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The Adjunctification of Academia

Up to Restructuring of the Professoriate

The percentage of courses in colleges and universities taught by poorly paid adjunct instructors has increased from 22% in 1970-71 to 42% in 1992. Here are articles and reports on the subject.



Going Adjunct
By Andreas Killen, Salon Magazine. "When all the postal workers have been sedated and locked away, will adjunct professors follow in their gun-powdered footsteps?"
Professor of Desperation
"Bad pay, zero job security, no benefits, endless commutes. Is this any way to treat PhDs responsible for teaching a generation of college students?" Sunday Washington Post Magazine, July 21, 2002.
The long halls of ivy: Adjunct professors
CNN, January 11, 2001. "How's this for the job not of your dreams: It typically requires an advanced degree, and a workweek somewhere in the 60-hour range, with work on weekends likely. The pay is low, there are no benefits, no job security. To get by, in the course of any given week, you'll likely have to commute to several, often widely-scattered job sites. At none of those places will you have an office -- or sometimes even a mailbox -- to call your own."
Casual in Blue: Yale and the Academic Labor Market
An analysis of teaching at Yale. The findings: * 70% of the undergraduate teaching is performed by non-permanent teachers, graduate students, and instructors not on the tenure track. * The pool of graduate teachers has almost tripled in the last thirty years, while the number of tenure-track faculty has declined. * Yale has preferred to lower the rate of endowment spending rather than maintain or increase the size of its faculty.
The Adjunct Advocate
An online magazine for adjunct university professors.
New Book Offers Guide to Organizing Adjuncts
"Part-time faculty members continue to be frustrated by their salaries, working conditions and general lack of job security. At the same time, some adjuncts have recently won victories on a variety of issues — largely as a result of either unions or other organizations working on adjuncts’ behalf. A new book — Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education (Monthly Review Press) — offers a step-by-step guide on how adjuncts can organize and develop strategies to improve their working lives."
Growth In Untenured Academic Science Jobs Seen Hurting Careers
Franklin Hoke, The Scientist, Sept. 18, 1995
Decline of the Tenure Track Raises Concerns
NY Times, Nov 20, 2007. "Professors with tenure or who are on a tenure track are now a distinct minority on the country’s campuses, as the ranks of part-time instructors and professors hired on a contract have swelled, according to federal figures analyzed by the American Association of University Professors."
Not Exploited
Chronicle Careers, Decenber 10, 2004. "A Ph.D. who toiled in low-paid academic jobs for four years says he would rather be called a fool than a pawn."
Facing Change: Building the Faculty of the Future
A 1999 report of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities that calls for post-tenure review, more careful monitoring of sabbaticals, and for part time faculty to be paid at levels comparable to full time faculty. (Requires Adobe Acrobat)
The Status of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty
AAUP report on the use of non-tenure-track appointments in academia.
The Growing Use of Part-Time and Adjunct Faculty
A 1997 statement endorsed by the heads of eight disciplinary organizations, the American Association of University Professors, and the Community College Humanities Association on the growing use of part-time and adjunct faculty members.
The Rise of the Perma-Temp
New York Times, August 4, 2002. "Spinning gold out of air has become instinctive for Ms. Bobrove, an adjunct professor who was paid $1,300 a course last academic year. She has no office (the windshield of her station wagon sports a sun reflector that reads 'Adjunct Office') and receives no benefits, though she has taught at Camden County for 20 years. The room where she alternately coaxes and goads literary insights, a sagging ceiling tile its only remarkable feature, is an apt metaphor for a low-overhead, no-frills academic career."
Clash of Interests
Inside Higher Ed. "Is a one-size-fits-all union best for everyone at the bargaining table? Adjuncts and full-time faculty members at two community colleges in southern California — Grossmont and Cuyamaca Colleges, near San Diego — are currently in battle mode over the question, and their contentions are highlighting an issue that is becoming of increasing concern to professors."
American Federation of Teachers Statement on Part-Time Faculty Employment
Association of University Teachers' Campaign Against Fixed-Term Positions
"Staff on fixed-term contracts (ftcs) and hourly-paid part-time staff now comprise nearly 40% of all university ('old' and 'new') academic and academic-related staff. That percentage is rising steadily and some higher education institutions, such as the London School of Hygiene have stopped issuing any permanent contracts whatsoever. A key aspect of the campaign will be an onslaught against the use of waiver clauses under which staff are forced to sign away basic employment rights, including their right to statutory redundancy pay and their right to complain to a tribunal in the event of unfair dismissal."
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