the adjunct problem

[@davidwilliams2722]

My message to department chairs is this: “Just say NO. And mean it. You have tenure. The worst upper admin can do is relieve you of that extra chair duty. And unless you're a little Hitler on a power trip, so what?” At the beginning of the first of my three years as a department chair at a mid-sized university in Georgia (and - YIPEE! - we were Division II national football champs several times), the dean asked me to hire adjuncts to cover more survey courses. This was the year after my department lost two full time positions to retirement, which were not replaced. I said, “Well, here's my standard. Our full-time faculty teach 4 courses per semester (yes, ridiculous load, but there it is). We now have one adjunct teaching two courses. I'll give him one more, but if we need more than that (which we did), then that means we need at least one more full-time position. I will not have more than three of our courses, upper or entry level, offered by adjuncts (for many of the same reasons you discuss).” By the end of that year, we had one of our full-time, tenure-track positions back. By the end of my third year, we had the other. In my experience, what it takes is department chairs with a little academic integrity, because you’ll certainly never get that from upper admin. Obviously, too much to hope for.

[@acollierastro]

For some reason full time staff often act like the job could be pulled from them at any time and it is very strange. It may have something to do with the “academic career” not giving you a real job until your 40s. Thank you for sticking up for your workers!!

[@drmadjdsadjadi]

@@acollierastro A lot of this comes from the assault on the academy by a certain major political party that shall remain nameless that wants to abolish tenure entirely and that thinks every currently tenured university professor is massively overpaid, lazy, underworked, and trying to indoctrinate and recruit students to vote for the other major political party.

[@gracemember101]

Jordan Peterson says faculty have abdicated to administrators. The focus seems to be on paying for admins who do nothing rather than professors who teach actual courses. Milking the government for all its worth.

[@woodenspoon6222]

@@gracemember101 Not to detract from the info (maybe) but Jordan Peterson says some wild shit.

[@moriyokiri3229]

@@gracemember101who gives a shit Jordan Peterson says

[@123370]

As a STEM-lord BASc engineer with tons of "real world" work experience, it blew my mind when my English PhD partner explained how universities would waste so much money on a job search to hire the "best" professor, even though they have a fully qualified and tested VAP/adjunct. In the "real world," if someone has proof they can do the job, and do the job well, you KEEP THAT GUY FOREVER. Don't let them slip away, don't try to hire the hot new thing, grasp desperately on them. It costs so much time and energy for the high level employees doing the review, and there's no guarantee that even after you higher that "hot-shot engineer fresh from MIT" that people can stand being in the same room as them, or that they know the difference between writing code that works or writing code that's smart.

[@willjones8261]

Unfortunately, teaching skills and research skills don't always coincide. An adjunct might be a great teacher and wonderful person, but they may or may not be able to contribute original research. Or their research specialty may not be in high demand. Or (most likely scenario), university departments knows that their adjuncts don't have any better offers on the table, and would prefer to keep around an exploited underclass to drudge for them while offering tenure to the hot-shot professors who bring in grant money and lend prestige to the university. It's a dirty business, made dirtier because it pretends not to be.

[@qwerty4324ify]

@@willjones8261 And bonus those same full Profs (and there are usually tenure track Assistants slaving to get tenure along with Associates) also know that they can't/won't teach the class, if only because in order to get tenure they need to have 20-30 grad students to pump out the needed research (and terrify they provost into giving them tenure or finding new spaces for all those supported grad students) so they NEEEED those Adjuncts teaching or they'll be stuck with the job. There really is no training for teaching at the elite schools so profs are thrown into the pool with a bunch of students for something they know (maybe too well) but no one else in the department wants to teach. Sometimes it's good, but it's a huge amount of work to create a curriculum (or even adapt someone eases) and learn how pedagogy works... time you don't have, if you want tenure. This all came to a head when I was a grad student, because an adjunct who had been there 10 years had to take 2 terms off to prevent him from getting tenure (weird rule someone passed to deal with exactly his situation), but there were so many students who were paying for masters degrees just to take HIS course that would be so angry they would leave, if he wasn't teaching it. The department wanted him to teach it and give him tenure (his wife was tenured and in the same department), but the University was like... If we do this for him, we'll have to do it for everyone or we might get sued?!?! Well, he got the job, but only after lots of screaming and because he was in such a special situation where a bunch of people including his wife could speak up without fear. Where does the money go? Administration. They are there for compliance. They make you (the student) and the professors lives hell, but reduce civil liability and bring in federal/state education$$.

[@VuLamDang]

@@qwerty4324ify Every times I wonder why American universities are such hell, I just have to look up how much an administrators get paid, vs how much an adjunct or assistant prof make to get why

[@patiencebear]

The truth is: most people in the real world don't have an engineering mindset. And I really struggle with that.

[@asumazilla]

That wouldn't create as much administration.

[@Conantas]

How else is the basketball coach going to feed his wife, three kids, two purebred dogs, and nanny with less than $5 million? He's out there telling people how to play basketball, what are you doing? Educating the next generation of humanity so that we don't go extinct? Pshh, get a real job

[@ellielikesmath]

*so that we don't go extinct as quickly

[@blib3786]

Most schools have separate funding for their sports programs, so no your tuition isn't going towards the football team or anything.

[@davidwestwater2219]

We don't need you. We are not going extinct

[@harisserdarevic4913]

@@blib3786It’s kind of embarrassing most people miss this point. Yeah it’s a bad look that universities pay their coaches so much, but that money comes directly from the revenue the sports bring in. No Division 1 coach is being paid by tuition, they’re all being paid by the TV deals football/basketball generate

[@andrewcapra7153]

You're forgetting that thw basketball coach doesn't just have his wife, four kids, three dogs, and two nannies, he also needs the money to pay his mistress' rent!

[@ScienceAsylum]

This is why I made an effort to get out of academia. You're overworked and underpaid, but they dangle a carrot in front of you to keep you going. They'll say "If you put in your time now, you'll become full-time later." But that's a lie and it took me forever to realize it (because I'm gullible apparently). It took 8 years to realize the lie and another 4 to get out. It's a total garbage situation for everyone except the administration of the school.

[@815TypeSirius]

Brain drain is the first big sign a nation is in a depressive collapse.

[@todd2683]

Yup. I did 12 years also. Good riddance.

[@jameshart2622]

I dropped out of academia immediately after getting my Ph.D. I could already see a string of pointless post-docs lying ahead of me, and I knew I hadn't published enough* to make it in that kind of world. *I had published some high-quality work that I am proud of, as it was ready. As any modern academic can tell you, that's nowhere near enough.

[@carldennett3449]

University is optimized for administrators.

[@rakino4418]

In my undergrad the university I studied at (University of Auckland) was adamant that when someone was teaching you they were always a current researching academic. I never realised why they were so proud of it at the time - like wouldn't that be the default, bare minimum? Now I understand!

[@rakino4418]

Although, I was just a kid, there could have been scammy employer behaviour going on and I'd have had no idea. This is not an endorsement of University of Auckland 😅

[@oliverwilson11]

The UoA Academic Staff Collective Agreement is available online. There are levels called like "Senior Tutor" and "Professional Teaching Fellow" who don't typically do research, but they do get paid at least $90k. There is also a "Tutor" level which is lower, but I don't remember any of my classes (in engineering) being taught by someone who wasn't at least a "Senior Tutor". Not all staff are union members so they're not all on the collective contract but I think most are

[@obiwanpez]

@@rakino4418 In the US, most employers have no shame, and get legislators to change the law, rather than be decent employers.

[@Heyu7her3]

Yes, but not always. They're also taught by professors who are part of faculty but who aren't running a funded research lab

[@rtensor]

It seems like exploiting a worker's passion and love for a field has become a thing. Starting pay for pilots is apparently absurdly low these days, and aviation is one of those fields that people fall in love with. K-12 teachers get paid less and less. And grad students and adjuncts. I feel like this must be something that's taught in business school. It's sick.

