It goes further than that, and it is not always the same boat in some ways, but that is not the fault of the faculty. If there is a problem involving adjuncts, it is not about their abilities (at least, no more so than with full-time faculty). Rather, it is about people who can’t dedicate themselves fully to teaching because they are paid so badly that they have to teach at several schools at once or work some additional job to make ends meet. It is about teachers who are often not paid for office hours (or even assigned an office) during which they would meet with and help students. I know many (most?) adjuncts still meet with students as they can, but between jumping from job to job and not having an office to use, it is very difficult, and if anyone suffers it is the students. Those are the kinds of issue that need to be addressed.

I had a student last week who talked to me after my literature class. She had added the class late, so I was going over the syllabus with her. Out of everything on the syllabus, her biggest reaction was to the fact that I had an office. She said that she has four classes this semester and I am the only instructor she has with an office or office hours. Since an office is a part of our full-time faculty contract, that means that her other instructors are all adjuncts. She was not criticizing the other teachers, but she is a serious student and she was just happy to know where she could find me when she wanted help, since she had no such assurance in the other cases.

So yes, there are a lot of issues to discuss, and the more we bring them to people’s attention, the better.

I enthusiastically agree with all the points you make. I’m still working on a “disclaimer” page which will explain that most of my posts are to be taken “tongue-in-cheek.” I’m a humor-loving guy, and I enjoy enjoy sharp banter, but I want people to realize that some of my single-minded sweeping statements are meant to be taken with a chuckle, and a grain of salt.

I think we teachers all need to band together, admit that our roles may each be different, but our goals are the same. The news reports always say that the students in this country suffer, and the finger usually points at the teachers. I feel like finally talking back. We teachers, tenured and adjunct, are all working very hard, and doing important work without a lot of thanks and certainly without a lot of money. The last thing I want is some high-profile, high-paid, over-published New York Times columnist bat-thrashing America’s higher education system and blaming it all on the adjuncts. But I don’t want to start some kind of class-war with full-timers, if anything I want us all to start sticking up for each other more. We’re all in the same boat.

>The Adjunct Professor’s Guide To Success was written by, Richard E. Lyons, Marcella L Kysilka, and George E. Pawlas. According to the book, Lyons is a doctoral-holding dean, while Kysilka and Pawlas are both tenured. These are hardly part-time employees. Rather, the authors of The Adjunct Professor’s Guide To Success were in fact the bosses of said adjuncts. This wasnt a book so much about living the difficult life of a part-time college instructor. It was a book written by your tenured bosses telling you how they’d prefer you did your job.

I have not read the book, and the dean would make me a bit nervous. But the contributions of tenured faculty members are not something I would dismiss.

I am a tenured professor at Long Beach City College, I was chair of my department for six years and president of our academic senate for two. One of the things I worked hardest at in those positions was communicating with and supporting adjunct faculty. On my own time, I have given workshops for adjuncts on how to pursue and interview for full-time positions. As department chair, I was in a sense, at least, their boss, but in general tenured faculty members are not not bosses for adjuncts. Adjunct faculty members do not answer to tenured faculty in general.

I would also note that pretty much all of us who are tenured now were adjuncts once. I was the quintessential freeway flyer for six years, working at a total of six different schools, as many as four at one time just to make ends meet. So I do know the position adjuncts are in.

I am now tenured. But that is what most (not all, I grant) of the adjunct faculty members I know have as a goal–to find a tenured position. And if that is the goal, then hearing from someone who was once adjunct but who has now achieved the goal of a tenured position would, I should think, be useful. My own adjuncts seemed to think so when I was the chair, and many still contact me regularly for advice.

>It’s very difficult being an adjunct. You have the same qualifications as a full-timer, and you do the exact same job as a full-timer, but for significantly less money.

While the lot of an adjunct is indeed difficult, this statement is not completely true. In terms of teaching, we do the same job. But a full-time faculty member also has an additional obligation to the college in terms of curriculum development, college governance, and other committee work that adjuncts normally do not do. Honestly, that can take up as much time as the teaching for some of us. The expectations in this area vary state-by-state (in California we have a more active role in governance than in most other places), but there are additional responsibilities that are a part on our contract

>You receive no benefits such as healthcare, no time off, and often not even any sick days. In order to pay the rent and keep the electricity turned on you have to work at 3-4 districts, because each will only let you teach a few classes a year. To top it all off you have to reapply for your job every three months or so, and theres always an overwhelming chance that youll end up without a class to teach.

This, on the other hand, is very accurate. Trust me; I have been there, and I know how it feels. And I wish it would change.

None of this is meant to challenge or criticize your post. I am absolutely sympathetic to your position. I also have not read the book you referenced, so I am in no way defending it. I have not yet looked at your website, but I will. I just wanted to point out a couple of areas for you to consider and to urge you not to dismiss the advice of those of us who have been there just because we are not in the position of an adjunct now. I would also offer my assistance with your web site if my advice and experience–as a tenured faculty member who knows what it is like to be an adjunct and who has always been committed to helping current adjuncts–is useful to you.