Good Adjuncts:
The following powerpoint has been loosely adopted as the CFT’s Campus Equity Week Organizing Strategy.
My belief is that if we want to create a lasting campaign for adjunct activism which is effective and builds the partnerships we need for success, this is it.
Geoff Johnson
A “Good” Adjunct
Good Adjuncts,
As I more or less said in an earlier post, if the fight to address the issue of adjunctification is ever going to get anywhere, we have to realize and act upon the fact that adjunctification has been going on in earnest in all aspects of the economy under the terms like “labor contingency,” and the “independent contracting” of the “gig economy”. In that post, I pointed out how this was the discussion you needed to have with your students.
But that’s just the beginning of it.
Teachers’ unions and traditional labor unions need to get on the same page in addressing the issue, and really, adjuncts are the true link between the two.
For those of you needing a little background into the history of labor and teachers’ unions in this country, the history of such unions takes two strains.
One strain was that, as with the rise of the labor movement in general, it was younger women, who suffering from poor salaries, working conditions, and a general lack of respect, formed teachers’ unions which tended to act more or less like traditional labor unions, by going out on strike, forcing negotiations, etc. Such teachers’ unions in turn identified themselves with the larger labor struggle, and were part of a larger labor movement to improve the lot of all workers. Much of this contributed to a period of increasing economic equality between the years 1930-1970, and has come to be known as “The Great Compression.”
Another strain was that teachers’ groups, in some cases led by management, formed educational associations which over time morphed into teachers’ unions. While these groups would in turn fight for their members’ salaries and benefits, they generally took a more conciliatory tone with management, and more or less distanced themselves from traditional labor. This became more prominent from the Mid-70’s onward (note the interesting parallel to the start of adjunctification in earnest). From the 1970’s onward, America on the whole has experienced an increasing economic inequity which author and journalist Timothy Noah has referred to as “The Great Divergence.”
I write this not to put blame for income inequity at the feet of these teachers’ unions so much as to say that these unions’ lack of working in consort with the larger labor community has not only lessened their own power, but the power of unions and workers in general to resist the forces which favor the consolidation of wealth into fewer hands at the expense of a larger social contract with the general public.
As I said before, I am active within two different local teachers’ unions. One is very rooted in social activism. Part of this is driven by the fact that they are an older, more-urban and multi-school district. Their membership is larger, has more resources, and has a significant number of members with a social activist mindset. This union has greater links to the social activist tradition of the first strain.
This union is very active in the local AFL-CIO labor Council. It strongly supports the labor actions of the AFL-CIO affiliates, and in turn is able to garner general labor support for not only education-friendly candidates, but for a wide variety of labor and social progressive issues. In this respect, they are seen not only as a labor union, but as a community force. On the adjunct level, they have, despite some issues, one of the best adjunct priority re-hire policies in the state, and provide adjuncts working over a 50% load full-insurance benefits or the adjunct and his/her dependents, including discounted vision, dental, and chiropractic care. They also have provided paid office hours for over 10 years.
The other is a single-school district which is some 50 years younger, with many of its faculty being more middle to upper middle class in spite of its being in a more exclusively Latino community. It is more affiliated with the second strain of teacher unionism, yet is coming more to the realization of this strain’s shortcomings.
The second local has, until recently, not been involved in the larger local labor movement, and, in my opinion, it has, until recently, left them open to the electing of governing board members who have been pushed by local construction and trade groups in concert with a local political machine in which people work their way up the ladder via the governing board. Some years back, several of the board members, along with some administrators, were indicted and convicted on corruption charges. At one point, all instructors took a 5% pay cut, there were massive layoffs of adjunct staff, limited movement was made in terms of jobs security, and adjunct support facilities deteriorated. Recent years have seen a significant turnaround, with a slight increase in wages, paid professional development, and the start of a small, paid office hours program, but there is still a long way to go.
Despite the sharp contrasts I draw between these two unions, both face similar challenges, particularly with regard to dealing with adjuncts and with labor contingency in general. The first is that both teachers’ union are affiliated with larger national unions largely driven by their majority K-12 membership which generally does not have a full understanding of Higher Ed, from its work conditions to its labor force. As a result, the concerns of Higher Ed are often given lesser priority and attention. The second is that for the longest time, the main focus of both teachers’ unions is on the preserving of working conditions for the full-time unit members, with no specific or central strategy for addressing the increased use of adjunct labor, pay inequity. They clearly don’t like adjunctification or pay inequity, but are stymied about what to do, primarily in the face of an anti-increased revenues movement which has gripped America since the late 1970’s.
This mindset however is weakening, due in part to a growing income inequity in the face of a growing economy. Perhaps the strongest break in this mindset can be seen with the passage of Prop 30 in California in 2012.
Now is the time for adjuncts to step forward, and we need to do this by aligning ourselves with the interests of the larger labor community. It’s always been there for adjuncts to pursue. For my own part, I have tried to forge links, through my locals, with the AFL-CIO Labor Council, and involved myself with the labor campaigns like the SEIU’s and UDW’s respective struggles for janitors and home healthcare workers. I have been actively involved with the “Fight for 15” campaign pointing out, that for all the Higher Ed training adjuncts have, many adjuncts work for similarly low pay with no benefits and tenuous job security. By the way, if you ever go to one of the rallies, you will see people who are far more marginalized than our adjuncts out in force on the street in seas of purple, red, or green shirts chanting boisterously for justice.
It’d be nice to see adjuncts so motivated.
And guess what? At least at the community college level, many of these workers, or their children, are our students.
Talk to your fellow adjunct and full-time union members about being part of the larger labor community. Get them to see the larger picture. If you can’t get your union leadership on board, then go a local labor and social-justice based organization and tell them you want to help. No, this doesn’t mean giving your life to them, but hey, just holding a sign of support at a rally, or writing a letter to the editor, or inviting a worker to your class to speak of his/her experiences is a start.
Better yet, make organized labor or social justice groups a part of your Camus Equity Week. Invite them to take part.