[@yan-amar]

Same thing in the video game industry.

[@Yura135]

it's always been a thing, everything just got amplified over the years until now it is frankly absurd. "sexy is poor'. want to make money, pick the most boring and tedious sounding profession imaginable. the kind that will make everyone's eyes glaze over if you mention it at a dinner party. "refrigerant salesman" or "geologist at a cement factory" will always make far more than you expect and "nasa engineer" and "trendy restaurant manager" will make far less.

[@devforfun5618]

@@Yura135 not always, people weren't taught to love their job, and hobbies were just hobbies, it took a lot of propaganda to make people think you must love what you do and do what you love

[@aliceinwonder8978]

I think it's that the more pro-social and useful your job is, the more they think you don't deserve to get paid. And the more anti-social (in the clinical sense, as in, DESTRUCTIVE of social bonds, not avoidance of them), the more they get paid.

[@xiggywiggs]

​@@yan-amar yeah the games industry is infamous for being exploitative I'm continually surprised there isn't more push within it to unionize, but it's more than just one industry, its everywhere. even stuff that on average pays pretty well like boring-ass business software development will absolutely short-change you if they think they can. I think pitchforks are gonna have to come out before shit turns around.

[@katiekawaii]

I've even had 400-level classes where the professors had to run, literally run, after class to get to their car to drive to their next class at a different university.

[@dixztube]

Lol

[@myfriendscat]

What a shame! Criminal.

[@todd2683]

I did it. And was told by campus police head that adjuncts shouldn’t have faculty parking.

[@ManofGod04]

I was an adjunct for my local community college for about four years. I mainly did it to get teaching experience. They only paid me after the semester was over just one time. It was about $1,900 before taxes for each course. I tried to get two separate full-time jobs at the school with either teaching or an education specialist. They already had their pick of course, so I didn’t get either job.

[@highviewbarbell]

I'm one of those weird students that reads the minutes and the documents from salary meetings to find out what my teacher's make, and that's about on par with what my professors earned per class this year. Absolutely unacceptable as a practice. 2 student's tuition goes to the teacher and then everyone else in the class are 100% profit for the school? Wtf? ​@@ManofGod04

[@slowslow-u3w]

The big problem is the number of well-paid full time with benefits administrators. This includes coordinators and directors who administer "programs" (most of which do little or nothing for real student success). And of course each administrator must have multiple full-time employees working for their department which helps justify their existence. There are all manner of made up reports, data collection, meetings, required training, etc. which are portrayed as "essential" and contributing to "student success". The accrediting bodies are complicit in this GRIFT. Eliminate all this and you can easily hire all full time instructors. The worst part is the student and parents do not understand that only a small part of their money is going directly for instruction.

[@phillipsiebold8351]

The big problem is that the administrators actually do important work, mostly with regards to dealing with legal requirements of the institution. The legal requirements are often with dealing with issues of revenues, observing rules regarding discrimination, etc. With the former, an easy way to smooth over this is probably making the funding all public and making the students dealing less with collecting tuition, and seeking out donations. With regards to discimination, a centralised body to deal with the litigation might help. Like maybe a government body.For the etc., maybe government helping out might help.

[@zwitterion2910]

@@phillipsiebold8351 Do they? Last time I checked, the Science of Administration was laughably nonexistent and is more of a bureaucracy that hinders innovation by restricting how and who can have ownership of the relationship between the student and the course’s content. There needs to be a scientific revamp of this entire process, specifically dealing with inefficient bureaucratic processes. There is a body of research that shows this to be precisely the problem and has been coined as “bureasclerosis” since it slowly degrades and rots any organization that has the symptoms

[@phillipsiebold8351]

@@zwitterion2910 Sure, there are significant problems and I'm sure the politicians who are writing the rules truly care about the problem. =/ The reality is that when it comes to heirarchies, as any bureaucracy is, there can be the problem of downloading responsibilities to lower members (local institutions), so as to avoid having the decisions on important matters being done on a more strategic and political level. Instead, it is your university administration who has to come up with their own policy as to how they are going to abide by things like discrimination laws, have their own means of litigating the issues as they crop up. It's all very piecemeal and too often duplicates the work that many are doing, and gets them all tangled up in disputes which refuse to be resolved at a higher level. When it comes to institutional bloat, it is best to look at what is being duplicated across the many institutions and see if it can be removed. The downloading, and consequent duplication, was a political choice. Often at the state level or the federal level. The task ahead is to ask why was the downloading done and how can it be reversed, pointing specifically at the bloat, lack of resolution, and lack of product by the burdened institutions.

[@zwitterion2910]

@@phillipsiebold8351 In a complex environment, hierarchies do seem inevitable, but how much money and political value these institutions have is the motivational force that exacerbates hierarchies creating environments that tax human development and achievement. There is piles of evidence that show self-managing micro-teams/organizations that are unhindered by “upper management” perform markedly better since the reward is focusing on their deliverables, and not being taxed by what needs to be “downloaded” to motivate people to behave within certain parameters. This method removes human autonomy which reduces creativity and problem solving skills. For example, the candle problem experiment, in short: two subject participants are “high drive” and “low drive;” high drive were told the faster they solve the problem, the more they get paid, low drive participants were not given an option. The results are consistent, having a competitive, compensated environment significantly reduced problem solving, whereas low drive participants solved it the fastest. The high drive condition creates stress and sometimes a sympathetic nervous system. Doing an audit or diagnoses of money efficiency may just lead to more problems because that’s the main motivational factor. ‘You get a degree here, you make more money,’ which makes it more competitive requiring them to increase their budget and their staff. The reality is we don’t apply scientific evidence to institutions because it would disrupt the flow of money and political value.

[@phillipsiebold8351]

@@zwitterion2910 The only problem is I have a dim view on the applicability of these experiments to demonstrate what in general needs to happen. It is likely less fruitful to concern ourselves over individuals than it is to look at what are the powers and responsibilities of each position and how they are distributed. To take your candle experiment example, what is the actual scope of the experiment? It seems to try to identify low drive and high drive people exist. Well, what does low drive and high drive have to do with it other than your hope that high drive people break the rules to deliver superior service? That reminds me of the Dirty Harry story, which tells us that a man doesn't really solve the problem just so that they can have a little catharsis.

[@hnktbt]

I'm super late to this discussion (hi, binge watching your content) but I really wanted to add that the little undergrad students really just don't know what their adjunct profs are going through unless the adjunts speak out, but we absolutely care, at least my classes did. My FAVORITE professor was an adjunct who frequently vocalized how shitty her treatment was and how she had to work at both colleges across the street to feed her child. My classmates and I had her back, cut her slack often and comforted her as best we could, reassuring her she was GOOD and that it wasn't fair. She taught me a love for a field I didn't care about in the slightest before signing up for the "easy credit class" yet I have no idea where she is now. She's still in a big photo for the department site but her name is traceless. I hope now she's doing something better in every sense of the word, she deserves it. Abolish adjuncts!!

[@Skank_and_Gutterboy]

Me too, Johnny-come-lately here. I don't even know how I found this channel but I'm damn glad I did.

[@jlindsay]

EGO | Embed Growth Obligation | Pyramid Scheme | kzbin.info/www/bejne/r5OYpmyMjMt_jqc ?vds affddsa

[@MaximeFrjq]

I think your "vanity" argument is extremely valid, and there's also some kind of sunk cost fallacy to it. It makes adjuncts so easy to exploit.

[@aniellodimeglio8369]

Maybe also a little bit of inertia.

