelevant. People should be able to live on their incomes and cope with illnesses without becoming destitute.
- davis_m 13y ago
  No, I am saying there are professors receiving $200k with perks. An adjunct position isn't supposed to be a full-time long term position, so why should it be paid as such?
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > An adjunct position isn't supposed to be a full-time long term position Except that the common practice for colleges and universities now is to use them as full-time, long-term, lower-paid, reduced-benefit positions, and this trend is growing as adjunct positions are growing at a faster rate than tenured and tenure-track positions.
badman_ting 13y ago
This is the kind if thing that is so dismaying to see on HN. It must be her own stupid fault that she died penniless of cancer, nothing is wrong with the system here. I guess you guys feel differently, but I see myself as much more likely to end up like this lady than the CompSci professors making bank that you're talking about.
- Strang 13y ago
  What exactly is dismaying about the parent comment? You don't truly believe that the parent commenter believes it is "her own stupid fault that she died penniless of cancer," do you? Please open your mind a little and please be more charitable in interpreting opposing points of view.
- tptacek 13y ago
  Archetypical comment: probably right, but supremely unhelpful. Assume that the problem with the comment isn't that the commenter is amoral, but instead that their reasoning has gone wrong somewhere. Then, rebut the reasoning.
lambda 13y ago
> These positions are short term contract (6 months-1 year) and are not meant as long term employment. From the article: "Margaret Mary Vojtko... had taught French at Duquesne University for 25 years... Adjuncts now make up well over 50 percent of the faculty at colleges and universities." And further information, with sources, backing this up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States#Adjunct_Professor_compensation_and_academic_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_State... Lots of colleges are hiring adjunct professors to teach undergraduate courses, rather than full tenure track professors. As they reduce their tenure track hiring and increase their hiring of adjunct professors, it stops being a short-term contract for a visiting professor, and becomes the only viable career path for many people in academia. The problem is, when many people think of professors they think of the same tenure track professors that you're thinking of; fairly well paid, good benefits, great job security (once tenure has been achieved, that is; before that, the job security is pretty dicey), lots of academic freedom. What they don't realize is that more than half of actual professors are actually low-paid adjuncts with poor job security (and a good chunk of the rest are tenure track but don't yet have tenure). On top of that, you have post-docs and grad students doing most of the actual research (and some of the teaching as well), and you realize that academia looks pretty grim. Low paid people with low to no job security perform most of the actual work, while people think of them as high-paid folks with strong job security.
- SoftwareMaven 13y ago
  This is made worse by the explosion in administrative staff at colleges and universities[1]. Universities in the US are more about running universities than they are about teaching students or doing research. Given administrators are sucking down huge gobs of money, the budget shortfall needs to be picked up somewhere, and that is where the rise of the adjunct professor comes in. 1. http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/28/study-school-administrative-bloat-increases-700-percent-since-1950/ http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/28/study-school-administrativ...
- davis_m 13y ago
  I am unable to actually find an sort of source for the statistic that "Adjuncts now make up well over 50 percent of the faculty at colleges and universities." It seems to go back to the SEIU, a group that is attempting to unionize adjunct positions. I have seen it quoted in a number of ways, including "50% of part time faculty at universities are adjunct." and "50% of teaching positions at universities are adjunct." I would like to see some sort of actual report that shows the source of that. My (very limited, anecdotal) experience seems to indicate much fewer than 50% of professors are adjunct. It all depends on how you count these things.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> These positions are short term contract (6 months-1 year) and are not meant as long term employment. They are short term contract, but lots of colleges and universities are using them for a large portion of their faculty, so that they have the option year-to-year of renewing employment without dealing with tenure, and to never have to deal with "firing" faculty. Also, not having to deal with benefits. > Many of the people in adjunct positions have a completely separate full-time jobs, or perhaps are retired. The vast majority do not. > Offering them health-care seems silly, because a large number of them already receive health care. The whole employment-based model of health care that is dominant in the United States is silly, but given the way that many colleges and universities in fact use adjunct positions, having them be covered by employer-provided group insurance isn't silly within that employment-based model of health care.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
x0x0 13y ago
where on earth do professors get paid $200k+ with a variety of perks? I call complete bullshit. Unless you're discussing eg harvard, stanford, or yale; or law schools, in which case you should say so. btw, salaries at UW Madison (top 15 cs) used to be on the web. They are nowhere near $200k most of the adjunct employees don't, actually, have health care and many of them don't have other jobs, unless you count eg starbucks. hell, is there any part of your statements that are informed by data rather than being pulled out of your ass?

