Supporting Adjunct Faculty

The first chapter and table of contents of Just Universities can be read at the publisher's website: https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823289967/just-universities/.  Abstract:
Gerald J. Beyer’s Just Universities discusses ways that U.S. Catholic institutions of higher education have embodied or failed to embody Catholic social teaching in their campus policies and practices. Beyer argues that the corporatization of the university has infected U.S. higher education with hyper-individualistic models and practices that hinder the ability of Catholic institutions to create an environment imbued with bedrock values and principles of Catholic Social Teaching such as respect for human rights, solidarity, and justice. Beyer problematizes corporatized higher education and shows how it has adversely affected efforts at Catholic schools to promote worker justice on campus; equitable admissions; financial aid; retention policies; diversity and inclusion policies that treat people of color, women, and LGBTQ persons as full community members; just investment; and stewardship of resources and the environment.  The fir

Braverman's analysis of the changing division of labor is crucial for understanding the impact of the neoliberal assault on higher education on academic labor. Much like Taylorism a century ago, adjunctification of the faculty, online education, and data driven planning are rationalizing academic labor. Teaching is being " unbundled " and its components parts automated, outsourced, and transferred to a growing middle level administration. As a result, faculty are becoming " just-in-time, " deskilled, disempowered, contingent labor. This newly emerging new division of labor is fundamentally transforming higher education. No longer merely subject to commercialization, academic labor is being reorganized to resemble the interchangeable contingent work that is ubiquitous throughout the labor market. To resist these developments it is necessary for faculty to study the new division of academic labor in order to devise new organizing tactics and strategies, such as the systemwide local and Metro organizing models.

Over the past few years, there has been an ostensible growth in 'quit lit', a new genre of literature made of columns and opinion editorials detailing the reasons why scholars – with or without tenure – leave academia. This paper examines the impact of the neoliberal academia on subjectivity. In the neoliberal university, subjectivity is caught into a web of conflicting expectations. On the one hand, it is expected to live up to high standards of competition. On the other hand, the body experiences competition as a celebrated form of self-abuse. In this context, quitting is not merely about resigning an academic position. It is a symptom of the urge to create a space between the neoliberal discourse and the sense of self; an act of rebellion intended to abdicate the competitive rationality of neoliberal academia and embrace different values and principles.

As universities increasingly employ adjunct faculty in both teaching and research positions, how these individuals influence university governance, university research, and university instruction becomes of greater concern. The conditions in which adjunct faculty work are disparate to those of ladder faculty are exploitive, which dampens the contributions they make to the university ecosystem. This also poses a threat to academic freedom from both teaching and research perspectives.  In a nation where universities are quickly shifting more towards a part-time faculty majority, effective organizational inclusion and utilization is essential.

The distinction between adjunct faculty (non-tenure professors, lecturers, contingent faculty members, etc.) and ladder faculty (tenured and tenure-track professors) is first defined.  Then, the soaring use of adjunct faculty is quantified in nominal, real, and proportional terms.  This trend is then explained using a comprehensive set of both economic and non-economic causes for higher education’s increased use of adjunct faculty.  The consequences and implications for university governance, university research, quality of education, and faculty labor standards are reviewed.  Finally, the article concludes with recommendations for the more effective incorporation and utilization of adjunct faculty.

I believe research is more than the discovery of new knowledge.  As researchers it is our responsibility to pursue meaningful discovery that ultimately influences change.  My world view is aligned with the critical pragmatist theoretical framework.  I explore the background of critical pragmatism as well as its application in research.

The reorganization of higher education has been made possible by a new division of labor that is rationalizing and deskilling college teaching. These new relations of academic labor are disempowering the profes-sorate by transferring control over teaching to a growing middle management and automating it as online distance learning. In order to respond to this threat to higher education, it is necessary to shift the focus from the commercialization of higher education to the adjunctification of the professorate. This requires a critical rethinking of organizational tactics, strategies, and objectives of academic labor organizing. Higher education is being reorganized. Privatization, disinvestment, online courses, for-profit colleges, tuition and fees, budget cuts, centralization and outsourcing of maintenance, food service and administrative services, and the use of " adjuncts " like myself have become rampant in the past four decades. The logic of the market subtly transforming the very work of teaching is obscured by discussions about commercialization. A new division of academic labor is being gradually imposed in order to expand control over academic labor, produce labor power better disciplined for contingent work, and design and build the technology to exploit that labor power. In order to develop new tactics, strategies, and objectives to respond to these threats, it is necessary to do a class analysis of the new division of academic labor. From the Mass to the Taylorized University The academic labor of the professorate is being rationalized, fragmented, deskilled, standardized, and disempowered, a process commonly called " adjunctification. " This Taylorization of academic labor is proceeding in order to increase " output " of both the exploitation of adjunct faculty and the students disciplined and trained for flexible, part-time, contingent work. 1 The adjunctification of academic labor is the dominant model for the relations of contingent labor throughout the economy. 2 Prior to World War II, higher education almost entirely served the elite and played little direct role in the disciplining of labor power. However, the wildcat