[@gaerekxenos]

"Vanity"... more like "we taught at this Institution so we can place the name down for maybe better opportunities further down the line" which... I don't even know if that works or not =/ there's definitely the sunken cost fallacy in there though

[@Skank_and_Gutterboy]

@@aniellodimeglio8369 Absolutely. I can't speak for every university everywhere but where I got my bachelor's and master's, it was a few new/young Ph.D.'s sprinkled among a bunch of old guys. Seriously, we're talking boomers in their 70s and 80s. These guys are WAY behind the power curve. I'm 50 and I'm a spring chicken compared to them. One prof I had in my master's program (2013) got his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1965 and worked on the Mariner 10 space probe. This guy is so old he's petrified. I just looked him up, he's still there!

[@todd2683]

True. Many won’t leave and have no present world experience or dynamic energy

[@johnnyq4260]

Also, they may not be employable otherwise.

[@tehmakr]

Teachers deserve an order of magnitude better treatment and compensation than they are given. I have a friend who was 'kept on her toes' by her university about whether or not she would have classes to teach. It was actively harmful to her health. It is in a small way comforting (at least she wasn't being singled out??) and in a large way disgusting to hear of how widespread the practice is. It needs to stop. The examples you chose were vibrantly illustrative of the problems with the current situation. Thanks for making this video. I hope it helps.

[@IamdeaththedestroyerofWorlds]

When i was studying to be a nuclear physicist in Sweden this wasn't the case maybe this is an American thing.

[@moth5799]

@@IamdeaththedestroyerofWorlds Yeah I'm in Britain and my cousin works at Cambridge, I think it's just America. Still it's appalling that anyone should have to go through something like this.

[@tuesdi]

I've been watching your videos all day and my takeaway is: don't do a postdoc, don't become an adjunct, don't study string theory, and it's ok that you don't know anyone who did graduate school. As a first-gen student who wants to pursue advanced physics education, genuinely, thank you for the insight.

[@Ocarinist_Drew]

I think one of the most concerning issues is that nobody seems to talk about this? I had never even heard the WORD "adjunct" until I was a senior in undergrad and thinking about getting into teaching myself. It was only after I went out of my way to do my own research that I discovered all my favorite "professors" weren't actually technically professors and were hovering around the poverty line. It actually kinda steered me away from getting a PHD too, since it seemed like a waste of time and money. The only reason I was considering it was because I liked academia and wanted to teach. But then I learned I could make more money pushing boxes at a warehouse. (And get health insurance too!)

[@jonathanbowers8964]

At least with K-12 you will almost always get health insurance and will have a stable job, especially once you get through the first couple of years.

[@judychurley6623]

You will never have heard this one either: Freeway Flyer - some one working as adjunct at more than one institution, possibly carrying a larger load than a tenured prof but making 1/3.

[@Ocarinist_Drew]

@@judychurley6623 Yeah I've never heard that term but I definitely knew some of them. I had a philisophy prof who taught at 2-3 different universities in the area. I also had a music prof who actually drove back and forth between Boston, MA and New Haven, CT (about a 3-4 hour drive) to teach at two different universities.

[@ethzero]

"7 of 9, tertiary adjunct to Unimatrix 01"

[@oasntet]

Adjuncts need their own union. Universities can't exist without them, so adjuncts do have the power to fix this, but only by striking or threatening a strike. ETA: dang, some good strategery to go with that, too. This is a textbook case where worker power can make a huge difference in a very short amount of time.

[@judychurley6623]

The union needs to be the recognized bargaining unit or it is just a collection of malcontents and there's a lot of other unemployed degree holders waiting for those openings. I was both a classified employee and 'adjunct' faculty overhearing tenured Prof having a discussion of the contract negotiations at our college: "If the adjunct pay and seniority in class assignment are all that is holding this up, then let's settle!"

[@ik7584]

In Texas, the law forbids trade unions of educators. Punishment: prison.

[@oasntet]

@@ik7584 Trade unions for educators are not illegal in Texas. There is a draconian law that prevents public employees from striking or performing other work stoppages; the punishment is removal of several benefits, not prison. Adjunct professors are almost certainly not public employees, especially since they're not even employees.

[@ik1408]

@@oasntet My post is about all educators, not just adjuncts. I am saying what I heard from an educator who taught in Texas for 30+ years. Now, I teach in Texas. They cut our salaries below what our salaries were in 2019 (even without adjusting to inflation), and faculty can do nothing about it. IIn the country without universal healthcare, jobs are slavery.

[@Mathin3D]

Unions are money sucking scams also preying on adjuncts. They are useless - do not spearhead any improvement.

[@letitiabeausoleil4025]

This is a common experience. My BSc physics lab partner got a scholarship to Cambridge, co-wrote a quantum phys textbook and after surveying her prospects... quit physics and went to business school. My bff at Venturers got into Oxford for her Chem Eng PhD then lasted a year as a postdoc. The money vs hours again was the problem. She went into her uncle's dressage coaching business. Neither have touched STEM professionally since or have any intention to in the future.

[@drmadjdsadjadi]

When I was an adjunct, I once taught 7 courses face-to-face in one semester at four different schools in one semester with every single one of those courses being an entirely different course. Despite publishing more and getting better reviews than the full-time professors, I had to leave the US to get a full-time job in academia and that was 7 years after receiving my PhD.. It took me an additional three years to become an Assistant Professor at a U.S. university but within 6 years of hiring I was promoted to full professor. That was 17 years ago and since then I have become a department chair and I have hired two different adjuncts into full-time positions, one as a full-time lecturer and the other, just last year, as an assistant professor. I encourage my adjuncts to take advantage of every opportunity we offer our full-time professors for extra money such as training programs and professional development funding, I invite them to all of our department functions, and I back them up when the administration or students try to take advantage of them. As department chair, I might not have any power over their salaries but I do whatever I can do to treat them with respect and my department colleagues treat them like they are one of us, because they are, and we could not do our jobs without them.

[@thomasmcginnis3783]

I taught 8 during my last semester, 13 years ago. Two different departments (math + soc.sci), so I was surreptitious. Glad to read your post, and to know that I was not the only one, and as the son of a Dean, not the only one to _care_ about outcomes. Thanks for your post.

[@todd2683]

Above situation is rare.

[@ManofGod04]

Yes, I say that’s rare, too. I’ve applied to 20 full-time instructor/professor jobs in the four years teaching as an adjunct, and I never got hired. I’m having to work at Walmart full-time to get my other benefits. Also, I worked at Walmart while I was an undergraduate and graduate before I became an adjunct professor. 😅

[@drmadjdsadjadi]

@@ManofGod04 It is definitely rare but it is also the right thing for departments to do for their adjunct pool. Adjuncts are taken advantage of and we need to recognize that they are often our best instructors and provide them with opportunities to become full-time faculty,

[@mina_en_suiza]

I studied maths in the 90s at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany. All classes were taught by tenured professors, except for two graduate courses in applied mathematics (Mathematical models for computer graphics and insurance maths), where they brought in external specialists, adjuncts, which somehow made sense, because of their special real world expertise. Unfortunately, by what I hear, nowadays, it's becoming more and more common to have adjunct teachers with limited time contracts and on ridiculously low salaries for regular courses, also in Germany. This is not a good development. In the overall cost of running a university, the amount spent on salaries of adjuncts is a ridiculous small fraction. Whilst the whole concept is questionable, at least the pay should be good. Under the pretext of "improving teaching", some German states introduced student fees in the 2000s. Of course, the money ended up in the general pot and nothing actually changed, so they were abolished again state by state over the following years. As of now, there's not a single state with fees left.

[@mina_en_suiza]

Note: I would have loved to work in academia. I worked 4 years as TA during my graduate studies (which was actually good money for a student, and I loved the job), but unfortunately, I wasn't good enough. Got into software development instead.

[@VirtuelleWeltenMitKhan]

Oh no ... I was about to comment: "Come to Germany, all good here, we need the bright minds".