And adjuncts, on every campus is that janitor, clerical, or classified staff who works alongside you, right down to the older cafeteria worker who has two kids at home and a life you don’t know about. Ask them about their work conditions and challenges, and generally show you care.
You might find that they will care about you too.
Then, when you speak and agitate for better work conditions for all workers, along with an end to adjunctification, they’ll support you too.
As the old union saying goes “an injury to one is an injury to all.”
Stop the injury, start the healing. We can be ONE.
Geoff Johnson
A “Good” Adjunct
Good Adjuncts:
For those of you outside the state of California, a big adjunct issue playing itself out in the chambers of the California Legislature is the push for adjunct job security via AB 1690. The bill made it past the Senate Education Committee, and now awaits a more uncertain battle in the great legislative graveyard–the Senate Appropriations Committee, where its forerunner AB 1010, died last year. I choose to be optimistic. if it makes it out of appropriations, it is almost certain to get approved by the floor of the senate, then sit before Governor Jerry Brown. What will he do? No one is certain, but I’d like to think he’ll sign it,and I’m doing everything I can, along with so many others, to see he has that chance.
This the letter I wrote to the legislative aides of particular senators on the Ed. Committee. They are often the better people to contact than the senators themselves because they actually have the time to read and process what you say, and communicate this to the senators, who do listen to them.
I put this letter out here to show you good adjuncts what constructive steps you can truly take to get the change we all need. See the letter below the sign out
Geoff Johnson
A “Good” Adjunct
To Whom it May Concern:
My name is Geoffery Johnson, and I am writing to you in support of AB 1690, which addresses job security for part-time, temporary instructors (adjuncts) at California Community Colleges.
I am a member of the California Federation of Teachers Part-Time Committee. In addition, I am the direct representative for adjunct instructors at San Diego Mesa College and Southwestern College in Chula Vista, directly representing some 1300, adjuncts, and, as a part of the San Diego Community College District’s AFT Guild, involved in representing some 2,800 to 3,000 adjuncts. I also sit on the evaluations Committee at Southwestern College and have been a five-time academic senator at San Diego Mesa College, having sat briefly on its Student learning outcomes Committee.
I emphasize this only to make it clear that beyond simply being an adjunct, I have a larger awareness of the impact of working conditions on adjuncts, and its impact on student learning and success.
As you may be aware, 70% of California Community College instructors are classified as “temporary” employees, or more commonly known as “adjuncts” who are employed from term-to-term on a contingency basis, or simply as need demands. The term “adjunct” itself implies that such instructors are “ancillary,” or “non-essential,” when in truth these instructors are often responsible for the majority of instruction at given community college. They may be “adjunct” in name, but clearly essential to the community college system.
One of the greatest challenges to such instructors is that most of these instructors, even when classes are available, have no sense that, even if they do exemplary work in the classroom, they can reasonably expect to be rehired. At many colleges, instructor can simply be fired without cause, or as it is politely put, not offered a class assignment for the following term.
On a personal level, for these instructors, many of whom teach at multiple campuses working as self-called “full-time part-timers,” it means a life lived where one can rarely plan out beyond six months in advance. With regard to the California community college system, it has meant high faculty turnover, stressed faculty, and significantly impacted instruction, particularly as the system aspires to the notion of ‘student equity.” In some colleges, the annual turnover rate for adjuncts is over 25% of the entire adjunct faculty. With such turnover, such colleges lose the long term institutional knowledge and the value of veteran teaching needed to provide educational integrity.
AB 1690, if passed, will provide adjuncts who have taught successfully for six semesters with rehire rights. Moreover, it will establish rehire priority on a seniority basis, consistent with how full-time public educators are treated. Furthermore, it will provide those instructors who might stumble in their work a one-semester improvement plan of great benefit to incoming instructors who might struggle to find their footing initially, but who then become great adjuncts and sometime, even better full-time instructors.
Some argue against such a bill, claiming that it takes away an administrator’s flexibility to schedule classes, but in a number of colleges have negotiated similar rehire policies and administrators were still able to schedule classes. I point to the present rehire policy in the San Diego Community College District, which has been working successfully for close to ten years.
Another argument made is that AB1690 would prevent local unions from negotiating better rehire rights, but AB1690 only sets a minimum base, and one far better than what many districts have been able to negotiate.
One might also note that in terms of student success, the San Diego Community College District has a higher Student Completion/Success rate than Southwestern, and a number of studies have linked greater access to instructors with institutional knowledge to higher student Completion/success rates.
In truth, what a lack of rehire rights creates, beyond the afore-mentioned problems, is the potential for nepotism and unchecked discrimination, which is not what California aspires to. In fact, just in terms of union grievances submitted by adjuncts over rehire-related issues in the San Diego District is relatively small, and much smaller for the 2100+ adjuncts in the district, compared with the 760 adjuncts in the Southwestern district where the rehire policy has no seniority clause and only a vague statement on “consistency of assignment.”
A final argument made against AB 1690 is that it will cost money in order for lists to be made for scheduling. This is in fact untrue. The San Diego Community College District accrued no additional costs as a result of having a similar rehire rights policy. Rehire lists are kept by Deans and schedulers, like Department Chairs, who in many cases already have this data. The reporting of this data would be no different than the district reporting when adjuncts have reached certain steps or columns when their pay is determined.
The passage of AB1690 will not end adjunct instructors being hired on an “as needed” basis, but it will provide adjuncts with the notion that under reasonable conditions, they can expect to keep teaching when they do a good job, and that these good adjuncts will be available to help students achieve their goals.
Sincerely,
Geoffery Johnson
Adjunct Rep San Diego Mesa College, (AFT 1931)
Executive Adjunct Rep Southwestern College (SCEA/CTA/NEA)
Member, California Federation of Teachers Part-Time Committee
Member, AFT National Part-Time Caucus
Good Adjuncts:
In our great battle against the exploitation we experience, perhaps our biggest challenge is reaching across what I will refer to her as “the big divide,” or the differences in perception between full-time and adjunct/contingent faculty.