Das Tätigkeitsverhältnis des Lehrauftrags ist im akademischen Lehrbetrieb in Deutschland weit verbreitet. Auch an Musikhochschulen und Instituten für Musik an Universitäten ist es gängige Praxis, einen hohen Anteil der Unterrichtsdeputate durch Lehraufträge abzudecken. Mit dieser Sachlage gehen verschiedene Missstände und strukturelle Probleme einher, die Gegenstand der vorliegenden Stellungnahme sind. Die vorliegende Stellungnahme setzt sich aus arbeitsrechtlicher, administrativer und berufspolitischer Perspektive mit den Rahmenbedingungen für Lehrauftragstätigkeiten auseinander, insbesondere bezogen auf die Fächer Musiktheorie und Gehörbildung, und leitet aus der derzeitigen Situation einige Handlungsnotwendigkeiten ab.

This article looks at the corporatization of higher education, adjunctification of higher education, and the decline of the humanities  as the results of epistemic relativism and materialism fueled by an insatiable need for profit: each of which puts us at odds with our own ethical foundations.

According to institutional data, during the 2012-2013 academic year, adjunct and other contingent faculty made up 71 percent of the total faculty at George Mason University. Like contingent faculty at other colleges and universities, much of Mason’s non-tenure track faculty, especially part-time faculty members, earn less than a living wage, have little to no benefits, lack job security, lack representation, and have few opportunities for advancement. This report documents the results of a working conditions (climate) survey conducted on contingent faculty at George Mason University during the Spring Semester of 2013, along with suggested recommendations.

Drawing on findings from three qualitative studies, this article explores the distinct professional identities of two-year college English faculty. We examine full-time faculty patterns of engagement with professional organizations, their assertion of professional authority in institutional decision making, and the role of organizational socialization in the shaping of part-time faculty professional identities.

There has been little analysis of how neoliberal adjunctification and online education (OLE) are shaping a new academic division of labour in US colleges and universities. OLE rationalises academic labour by separating it from the delivery of educational content while transforming learning into the self-disciplined completion of sequential tasks (e.g. 'competency-based learning') under the panoptic surveillance of online course management systems (CMS). OLE is subtly shifting the very hidden curriculum of higher education to meet the needs of global capital for a more effectively disciplined labour force that can work contingently and remotely with little or no overt coercion. This analysis of the process by which OLE is rationalising academic labour draws upon the ideas of Foucault and Tronti to argue that OLE is a tool for producing a type of disciplined labour that breaks down the borders between productive and reproductive labour in order to colonise all life as work.

On-line education is rationalizing and fragmenting faculty labor into discreet parts and allocating it to an assembly line of adjunct faculty, corporate contractors, staff technicians, and administrators. This emerging division of academic labor is a dangerous threat to faculty control over teaching and participation in shared governance. The model for this new division of academic labor is an Arizona public community college, Rio Salado, which uses coercive data driven pre-dictive modeling to move students through standardized courses taught asynchronously along a virtual assembly line. The Rio Salado model is being used in California to deskill and disempower community college faculty, threatening public higher education as we know it. A critical understanding of this newly emerging division of academic labor in order to draw lessons for faculty organizing to shift the balance of control over teaching and governance. For profit universities are being touted as the model of public higher education of the future, one composed of mostly adjunct faculty teaching large numbers of students on an automated higher education assembly line. But the for profits are not the model of the future. Rather, they are merely knock off versions of the little known Arizona public Rio Salado College. This statewide community college is almost completely on-line and attracts primarily low waged full-time workers into virtual classrooms taught almost entirely by deskilled, disempowered adjuncts professors. The Rio Salado model illustrates the newly emerging division of academic labor in which cloned classes focused on task completion rather than learning are taught remotely by an assembly line of adjuncts, outside corporate contractors, and non-faculty staff technicians. Stripped of their contribution to shared governance, adjuncts and the few full-time faculty that oversee them are being deskilled and disempowered, much of what they do transferred to administrators and staff technicians. ! ! In this rapidly emerging model faculty working conditions have become the flip side of student learning conditions. Low-waged contingent adjuncts are teaching primarily first generation working class and students of color tracked into to low cost, high output on-line degree programs that in turn channel students into low waged service work and a lifetime of student debt. The rapidity in which this change is occurring makes it urgent that the new division of academic labor be critically examined so as to inform new strategies for faculty organizing and resistance.