[@IshtarNike]

I'm in the UK. I wish we had followed the German route but our country is highly centralised so we don't have state or county level governments with the power to do that. Only central government can and they're hopelessly neoliberal and haven't changed at all. In fact even the left wing parties now push for fees and with the economic crisis there's no way they'd agree to spend more on universities through direct government funding.

[@manumaster1990]

You are missing key point here: in Germany healthcare is free, there are workers' unions, there are mandatory holidays paid by the state, there are paid mandatory maternity leave, and there are no university debts.

[@manumaster1990]

@@VirtuelleWeltenMitKhan Well at least in Germany healthcare is free, there are workers' unions, there are mandatory holidays paid by the state, there are paid mandatory maternity leave, and there are no university debts.

[@caret_shell]

So... _all_ of American higher education is now completely hollowed out? It's all just huge tuitions going to pay endless administrators (full-time, great-benefits-having administrators)?

[@ImortalZeus13]

It’s dependent on your school and the specific program you’re going for. I went for graphic design and had a pretty strong core of full time professors with adjuncts maybe making up 30% of my courses max.

[@Hemostat]

America is just a hollow tree made out of gig workers

[@Shevock]

Yep.

[@cookechris28]

More accurately, to pay the sports team coaches.

[@cerebralideas]

Great video! We actually live in Austin, and my GF teaches at the very school mentioned. Some of this was so spot on. Thank you for doing it!

[@music_YT2023]

Not only are adjuncts considered subhuman, they are also the first to fall when budgetary shortages crop up (see DePaul University). Universities exploit and underpay so many positions, from the 'contracted' custodial crews, undergrad work studies and UGTAs to graduates and adjuncts. The only people who receive consistent and high salaries reside in the Deans' Offices and business departments of each school. :/

[@firehawk128]

I think the easy way to explain adjunct professors to people outside of the hellscape of academia is to ask them to imagine if your entire education from kindergarten to high school was taught by supply teachers. No hate against supply teachers, but that's just how universities treat their educational obligations. For me, one big reason I quit was because I didn't want to do the "grind" in the hopes of getting a job somewhere. I liked teaching, but after 6 years of being a grad student and living in poverty, another god knows how many years doing that just seemed terrible. The fact that being a sessional is basically an end goal for a lot of PhDs is pretty sad and another sign that you basically need to be independently wealthy to go through this process. That and the story of Margaret Vojtko, who was an adjunct for 25 years, was a real eye-opener.

[@acollierastro]

That story was devastating.

[@judychurley6623]

Adjunct are usually recent grads who may be as well-versed in the course content as a tenured prof. They just aren't paid as well.

[@firehawk128]

​@@judychurley6623 The problem stems from the fact that a lot of institutions have no incentive to get people out of the adjunct bubble. You're getting people who are desperate for the equivalent of 'exposure' in hopes of becoming tenure track there (if you're really lucky and they love you) or somewhere else, but for the people who can't make it and who can't fathom a career outside of academia, they get stuck in the adjunct trap forever, driving around different university campuses teaching 8 courses trying to make a living. In many ways young adjuncts are at the cutting edge, both of pedagogical techniques (everyone knows the old prof who doesn't like to use technology) and of subject matter expertise, but universities know they can underpay these people because there are always going to be new meat for the grinder.

[@judychurley6623]

@@firehawk128 I know. I did it for 10 years. I finally got a job teaching high school.

[@frederickfarias6956]

Adjuncts and TAs are obviously limited by an implicit pay ceiling. There is no market incentive to create the best teaching environment through pay. Accidentally an adjunct could be much smarter than the professor. But There is no connection to school revenue resources and its teacher quality. The administration has huge subsidies in grants scientific or otherwise, and financial aid for students. The university or college can get away with inefficiency and incompetence. There is not an actual market for education that is not affected by the rush for government grants. They are not getting the market rate as the universities and colleges and students are being subsidized by government funds. This causes exorbitant tuition rates too. It’s run as a religious order, but secular, does it have dedicated administrators?

[@mikg7769]

I left my adjunct job several years ago after listening to work friends who were 10 to 20 years older talk about how they couldn't afford to replace their car or considering applying for food stamps. A number of them died way too early. All were very smart and very dedicated instructors. Many would say I'm underemployed at my current job but I have benefits and savings now.

[@Saphia_]

If you're charging each student $3000 to attend classes, a teacher should get--- at minimum--- two students' fees. I said what I said.

[@tissuepaper9962]

the rule of thumb for students was 2-3 hours outside for every hour in class, therefore I suggest 3-4 students' fees as fair compensation.

[@Saphia_]

@@tissuepaper9962 Completely agree.

[@KingBobXVI]

That's still low, do a percentage of all course fees instead. 100 students at $3000 each? That's $30,000 per course. Sounds high? I mean... good, lol. I'm fine with valued teachers getting $120k for teaching 4 courses a year. If that sounds too high, consider lowering the price per credit, because $3000 per course is insane to begin with. Really, we need to nationally ban or severely limit academic funds from going to sports. No more than like, 2% of tuition fees should go to sports facilities or coaches.

[@Saphia_]

@@KingBobXVI I would be completely fine with teachers getting paid more. Even $120k per year. It's such a shame that students pay bucketloads of money and teachers barely get to taste a drop of it.

[@laleayas8134]

​@@KingBobXVImy high school history teacher gets 120 thousand a year. Thats the average. But I also dont live in the US, so thats that

[@ThomEWhalen]

I appreciate the problem that students can't get recommendations from adjunct professors because that's exactly what happened to one of my daughters. Nobody told her that the adviser for her honour's thesis was an adjunct. Two years later when she wanted to go to graduate school, the "professor" was no longer at that university, and when my daughter tracked her down, her response was that writing letters of recommendation for students was no longer her job. When I did a bit of contract teaching as a favor to a friend, I told the students in my first lecture that I was a full-time researcher at a government research institute and not on the faculty at the university because it's only fair that the students know who is teaching them.

[@marymegrant1130]

I am attending classes specifically because there is no faculty left at my alma mater to write recommendations for me. I didn't know adjuncts could not write letters of recommendation

[@ThomEWhalen]

@@marymegrant1130 Adjunct's can write letters of recommendation--anyone can--but often they won't. It takes time to compose a decent letter and someone trying to live off her earnings for contract teaching is already working like a rented mule, trying to teach as many classes as possible just to afford food and rent. As well, they likely have so many students in so many different classed that they would get asked to write far more letters than tenured professors. And they usually don't know enough about their students to say more than that the student is passing their course. One trick in getting aletter of reference is to write it yourself, be honest, and see if the professor will take a minute to read it and sigh it. Though it ought to be typed on the university letterhead.

[@Jase1912]

Thank you for this. I’m a single dad, writing a dissertation, and teach 4 courses at 2 universities, tutor a middle school privately, and I take on other tutoring jobs while I can. Barely alive here.

[@DrJack55]

I dropped out of my PhD program after passing quals because I saw no future as a post-doc. That and I was able to get paid a heck of a lot more in industry plus get great health insurance for my family. I have absolutely zero regrets.

[@SkorjOlafsen]

I have a relative who worked high in administration at large state schools. They view students as product, and teaching staff as a cost to be minimized in producing that product. Educational outcome means less to the growth of the school than success of the sportsball teams. I hadn't realized they were managing to pay adjuncts less than groundskeepers. This cannot end well for the country.

[@heartache5742]

in the 80s everyone started thinking that everything has to be run like a business very strange

[@aessa8440]

I'm not in academia, but it's so very interesting to hear about how corporations(very many universities are corporations) abuse their teachers. I think this is a broader issue, that stems from the fact that universities ARE corporations, and therefore have the same motive to treat their 'employees' like this because at the end of the day, someone you don't have to pay money is profit. I hope your video helps people understand we need to have better school systems with pay more equitably, and maybe this helps create a better society for us all.