What exactly are these differences in perception? Well, first of all, let me say what they generally aren’t on the whole.
Some of the angrier of adjuncts (and by the way, it’s OK to be angry, but I would advise it’s better to be angry and strategic), will conclude that most full-timers operate with the assumption that they are full-timers because they are simply “the best” and deserving of the privileges of higher salary, job security, and good benefits.
On the other hand, full-timers will conclude that adjuncts are “simply mad because they couldn’t get a full-time job,” can never be satisfied, and either don’t or can’t appreciate the additional outside-of-the-classroom duties and responsibilities that come with the full-time job.
The number of full-timers who I have met who wholly and openly subscribe to the above view I can count on one hand. Conversely, the number of adjuncts who I would say wholly fit the aforementioned full-time perception is also in the single digits.
Why is it out there? It’s because adjuncts and full-timers don’t talk to each other nearly enough.
With regard to the adjunct issue, the biggest sense I have is that nearly all full-timers agree that the system is unfair, exploitative, and none of them would like to return to working as an adjunct. Many of them are truly pained over the fact that they work alongside people who are every bit as qualified as they are, and sometimes even more so. The hiring process, with all its byzantine twists and turns, is something they take seriously, but they feel frustrated by the fact it produces only a few full-timers, and that it’s not narrowing the diversity gap. They despair of the institution filling the gaps in the loss of full-time positions with increasing numbers of adjunct and contingent jobs. At the same time, in part because of the loss of full time instructors, and because of the corporate creep of results-based learning based on largely abstract and numerical data, many full-timers are feeling extremely harried and overburdened, and feel that if they’re going to be forced to endure this nonsense, then at least they should be fairly compensated for it. Many like and highly respect their adjunct colleagues.
As for adjuncts, yeah, there are people angry about not getting a full-time job, but the bigger problem is that the overall lack of pay has created enormous strains on their life from basic living health. Further, they are angry because even when they do good work, or even work in unpaid, outside-of-the-classroom capacities, there’s no guarantee they will even have a job the following semester, let alone even getting closer to that coveted full-time position. Often they feel further tweaked when they’re hit up in evaluations for not always being up to speed with the latest teaching trends and technology, despite the fact they have no time or money. That said, adjuncts do care deeply about their departments (even the ones who don’t show up to the department meetings which are often scheduled which they are least convenient to adjuncts). They like to see their students and the program succeed, and will just as be inclined to talk about curricular development and student progress as they will bitch about the sorry nature of their jobs. Many would love to sit and do (where possible), sit on committees. Many also like their full-time colleagues.
OK, now that said, here’s where the real divide is. Most full-timers, while acknowledging that full-timers are underpaid and work under bad conditions, feel that the essential task to solving the problem is to create more full-time positions, and reduce adjunct labor to preferably around 25% of instruction. This sort of thinking operates around the notion that an adjunct is an incomplete worker used to deal provide instruction in the face of a paucity in funding. In other words, the solution is to “make the adjunct whole” by converting them to a full-time position.
As for adjuncts in general, the view, as you may know, is very different. Adjuncts know that there is no magic fairy that’s going to float down from the sky and supply the billions of dollars it would take to create the tens of thousands of full-time faculty jobs to realize the dream of 75/25 full-time/adjunct instruction. The fact of the matter is, even under the best of conditions, the realization of more full-time jobs will be slow and steady, and then only if budgeting priorities and the general will of the people will call for it. This still means, in many cases, up to 200+adjuncts applying for one full-time job.
Maybe more importantly, what it means is that adjuncts and their vast numbers aren’t going away any time soon. Sure, most adjuncts want a full-time job, and they also want to win the lottery.
Adjuncts want full-timers to realize that they have more than wishes-they have immediate needs, and the most glaring is better, and dare we say it, equal pay. In fairness, equal pay is almost the same pipe dream, but a steady movement towards that goal by incrementally increasing adjunct pay in relation to full-time pay is doable, as is adding, slowly but surely more full-time positions.
In other words, adjuncts, at least reasonably thinking ones, see it not as a case of either/or (full-time positions/equity pay), but both/and.
This is not immediately easy for many full-timers to fully accept for a number of reasons. To them, the immediate challenge to their own work conditions is the lack of full-time colleagues, which hurts everything from their workload, to their union numbers, to control over their lives. They want more pay for what they clearly see as more work, and its understandable. At the same time however, to increase adjuncts wages so that they are more equitable to full-time pay means having to get the money from somewhere, and this is where the real challenge comes.
I know, I know, I hear my adjunct legions screaming, “Who cares about what they want? To pay us equitably, even if this means lesser pay for full-timers, is simply correcting a past wrong.” Perhaps, but good luck selling that idea, and if you were a full-timer, with the increased pressures you’re facing, would you buy it? I also know that some of you may argue that it would simply be a matter of adjuncts overtaking their locals. In both my locals, adjuncts far outnumber full-timers, but from what I’ve seen, there’s no imminent possibility of that happening, nor is it likely it would actually make things better.
The way equity pay has to be sold is that it needs to be combined with the increase of full-time jobs, and it has to create avenues where adjuncts (who are paid) can step into outside-of-the-classroom roles that were exclusively reserved for full-timers. The workload on full-time faculty needs to be eased. Equity pay should also, for the most part, be driven by statewide funding measures rather than forcing unions into fighting among their members. This is where adjuncts and full-timers alike need to come together and sell equity as for the good of learning environment, students, and the community as a whole.
This doesn’t mean that local unions should singly address equity in their own contracts. The state needs to help and lead the way. It was after all, at least in California, the state legislature that created adjuncts, not local community colleges.
This is where adjunct-full-time conversations need to lead. How does it start? I would suggest at first, one-on-one, and it’s going to take time, listening as well as speaking, and holding our adjuncts breaths at moments. We can do this, and quite honestly, we must.
Geoff Johnson,
A “Good” Adjunct
Good Adjuncts:
Having sat on the executive councils of two different wall-to-wall (adjunct/full-time) locals affiliated with two different national unions, one of the most glaringly obvious things that I see happen, and it’s perhaps the one thing that most “radicalizes” adjuncts to the extent that they no longer see their union as a tool for change, is how adjuncts, or adjunct issues become “compartmentalized.”
