[The Montana Professor 14.1, Fall 2003 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]
Michael Dubson, ed.
Boston: Camel's Back Books, 2001
155 pp., $12.95 pb
Joanne A. Charbonneau
Liberal Studies
UM-Missoula
Richard E. Rice
Chemistry
University of California at San Diego, La Jolla
Adjuncts have come into the spotlight. Their plight has been discussed on Jim Lehrer's News Hour (January 2003), in Chemical & Engineering News (same month), in the Chronicle of Higher Education (which now devotes a monthly column to adjunct issues), and in several reports issued by the AFT (American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO). The AFT's 1998 report, "The Vanishing Professor," addresses the erosion of full-time positions and provides statistics about the working conditions and pay of adjunct faculty members. Two other AFT publications, "Marching Toward Equity: Curbing the Exploitation and Overuse of Part-time and Non-tenured Faculty" (2001) and "Standards of Good Practice in the Employment of Part-Time/Adjunct Faculty: A Blueprint for Raising Standards and Ensuring Financial and Professional Equity" (July 2002) recommend ways to improve the lot of adjuncts.
How bad is their lot? According to the personal accounts marshaled in Ghosts in the Classroom, pretty bad. Again and again, these adjuncts are passed over when permanent or tenure-track positions do open up; they are seldom regarded as colleagues by permanent faculty; they are often viewed as less than worthy even when they take on extra projects, advising, or mentoring; and they act professionally and generously even when their institutions not only fail to reward them for their contributions, but actually penalize them. Some of these adjuncts seem to take a perverse pride in teaching at least 10 courses at six different institutions (Kate Gale), or six to eight courses per semester for $16,000 to $18,000 (Jim Neal, M. Theodore Swift), or six courses in the spring, four in the summer, and seven in the fall for $15,000 (Erica Werner)--often with no phone, no office, no photocopying privileges, and no medical benefits. (It is worth noting that these cases represent some of the worst case scenarios; adjunct pay of $3,000/course seems closer to the norm.)
By now almost everyone inside the academy must be aware of these conditions. But for those who benefit from the situation, it's difficult to admit--probably even to themselves--that there is a dramatic gap between their teaching load and salary and those of adjuncts. That in fact the presence of adjuncts enables many permanent faculty to teach upper-level courses and to enjoy the comforts, security, and perks denied to the underclass supporting them. The purpose of Ghosts in the Classroom is to put a human face on these problems, 26 human faces as a matter of fact. These 25 stories (and one poem) by dedicated and talented teachers are anguished and poignant personal accounts of an exploitative educational system. The editor, Michael Dubson, himself an adjunct, wants this collection of bleak stories to provoke adjuncts generally and their comfortable tenured or tenure-track colleagues to "overhaul" the system and radically improve the working conditions of these exploited people. About half the college teachers in America--560,000--are adjuncts.
But Dubson's book is probably not the work to dismantle higher education and rebuild it closer to the ideal. Ghosts in the Classroom suffers from too many flaws in both conception and execution.
For one thing, it is unlikely that the stories of 26 people represent the range of experience of over half a million adjuncts. It is too easy to dismiss these subjective, emotionally charged, and painful accounts as a biased selection of the worst scenarios. Too much of the case depends on an appeal to emotion, rather than on statistics or other empirical evidence to support his case. Dubson does not include any stories of adjuncts who have found their positions satisfying or adequate (for example, the professional who teaches a night class, or the spouse of a faculty member who does not want a full-time job). As a clarion call for social and educational justice, the book fails because it overgeneralizes from the experiences of so few people.
Also, the book does not make a convincing case why teachers, students, parents, taxpayers, or tuition payers should rise up to overhaul a system that so successfully serves the interests of so many stakeholders in the system. Where is the incentive or urgency for the changes that Dubson and the contributors believe are so necessary? Morality? The "human dignity" of teachers? Many of the adjuncts point out that people like them are "a dime a dozen." So where is the motivation for colleges and universities to stop taking advantage of them? As long as there are people willing to be taken advantage of, administrators will be glad to oblige them. Why hire a tenure-track professor to teach an introductory course when plenty of people are willing to teach it for considerably less money and with no benefits? As public institutions try to stretch dollars ever further within ever tighter budgets, with state legislatures squeezed from all sides by state services, with taxpayers resisting higher taxes (and even expecting or demanding tax cuts), adjuncts must seem like a godsend to higher education. How else could all those introductory courses be taught? Although many people in and out of academia recognize the unfairness and dangers of relying on adjunct faculty, they also understand that many, if not most, colleges and universities today could not offer needed undergraduate courses without these professionals, who often step in at the last minute (sometimes just a day or two before classes begin) to teach some of the most important courses offered in higher education.