[@fernando-loula]

You're really awesome, congrats. I can hardly understand why so little people talk about this. I notice there is an angle left unexplored, this issue is post 80s, when there has been a surge in PHDs from asian, south american, african and former communist coutries. There also is some PHD inflation from inside the US, but in no small part from americans born to immigrant parents, or blacks. These people for lack of transgenerational wealth have a lot less family support and hence more easily fall into these traps. In the end of the day the whole game is just racism with another name.

[@halrabeah]

Good point. We know that community stature is more easily inherited, hence why more higher-level academics and admins come from more affluent families.

[@smergthedargon8974]

Not racism, just exploitation in this case.

[@stevenp8195]

I think the spirit of the adjunct professor has been lost over time. Now, I'm probably wrong (usually am). That out of the way, my gut says that an adjunct ought to be someone outside of the institution and is a tenured professor or public/private professional that has some semi-formal affiliation with some university they are adjunct to. Perhaps they're sharing knowledge or resources and this professional chooses to teach a course in some auxiliary capacity. I think that through a twist of unfortunate events "adjunct" has come to mean subordinate and not auxiliary. It's my estimate that this switch from auxiliary to subordinate is where the modern incarnation of "research affiliates" or "affiliate associate professors" emerged from. It seems like the adjunct role has become a tool to transform tenure-track into a selling point on job offerings from universities. When in reality, tenure-track ought to be a given. Anecdotally, I have never met a professor that started as an adjunct. I hardly know any that even started as assistant professors.

[@DanBoergeJensen]

As an associate professor (permanent position) at a Danish university, it is interesting for me to see how big the differences are between the Danish and the American university systems, and how the same words can mean very different things. Before I got my permanent contract, I was an "adjunkt" for 4 years at the same university. It was a time-limit contract, limited to 4 years, but it was a full-time position with an office, paid vacation (6 weeks per year) and pension and all that. The position came with the official requirement that I had to teach, which I did for about 3 months per year. The rest of the time, I did research (which was mostly sitting in more or less pointless meetings for the various research projectrs rather than doing the actual research, but that is another discussion). I don't remember my exact salary, but it was plenty to live comfortably in Copenhagen and also save up money for buying a house.

[@kebrongurara4417]

That sounds like the equivalent of a tenure track assistant professorship in the US

[@rMDheal]

Can Denmark please adopt me 😅

[@danielwhitman8180]

I have a PhD in engineering (I work in industry and don't teach), and during undergrad I had a lot of adjunct professors teaching the more basic engineering courses. As far as I could tell all these adjuncts were either a) working engineers who mainly were adjunct professors just because they liked teaching, and would typically only teach one course per semester, or b) were retired engineers who taught just because they enjoy it and maybe to bring in some extra cash to supplement their retirement income. Prior to watching this video I never realized that there are people who try to make a living doing nothing but being an adjunct, which seems crazy.

[@sams3046]

There are many adjuncts in humanities where leaving academia (even a bad adjunct position) is a career death sentence, and for many of us there is no “industry” for us to which we can turn. Working as an independent scholar can be done in certain cases but is difficult even under the best conditions, and without some kind of official university affiliation many avenues for funding are closed. What’s worse is that administrators force departments to hire more and more adjuncts instead of creating full time positions.

[@danielwhitman8180]

@@sams3046 Great points! This is an unfortunate situation, and probably not great for these fields as a whole to have fewer practitioners who are able to make a living doing research.

[@MNP208]

My husband is a retired engineer too and teaches one adjunct course at a local tech college. He does it because he enjoys it. We couldn’t live on the salary. As someone who has worked in industry, he can make the content more relatable to any future job these students may have. He also has relationships with employers and can recommend students to them.

[@MuzixMaker]

It’s like entry level fast food workers complaining they don’t get a “living wage “

[@danielwhitman8180]

@@MuzixMakerYeah except these are highly specialized people with PhD's, not a job that literally anyone off the street can do like fast food work.

[@caseyjones4]

I got my geology degree, and the single most useful class i took was taught by an adjunct. He is the owner of a large geoscience company, and taught a class on industrial applications. He really used it to recruit young and hungry people into his company and didn't care about the pay. It was one of the few classes that I actually use daily at work. Geophysics? Not one time have i needed to measure the tensile stress on a slip plate 😅 And litterally had the old research professor that hated teaching situation.

[@judychurley6623]

The point is: adjuncts are not (necessarily) inferior teachers, they have inferior pay and job security.

[@RyanCaesar]

that sounds like a good example of what adjuncts should be- passionate experts who don't rely on teaching for their livelihood

[@treeleaf7808]

@caseyjones4 I hear what you're saying, but to me, your argument implies, "I don't use this knowledge every day, so it wasn't worth learning." I'm wary of that way of thinking. There's probably someone out there who didn't care about the industrial applications class but did need to know how to measure the tensile stress on a slip plate. So they could use your exact argument, but in reverse. Does either argument help prove a point? I'm not sure...

[@caseyjones4]

@treeleaf7808 I can see how you got there, but that wasn't what I meant. I think if you're going to have a degree in something, you should be a subject matter expert on that. I also feel that there are degrees of usefulness. Learning something practical is way more useful than learning something something that you'll refer back to on occasion. Both should be learned, both are useful. But the practical class has led to me being way ahead of my peers entering the work force. I think that is much more useful to me. 1 in 100 gradutes will go into acadamia. But the majority of what they learn is only useful there

[@Namari12]

My spouse was an adjunct for several years. She'd graduated from the school with a Masters but was really on the fence about getting her PhD (her heart wasn't in it.) The school she'd just graduated from hired her to teach a couple of courses a semester and while it did pay crap, she got to be on the health insurance plan--as a type 1 diabetic, she was mostly doing it for the insurance while she figured out her next steps. Ultimately, working as an adjunct is what convinced her not to get her doctorate and get out of academia altogether. I didn't realize until much later how rare it was that she did actually get insurance out of the deal and how good that was (compared to the average). She also did have an office space. I assume they did that because she'd been a grad student in their department and they liked her. I thought it was exploitative enough as it was, I can't even believe how much some adjuncts put up with.

[@jonwesick2844]

I was an adjunct for a year back in 1994. The inflation-adjusted pay per physics course was $4000 in 2023 dollars per semester. The community college would have limited my yearly salary to $24k according to how many courses they allowed me to teach. For me it was only temporary but freeway flyers took slides to college and drove to other colleges to teach more courses in order to make ends meet.

[@phyllisford2130]

I think the part you're missing is "Why don't you pay to take this course a second time?" works out GREAT for the owners. Yeah, if you think about it, EVERYTHING about adjuncts works out better for the owners. It's just the gigification of University jobs. Soon every teacher will be a part time professor.

[@zetacrucis681]

They are called casual academics/lecturers in Australia. I worked as one for 8 years teaching physics from first year to honours level. It's a tough gig, very exploitative, unreasonable demands leading to unpaid overtime, no income over summer or any of the shorter holidays. Stressful, below poverty line living. One summer I did have some work developing online learning content for first and second year physics, which was used by the department the following year to make one of my previous job roles redundant.

[@richarddeese1991]

Thanks. I worked in a hospital for almost 20 years, in and out of patient care. Physical Therapists used to call this "continuity of care", meaning the same therapist treats you the whole time (as much as possible). So they know that patient, and the patient knows them. I'd be surprised if any such thing still exists today. Nurses back then had become more administrative than anything else. It was the "patient care technician" who did all the actual daily patient care. The nurse only came into the patient's room to identify themselves, or to give medication. Otherwise, they were doing paperwork. And they earned a helluva lot more than the PCTs who did all the work with the patients. Today, I can't even seem to keep the same doctor. I've had 2 retire, and a third who moved to another practice. Now, I've had to change doctor's offices entirely. That'll be 5 in the last 5 years. Yeah for capitalism, I guess... *_NOT_*. tavi.