Perhaps an easy way to understand this is as follows. You are an adjunct concerned about a vast array of issues which, to be honest, really makes you angry, like, “Why am I paid so much less than my full-time colleague, why do I have poor or no job security, and why do I get no benefits? ” You then take it upon yourself to go to a union meeting, expecting to get answers and hearing some kind of plan or active strategy.
When you get to the meeting though, what you hear instead are minutes, financial reports, perhaps a reference to negotiations, or some sort of union issue that seems far removed to the adjunct. Then there may or may not be the discussion of political action which seems only tangentially connected to the issue of adjuncts, like a call for a support for hotel, grocery, or healthcare workers. Often after that, and usually at the end of said meeting, there will be the “adjunct” or “part-time” report which, if given, may simply refer to an upcoming unemployment workshop. And with that, the adjunct leaves, and we may be lucky if they come to another meeting.
In fairness to the local unions, much of the stuff on a meeting agenda is what unions must deal with as they involve the whole body. Further, just walking into a single meeting without some sort of context to what the union has been/is dealing with is going to leave anyone, adjunct or no, confused. Additionally, these calls for the support of outside groups are critical down the road for the their reciprocal support of local governing board candidates, state legislators, and propositions/and initiatives which can affect institutional funding and state policy positively, and generally, the bigger the local, the more they need to “play the game.”
Further, there are also macro-issues tied to accreditation, program review, resource allocation, planning, tenure review, etc. which affect the campus as a whole, and will affect adjuncts, but not with an immediacy that many adjuncts will see.
For example, many adjuncts were angry about all the attention being given in one of my locals to the accreditation fight at the City College of San Francisco. I had to tell them that one of the reasons that City College was under assault was the accrediting board’s assertion that it paid its adjuncts too much, which was 85% of full-time pay, making it one of the most equitable institutions in the country with regard to adjunct pay.
In this regard, particularly if the other issues appear to be more immanent, the adjunct report will get de-prioritized.
But really, there are some problems here. As an adjunct rep, I am the one, in at least one of the locals, giving the dreaded “adjunct report.” Now I don’t know how many other people giving reports get “spoken to” after meetings, but I on occasion do. Sometimes, it’s generally “meant well,” but I’ll get old things like, “you don’t want to sound too angry,” or “make sure that you’re inclusive,” and I could go on.
Thing that gets me about this is that often I’m in the process of trying to talk people up into taking action, for things like Campus Equity Week, Adjunct Action Day, Union Membership Drives, Signature Campaigns, for Letters to Politicians , etc. Because these items require a high degree of participation and buy-in, in addition to being time sensitive, it’s more or less necessary that one is passionate. And by the way, not once have I ever in a general meeting called out full-timers, though I have profusely thanked them on occasion for their support. (And to be fair on this point, sometimes I’ve gotten more help from full-timers than adjuncts on these issues, adjuncts). There’s sort of this sense I get at times that when I speak, I have to be watchful for the “there he goes again . . .” look, or this unspoken suspicion that I’m suddenly going to go off on full-time faculty.
The statement that really gets me, (and it is never said to me, but is apparently said by other full-timers who will in turn talk to full-timers who talk to me) is the whine, “Why do we have to talk so much about part-time issues?”
Hmmm, I don’t know. Your local’s membership is 70%+ adjunct. Whenever there’s a loss of funding, full-timers are worried about whether or not they’ll take a salary cut or lose their COLA. They might even see their class cuts go up. For adjuncts at that point, the central concern is this—“Am I going to have a job next semester?” Oh, and there’s also that pay disparity and general job security thing, and the fact that, despite strong adjunct opposition to it, such that it can be expressed, they keep hiring fewer full-timers and more part-timers.
The fact of the matter is you don’t talk about it enough, or more importantly, don’t consider adjunctifcation for what it really is—an existential threat to tenure, full-time employment, the labor movement, and the middle class.
But now I’m going to say something a bit shocking, and seemingly contradictory. The general meeting is never going to be, in and of itself, an effective tool for engaging adjuncts.
Most adjuncts, because of the precarious nature of their work, can’t make these meetings in the first place. Second of all, the few adjuncts who do show up to meetings have a very limited understanding of how unions, particularly teachers’ unions, have to operate in dealing with management and the general public. Too many have this notion that if you just get together and demand something in force you’re going to get it, like in the movie Norma Rae. Third, adjuncts are angry at what are often wide varieties of slights, and as people who are every bit as smart and inquisitive as the full-time colleagues, they have ideas and questions as to why certain things have or haven’t been done (and too often they have to no affect, or simply can’t be done, but the adjunct doesn’t know this, or know why).
With regard to all three of these points, adjunct engagement needs to be better shaped to meet adjuncts if adjuncts are ever going to get more involved in helping themselves.
First, outside of the general meetings, there need to be times when adjuncts can simply hook up with other members of union leadership, and no, not just the adjunct rep. If you were to substitute white and black for full-time/part-time and applied that model, just how do you suppose that would come off?
Second, instead of just having adjuncts come to a big meeting, having smaller meet-ups at varying times in different locations would help. How about coffee and donuts on a Tuesday morning in an adjunct workroom, or at an off-site extension? How about a brown bag lunch? Hell, couldn’t we just get a full-timer to walk into an adjunct workroom and just hang out and talk for a few minutes about work conditions with no agenda?
Third, create smaller meetings built around one or two items specific to adjunct concerns. One meeting could simply be educational, like “What’s the negotiation process about?” Another could be “Adjunct Vent Your Spleen Day,” etc.
Now I will say in closing, that if you adjuncts out there are waiting for full-timers to have his dawn on them and come to you, you will be waiting in futility. You need to make it happen. Suggest it, then demand it. If nothing happens, then educate yourselves and get people among you to go to meetings. By the way, I’ll still be out there trying to realize each of the three proposals I just made, but I’m one person.
