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    The McMaster Department of Philosophy has now put together the following notice commemorating Barry: Barry Allen: A Philosophical Life Barry…

“The rise of adjuncts is the most toxic force in higher ed in a generation”

Brian Leiter

Reader Robert McGarvey sent along this piece, and added the following all too apt observations: 

No real news here…but the rise of adjuncts plainly is the most toxic force in higher ed in a generation.  It is gutting the protection of tenure (although most profs seem too narcissistic and/or dumb to see it), it is trivializing the education of kids, and it is turning graduate education into a kind of Ponzi scheme.  

The elite Ivies and similar seem to be immune to the PTL plague…but just about everybody else is a victim.

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28 responses to ““The rise of adjuncts is the most toxic force in higher ed in a generation””

  1. anon tenure track

    This is only possible because there are significantly more people willing to take teaching jobs than there are jobs. And this is the case because, at least in philosophy, there are too many schools granting PhDs. But here's the rub: Schools with PhDs benefit in getting cheap labor from TAs. Faculty at those schools benefit in decreased workload, the ability to teach graduate seminars, and professional prestige. And there simply are a lot of people willing to take the risk of becoming an unemployed PhD from a low or mid-ranked school–even though that is a significant risk.

    The overall situation then is at least a little like a prisoner's dilemma. The best outcome for a department would be for fewer departments to run PhD programs while holding on to their own since they would then have all the normal benefits plus a better choice among students, more prestige, etc. And no one wants to be on the losing end of that–giving up the benefits of running a PhD program while others continue to reap them. And so we have too many PhD programs–with the incumbent human misery and harm to the profession (e.g., the proliferation of adjuncts) that entails.

    Reply
  2. anon_adjunct

    It's not just that we adjuncts receive insultingly low wages. Now we also get to be dubbed "the most toxic force in higher ed in a generation". Yes, Dr. McGarvey, we are the niggers who ruined your neighborhood. We're deeply sorry. We know we've done nothing to advance the primary mission of the university. We should know our place and shut up when the real professors are pontificating. So go on, Dr. McGarvey, tell me more about why I'm terrible.

    BL COMMENT: I did not understand McGarvey to be blaming adjuncts, so I think this complaint is misguided.

    Reply
  3. Daniel A. Kaufman

    anon tenure track wrote:

    But here's the rub: Schools with PhDs benefit in getting cheap labor from TAs. Faculty at those schools benefit in decreased workload, the ability to teach graduate seminars, and professional prestige. And there simply are a lot of people willing to take the risk of becoming an unemployed PhD from a low or mid-ranked school–even though that is a significant risk.

    KEYWORDS:
    Primary Blog
    ——–KEYWORDS:
    Primary Blog
    ———–

    Your analysis of the situation is spot-on. Of course, one might have hoped that people who teach ethics for a living — and who likely look into mirrors every morning and night — wouldn't think and act in the manner you describe, but, then, hope springs eternal.

    Reply
  4. Steven Hales

    The rise of adjuncts is a deep and serious problem. One thing that has helped stem the tide at my university is a strong faculty union. Under our collective bargaining agreement, no more than 25% FTE can be taught by temporary (= not tenure track/tenured) faculty. Would the administration and legislature love to get rid of this clause? Of course they would. But we fight tooth and nail to keep it. Most of the non tenure track faculty here are sabbatical replacements, or filling some other temporary need.

    Reply
  5. Eugene

    Steven Hales is spot on.

    If adjuncts were just paid a living wage, then there wouldn't be much a problem here. Sure, many would still have high teaching workloads and short-term contracts, perhaps, but it seems to me that so much of the "toxicity" of adjuncts would go away if adjuncts were getting paid a fair, excuse me, fucking wage.

    Organizing seems to be the key. Or am I missing something?

    Reply
  6. Derek Bowman

    To be clear, the Ivies may be mostly "immune to the PTL plague" at the level of staffing their own classes, but they are from from immune from having their graduates end up in such positions.

    Reply
  7. tenured prof

    I think there's two different ways to look at the problem. On the first, the "adjunct problem" is one of university administrators taking the cheaper way out. On the second–which is less talked about, but still acknowledged–there's just an oversupply of cheap labor, and we're to blame for it.