[@tissuepaper9962]

medicine is the exact opposite of a free market, this is not a "capitalism" issue. if medicine were a free market then insulin would be $3.75/dose and it wouldn't take fifteen years to become a doctor. the medical industry is literally the textbook example of "regulatory capture".

[@gaerekxenos]

​@@tissuepaper9962Capitalism by means of maximizing profits. Probably not the 'free market' aspect as much. Not sure exactly how integral the concept of the 'free market' is to the idea of capitalism since I'm just an uneducated bumkin that doesn't deal with more technical definitions for these types of subjects

[@tissuepaper9962]

@@gaerekxenos well, "regulatory capture" is a good search term for you. It's basically when a company or small group of companies advocate for a law that makes their product more expensive to produce by requiring tests and certifications, requiring a specific type of equipment, etc. The trick is, they either were already doing things that way, or they have enough money to retrofit all their production to a new standard without much of a financial hit. What this does is make it economically infeasible to start a new company in that industry, because a small business can't afford the lawyers and lab testing necessary to comply with those new laws.

[@G5rry]

This might be another problem for adjuncts: They are not in the same union as the full-time faculty, which can become a problem when the union is taking action. When I was going to university, the professors went on strike. I was in full support of them, but I had to cross the picket line because one of the courses I was taking was taught by someone who was not a member of the union. I am not sure if he was an adjunct or just a "low-level" lecturer. But it is a similar situation. He had to continue teaching the course during a strike and the students were required to cross the picket lines to attend the course. The professors on strike were sympathetic and didn't hold anything against the people in this situation, but it was a pretty sh*tty situation to be in.

[@Yura135]

that just seems like oversight or outright corruption at the union leadership. the whole point of unions is to unify the working class (defined as someone who has to work to make ends meet). if anything, the strike should include truckers, baristas and everyone else in the community, see how long the university can hold out once the garbage men get in on the action.

[@ChristianWiegand]

Ääa

[@addammadd]

@@Yura135 eeen Father America, the unions strike each other.

[@treyebillups8602]

@@Yura135 Unfortunately revolutionary industrial unionism has been out for a century and replaced with unions that collaborate with the exploiters

[@KoalaMDpl]

This is precisely why I changed fields late in my academic career. While pursuing a PhD in history I saw the writing on the wall and went to medicine. Not that I don't want to be a medical doctor, I always found medicine exhilarating, but I was writing my thesis on millenarian anabaptism of the early reformation with this nagging thought in my mind that my future would be consigned to adjunct purgatory with no chance at tenure. It's a travesty that this is the direction we've permitted higher education to devolve

[@footofgod]

I would love to see an in depth discussion of sports at college pushing back at the "ummm aksually sports fund themselves and make money for the university" narrative, ignoring *who* it makes money for and all the collateral damage it seems to cause in the process. I think it does actual damage to the education system of a given college.

[@gaerekxenos]

The University I went to decided to forego all sports in order to avoid that problem. Pity it didn't resolve much =_=;; Said University also had an adjunct abuse problem. Also had a bunch of rather fraudulent sounding awards such as... "Green Campus" when they had tons of grass all around, used paper plates and plastic throwaway utensils, didn't have composting, and also had water fountains that were running - and this was the Southwest US area where we deal with drought =_=;; some local paper gave it the "Great Place to Work" title too =-=;; very yucky when you actually knew what was going on there

[@winterhtech]

Back in 2016 Real Sports did a segment on Universities funding football out of the general fund.

[@primzahler8377]

Thank you very much for making this video. The fact that this type of practice is so common is completly unacceptable. It really needs more attention !

[@dudebroski9460]

I love this channel. You are amazing and i cant wait to hear what you have to say.... everytime.... the effort you put in is appreciated.

[@howwitty]

When I was younger I thought my teacher lived at school. By the time I got old enough to take a college course, the adjuncts were living in the dorm. $30,000 a year is what undergrads should be paid to take classes. Building more houses and roads is not going to fix the wage crisis, look at what happened in the Soviet Union in 1923. If they get paid in sneaker money, they will buy a pair of sneakers.

[@julianbell9161]

I had an adjunct professor for one of my electrical engineering courses, but he is very much an exception. He’s a retired senior executive from Northrop Grumman who just likes teaching electrical engineering so he’s adjunct because he doesn’t care about tenure or the pay. He’s definitely not hurting financially though like many other adjunct professors. The guy is the American dream incarnate. Grew up poor in Egypt, came the the US, became an electrical engineer and worked his way up in Northrop Grumman.

[@chrisrunsthis]

So easily my favorite channel these days. Not in academia at all it’s all just fascinating coming from corporate sales (soulless)

[@mikedavis979]

As a former full-time adjunct (being at three schools at once), you are preaching to the choir here. Oh my goodness, five courses, three schools, you totally described my life for three years! Hope lots of people watch this video! I love teaching, but even non-adjunct full time lecturers don't make enough, IMO. If you have PhD, you can be a lecturer or "clinical professor" (misnomer but term used in some depts for teaching onlly) or "teaching professor", but I don't think even those positions are tenure-track, nor do they have the potential income increase of FT teacher+research tenure-track professor positions. Teaching AND writing grants AND managing a lab AND possibily doing research is just ridiculous, few can do all of that very well.

[@hereticyogiexpectationsups4037]

I worked as an adjunct for 12 years. Finally was hired full time when I let them know I was going to have to find a "real" job to afford my health insurance. Most adjuncts will never be hired full time.

[@goodmaro]

So much of this was vexingly like my experience, but one of them -- lack of communication where you're the scapegoat -- really hit home. Nobody told me the textbook wasn't available at the start of the term -- I had my instructor copy, they didn't have theirs. Then the textbooks came in -- different edition from mine, of course. But then weeks after the textbooks came in, nobody told me the students weren't actually using them -- apparently in that course it was traditional for them to skip them in favor of prof notes, although I saw in class that *some* of the students had the book -- and I got blamed for giving them assignments they didn't "get" because they referenced the textbook. I got fired for making one course too hard, and in the other I missed a class because they told me the wrong room, and the department head took over.

[@thomasmcginnis3783]

You've done this so, so well. FWIW, at one point in time, I taught 4 math classes, 4 econ classes, and 1 pol.sci. course, in one semester. Four classes made you the oxymoronic "full-time adjunct." Yeah. Five was easy to garner. Six, and you had to have permission of the Dean. But with Math and social science, I reported to two departments, and escaped the scrutiny. What was my record? For standardized classes (given transfer credit throughout the state of Indiana), I had above-average completion, and above-average grades. "Great job, Tom!" Yeah. And what did that get me? Nada-Zip-Naught-Zed-Nothin'. *I'd had quite enough, and went back to financial trading, as it was less stressful.* I kid you not.

[@阳明子]

Fellas and felles, it sounds like we need a revolution.

[@Brian-ey4xt]

I did a few semesters of adjunct work at UPitt back when my wife was getting her masters at CMU. I didn't mind it at all and the pay was fair for how many hours I put in. I was offered enrollment in the UPMC health/dental plan even though I was part-time faculty (I guess that kind of thing varies wildly by university). Maybe the example of the English prof is just a lot of extra work vs teaching engineering. Grading essays seems like it would take way longer than grading some statics homework sets and grading blue book exams also seem way more daunting than a multiple choice exam. My wife and I have a few million in savings and are looking at retiring early in our mid 40s. I've thought about being an adjunct again just to help train the next generation of engineers and earn some extra money to pay for hobbies. I never really thought of it being such a problem until watching this and hearing more about what others have experienced.