This brown bag discussion is aimed at shedding light on the conversion of university faculty positions into temporary jobs and the effect on the quality of instruction.
Michael Behrent, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University, will discuss the problem of contingent academic labor in the context of the corporatization of higher education. The history of adjunctification, as well as how it relates to broader trends in our economy and society, will be considered.
A question-and-answer session will follow.
The event will be held in the Toy Lounge on the fourth floor of Dey Hall just northwest of Wilson Library on the UNC-Chapel Hill quad. Map: http://www.unc.edu/toylounge/map.php
The event is hosted by Faculty Forward North Carolina, a voluntary group uniting all faculty across the state of North Carolina to advocate for a system of higher education that values instruction, faculty and students. For more information, see www.facebook.com/FacultyForwardNC. On Twitter: @NCFaculty.

Catholic social teaching (CST) has long endorsed the right of all workers to unionize.  However, many US Catholics exhibit an antiunion bias. In addition, Catholic institutions have engaged in union busting, thereby flouting CST. Focusing on the recent efforts of adjuncts to unionize at Catholic universities, this article argues that union busting jeopardizes the faith and conscience formation of students and undermines the evangelizing mission of Catholic universities. The article debunks the appeal to religious liberty by Catholic institutions
to circumvent the National Labor Relations Board’s injunctions to allow adjuncts to unionize. It also refutes the argument that the National Labor Relations Act imposes a style of collective bargaining contrary to the harmonious vision of labor relations in CST. Succinctly stated, the article contends there is no legitimate reason for Catholic universities to thwart the unionization efforts of adjuncts, particularly given the systematically unjust work conditions many of them face.

This is an abstract for a roundtable session on adjunct faculty at the upcoming NEMLA conference, in Apr-May 2015. I will focus on the creation and the propagation of myths about adjunct faculty which serve to obfuscate the institutional and systemic practices of marginalization.

The paper addresses the problem of workplace discrimination of male veterans in higher education in America and how to enhance gender satisfaction. A solution to this problem will build policy awareness to implement and evaluate workplace discrimination measures. In order to solve this problem higher education institution should also upgrade the hiring of veteran male adjuncts from part-time job categories to full-time. One approach according to Fruscione is tabling a communication with the team would help devise ways that may lead to equitable treatment within the workplace and eliminate the current issue of male adjuncts discrimination. With regard to the background and solution, by framing the problem as an optimization policy toward discrimination approaches of veteran male adjuncts, higher education institutions could develop effective and interactive communication frameworks to engage adjuncts from each gender. The study provided some of the main gender challenges facing male adjuncts in higher education in America and their remedies. However, a further study should be quantitative to boost its reliability.

Trends in student persistence and retention capture the attention of academic administrators, but it is in each faculty member's classroom where the greatest opportunity for supporting students' success occurs. This guide presents strategies that every faculty member can implement to fuel their students' educational attainment.

Anthropologist and sociologist Mariya Ivancheva has viewed modern higher education from a number of global perches, whether in Eastern Europe or South Africa, the strapped Bolivarian University of Venezuela, and in the UK, whether from across the Irish Sea or in her current role as a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Leeds School of Education. She's currently part of an ESRC-and Newton-National Research Fund-sponsored collaborative project, The Unbundled University, examining how digital technology, marketization and unbundling are affecting universities in South Africa and the UK.