    There are too many philosophers, and too many bad graduate programs training people who don't have any reasonable prospects of success in the field. So maybe part of the issue is external to philosophy (university administrators), but at least part of the problem is internal (us; too many unemployable philosophers). Of course these two go together insofar as administrators' decisions make more philosophers employable or unemployable.

    But I think the focus shouldn't be singularly on the administrators. We need to stop generating so many people for whom permanent and stable work is not a realistic expectation. It's at least partially our fault that there are so many marginalized would-be philosophers. We can't just keep breeding them then complaining that there's nothing for them to do. Maybe, at the margins, we can make gains with regards to their prospects, but some culling from the herd is an onus we bear. Whether this is effected through structural reform or attrition might end up in the same place, but it's not necessarily a bad thing.

    Reply
  8. anon_adjunct

    So far, the debate how people like me are poisoning the university seems to have two sides. One side is that we adjuncts are toxic in principle, that we have no place in higher education, and that in order to revive what's great about higher ed, it must be purged of this underclass. Despite the protestations of Brian Leiter, the only consistent reading of Robert McGarvey's short comment has him taking this side. (I've had several people say to my face that this is their view, though they typically hasten to add, without any sense of irony: "I don't mean you, of course. I know you do an amazing job!")

    The other side, expressed in some comments above, is that the toxicity of adjuncts is contingent on certain exploitative practices in how universities are administered. Maybe my presence wouldn't be so toxic if I earned more money. Ok, that's very kind. But if you really think that my adjunct colleagues and I are poisoning higher education, what makes you think we'd poison it less if we got paid more? Wouldn't that only increase the likelihood that a retiring professor would not be replaced by another tenure track line?

    I want to encourage you to think about how this debate about us looks from our perspective. After all, we adjuncts can hear you as you discuss the nature our toxicity. As you can imagine, I have my reservations about the framing of that debate, and not because I'm cool with how adjuncts are treated. Notice the parallels between this debate and every other debate of the form "What should we do about this or that problematic underclass?". And let's not mince words. I am the underclass. I did not even submit a resume to get my job. Nobody checked my publications or student reviews, and there was certainly no job talk. Apparently, for what I do, my employer thinks that my professional merits don't actually matter, that lower division courses basically teach themselves, and that any random local clown is good enough to do what I do. Yes, my university, like yours, oozes all kinds of propaganda about "excellence". Yet I have a feeling that the merits of the groundskeepers receive more scrutiny than those of the adjuncts, who jointly do half of all the undergraduate teaching. The groundskeepers certainly get more money.

    If I could choose to reframe the debate, I'd have it begin with what I hope is a rather uncontroversial observation: What adjuncts do is important, and it's important that we do it well. Right now, there is no sign that universities are making any systematic effort to make sure that they have the best adjuncts they can get. Doing so would require very different hiring practices, and different salaries. If any administrator is reading this, I have a suggestion: Create and advertise a 3/3 adjunct position for $30,000/year, and hire the best applicant. I suspect you will find yourself choosing among Ph.Ds with excellent teaching skills. You'll not just get an incredible educational bang for your buck, but you will also be righting some of the wrongs of the present system. One of those wrongs is that right now, adjuncts are thought of as faceless, undifferentiated and interchangeable laborers down in the engine room. Everybody is afraid to acknowledge that some of us are actually very good at our jobs, because since that fact cannot be reflected in our compensation, it's easier to simply not examine the issue. So much for caring about "excellence in education"! I'd have my job even if I sucked. Nobody looks.

    According to the W2 I just submitted, I earned $12,745 in fiscal 2014. That's all I have to live on. I'm demonstrably good at my job. You can have me for $20,000. Review my resume, examine my research and record of service, invite me for a job talk. I'll move if you want me. Or, you can keep paying some local person $13,000, and maintain your deliberate indifference/blindness about what he or she does with classrooms of undergraduates. Which option do you think the undergraduates would prefer? What would their parents prefer? What's more consistent with your university's self-congratulatory propaganda? Is the present system really the most efficient way of pinching pennies? If colleges and universities start competing for top adjuncts, it will become impossible to think of us as some interchangeable collegiate morlocks – which we never were. And that, in turn, will make it easier to think of us as colleagues, rather than some "toxic force". So I think that this would be a good place to start.