[@e.s.r5809]

I misread the title, came here expecting to talk about matrices, then learned something new about academia and why it's SO damn important for teachers and academics to unionise. Thanks, Dr Collier.

[@catmcks72]

I recently was recommended one of your videos, and ended up binging most of your videos! This one lingered in my head, mainly because an adjuct I had during my undergrad actually did get hired. I just graduated with a bachelor's in mechanical engineering, and had the best adjuct ever for Thermo I and Thermal System Design. During my senior year, one of the professors had to leave and we made a petition so the adjunct has a better chance of being hired. In one of the last weeks of the semester, it was announced he would be full-time in the following year. I know these situations don't happen often, but I thought it would be nice to share! Keep up the good work with these videos!

[@artichoke60045]

What does full-time mean, tenure track? Or full time adjunct? It would be the first time I've heard of an adjunct getting a tenure track position. And then even so, when he comes up for tenure, would he be respected enough to have a fair shot at it? The stigma might stick.

[@trembletea]

Former adjunct and “visiting professor” here. You killed me with the description of the full professor who comes in saying, “I hate freshman, I hate this course” and only teaches the 400-level invitation-only seminar. 😂 That was perfect.

[@theentirepopulationofaustr6046]

Yeah it's the same in Australia. Bloody depressing. If you're in the arts you're also setting up / organising / promoting / creating work for / "volunteering" at exhibitions a few times a year as well. If you are trying to impress people, you'll also be doing all this for conferences, which you then have to pay to attend, or writing articles, which you then have to pay to submit to journals. Absolutely nuts.

[@tedjohnson64]

This was the most entertaining video I’ve seen in ages! Very well thought out scenarios, entertainingly presented. The selection of classic music between chapters was . I’m so glad KZbin suggested your channel to me.

[@acerrubrum5749]

Excellent job. Valuable content. Playlist: Dropkick Murphys : Worker's Song Bruce Springsteen: Darkness on the Edge of Town Working Class Hero: John Lennon Billy Bragg: Power in a Union Tom Morello: Union Town Johnny Paycheck: Take This Job and Shove It Judy Collins: Bread and Roses Pete Seeger: Solidarity Forever Woody Guthrie: Union Burying Ground Greg MacPherson: Company Store Florence Reece: Which Side Are You On? Woody Guthrie : 1913 Massacre "Working class" marked by jobs that provide low pay, limited opportunities. The only thing that is different, academia never thought it would come for them.

[@TVanrullen]

You just summarized clearly the 10years surrounding my phd... In France. These adjuncts agents are called *vacataires* and the contract is called *vacation* (it means to fill blanks in a schedule, but sounds like holidays). 70% of the teaching job in universities is done by such agents with precarious situations. And same reasons to not quit until you find a real job! Thanks addressing this topic and for your hectic emotions about it!

[@ChristesII]

At my school (A CC in Washington state), the union has done a pretty good job advocating for pay equality and benefits for adjuncts. It's still not rosy and a lot of the issues you describe still exist, but much better than a lot of cases. The worst horror stories I've heard come from states with weaker unions. Also, there's something to be said for the culture of a two-year college where most of the full-time faculty have masters degrees, are there because they love teaching, and have worked as adjuncts themselves at some point.

[@aidanwarren4980]

Paying for the Party was generally supportive of community colleges for much the same reason. Turns out that focusing on education instead of sports, Greek life, and research is very beneficial for working-class or older adult students who just want to learn skills and enter their field. There is some concern in the education economics field about the high community college drop-out rate, but it’s ambiguous whether that rate is due to systemic failure on the part of the schools or if it’s an inherent tendency of the student demographic.

[@stevenlopez1717]

These videos are so incredible important... You're a source of advocacy, which desperately needed, in academia right now. A livable wage, health insurance and retirement packages shouldn't be a question for our educators, unbelievably disappointing...

[@shinx-hr6uq]

The dropout scenario about the dad dying is literally me. I just lie and say I finished because I cant even be bothered to explain everything

[@-tera-3345]

I ended up dropping out after going to talk to a professor that I had thought I had a fairly close relationship about how during that semester my grandfather had passed away and my mother was about to die of cancer and what I could do to make up whatever work I needed to. It was meant to be my final semester, and was the week before final exams, and her reply was to simply say that it was not possible for me to pass the class no matter how well I did on the final because she "didn't remember seeing me in class enough", and therefore my attendance was too low, despite her not actually taking any formal attendance for that class. And I had shown up nearly every week. I was so offput by that and stressed by everything else that I couldn't even be bothered to file a complaint against her, either for failing me over attendance despite having no record, or for refusing to consider my personal circumstances. And I wasn't going to take a whole extra semester for a single class (and it would have to be a full year later because it was the fall semester and so spring applications were already filled), so I ended up just skipping exams and leaving the university and never going back. A few years later, after all my personal circumstances had been taken care of, I started looking in to see if I could finish the degree somehow but was told that it wouldn't really be possible due to my gpa (which had dropped considerably due to giving up that full semester of courses).

[@shinx-hr6uq]

@@-tera-3345 Jesus that's horrible. I do not want to be presumptuous, but if you think you can get away with it, do what I do and lie. Just make sure you can back it up with the know-how and you will be fine, by the time the job or whatever it is figure it out (if they ever do) I doubt they will want the fuss of replacing a knowledgeable person over a technicality. (only exception would be ironically enough, academia, which you can be sure will probably check). On the other hand, that prof. Sounds like a complete menace. I would have told her to go fuck herself, and I understand completely the feeling of just not wanting the aggro, after something like that you just realise you don't care about things like that anymore. But even so - she sounds puny. She deserved to hear it

[@nobodythisisstupid4888]

The fact that the full time staff only coffee was put in the ADJUNCT LOUNGE is CRAZY. It’s like the university is purposely taunting and disrespecting them

[@winterhtech]

Universities have caste systems.

[@Frankey2310]

Hm, in my old country (Russia) it's customary to have "101-level", 200-person lecture hall courses be taught exclusively by professors from the top of the internal food chain, and the more advanced the courses get, the younger the teachers are. To me, this makes sense from all angles: on one hand, you can give the elderly nomenclatura easy stuff to teach while still collecting salary (there's no such things as tenure or pension plans in USSR), on the other, the most fundamental courses seem to be a reasonable high priority when best teaching talent is allocated. You always see a bit of both.

[@nattalete]

I never went through academia myself, but I have been a college student for many years (before dropping out), so I have been around faculty, and I have a relative who's in academia and who I talk to somewhat often. This video helped me see what faculty go through. Some of my instructions and professors were going through this, and my relative, who's now a tenured professor, might have gone through this at some point. This is a great video.

[@meccamiles7816]

Most of my courses were taught by adjunct profs when I was a grad student, and it was painfully obvious they were being abused, and most of the time I had great sympathy for them (I still do), but it was very hard to maintain that sympathy when they turned around and behaved like the very tyrants that were making their lives miserable.

[@leigh9360]

I'm a software engineer. I'm not in academia. I still watched this whole video because you're just great at talking.

[@mgelliott1]

Wow. You are really a good person. Glad I found your channel. I also saw your related Postdoc video. I'm not in STEM, but I could tell you horror stories about paying a ton of money to get an MBA from an elite Ivy, going into deep debt (lower middle class person) with the expectation that I would have a commensurate career. Whoops, didn't factor in I'm Black. So, I found myself living like a pauper for years, post grad school, with a "regular" job, paying back tons of student loans, while my peers were going on ski trips to Europe and were buying their second (vacation) homes.

[@heijd]

Genuine question, where is the money the universities get actually going? Of course the sports coach gets paid a ridiculous amount, but college athletes are not paid and there is so much more money coming in and even in countries which do not have the insane college sports culture a lot of people are underpaid in universities. Buildings are often paid off, universities are tax-exempt, academic staff is underpaid (and for a large part funded by external funds), they never have enough administrative staff (which is also underpaid), income of tens of thousands per student, huge legacy donations...