Colleges and universities are now part of an ecosystem that includes educational technology companies. As more faculty adopt Web 2.0 technologies, institutions of higher education must seek sustainable methods to support faculty and this may involve collaborations with ecosystem partners. The purpose of this action research study was to improve the support resources provided by the VoiceThread organization, a Web 2.0 tool provider, to its higher education users. This study was guided by three questions: a) is there a significant difference in faculty perceptions about the pedagogical benefits of VoiceThread between faculty who examine VoiceThread in an eBook and faculty who examine VoiceThread through a webinar; b) how can an eBook be designed to support the diverse needs of 21st century faculty; and c) what are the support needs of faculty who teach with VoiceThread? A purposeful sample of 53 full-time and part-time faculty from 2-year and 4-year institutions was randomly assigned to a control or treatment group. Quantitative data was collected through a pretest and posttest survey. Qualitative reflection and interview data was also collected. The study found that the eBook did not have a more significant impact on faculty perceptions than the webinars. Findings also show that eBooks used to support faculty should incorporate a blend of technology and pedagogy, include real-world teaching examples, discuss instructional design strategies and student perspectives, be accessible from anywhere at any time, include hyperlinks to videos and other resources, and incorporate illustrations and icons. Flexible, online faculty support services support faculty more effectively than on-campus workshops. The findings show that supporting faculty involves more than access to resources, however. Faculty who teach with VoiceThread feel isolated from their peers and see the eBook as a vehicle that may facilitate conversations about teaching with VoiceThread with peers, influence increased adoption on campus, and improve the likelihood of acquiring a site license. This study encouraged the VoiceThread organization to re-examine the value of the eBook to its higher education users and, as a result, will now provide the eBook as a free resource to all faculty, as opposed to institutions with a site license. Additional research should consider how free, open eBooks co-created through faculty and Web 2.0 company partnerships support part-time and full-time faculty across multiple institutions.

This article examines the changes in the market for entrepreneurship faculty over the past 23 years. Data is provided from June, 1989 through June, 2012 on advertised candidates and positions throughout the world. There were several significant findings in this study. During the
academic year 2011/12 there were 319 total advertised entrepreneurship positions of which 202 (63%) were seeking a candidate with a primary interest in entrepreneurship. This is the highest number of primary positions since this study was initiated in 1989. Furthermore, in 2011/12 there were 203 tenure track positions, which is the largest number since the beginning of the Great Recession in 2007. However, the number of tenure track candidates was higher at 231.
The findings also show that schools were seeking senior faculty (Associate, Full, and Endowed Professors) at the highest rate ever. Advertisements for full professors were at their highest level ever at 23. Associate professors were in the highest demand since 2007/08 and endowed chairs were at the fourth highest level over the life-time of this study. Overall, 87 percent of the tenure track positions targeted senior level faculty. These findings tell us that entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly institutionalized
within schools of Business and Management all over the world. Schools are recruiting more candidates, especially ones with a primary area in entrepreneurship. This shows that schools are valuing entrepreneurship and committing more resources as they recruit an ever increasing number of candidates with a primary area in entrepreneurship.

In-depth interviews were conducted among 32 adjunct public relations instructors across the U.S. to discover their unique contributions in preparing today's undergraduates for entry-level positions. Research questions probed teaching philosophy, practice-to-classroom transition, and any challenges faced. Amidst adjuncts’ voices, two overarching themes emerged – omnipresent economic forces, and academic/practitioner dichotomy. Findings fill a significant gap in the public relations body of knowledge and offer several suggestions for further research.► Offered are unique perspectives of public relations adjuncts to who prepare Millennial students for entry-level positions. ► Probed teaching philosophy, practice-to-classroom transition, and any challenges faced. ► Themes emerged – omnipresent economic forces, and academic/practitioner dichotomy.

In 2011, according to a National Center for Education Statistics report, part-time instructional staff in all higher education institutions exceeded full-time faculty members for the first time, accounting for 50% of all instructional staff (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2012). The same report indicates part-time faculty in community colleges exceeds 70% of instructional staff. Perhaps more alarming are the numbers of contingent instructional staff—faculty without long-term employment commitments. According to this measure, nearly 70% of faculty members in all areas of higher education have little-to-no job stability (American Association of University Professors [AAUP], 2013; Schuster & Finklestein, 2006). However, limited research exists on the working experiences of this major subpopulation of United States professors. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of part-time contingent community college faculty regarding the assessment processes their institutions implemented. Through interviews, researchers gathered data identifying what 20 part-time contingent faculty professors reported regarding teaching conditions and institutional assessment procedures. Participant interviews revealed two major themes centered on a lack of institutional engagement and meaningful assessment policies or procedures.