    Reply
  9. Robert J Mcgarvey

    anon_adjunct – in fact my heart goes out to adjuncts. The point of the linked story is that many PTLs not only work ridiculous hours they still must collect public assistance to scrape by, They are victims in this shell game. There are malefactors in this equation but adjuncts are not on the list. Blaming them would be as smart and kind as blaming the laborers in Apple's China factories (cf Mike Daisey).

    Reply
  10. grad

    Maybe every five years or so the APA could censure departments whose ratio of admitted students to permanent placements is too high.

    Reply
  11. Richard

    I'm an adjunct who came to this work after 35 years in my previous career. Pay is low and benefits nonexistent but those drawbacks are immaterial to me since I am lucky enough to have earned a regular pension and access to health insurance in that career.

    I certainly see the tension described here. TT faculty are grateful to be relieved of the burden of large intro courses but resentful of our presence for all the obvious and much-discussed reasons. Other adjuncts who are not in my position attempt to stitch together enough courses at several institutions to keep themselves housed and fed – just barely. And they hope, fruitlessly for the most part, that adjunct work will lead to full-time work.

    Personally I enjoy the challenge of the work: the interactions with students and the chance to talk to them about their academic choices. But my participation in what seems to be a sort of Frankenstein industry – a creature borne of ambition and overreach – that necessitates hiring adjuncts to keep costs down and offer more and more classes at minimal cost, is troubling.

    Reply
  12. A

    The only solution that doesn't require closing grad programs is to generate more non-academic jobs for philosophy PhDs, and/or more of a pipeline to those jobs from within the academy.

    Imagine if APA could hire a marketing person to place "why you should hire a philosophy PhD" articles where business/industry people would see them. Imagine if consulting firms or tech companies or government entities recruited new philosophy PhDs. Imagine if grad students finishing their PhDs could count on enthusiastic support from their department if they decided to leave the academy for such a position, rather than the defeatist attitude (that some have) that adjunct work will have to do since any academic job is better than leaving.

    Reply
  13. A grad student

    As a current grad I think I have two reactions. The first is that it doesn't seem like universities have any incentive to change the way they're doing things right now. Geez, $13,000 a year to pay for an adjunct–if you're a university administrator, how could you say no at that price? My 2014-2015 stipend + fellowship is almost triple that! Of course, the difference is that the adjunct is actually in a position to provide demonstrative value to the university, but why split hairs?

    The second reaction is to see myself situated simultaneously at two extremes. The one is a deep passion for what I'm studying coupled with a belief that I can eventually make a modest but meaningful contribution to my field. The other extreme is a complete, unquestioned readiness to bail on academia should a stable job with a real salary and benefits come along. I guess that's life as a phil grad student these days though.

    Reply
  14. An Adjunct

    As and adjunct I sympathize with anon.adjunct. I found myself feeling sad when tenured prof said "success in the field". I'm not sure why 'success' has to be research, publishing, and a tenured position. Aside from money, which is obviously a huge issue, why should inserting more critical thinking, through teaching, into a world sorely lacking it be considered a failure? I feel like I am good at my job but I have very little evidence to back myself up because of my invisibility. I wish that our society valued TEACHING and the dissemination of philosophy and its many skills. Academic philosophy only values writing things that few will ever read. This is in itself not negative but when it is the ONLY value then academic philosophy becomes very nepotistic and forgets the rest of society. I love reading comments written by those whom have forgotten the rest of society and decry the rest of society of forgetting them.

    I wish all adjuncts would quit for a semester…maybe this would help but probably not.

