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I've taught as an adjunct or equivalent at three universities. Two public, one private. Two gigs were during the school year, and one was an abbreviated summer
by declan 12y ago
I've taught as an adjunct or equivalent at three universities. Two public, one private. Two gigs were during the school year, and one was an abbreviated summer program.
I don't remember the summer program rate, but I recall the school-year rates were around $3,500 per course. That was fine if you had a full-time day job, as I did, and the classes were in the late afternoon or evening and your employer didn't mind your moonlighting.
I taught the classes because I enjoyed the experience, not for the money. I've met plenty of people in the same position: Peter Thiel presumably did not teach his now-famous Stanford course for the salary. So to that extent, the Trinity administrator quoted in the linked article is correct.
But I suspect most adjuncts do not have non-academic careers. So they're struggling, especially in expensive metro areas (in part because they're competing against people like me that might be convinced to teach a single seminar for virtually nothing if we get to pick the topic). But it's a bigger problem than that: as <bloataway> suggests, it's middle management bloat, coupled with an oversupply of qualified instructors, government-subsidized loans, etc. Not a simple problem.
- caminante 12y ago> I taught the classes because I enjoyed the experience, not for the money. This point's key. People will do it for "free" out of personal-fulfillment, driving down costs.
- TeMPOraL 12y agoAlso likely delivering a much higher-quality work. But this kind of better-work-lower-pay situation is not something you can plan for or base your business around. I can see this messing things up in interesting ways.
- mgkimsal 12y agoMixed thoughts on this. On one hand I can see "higher quality work", but on the other I can see plenty of situations where the moonlighting adjunct prof with a full time gig won't be 'higher quality'. They'll likely have much more limited time to help students, grade papers, etc. They don't really have an incentive to actually try to get better at the teaching part.
- Chichikov 12y agoAnd they don't do it semester after semester, which of course can be a bad thing or a good thing, but if anything surely hones an instructor's understanding of the student body.
- mgkimsal 12y agoright - that's sort of the point I was getting at, but not very well. There's a certain nuance to successful teaching that takes time to master, regardless of the subject material. Not everyone gets it, of course, but most of the instructors I've had who were really good at it were, in fact, older and more practiced instructors (across all disciplines). Using adjuncts to supplement gaps now and then is OK, but when a large portion of your staff is temp adjuncts, the quality of instruction has to be lower.
- bsder 12y ago> Also likely delivering a much higher-quality work. Unless something more important steps in. If someone is only being paid $3,500 for 14 weeks of work, if a $10,000 in a week contract pops up, they're going to blow off the class, I assure you.
- ZanyProgrammer 12y agoI remember off the top of my head two CS instructors at my community college being full time engineers. They certainly werent doing it for the money.
- glial 12y ago> school-year rates were around $3,500 per course. That's crazy. I've paid more than that to take a course from an adjunct, and I was one of 20+ students.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- bsder 12y ago> I don't remember the summer program rate, but I recall the school-year rates were around $3,500 per course. That's the right range. And it creates a "damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't" situation. Students deserve to have some industry experienced teachers. Many of my students got a lot more education about the corporate world than they expected. However, if I take the job teaching for that, I'm contributing to the downward pressure on the salaries. And that makes their academic teachers worse.