Create the engagement you need and deserve. It doesn’t happen without you.
Geoff Johnson
A “Good” Adjunct
Good Adjuncts,
So now that you’ve got “priority of assignment” and a degree of seniority, think you’re safe? Well, get on the wrong side of a dean and or scheduler and you might find there’s yet another way to screw an adjunct—call it “creative” scheduling.
Now any adjunct who has worked at an institution for more than five years is no stranger to the odd schedule or two. What I’m talking about is when the schedule is used against you like a weapon.
Perhaps the most venal example of this I’ve seen of late was the case of a few adjuncts who their dean, as I have mentioned before, had unsuccessfully tried to remove by effectively questioning their equivalency status. As it turned out, the dean had previously scheduled them for classes that would have worked with their schedule, which like most adjuncts, is an interesting patchwork of classes all over the place.
When their equivalency status was put into question, they were pulled from those classes. Resolving the equivalency issue with these adjuncts actually took over a month. During this time, some of the teachers’ classes were re-assigned, while another, fearing the loss of income, took classes in her previously scheduled time slot.
The union managed to prevail on the equivalency issue, but by this time, the damage was done, and two of these adjuncts were given offerings at times that were either highly inconvenient, or simply impossible to take due to a scheduling conflict. One adjunct was able to make it work, the other had to refuse the assignment, which along with the lost classes meant the loss of her hiring priority. In the end, the dean got her wish—this adjunct wasn’t going to be working at the college anymore.
All of the adjuncts I mentioned here had “Priority of Assignment.” In theory, they have a guarantee for work. Still, contrary to popular notion, “Priority of Assignment,” which is sometimes also called “Vesting” at some colleges, is not, as some deans, department chairs, and VP’s of Instruction try to define it, “tenure for adjuncts.” A full-timer with tenure is more or less guaranteed a job for which they are evaluated once every three years, and then must be absolutely appalling in order to get fired. And when I say appalling, I could speak of such teachers who taught strictly from books, would go months without returning any student work, and were either confusing or extremely condescending to their students.
An adjunct with “priority of assignment” is a teacher that is only promised a certain number of classes in a following term provided there is a need for the classes. There’s nothing which says that dean can’t effectively offer you classes at a different time or location. This means the dean, should he or she have the notion to, can schedule an adjunct where they will because a guarantee of load is not the same as a guarantee of specific classes.
Before I go further, I don’t want to make all deans or schedulers (usually department chairs) out to be devious, agenda-driven people. In fact, this is generally a very small number of deans and schedulers. Most dean and schedulers, quite frankly, are very busy and have other things to do, and prefer consistency when scheduling, and so they want to keep as many people in predictable and preferred places as possible.
Still, this doesn’t mean that they can’t or won’t use the schedule as a weapon.
In many ways, the bigger problem with a schedule is that once a scheduler has put you in a certain place with certain classes, you can be sure that you will always get those classes, or have to tread very lightly in requesting changes. This is how people who are qualified to teach a variety of classes may get forced to languish with a certain class or classes with no real hope of change.
What can be even worse is if you’re put into an off-campus assignment, you may find yourself effectively removed from departmental culture for years, particularly if the department chooses to schedule its meetings midday and midweek. And without that departmental connection, one can get hurt in the evaluations process, or lack the information to present oneself as a credible candidate for a full-time position.
Perhaps worst of all in this regard is if you’re teaching a lower level basic skills class that gets converted to self-study or is simply eliminated. This is in fact when deans begin to get devious as they realize they may not have the classes they want you to take, and realize that they must displace less senior teachers in order to absorb you into classes you have never taught.
As I’ve said here, even with priority of assignment, a union’s hands can be tied. What’s a solution? Well, to a degree having priority of assignment with senior adjuncts getting their load before less senior adjuncts helps. What’s more important is for an adjunct to keep connected with their deans and schedulers, and by this, I don’t mean, kiss their ass. Check in with them now and again. Be friendly, and stay connected with the department. Let them know when you can be flexible, and when you can, be so, without being a doormat (i.e. taking that five week-class taught at a hog plant for five hours a meeting on Saturday afternoons.)
Sometimes Good Adjuncts, the only weapon we really have is to be proactive.
Geoff Johnson
A “Good” Adjunct
Good Adjuncts:
While in the last essay I talked primarily about how older adjuncts are victimized by Deans, Department Chairs, and other faculty for being effectively “obsolete,” there is a practice which, whether intentionally or no, works as either a sort of “trial by fire” for new adjuncts, or a “we’re sending you to Australia” for any adjunct that runs afoul of the powers that be—that awkward off-campus assignment.
I recall my own experience with this. In May of 2002, I had just come back from living in Japan for nine years and was looking for a teaching position. Considering that it was already May and that the scheduling for Fall Semester classes had been done months prior, there had appeared to be no chance I would get any work at all. I stress this because the scheduler who gave me the class did and does in fact care about adjuncts and was in fact doing me a great kindness to give me anything at all. I will however say that this is often not the case. I will also say that the assignment I got was still a bit of a challenge.
Having taught English either at the college level, or for academic purposes abroad for some 15 years prior, I was a bit seasoned, but I wasn’t entirely prepared to be teaching a class at the MCRD, or Marine Corps Recruiting Depot, where I was to teach almost exclusively older military personnel from different branches of the service. Some were straight arrow career folks, others were “I joined the service, now get me outta here,” and I had one guy who had some interesting theories about the pyramids…, but I digress. The bigger issue is that I was encouraged to teach a theme-based English course based around the topic of “California” and save one person, none of the students was from California, or had in fact lived anywhere but in or around a military base in California for more than five years. One young woman in the class, born and bred in Alabama, was in the Navy and lived on the ship. Of California she knew of the San Diego Embarcadero and the MCRD.