    Reply
  15. Anon. Grad. Student

    As a PhD student at an unranked program (though with a well-known supervisor), I do find this worrisome. But I've been aware of the realities of the situation for a few years now, and that hasn't been enough to make me drop out. A few of the biggest considerations for me (though I'll only find out the accuracy of these thoughts after going on the market):

    1) Do you have/want a family (soon)? This one is probably the biggest, even if it shouldn't be. Coming from an unranked program, I have no expectation of securing permanent employment just out of grad. school. I know I will have to spend at least a few years moving wherever the work is, taking contract gigs, etc., and even if this weren't a serious strain on family life, the money just isn't there to support a family. I am not married and have no children; otherwise I would not take the risk. I'll be 28 when I finish the PhD, and hope to secure a TT job by the time I'm 35. I don't think that's unrealistic, assuming I have a shot at such a job at all. I'll be working my ass off until then, teaching and publishing, living in bachelor apartments and taking the bus. It seems to me that the willingness to live such a life is an advantage here.

    2) Are you seriously confident in your work? I mean, are you securing publications while still in grad. school, and do you have a long-term research program that will contribute significantly to the literature? Given the competitiveness of the job market, I have to assume that people who answer Yes to these questions have an advantage over those PhD students who are still not sure what their interests are, haven't given much thought to publishing, write a dissertation to complete the degree rather than as a major contribution to an ongoing research program, etc. Teaching experience is of course very important, but it seems to me that a demonstrated ability to do serious research must help to avoid the black hole of adjuncting.

    3) Do you have (at least somewhat of) a backup plan? Not necessarily a guaranteed job with your uncle's company or something like that, but at least some skills/experience that you can put to use if things don't work out. For example, I have been programming computers since I was about ten years old, and am almost entirely self-taught. I had a part time job doing this during my undergrad, but never made a career of it. However, if you have a skill like this it seems smart to devote at least part of your free time in grad. school to keeping up with it, so that you can fall back on it if necessary. Programmers get hired left and right in major cities, and self-taught is not a problem if you can do the work. Something to think about.

    I wonder whether people agree that these considerations are important for deciding whether to take the risk. I guess (3) quite obviously is, but (1) and (2) might be more contentious. Do you think those who answer No to the former and Yes to the latter have a better chance to avoid becoming perpetual adjuncts? This is of great personal interest to me.

    Reply
  16. AnonAndon

    For Anon. Grad. Student,

    I'd say that a "yes" answer to number (2) is not all that important. Instead, what matters is whether people on hiring committees would answer "yes," and your response may not be very helpful for predicting their response. In my experience, which may not be all that predictive either, very few people give two shits about anything outside a narrow range of topics in their areas of expertise. Even if you and the people hiring all specialize in say, ancient philosophy, that does not ensure they will have any interest in the topic/literature within the subfield to which you are contributing.

    I think a better question to ask is whether the literature to which you are contributing involves work by a number of people who are currently in the position to serve on hiring committees.

    Reply
  17. Landon W Schurtz

    I currently work as an adjunct at a small community college where a great deal of the teaching is done by adjuncts. Nonetheless, the college could, from my research, afford to convert a non-insignificant percentage of the adjuncts to full time positions (especially given how little even those pay), so it seems that at least part of the problem is some colleges being cheap.

    As for organizing, sadly, at my institution, that is not a realistic option. A plurality of the adjuncts are retired or currently employed professionals with Master's degrees for whom adjuncting is a nice source of extra cash but nothing to get up in arms about. If all the adjuncts who depend on this work to live were to strike… the effect would barely be felt. Such is the situation here, anyway. Alas!

    Reply
  18. anon_adjunct

    I appreciate the sympathy. I still feel that referring to us as a "toxic force" is not the best way to advance this debate. It only contributes to the image that we are some sinister "other" that must be resisted, rather than colleagues to be valued. If permanent faculty in my department would call adjuncts a scourge, a plague, a toxin, a cancer, or anything of the sort, I would protest that they're being rude – even if it was meant in the de dicto sense. Consider economic migration as a parallel: people with a sense of decency don't refer to immigrants as "a toxin", even if we think a more optimal solution could be achieved. Those dehumanizing epithets should simply not be applied to classes of people, especially not by those who wish them well. If you want to improve our circumstances, good. But your comment suggested that you think academia must be cleansed of us, and that's not so good.

    Reply
  19. Anon Phil Instructor

    Another contributor the problem seems to be, I really hate to say, too many people being encouraged to pursue a PhD in philosophy while undergrads by faculty advisers. Though he believed I was a stellar student, one faculty member at my undergrad institution actually advised me NOT to pursue a career in philosophy. Unfortunately, his main argument was "You'll be doing philosophy all the time!" which of course only encouraged me.

