What We Talk About When We Talk About Faculty

by Patrick Tompkins

from Inquiry, Volume 7, Number 1, Spring 2002, 44-46

© Copyright 2002 Virginia Community College System

Abstract
Tompkins offers suggestions for improving the treatment and service of adjunct faculty.

We have an unprecedented opportunity to reach beyond simplistic solutions to develop a new perspective on the use of part-time faculty in the VCCS. We must first acknowledge two unmistakable truths: 1) adjunct instructors will always comprise a significant portion of faculty and 2) this is a good thing for all stakeholders. Adjunct faculty teach over 49% of VCCS FTE’s, and comprise over 70% of teaching faculty. No economic or political miracle suggests that this practice will be reversed.

Education responds to economic realities, just like the private sector where the use of part-time labor has dramatically increased because these positions provide flexibility, allow more people to enter the labor market, and save money for employers, largely in efficiency and reduced pay or benefits. In the VCCS, adjunct instructors allow us to adjust class offerings to meet changing community needs, they contribute a wealth of personal and professional experience to our colleges, and they help us balance our budgets. Adjunct faculty make us richer, not poorer.

The generally accepted solution to the part-time faculty problem is full-time jobs. This is an unrealistic sop that annually teases both full and part-time instructors. But the VCCS budget would have to increase by $64 million a year (22%) to eliminate all adjunct positions. And even a sizeable increase in the number of full-time positions would fail to address the heart of the issue: the exploitation and weak integration of the huge pool of remaining adjunct faculty.

We must, then, discover more effective models for using the monies available to us. As the first big wave of full-time faculty begin retiring across the VCCS, we are faced not with a crisis so much as a one-time opportunity to modify our utilization of adjunct faculty in ways that benefit all. Retiring full-time faculty earn an average of about $70,000 in pay and benefits. Just one retirement could fund a hell of a permanent raise for all part-time faculty on a campus. This is not to suggest that we stop replacing retiring faculty altogether, but we can begin to reallocate our faculty funds between both full- and part-time positions to immediately improve adjunct instructors’ derisory pay and nonexistent benefits.

Obviously, this plan would actually increase, not decrease, adjunct faculty ranks, but previous attempts to increase full-time faculty slots have failed, and there is nothing inherently detrimental to our colleges in the use of part-time labor. We really have only two choices. We can improve the treatment and service of adjunct faculty, or we can moan about the status quo as the situation worsens.

For a start, we must dispense with the arbitrary categories of full-time and part-time faculty and begin regarding all instructors as qualified service providers. At JTCC, for example, we have an e-mail distribution list titled “All Teaching Faculty.” Adjunct faculty are not included. At another college, when a division chair cited the number of faculty she supervised, she did not include adjunct faculty, even though they form the majority of instructors in her division. The VCCS does not allow adjunct faculty to participate in the new faculty orientation conference held each year. If we don’t even think of adjunct faculty as faculty, how can we intelligently consider this sizeable portion of our workforce when we make decisions that affect our institutions? If we do not provide 70% of our instructors with professional development similar to what we provide full-time faculty, how can we expect consistent delivery of quality service to our communities? It is an appalling managerial model.

Many of these issues would cost absolutely nothing, except genuine goodwill and determined leadership, to address. Adjunct faculty should be provided the same access to the multi-year contract system that full-time faculty enjoy. They must have equal access to professional development opportunities. Colleges must provide adjunct instructors with offices, phones, computers, and secretarial support. We also need to adopt an Affirmative Access attitude to ensure that some of the opening full-time slots go to part-time faculty. After all, we hired these teachers because we have certified that they are qualified and capable to instruct the same courses as full-time faculty.

If we were truly visionary, we would go further. At present, VCCS colleges are essentially oligarchies: the decisions of a small minority (full-time faculty) dictate the behavior of an oppressed majority (part-time faculty). American values and world history argue that such power inequity is plainly unjust and ultimately untenable. Adjunct faculty must be provided with voting representation, in some measure proportionate to the sections they teach, in their disciplines and faculty senates.

Power also entails responsibility. As the VCCS has come to rely more heavily upon adjunct faculty, administrative and committee responsibilities have fallen more heavily upon full-time faculty. Colleges must require greater adjunct faculty participation in the business of the college, including service on committees and professional development, especially for long-term adjunct instructors or for those teaching a large number of sections. As recompense, the VCCS should extend modified health, sick leave, and retirement benefits to long-time adjunct faculty. And colleges must provide full-time pay and benefits to adjunct instructors teaching full loads.

Objections to these pragmatic proposals to end the exploitation of adjunct faculty, and more importantly, to better integrate them into our colleges will come most loudly and vituperatively from full-time faculty who are too often concerned, first, with their own salary increases and, second, with maintaining the sanctity of their own ranks. But the truth of the matter is that colleges across the country have successfully implemented each of the above suggestions. We can make it work for us in the VCCS as well.

New economic and organizational realities in higher education require that we set our sights beyond the illusory security of the traditional faculty paradigm and beyond the ken of our perceived self-interest. Adjunct instructors have not the power to effect change. Administrators and their budgets benefit from the status quo.  It is up to full-time faculty to lead the way toward bold, effective solutions, not only for the sake of justice, but also for the sake of what is good for our institutions, for ourselves, and above all for our communities.  It is up to you.