To add to the fun, the room I taught in had a broken TV and VCR, a filthy whiteboard, no computers, and had stadium-style seating with 30+ year old furniture, and had the general cleanliness of a fraternity house. Further, because we were off campus, it made the research-writing component of the course difficult because no one had access to the library. For one class, I actually arranged a field trip to the local library so that students could go off and work there independently with my guidance. When we got to the library, just before the students went to their separate areas, I was informed by the head librarian that this is not how “things are done.” We all still stayed in the library and worked, under a watchful eye, with the librarian in the back of her head likely realizing, after I told her about the situation, that for me to have them write a research paper without guidance in how to do research was like making “bricks without straw.”
And no, because it was an evening class and the school didn’t have the facilities as yet, doing the generic library studies class wasn’t an option.
Anyway, I survived that class, in part because I was so used to dealing with curricular chaos and lack of planning in Japan where I learned you just have to make do. The problem is, many adjuncts don’t, especially new adjuncts, which too often means after just one semester the adjunct is not simply an ex-adjunct, but an ex-teacher.
I must confess that I quite often get complaints like these from other adjuncts, or ex-adjuncts who have lost classes with a particular school because of being put into a situation for which they were never ready.
First, let’s take a look generally at who new adjuncts are and where they have come from.
Most new adjuncts are people who have just finished up an MA or PhD, or are in the process of completing the latter. If they have had any teaching experience at all, it has most likely been with groups of college undergraduates, mostly around the ages of 18-20 who came to college directly out of high school, and who have been inculcated in college culture. I won’t even touch the socio-economic, cultural diversity issues here except say, life in urban community colleges means greater socio-economic and cultural diversity issues are more significant. These adjuncts are more likely to have a presumption that community college students have would the same level of preparedness or connectedness to education and the classroom environment, and as many of these new adjuncts must quickly learn, they do not.
Now add to this problem that a class off campus, often with poor local resources, taking place at night or on a weekend, and you may have an idea that the new, and relatively untrained instructor can quickly be in trouble.
Why does this happen? The reason is two-fold–One dealing with administrators, the other with full-timer culture.
Most Vice Presidents of Instruction at California Community Colleges, and you can assume it applies nationwide, are constantly chasing funding. They’re after getting those would-be students in classes (provided they can pack the classes as much as possible), and so, to put it mildly, they will often great “creative” with class offerings.
Now don’t get me wrong, as community colleges, by their very mission are there to educate the community, they should be reaching out to students by having classes in evenings, on weekends, and at times, at schools or centers, where they can better serve their communities. However, this idea has led to some very dubious sorts of situations. Having classes at places like military centers is great, but too often, when it comes to resources, neither the military or the community college district will care about providing the proper resources, each assuming it’s the other party’s responsibility. Having classes at high schools to provide students with that “college” experience (why not just let them take a college class directly?), really only works if the students are actually college ready.
I knew of one poor adjunct who taught a Math class at a high school where many of the students had chosen the class simply because their buddies, boyfriends, or girlfriends were in it. If he left the room, he had to worry about students drawing a penis on the board. Being as he was fresh out of graduate school, he found himself flummoxed and angry. Further, the department chair who gave him the class never visited the site. At the end of the day, the teacher did OK on his peer evaluation (by a teacher other than the department head), but as he didn’t build rapport with the students, the high school principal of the program wanted him gone, and so he was. Now he could have been given an on-campus Math class with a more mature student body the next semester, but he was simply not re-hired.
The problem I have with this, more than anything else, is that I have the impression this was a person who could have been a good teacher in time and an asset to his department. I also think that, in light of the situation, that a seasoned full-time instructor would have been a better fit.
Well now why doesn’t that happen?
Now we have to talk about full-time culture. As full-timers are effectively the anointed ones, they get first choice in classes. Now clearly, full-timers need to get the numbers of classes they are required to, and in that sense they should have priority, but at the same time, if you are working for a single institution which has more or less guaranteed lifetime employment barring some really egregious teaching or behavior, that should obligate you to serve the best interests of the institution by on regular occasion teaching an occasional off-campus assignment, or at least trading off on it with some of your other full-time colleagues. In truth, most full-timers try to schedule their classes to start after 9:00 AM and finish around 3:00 PM, and if they can swing it, not get scheduled for any classes on Friday.
To be fair, I know many a full-timer who don’t do this, but I sadly know even more who do.
This means adjuncts having to teach on the margins, often by what can best be called the old “horseshoe” schedule, where he/she will teach a class at 7:00 AM or 8:00 AM, perhaps go teach on another campus, if they can get the work, then show up in the evening for that special 7:00-10:00 PM class. It is these classes, at the far ends of the schedule, which are more likely off campus, and in the realm of the adjunct.
And understand why adjuncts do this—it’s a case of desperation and that extremely misplaced notion that if I “take one for the team” that they (a hiring committee) will think highly of you come full-time job opening time.
And I know this because this is why I took those classes.
When I came back from Japan, I was so desperate to find work to support my family that I would have taught English from 12:00-4:00 AM in a broom closet in a liquor store, and I not so jokingly told my scheduler this. If teaching such a class like this is the pedagogical equivalent of selling a kidney, let’s just say there’s been an active organ market in academia for some time now.
I also had some strange notion that the full-time faculty appreciated me, and I suppose the scheduler may have, but mostly to the extent that he didn’t have to pull his hair out finding an another adjunct ready to fall on his/her own sword.
In the end though, all I did, besides support my family, was insure the practice of that “awkward off- campus” assignment could persist.
Administrators and full-time faculty need to sit down at a big table and really start thinking about how their behavior in regard to first offering, then staffing these classes does not serve the best interests of the institution. If you’re going to offer these classes at off-campus sites, ensure that the proper resources will be there for a teacher to do his/her job. Second, think seriously about the student population that’s going to be served and whether they are actually ready for such coursework, or if it’s really necessary for the community college to be involved away from its main domain. Third, staff more of these classes with veteran full-timers who know these populations and are more ready for the job. And finally, if you’re going to put a young adjunct out there, MENTOR HIM OR HER. Don’t just assign and forget and hope that things will turn out alright.
The adjunct you help might just become the full-time employee that will shine for you.