by davis_m 13y ago

johndavidback 13y ago

I think reading between the lines a little bit should indicate that because 50%+ of professors are adjuncts means that universities are proactively attempting to keep professors with that status. It means they can pay them less both in salary and in benefits. Hence why Duequesne would want to avoid unionization of it's adjuncts. I don't know the statistics of adjuncts who have full time jobs as well, so take that with a grain of salt.

davis_m 13y ago
That statistic of 50% professors being adjunct is not cited, and from searching online appears to come from the SEIU, which is a group who's goal is to unionize adjunct faculty. The report it self is not available, and it has been quoted in articles as "part-time faculty held 50 percent of teaching jobs at colleges" [1] and "adjuncts held 50 percent of teaching jobs at colleges" [2] Neither of those statements are the same as "Adjuncts now make up well over 50 percent of the faculty at colleges and universities." as stated in the article. [1]http://www.boston.com/yourcampus/news/bentley/2013/06/as_bentley_adjuncts_push_to_unionize_school_approves_wage_increase.html http://www.boston.com/yourcampus/news/bentley/2013/06/as_ben... [2] http://www.boston.com/yourcampus/news/tufts/2013/07/adjunct_faculty_at_tufts_vote_on_whether_to_unionize.html http://www.boston.com/yourcampus/news/tufts/2013/07/adjunct_...

sergiosgc 13y ago

Your reasoning is correct, if and only if adjunct professor positions are filled as intended. The article mentions that adjunct professors make up over 50 percent of faculty at various colleges and universities. If it is so -- I am not qualified to evaluate -- then your argument falls at the base. If adjunct professors are over 50 percent of faculty, then the position is being used by universities to hire cheap. This leads to obvious problems for professors but, ironically, in time kills higher education. Higher education requires individuals who are free from the worry of making ends meet, so they can pursue knowledge. They need not be rich, but they can't be counting pennies. In time, a staff made up of strapped professors hurts the teaching quality, destroys the perception of quality at universities and scares students away.

yummyfajitas 13y ago
Why do professors need to "pursue knowledge"? What is wrong with having a corp of workers who's sole goal is to transmit knowledge? To avoid status quo bias, do primary school teachers also need to "pursue knowledge"? Since most primary school teachers do no research, should we fire them and replace them with researchers?
- auggierose 13y ago
  That's a very simple thing to answer. If your sole goal is to transmit knowledge, then you don't know how to teach to create knowledge. And that would be the end of "innovation".
- sergiosgc 13y ago
  Every good teacher you had in your life knew much more than the level at which they taught you. You can't teach effectively if you don't master flawlessly the subject you teach. You achieve that level by going way beyond what students learn. At the basic education levels, this is easy to achieve. At the University level, you can only guarantee this elastic push by heading into research.
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago

Thrymr 13y ago

Whatever these positions were "meant for", the reality is that an ever larger share of classes are taught by people in these positions. Some of them are retired from other jobs; some are postdocs or working on the side; some are trying to cobble together a full time job. In many fields there is no "industry" from which to draw instructors. No one is claiming these are research positions, but if universities are going to take teaching seriously, they have to address who is doing the bulk of the teaching.

Tloewald 13y ago

Are you implying there are adjunct professors receiving $200k with perks? I imagine it's possible that you can find an example somewhere (probably earning $197,000 p.a. from another job and teaching a course as a hobby). Whether adjuncts are poorly paid on a short-term basis is surely irrelevant. People should be able to live on their incomes and cope with illnesses without becoming destitute.

davis_m 13y ago
No, I am saying there are professors receiving $200k with perks. An adjunct position isn't supposed to be a full-time long term position, so why should it be paid as such?
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > An adjunct position isn't supposed to be a full-time long term position Except that the common practice for colleges and universities now is to use them as full-time, long-term, lower-paid, reduced-benefit positions, and this trend is growing as adjunct positions are growing at a faster rate than tenured and tenure-track positions.

badman_ting 13y ago

This is the kind if thing that is so dismaying to see on HN. It must be her own stupid fault that she died penniless of cancer, nothing is wrong with the system here. I guess you guys feel differently, but I see myself as much more likely to end up like this lady than the CompSci professors making bank that you're talking about.