    Instead, we should say something like this to our undergrads: "Unless you receive your PhD at a top ranked program and/or under an influential mentor, and/or you work in a high-demand area within philosophy, like applied ethics, there's a significant chance you'll end up making poverty-level wages as an adjunct, likely with some student loans to pay back."

    Graduate programs might then see the applicant pool dwindle or be of an overall lower caliber. This might not motivate them to shut down their PhD programs, because of course self-interest reigns supreme (sorry to be cynical). But at least it might help make for a better case for shutting some PhD programs.

    Reply
  20. #1

    On the importance of #1. Anon Grad Student, you correctly note that you must make some difficult choices in life. If you choose one path, you give up certain opportunities. Children athletes, for example, if they are extremely competitive, end up missing out on many typical childhood experiences because of their demanding training and competition schedule. It cannot be redeemed. The child athlete who does not make it into the adult professional ranks, cannot go back to grade 9 as a 23 year old, and expect to have the experiences they missed earlier. The same goes for the person who pursues an academic career in these highly competitive times

    Reply
  21. Anon

    Although it's cold comfort to all the struggling adjuncts out there, this is, presumably, a problem that will eventually solve itself. As more people become aware of how poor the employment prospects for PhDs in philosophy are (e.g., by reading articles like this one), fewer people will pursue PhDs in philosophy, until the oversupply situation self-corrects. Or, if this is not the case, no one will be responsible for the consequent suffering but those who choose to gamble their futures on a PhD in philosophy.

    Meanwhile, it might not be a bad idea to encourage those who are pursuing philosophy PhDs to cultivate other and more marketable interests on the side, and to support their efforts in such endeavors.

    Reply
  22. Steven Hales

    Poverty is toxic, but that does not mean the poor are. Likewise I think we can all agree that the adjuncting system is toxic to the academy. That doesn't mean that adjuncts are. I don't believe anyone is saying otherwise, even if they may have expressed themselves infelicitously.

    Reply
  23. adjunct atimes

    Anon adjunct (@ April 15, 2015 at 02:20 PM) explained the exact issues, and very elegantly. It is also important to recall that some of us adjuncts do not (try to) make a living teaching as adjuncts, but teach for personal reasons. I teach one course per semester while I work near full time elsewhere. I devote considerably more time to this course and my students than I am getting paid to devote, and likely more time than I would be able to devote if I were a TT professor. I love teaching philosophy, and I view my adjunct role as a form of community service—because students at community colleges deserve a good education, and they also need to have their tuition as low as possible. The only realistic solutions would involve something like a massive increase in public funding for CC and state 4-year education.

    Reply
  24. Richard

    adjunct atimes writes, "[t]he only realistic solutions would involve something like a massive increase in public funding".

    Yes, of course, funding is one major, but not the only, reason that colleges and universities are hiring so many adjuncts. The recent AAUP study (http://tinyurl.com/nxmcap4) of the "economic status of the profession" clearly charts the downward trend of state support of their own state universities and colleges. So we are likely to see only a deepening of this trend towards what AAUP labels "contingent" employment of faculty.

    Is there a solution to this trend? Should there be a solution to this trend?