Another problem with the collection is that it is short on effective recommendations likely to galvanize the critical mass of people needed to overhaul a system that somehow manages to deliver education year after year within acceptable constraints of stress and expense. If the Introduction had offered specific recommendations, then the point of the essays would be strengthened. What about strikes by adjuncts? Their unionization? Letter-writing campaigns to administrators and legislators or to the tuition payers? The AFT is much more successful in offering recommendations for political and legislative action to ensure equity than this book is.
Dubson also ignores some of the reforms already taking place. Some institutions are taking steps to try to remedy the problem by refusing to hire adjuncts at all or limiting the percentage of classes taught by adjuncts; some have instituted full-time, multi-year positions with benefits for lecturers or instructors. But unless and until there is an overhaul of the entire system of higher education, there seems little hope for widespread progress. Reading the sad stories of 26 talented people will do little to change the status quo unless followed up by specific and organized action. The collection, then, is too limited in scope and too polemical to be effective as a first step in a program of reform.
Another related and equally serious problem with the book is that the essays do not support Dubson's claim that we all pay a price for the use and abuse of adjuncts. In his Introduction, Dubson asks rhetorically how adjuncts who are "angry, bitter, depressed, afraid, paranoid, burdened with major financial worries, perhaps seriously ill and uninsured, or just extremely overworked and scattered" could possibly be effective classroom teachers? Despite what Dubson would like us to believe, most of the adjuncts in this collection check their deeply troubling personal problems at the classroom door and become inspired and inspiring teachers, receiving some of the best evaluations given by students, who see them as caring and dedicated professionals. And while tenured faculty and administrators may not be particularly grateful to adjuncts, they couldn't get along without them. So contrary to the second part of the collection's subtitle--"the price we all pay"--the only ones who appear to be paying much of a price are the adjuncts themselves. And this price is indeed high.
The editor mentions "the psychological harm done to adjuncts because of the terms of the adjunct job." The contributors to Ghosts in the Classroom indeed write about their frustration, anger, disappointment, heartbreak, worry, depression, and loss of confidence. Many reiterate the idea that "if people only see how good I am, I will be rewarded." But such naïveté is hard to believe. Their hope is unwarranted, as institutions can and will hire those who are willing to work for a pittance and seem grateful that they got even that. Certainly, these essays evoke compassion for the people involved and our horror at the situations they describe and endure. Before finishing all 25 essays, however, we had to wonder why and how people would allow themselves--could allow themselves--to be trapped in such a system. As we read, the focus shifted from the injustice of the educational system to the psychology giving rise to these stories of victimization. Our original sympathy began to turn into something close to dismay as the writers seemed to take a perverse pleasure in complaining about the injustice and abuse heaped upon them. Why would they put themselves in the position of being abused and victimized year after year? To what end, for what purpose besides plucking at the heart strings?
Some of the writers themselves wonder about how and why they continue in these degrading positions, and some provide insight into their motivations. Virtually every one of the essayists refers to the rewards and love of teaching, the satisfaction of a student making an important new connection for the first time, or finally "seeing it." What can be more exhilarating than helping students prepare for their lives and careers? How few people are so lucky as to be able to make a living from their passion in life. These authors are trying to make a living, sacrificing much to answer this call of teaching. But when does the sacrifice become too great?
The entire system of higher education requires reform, but most people would rather avert their eyes and limp along with the status quo than confront the looming challenges. For tenured faculty, administrators, and legislators, it is far easier and safer--at least for the time being--to continue using adjuncts to teach large numbers of students for a small number of dollars than to face up to fundamental and incredibly difficult problems. In his Introduction, Dubson says that "the system must change," but we don't see how or why it must. There is no question in our minds that the system should change: it would be the fair, just, and ethical thing to do, but we see little reason from these essays or our own personal experiences (as administrators, tenured/tenure-track faculty, and adjuncts) to expect any fundamental change in the system in the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, the status quo is maintained by an endless supply of overqualified and willing adjuncts, who enable a dysfunctional system. Of the essayists, only a few have found the resolve to leave the teaching profession. One who did was Jody Lannen Brady, whose essay "Farewell to Teaching" concludes the collection.
I could stay and join the fight of part timers slaving away in committee rooms and conferences, but I walked away from the fight because I don't share the optimism of my crusading peers. I don't believe that administrators have any intention of addressing the concerns of their part-time employees; as long as there are over-qualified teachers willing to fill low-cost positions, there's little incentive to change.
So I'm staying home this semester for the first time in 12 years, and I wish all the best to the students I won't meet--and to the invisible teacher who signed a contract to teach my classes."
We applaud her! Now if only the other 559,999 adjuncts would do the same, we might see some change.
[The Montana Professor 14.1, Fall 2003 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]