What specifically are the best ways to protect adjunct instructors? Do we create opportunities for professional development (for instance, workshops and symposia) that keep adjuncts abreast of the most recent pedagogical trends, or does that impede too much on their precious time? Do we offer them every possible section to teach so that they can make the most money, or do we hold back so as not to overtax them? Do we offer more sections to a smaller pool of adjuncts or spread the teaching opportunities? Do we invite (or require) adjuncts to join committees and have a voice, or is that another way to infringe on their time?
Nels P. Highberg, Assistant Professor, University of Hartford
Introduction — At last year's Conference on College Composition and Communication in New York, a few Lore editors had the opportunity to meet in a focus group that was organized by Bedford/St. Martin's and comprised of a few writing program administrators (WPAs) who work with a fair number of adjuncts in their respective programs. During that gathering, we were struck with the ways in which these WPAs continually struggled to enact a balance between institutional demands and the needs of adjunct faculty.[MORE]
Nick Capo, Visiting Assistant Professor and Interim Director of the Writing Center, Illinois College
During my two years as the associate director of composition at Penn State University Park, I developed a clear understanding of the difficulties of bringing about lasting improvements in the working conditions for adjunct faculty members. We had roughly seventy full- and part-time adjuncts, and both directors that I served under were genuinely committed to improving the quality of undergraduate education and the conditions for our adjuncts. Short of a national mobilization of these exploited laborers and their successful organization of protective unions, which I believe is the only reliable solution to the problem of adjunct exploitation, we did discover several tactics that minimized the damage inflicted on our adjunct lecturers.[MORE]
Michael Day, Associate Professor of English and Director of First-Year Composition, Northern Illinois University
Here at Northern Illinois University, the decision was made some twenty-five years ago, when professorial faculty were pulled from teaching composition, to hire full-time instructors as much as possible and offer them benefits. In those days, however, instructors’ salaries were miserable, and they had little job security. But in the early 1990s they unionized and now have a pretty good contract. They have a full-time load of four classes, make $28,500 or more, and receive benefits, so that’s a start. Furthermore, in the English Department, we try to include our instructors in decision-making in the following ways.[MORE]
Michael Hennessy, Professor of English, Department of English, Texas State University
Recently, standing in the lobby of a campus building that I rarely visit, I was struck by the directory of a here-unnamed academic department. Faculty names were arranged in two distinct groups: Near the top was a list of "FACULTY," and near the bottom a list of "ADJUNCTS." The directory made a political statement: "Adjuncts" are not "[real] faculty." Whether wittingly or not, the department in question was sending a message to the campus - and to the "adjuncts" listed on the directory: "Your services are nonessential; you are not ‘faculty.’"[MORE]
Don Jones, Associate Professor and Director of First-Year Composition, University of Hartford
Given the diversity of adjuncts at most institutions, it is difficult to describe their ideal working conditions. Graduate students, retired teachers, underemployed Ph.D.s, and parents of schoolchildren vary in their need and desire to teach multiple sections, join committees, and publish scholarship. What all part-time instructors need, however, is to be treated as colleagues who are capable of making substantial intellectual contributions to their departments, colleges, or universities. That idea is as obvious in principle as, unfortunately, it is violated in practice.[MORE]
Jennifer Morrison, Assistant Professor of English and Director of First-Year Writing, Niagara University
When I think of the ways in which I, as the director of first-year writing, try to protect the interests of part-time writing instructors, I first imagine the resources I obtain for them: funds to pay them for workshops, office space, and office supplies; computers for their office spaces; library privileges; access to Blackboard; and Niagara University e-mail accounts. These are concrete ways in which adjuncts can gain access to institutional resources. For the purposes of this discussion, however, I’d like to bring up a less costly but perhaps more important way to protect the interests of part-time instructors. I make a conscious effort to facilitate personal, nonwork interactions among them and the rest of the university community.[MORE]
Lucas P. Niiler, Assistant Professor and Writing Center Director, University of Texas–Tyler
Someone needs to teach the required first-year composition (FYC) sequence to our new first-year students. The University of Texas–Tyler does not have a large graduate program, so we cannot rely on TAs to do this work. Money is simply not available for more tenure-track lines, which have traditionally been our primary (and often sole) means of staffing undergraduate sections. We have therefore begun to hire adjunct lecturers, drawing from a talented pool of local M.A.s and Ph.D.s with strong teaching credentials. As director of the Writing Center and sole composition faculty member on campus (I’m known as "the writing guy"), I have a particular interest in making sure such hiring does in fact protect and even nurture non-tenure-line faculty. With the approval of my chair, I am therefore drafting a document designed to guide my department in the ethical hiring of adjunct faculty.[MORE]
Christine Ross, Director, Freshman Writing Program, Quinnipiac University
I have a unique situation as an administrator of a program that hires a large number of adjuncts. We are also receiving a great deal of support to improve the quality of writing instruction. As I and other administrators have repeatedly insisted, our adjunct teachers are the heart and soul of our writing program. We can’t directly address salary issues because of a union contract that prevents our raising salaries for adjuncts without a corresponding raise for full-time faculty. Nevertheless, and because of the campus-wide emphasis on writing, we have had some success in supporting adjunct faculty by seeking compensation for in-service training, staff meetings, and any and all other programs we have created to develop our program. Most important, these include our major initiatives in curriculum development, the use of technology, and assessment.[MORE]
Mark T. Williams, Composition Program Coordinator, Department of English, California State University–Long Beach
A campus learning community is one place to nurture the strengths that composition adjuncts have by providing a temporary interdisciplinary home for their work. The Learning Alliance on our campus aims to provide first-year students with a sense of common purpose across the disciplines of history, classics, geography, and English. The Alliance consequently invites composition lecturers to collaborate with faculty from other departments to develop curricula, teach lessons, and assess student performance. Such collaboration takes additional time from an already harried group of talented instructors.[MORE]
Mindy Wright, Director of the Writing Workshop, Department of English, Ohio State University
Although our university-wide system of hiring adjuncts doesn’t allow for more formal commitments than one-quarter appointments, we are able to do some year-long planning about demand for courses and teachers. I try to hire adjuncts in the fall quarter whom I predict I will be able to continue to offer appointments to for the remainder of the year. In addition, because our program works with other programs on campus, there are sometimes ways in which adjuncts can be hired jointly. Within these contexts, I follow guidelines set by NCTE. I never offer full-time or part-time teachers a teaching load of more than forty-five basic writing students. In Ohio State University’s system, that means three courses of fifteen students each, a 100 percent appointment.[MORE]
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