    Reply
  25. A Lottery Winner

    I see at least 4 possible solutions to this problem of adjunct pay.
    1. If we had hundreds of anon_adjunct that could collectively organize and raise awareness to the point that administrations and the public would take notice, then perhaps some sort of raises might happen (I say "the public" because salary already takes up nearly 90% of district expenses so to some extent the board cannot unilaterally give everyone raises in part because adjuncts teach so many classes as it is. However, one could point a finger at the increased bureaucracy and administrative salaries that is currently trending to see that usually the less squeaky hinges get less grease).
    Solution 2 would be for more progressive states in their education code to increase the full-time part-time ratio required of public colleges so more full-time faculty must be hired (the downside is even fewer would teach and thus more adjuncts would be out of work plus this would also cost colleges more money than some are equipped to handle as mentioned above).
    Solution 3 would be for more progressive administrations and states ro change the laws about the number of classes adjuncts can teach (10 units in some states) so as to "bundle" classes into closer to full-time work (similar to what anon_adjunct suggests with the 3/3 load). This would cost administration little except for some flexibility but also would decrease the number of those teaching. Sadly, accreditation teams often give high scores to colleges that have a high number of adjunct faculty because of the flexible financial prospects this offers. Awful, by the way.
    Solution 4 also hinted at above about limiting grad program enrollments is interesting in that medical schools have long practiced such a technique and in doing so have kept medical salaries much higher relative to the ubiquity of low level and for-profit law schools that water down law degrees (and create enough of a supply that pay inevitably goes down for those not graduating from elite institutions). However, those comparisons go only so far since, at least for some, philosophy is less a vocational skill than it is something that teaches one how to think, live the good life, raise consciousness, learn about the history of thought, etc. If true, to limit this to only the top 3% or so of graduates (sadly with socioeconomic factors) as medical schools have done might be an awful thing to do (after all less harm might be done by a less than average philosopher than a less than average surgeon.) So perhaps as a part of this solution, students should be warned that they should not enter any kind of graduate program that requires them to pay any out of pocket fees. Auditing courses could be allowed perhaps but not any sort of credit. The APA could enforce these restrictions or pressure certain grad programs and in that world, if all grad students were paid a stipend for living expenses along with a complete tuition reimbursement, then the hit in student debt to those students coming out of grad programs would be substantially less. There would of course be an investment in the time a student devoted to a grad program but less so if more PhD programs had some criteria about which master's students could move on after 2 years to the PhD. Now of what I say above in Solution is ideal but if fewer students had to hang around for 7 to 8 in some PhD program before realizing what their job prospects were (the writing is not always on the wall so clearly for many grad students), then perhaps instead of having so many disgruntled and under-employed PhDs, we would have people with masters in philosophy happy for the free experience and ready to move into private sector jobs with at least some philosophical perspective if not training.

    Reply
  26. Graham Smith

    I do not like suggestions that the number of programs or students be limited in order to reduce the "oversupply" of job-seeking graduates. The world needs philosophy to be more widespread, not less. Imagine a world in which every citizen has a graduate degree in philosophy. In addition, I guess I tend to think of philosophy as a calling, not a career, or a job. It's worth suffering for, or running a little financial risk. If you don't agree, I guess I wonder why you are in the discipline.

    I tend to think that the answer is (1) full disclosure, actual full disclosure, to the students that job prospects are slim, and (2) cooperation with related disciplines more likely to leave students financially stable, such as law and computer science.

    I left graduate school to work for cash, out of financial necessity, but have never regretted my time as a graduate student (except for the taking of some courses I found painfully dull).

    Reply
  27. Billy Junker

    The problem with the oversupply argument is that there seems to be no big oversupply of academic labor in the humanities. What has changed (and what will keep changing) is the structure by which the demand for such labor is regularly satisfied. And this change is as much or more a function of cultural and political forces than it is a function of economic "laws". The most immediate and effective way to begin to reverse these forces would be the widespread adoption and normalization of faculty unions, but this is unlikely to happen until things get very much worse than they are now.

    Reply
  28. Anonymous

    @Graham Smith:

    My neighborhood cinema routinely sells thousands of tickets to every screening, despite the fact that there are only 200 seats.

    I do not like suggestions that the number of tickets to film screenings be limited in order to reduce the "overcrowding" of the cinema. My neighborhood needs more moviegoers, not less. Imagine a neighborhood in which everyone has a ticket to every showing at the cinema. In addition, I guess I tend to think of seeing movies as soul-changing. It's worth suffering for, or running a little financial risk. If you don't agree, I guess I wonder why you ever watch movies.

    I tend to think that the answer is (1) full disclosure, actual full disclosure, to the ticket buyers that the chances of getting a seat are slim, and (2) an understanding from the fire marshal and other patrons that many people will be crowded together in the aisles, sitting on each other's laps, etc.

    I left graduate school to work for cash, out of financial necessity, but have never regretted my time as a graduate student (except for the taking of some courses I found painfully dull).

    Reply

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