The campaign for a New Deal for Higher Education in the United States must address the fact that more than two-thirds of faculty members in higher education today are temporary employees working in demoralizing gig-economy conditions, too many of whom suffer from low pay, large class sizes, and excessive workloads that punish rather than reward excellent teaching.

This article examines whether the field of entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly institutionalized by examining market trends, AACSB jobs, and salaries.  The findings indicate that the field is becoming increasingly institutionalized through market trends.  During 2014/15, there were 471 advertised positions and 163 candidates in Schools of Business and Management.  The number of tenure track positions (261) was significantly higher than the number of tenure track candidates (161) for a ratio of 1.62.  This is the highest ratio of tenure-track positions to candidates since 2005/06 (2.1).  Out of the 261 tenure track positions, 174 were at AACSB institutions.  The ratio of tenure track positions at AACSB schools per tenure track candidate was 1.08.  The study also looked at how average salaries at AACSB schools and found them to be competitive with other mainstream areas.  Average salaries were: Full Professors ($162,000), Associate Professor ($131,400), Assistant Professor ($113,600), Instructor ($85,800), and New Doctorates ($97,800).

The conceptual frameworks that support the widespread practice of adjuncting in academia—as well as those that oppose it—have been evident since the founding of the US, allowing adjuncting to be analyzed within a historical context. This paper considers influences as broad as tensions in utilitarianism, applications for markets, the liberatory role of education, and the impetus for the American Revolution.  It argues that educational institutions are designed to facilitate peace, which promotes prosperity. However, the current trend of incorporating alleged “market values” into educational systems fails to maximize happiness, facilitate learning, liberate individuals, and support the American dream.

Academic work and care work are deeply entangled modes of labor. For parent-academics, these entanglements are particularly knotted during the postpartum period, when care work responsibilities intensify, increasingly under precarious labor conditions. Postpartum care work-whether conducted by oneself or by someone else-both encroaches upon and makes possible academic work, resulting in blurred spatiotemporal divisions between the two. This article draws on autoeth-nography and participant observation to map out a postpartum geography of care work and academic work in academia. It does so by examining three key sites in/of the university where care work and academic work intersect-bathrooms, campus daycare centers, and the internet-and by considering three kinds of work that happen there-milk-work, childcare work, and connection-work. In these three sites in particular, I argue, the intellectual work and the care work that sustain the university spill over into one another. Furthermore, each of these geographic sites can manifest as sites of care, access, labor, and surveillance, often simultaneously and always depending on the gendered, raced, classed, and dis/abled positionality of those moving in and through them. By advancing an understanding of (postpartum) reproductive rights as workers' rights, this paper also envisions more intersectional and coalitional feminist labor solidarities across campus.

2017 has been marked with increasing attacks by racist & nationalist regimes, including the most recent Trump administration. The Muslim ban, proposed & expanded border wall, increased police brutality, immigrant deportations, injustice at Standing Rock, dismantling of environmental and economic regulations & push to defund healthcare, all come as increasing attacks on working and immigrant communities. The attacks are an extension of what the globalizing world has endured for decades: forced separation & migration, rising neoliberal cuts and war spending, increased police violence & human and economic exploitation. We’ve seen revolutions abroad and increased waves of resistance here in the U.S. A social movement is brewing: Where do we go from here?

A response to the now-infamous Stukel letter, calling adjuncts a bunch of whiners and asking whether they should be allowed to teach our young. I take on the mythologies of Ayn Rand inspired neoliberalism and its denial and obfuscation of systemic and institutionalized inequalities. In so doing, I show that it was not "tumblers," as Stukel would have it, but rather a collection of people who used a system that allows them to deny their own participation.

The much-maligned plight of adjuncts is a story of lies and exploitation... and a story adjuncts insist they must believe. This first installment of my experience as an adjunct for almost 20 years introduces OUR problem - the adjuncts' problem. It may be 'their' fault, but the lie is one we want to be true.

Traditional dyadic mentoring relationships are not the most effective ways to socialize underrepresented minority and female early career faculty into academic medicine professions.  Team mentoring and peer work groups are much more effective mentoring strategies that build on the strengths of these populations.  While the presentation focuses on Academic Medicine as a discipline, the mentoring strategies and theoretical approach outlined in the paper are applicable to other academic disciplines and professional schools.  The workshop and paper describe the key characteristics and benefits of team mentoring and peer work groups; and the unique roles and responsibilities of the mentor and mentee in these relationships. The presentation will also outline the strategies for establishing peer work groups within academic medical centers.