Geoff Johnson
A “Good” Adjunct
Dear Students, Full-time Faculty, Classified, Administrators, and of Course Adjuncts:
Approximately one year ago, when for the first time on a widespread scale such rallies as these took place, I was to a degree excited by the chance to speak out along with my colleague and fellow adjunct John Hoskins to draw attention to the adjunct condition.
Sadly, it’s a year later, and there are still so many students out there who don’t know the meaning of the term, or how it has become synonymous with teacher exploitation, marginalization, and the rationing of instruction.
The adjunct, or so called “part-time” instructor is a teacher, who like his/her full-time counterparts, must possess either a Master’s or Doctorate degree, so that he/she can teach to more or less the same student population in subjects, which he or she, has the same level of expertise. In truth, the student taught by either will rarely know which one is the full-timer and which one is the adjunct unless the teacher in question tells him or her.
However, unlike, and this is the word, unlike the full-time instructor, the adjunct is limited to teaching no more than 67% of a full-time load in one district, for fear of having to give them, like a full-timer, a long term employment contract, full health benefits which can extend to his/her family, occasional sabbaticals, and some cases, a structured early retirement plan
The adjunct is given no long term contract, and in many districts, no rehire rights (meaning that that you can be fired for any reason, like for example, the Dean having a family friend in mind for your job). It means living a life and a career in four to six month spurts for years and even decades. While a smattering of schools will give health benefits to adjuncts who maintain 50% or greater loads for more than a year, most schools offer adjuncts no health benefits at all. There are no sabbaticals for adjuncts, and for adjuncts, retirement comes when an older adjunct is simply not rehired, and he/she has been given the message that it’s time to go away.
More significantly, the adjunct is paid only for the time he/she spends in the classroom, with extremely limited if any compensation given for office hours and professional development, and no compensation for hours spent grading or doing research. To be fair, officially full timers are not paid for these things, but they are paid to maintain a minimum 30 hours on a campus, and when salaries are awarded, the adjunct will be paid at a rate that is effectively ½ to 1/3 of what his/her full-time colleague makes.
Were this not enough to consider, know that in many cases these teachers also do not enjoy designated office space to work with their students.
There are hidden costs to being an adjunct too. Because of the low pay and limited work at any one institution, the adjunct may commute to over four campuses in a week, driving over 300 miles. The gas, the wear and tear on his/her car, the hours of lost time are all costs borne by the adjuncts. Further, when the adjunct cannot receive the health benefits the full-time employee receives, he/she must bear those additional costs out-of-pocket.
Often salary increases, when spread across-the-board for faculty, further the disparity, as the 2% salary increase for the $70,000/year full-timer will receive a $1400 increase, which the adjunct who teaches 60% at a 50% rate for an annual salary of 21,000/year will receive just $410. Unfortunately, at the store, both the adjunct and the full-time pay the same rate for milk.
Please do not misunderstand, I do not condemn or wish to deny my fellow full-timers of their wages, for they do earn their money. AFT has fought to reduce this disparity, as reflected in our last contract, which brought significantly rose adjunct salaries, and office hours. I condemn a system which from the start has used the “adjunct” as a cheap tool to provide only a half-fulfilled promise of educational equity.
I once believed that the “adjunct” was originally created as the status given to a moonlighting instructor, like a local businessman who once a week came to the community college to impart his vocational knowledge, and that as budgets were tight, a sort of fiscal creep set in, which over 40 years of time created the present climate in which now 70% of all community college instructors are adjuncts living and working at academia’s edges.
The truth is, at least in California, that in 1967, when the California legislature deemed it legal to hire adjunct instructors, it was so that schools could collect federal funds while not having to pay the full wages and benefits accorded full-timers. The system of adjunctification, you see, was not created by accident, or by a simple slouching towards budgetary pressures. It was from the start, as it is today, a system of exploitation by design.
And the costs of this system to adjuncts has been mighty. Forget the lost wages or lack of benefits—think instead of teachers toiling for years in hope of the full-time job that for many will never come, think of the adjunct living in apartment after apartment, and driving one broken down car after another, hoping his/her car will make it to the next teaching assignment. Think even more of the adjunct without health insurance who never gets that chest pain checked out until she learns its stage three cancer, think of the adjunct who loses a classes do to layoffs at one college, and having the ignoble status of being a working teacher, yet homeless and living in a station wagon with her three children ages 6 through 17. Think these are children who have ambitions like you own.
And trust me, I could tell you stories like this several times over.
Now, after telling you all this, I suppose what you know about an adjunct is negative.
What you also need to know is that, for the most part, an adjunct, is a person who loves to teach and so much so that even when making $15 an hour or less for the actual work that he/she does, he/she looks forward to the next teaching assignment, not simply for the promise of salary, but the opportunity to make a difference in people’s live, and in the community. (And as an aside, no worker should be making less than $15 dollars an hour, including adjuncts, especially when we aspire to the idea that our citizens should be taxpayers, and not dependent on government assistance.) As for the love of the job that adjuncts feel and the empowerment that can come from it, I think of the older student I had in a remedial class who never thought of herself as a writer, who wrote an essay about stopping herself from a third suicide attempt that to this day leaves me almost speechless.
The adjunct is that person who will do extra office hours, or show up on off days for unpaid professional and curriculum development, not out of obligation, or sometimes even a desire to get a full-time job, but because it’s the right thing to do for the students, the college, the community.
And contrary to the notion of the “adjunct” as a temporary worker, many adjuncts have worked at specific schools for decades, some far longer than any full-time instructor, like one of my colleagues at Mesa College, who has been teaching since 1963. And they leave special marks not just on the students they teach, but everyone around them.
I tell you this so that you know that today, while I would naturally like to see both equal pay for equal duties between adjuncts and full-timers, and in fact, a reduction/conversion of adjuncts to full-timers. My request today is a bit simpler to fulfill.
During the economic recession of 2008-13, the loss of funding to community colleges meant the loss of thousands of jobs for adjuncts, while students at Mesa would face waiting lists in excess of 15 students to get that one class they needed for graduation. What brought an end to this situation was the monies that came into the system as a result of Prop 30, a temporary tax measure which will expire in its entirety by the end of 2017. Without these monies, we could see a return to unemployed adjuncts and students without classes.