Strang 13y ago
What exactly is dismaying about the parent comment? You don't truly believe that the parent commenter believes it is "her own stupid fault that she died penniless of cancer," do you? Please open your mind a little and please be more charitable in interpreting opposing points of view.
tptacek 13y ago
Archetypical comment: probably right, but supremely unhelpful. Assume that the problem with the comment isn't that the commenter is amoral, but instead that their reasoning has gone wrong somewhere. Then, rebut the reasoning.

lambda 13y ago

> These positions are short term contract (6 months-1 year) and are not meant as long term employment. From the article: "Margaret Mary Vojtko... had taught French at Duquesne University for 25 years... Adjuncts now make up well over 50 percent of the faculty at colleges and universities." And further information, with sources, backing this up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States#Adjunct_Professor_compensation_and_academic_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_State... Lots of colleges are hiring adjunct professors to teach undergraduate courses, rather than full tenure track professors. As they reduce their tenure track hiring and increase their hiring of adjunct professors, it stops being a short-term contract for a visiting professor, and becomes the only viable career path for many people in academia. The problem is, when many people think of professors they think of the same tenure track professors that you're thinking of; fairly well paid, good benefits, great job security (once tenure has been achieved, that is; before that, the job security is pretty dicey), lots of academic freedom. What they don't realize is that more than half of actual professors are actually low-paid adjuncts with poor job security (and a good chunk of the rest are tenure track but don't yet have tenure). On top of that, you have post-docs and grad students doing most of the actual research (and some of the teaching as well), and you realize that academia looks pretty grim. Low paid people with low to no job security perform most of the actual work, while people think of them as high-paid folks with strong job security.

SoftwareMaven 13y ago
This is made worse by the explosion in administrative staff at colleges and universities[1]. Universities in the US are more about running universities than they are about teaching students or doing research. Given administrators are sucking down huge gobs of money, the budget shortfall needs to be picked up somewhere, and that is where the rise of the adjunct professor comes in. 1. http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/28/study-school-administrative-bloat-increases-700-percent-since-1950/ http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/28/study-school-administrativ...
davis_m 13y ago
I am unable to actually find an sort of source for the statistic that "Adjuncts now make up well over 50 percent of the faculty at colleges and universities." It seems to go back to the SEIU, a group that is attempting to unionize adjunct positions. I have seen it quoted in a number of ways, including "50% of part time faculty at universities are adjunct." and "50% of teaching positions at universities are adjunct." I would like to see some sort of actual report that shows the source of that. My (very limited, anecdotal) experience seems to indicate much fewer than 50% of professors are adjunct. It all depends on how you count these things.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> These positions are short term contract (6 months-1 year) and are not meant as long term employment. They are short term contract, but lots of colleges and universities are using them for a large portion of their faculty, so that they have the option year-to-year of renewing employment without dealing with tenure, and to never have to deal with "firing" faculty. Also, not having to deal with benefits. > Many of the people in adjunct positions have a completely separate full-time jobs, or perhaps are retired. The vast majority do not. > Offering them health-care seems silly, because a large number of them already receive health care. The whole employment-based model of health care that is dominant in the United States is silly, but given the way that many colleges and universities in fact use adjunct positions, having them be covered by employer-provided group insurance isn't silly within that employment-based model of health care.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

x0x0 13y ago

where on earth do professors get paid $200k+ with a variety of perks? I call complete bullshit. Unless you're discussing eg harvard, stanford, or yale; or law schools, in which case you should say so. btw, salaries at UW Madison (top 15 cs) used to be on the web. They are nowhere near $200k most of the adjunct employees don't, actually, have health care and many of them don't have other jobs, unless you count eg starbucks. hell, is there any part of your statements that are informed by data rather than being pulled out of your ass?