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Adjuncts: The Slave Labor of Higher Education
(The first article in a series)

This month, May 2013, I completed 15 years of teaching and decided to stop. As I reflect on my reasons, the basic reason is lack of respect---from the system administration, the college administration, and students. This lack of respect shows up particularly in how adjuncts are paid and treated by college leaders and department chairs.
Adjuncts’ Pay and Respect
It has been said that “Adjuncts are the slave labor of higher education.” This is factually true beyond doubt. Adjuncts are disrespected as teachers, as individual human beings, and as professionals in terms of what adjuncts are paid and in how they are treated by their supervisors.
College Adjunct Pay
At each of the nine colleges where I taught, with the exception of USM, I was paid approximately $1800 dollars for a one-semester course that met three hours a week for 15 weeks. Nominally the pay was $35 to $38 per hour of class time, plus perhaps a small stipend not part of the base-pay. The actual pay was a little over $12 or $13 an hour.
Teaching Expectations of Adjuncts
Teaching for forty-five hours in the classroom is only a part of what adjuncts do. They also must develop a syllabus; prepare course materials; prepare for class; counsel and tutor students on academic skills; teach students how to organize and present their ideas; teach them critical thinking skills; create and grade fair tests; and grade essays---some of which may take 20 to 25 minutes a piece if they need a lot of work.
Mind you, that is twelve dollars an hour for a mature adult with significant life experience and at least a master’s degree or an advanced professional degree. For me that meant a degree from an Ivy League university, a law degree, and master’s degree in social work and in teaching. Twelve dollars an hour for all this is grossly unfair and grossly demeaning. I’m told I would make slightly more processing applications for foodstamps.
Assigning Adjuncts Courses
By way of background, adjuncts are contracted to teach a course for a given semester. Adjuncts can be given as many as three courses a semester, four if there is an unusual need. The limit of three is to prevent adjuncts from claiming full-time status and benefits. Adjuncts agree to teach the course, but they can be terminated at will without cause or explanation.
They can simply not be invited to teach again, or they can be assigned courses that are not likely to reach minimum enrollment. There is no appeal. The department chair has absolute discretion in the matter and need not explain or justify any such decision. The only exception would be because a union has won protections based on seniority or on having taught the course for some time. Needless to say, few adjuncts are willing to risk offending the department chair in any way.
As to course assignments themselves, in two schools, the chairs did send out a prospective schedule of assignments for confirmation and invite requests for unassigned courses, but the chairs did not offer any explanation for their final decisions. Twice a follow-up inquiry was met with something like, “Oh, your request came in out of my normal sequence and got lost.”

CONTINUE