Today we have before you petition form calling for an extension of the progressive tax component of Prop 30. Please sign these petitions so that we can get it on the ballot in November, and then help us pass it so that we can teach you.
In addition, we are asking you to send letters in support of AB1690, a job security bill which gives an adjunct, after six semesters of successful evaluations, rehire rights based on seniority, and in the event of a weak evaluation, a chance to improve. This bill, if passed, will not make convert any adjuncts into full-timers, but it makes it possible for those good teachers who happen to be still classified as adjuncts on the job, and doing their good work.
Really, all I’m asking you to do today is to make it possible for us, as adjuncts, to continue in making a difference in your lives. Considering what we endure, can you grant us that?
Good Adjuncts:
We had solid moderate turnouts for events both at Mesa and Southwestern.
We had approximately 60+ attendees for the Mesa event, which may seem small, but these were actual attendees, not simply walkbys. The reception was strong.
Southwestern College had around 80-100 attendees, with more walkbys due to the high traffic location of the event.
In total we have collected 200+ letters in support of A1690, and around 160-180 signatures in support of the Prop 30 extension.
These rallies were not intended as the thing themselves, which was more or less what last year’s rallies were, but more or less kick off events for campaigns through the Spring, up to Campus Equity Week in the Fall, and then the election.
And of course, after that dust settles, and hopefully in our favor, the cycle begins again.
We in San Diego have not lost our enthusiasm in fighting for the adjunct cause because the great walkout of 2015 never materialized. That was always a media ruse and quite honestly, not realistic given the challenges of adjunct organizing. Could such an action happen in the future? Well, if it were to, there would need to be a greater depth of organizing and commitment than presently exists.
Adjunct Action Day, or National Adjunct Walkout Day, or whatever you want to call it, can become a vehicle that leads to that, provided people continue to do it, and build it as an institution.
Ultimately, however, the goal isn’t to have a walkout–it’s to end educational exploitation and the devaluing of education, as well as to end the excessive use of contingent or part-time hiring practices, not just in education, but throughout a world economy. I think the phrase “People before profits” best sums it up.
Today, between the loads of papers I have to catch up on, I’m still going to be pushing letters, petitions, and doing all the things we have to do to get where things need to be.
If you truly want to succeed in making the change, you’re going to have to get out there too. It’s hard, it’s tiring, you’ll piss your family off because you’re not spending time with them. Sometimes people will tell you the quest is futile, or at other times, you’ll be called a lackey or sell-out because you might, heaven forbid, actually try to work with full-timers or administration.
Always know yourself in these instances, because it’s to easy to walk away, and it’s the last thing you should do.
Keep it real good adjuncts, because you are essential.
Geoff Johnson
A “Good” Adjunct
Good Adjuncts,
Below is a copy of a letter to Governor Brown in support of AB1690, the adjunct job security bill. In case you’re unaware of what the bill is proposing, see for yourself.
Over the course of the next few months, this bill will be winding its way through the California legislature. As it works through its various committees, we will all need to target various legislators to get them to move the bill forward. we’ll keep you posted.
For now, write to the governor. It’s better if you write your own letter, but if you can’t, simply copy and paste what we have here and send it along.
Now get to it.
Geoff Johnson
A”Good” Adjunct
Governor Jerry Brown
c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173
Sacramento, Ca. 95814
Dear Governor Brown:
As you may be aware, 70% of California Community College instructors are classified as “temporary” employees, more commonly known as “adjuncts,” who are employed from term-to-term on a contingency basis, or simply as need demands. The term “adjunct” itself implies that such instructors are “ancillary,” or “non-essential,” when in truth these instructors are often responsible for the majority of instruction at given community college. They may be “adjunct” in name, but clearly essential to the community college system.
One of the greatest challenges to such instructors is that most of these instructors, even when classes are available, have no sense that, even if they do exemplary work in the classroom, they can reasonably expect to be rehired. At many colleges, instructor can simply be fired without cause, or as it is politely put, not offered a class assignment for the following term.
On a personal level, for these instructors, many of whom teach at multiple campuses working as self-named “full-time-part-timers,” it means a life lived where they can rarely plan out beyond six months in advance. In one notable case, such an adjunct has worked as a so-called “temporary” worker since 1963. In all, it means dreams deferred for adjuncts and their families. With regard to the California community college system, it has meant high faculty turnover, stressed faculty, and significantly impacted instruction, particularly as the system aspires to the notion of “student equity.” In some colleges, the annual turnover rate for adjuncts is over 25% of the entire adjunct faculty. With such turnover, such colleges lose the long term institutional knowledge and the value of veteran teaching needed to provide educational integrity.
Presently the legislature is considering a bill (AB 1690), which if passed will provide adjuncts who have taught successfully for six semesters with rehire rights. Moreover, it will establish rehire priority on a seniority basis, consistent with how full-time public educators are treated. Furthermore, it will provide those instructors who might stumble in their work a one-semester improvement plan, of great benefit to incoming instructors who might struggle to find their footing initially, but who then become great adjuncts and sometime, even better full-time instructors.
Some argue against such a bill, claiming that it takes away an administrator’s flexibility to schedule classes, but a number of colleges have negotiated similar rehire policies and administrators were still able to schedule classes. Another argument made is that AB1690 would prevent local unions from negotiating better rehire rights, but AB1690 only sets a minimum base, and one far better than what many bargaining units have been able to negotiate. In truth, what a lack of rehire rights creates, beyond the aforementioned problems, is the potential for nepotism and unchecked discrimination, which is not a goal towards which California aspires.
The passage of AB1690 will not end adjunct instructors being hired on an “as needed” basis, but it will provide adjuncts with the notion that under reasonable conditions they can expect to keep teaching when they do a good job, and that these good adjuncts will be available to help students achieve their goals.
Sincerely,
Address:
_____________________________
_____________________________
The Adjunct Crisis 