[@acollierastro]

Great question! Universities barely pay their teachers and they do not pay for research at all. When you get a 500k grant for example the Uni takes up to 55% as overhead (where I worked at least.)

[@123370]

@@acollierastro Another thing to look at (in addition to SPORTS) is endowment funds. My alma mater (University of Waterloo) in Ontario has an endowment of $350M USD. They teach 34k undergrads and 7k grad students a year. The liberal arts school my girlfriend teaches at, with 3.6k students a year, has an endowment of $1.1 BILLION usd. All my professors made over $100k (and i just checked now, all are making above $150k now; some of whom don't even have PhDs!). My girlfriend is getting paid

[@keith5615]

Lots of money is being spent on non-teaching activities. Generally the amount of funding for teaching has been static (accounting for inflation) since 1990. Lots of money on facilities, new construction, and admins.

[@marc-andrebrunet5386]

I had listened everything you said in this video even if I never been to school.. .. I hope you understand how much respect I have for you ! I'm listening because I want to understand why some people around me have so much difficulty to make their way into what they decided to put lots of energy in. Like I said, I never been to school.. I don't have any degrees in anything.. I did messed up my life because I took bad decision instead of doing sacrifice, or personal efforts for having a better living situation.. I'm 44 and for the last 10 years, I did find people like you who were teaching or explaining how things works in our world.. our society.. our universe. I know I already said that in many videos from you but once again, thank you very much for everything you did inside the communication world ! 😊 People like you makes me believe that I can learn more and more everyday.✔️ Full respect sister 🤘😎💯 (I hope my English is okay) 🙏 thanks

[@secondengineer9814]

I am someone who wants to retire early. I would love to be able to teach one course a semester, and I'd be fine earning only $3k to do it. That's because I'm lucky enough to not necessarily need the money. But the sucky thing about wanting to do jobs like this for not enough money is it would make me act as a relief valve that prevents the compensation from rising otherwise, and that seems bad.

[@JohnBell3]

And this is exactly why I chose a university (in 1979) where 98% of all classes were taught by full time professors, not temp staff. I'd heard stories from others about taking classes from adjuncts, grad students, and temporary staff.

[@Andrewbert109]

This is actually pretty similar to a lot of IT contract work. I mean, since it's mostly in the private sector there's way more variability but there's definitely a lot of contract jobs that are very similar to what you're describing here, and it's something they do as part of this bullshit gig economy way of thinking. Especially when you have the ones offering "contract to hire" only to bring you on and renew your contract, essentially in perpetuity, while dangling the prospect of full time just out of reach. "Sorry we don't have it in the budget but they're gonna free some stuff up next year" etc. Except the whole time they're doing this, they're hiring other people on full time directly. Thankfully that hasn't been my experience with one exception which wasn't too bad, but I've worked with so many people who have had to deal with that and it kills me.

[@KamilaShakur]

The One and Done post gave me a lot of perspective because I’ve been taking online classes & it frustrates me to no end that for some classes, there is nothing in the portal up until like a day before the class starts. I assumed it was always the teachers waiting until the last minute, but it could very well be teachers literally unable to log in and upload things or they don’t know they even have the class until the last minute…absolutely ridiculous.

[@noone4401]

One thing that enabled me to survive as an adjunct, was to make friends with the department secretary. She actually ran the department while all the TT folks pretended to run the department.

[@briankamras2913]

Have a PhD in chemistry. Ran as far away from adjunct and postdoc positions as possible. Global educator’s union now, DO NOT teach or work for the worthless salary that university will pay you. Education has been destroyed.

[@springinfialta106]

My understanding is that in "the good old days" over 90% of the employees at a typical college or university were teachers. Now I believe it is around 50% or less. That plus all the new accommodations for students like pools, luxury dorms, etc. means the universities don't just have the money to pay teachers. So many administrative positions that add questionable value to the university need to be reconsidered.

[@jackagnell4781]

oh no they dont have luxury dorms. they stuff as many kids in as possible and overcharge for food

[@markhuber5981]

Those "safe spaces" and adult coloring books don't grow on trees !

[@09philj]

I have recently gone through a long period of unemployment, and was on government benefits (in the UK). As part of this I was put on a contracted out get-into-work scheme which was run by a recruitment firm on the government's behalf. The coach for candidates with better qualifications who helped me there was a really nice guy who was a classics professor who left academia when he started a family and realised he needed better job security.

[@mrtspence]

The increasing use of adjuncts is why I decided to not pursue a career in academia after getting my BA. Now I write code. A lot of my best teachers in undergrad were people getting paid peanuts and having to teach 8 different classes across 5 different universities. It's such a disgrace to our universities.

[@socialrose3070]

Something that my union says, "the law is a shield, organization is the sword. The shield is made of paper, so you better keep sharpening that sword." Absolutely agree that maybe there should be laws mandating this, but we aren't going to get there until we are organized as labor, and even then, the law can just be taken away by some tyrant. So the only thing that's going to make sure that good law stays in place is powerful unions/NGO's that support working folk.

[@urquizagabe]

That's funny. Here in Brazil Adjunct Professor is the first stage in the career of permanent university faculty. You have the position of temporary professor which is somewhat like what you're describing, but vacancies for that can only be opened under certain circumstances, but the rules about renewing contracts are stringent. It is very much meant to be temporary.

[@swdierks]

An some snooty tenured professor is writing books and columns about raising the minimum wage to a 'living wage', while exploiting this system. I spent 2 years as a TA in grad school. The ubiquitous hypocrisy is mind-numbing.

[@iangreen2871]

I'm a nurse and I am about to be an adjunct instructor at an associate's degree nursing program at our local community college. It's a terribly exploitative environment, but lecturer unions can help! I decided to do it for two reasons. One, I want to teach but I have a bachelor's degree. Graduate degrees in nursing are either expensive nurse practitioner programs or phds in nursing that claim to explore why nurses are hemorrhaging out of the field while dancing around the fact that it's because of the material conditions of a for-profit medical industry. Second, full-time nursing places dangerous demands on a person's body, mind and spirit. I was going to say that a little variety can improve burnout, but you're right that I could just get a job at McDonald's and get paid more lol

[@hannahvickery4683]

the state I live in pays for 2 year school, but because of the demand spike, most of the classes are taught by adjuncts that have never taught before and don't seem to have ever so much as watched a youtube video on it, but they take anyone they can get. the classes are a nightmare and even though the people work in the field they're teaching and have years of experience, they really don't understand how to actually *teach* it. Reallly grateful for your video, it makes a lot of great points

[@Andlekin]

I didn't even know what an adjunct was until I watched your videos. Thinking back to my undergrad degree in CompSci, most of my courses were taught by professors, and maybe one by a post-doc per semester. This sounds horrible and broken. I looked into the job postings at my alma mater. There are adjunct positions, but just not courses relevant to me. Surprisingly they ARE unionized (SEIU Local 509). I don't know the pay or conditions of the positions, nor how effective this union is, but it was interesting to find out.

[@Yerrik]

Thank you for doing these videos. I have dropped off of the tenure track application process because I am wasting years doing that instead of doing research. The pandemic cemented that for me. I have never wanted to adjunct because of the sill amount of work to pay ratio, and this video really articulates all the problems I've been wary of.

[@Merlandese]

I hate it when something goes wrong and the adjunct gets blamed and tossed out.

[@judychurley6623]

Yep. Did that. Had great observations and great student evals - the best in my department over adjunct and tenured profs for 10 years; and when it came time for an open full-time prof, they hired a friend of the chair who had little teaching experience and really wasn't too bright. He's still there.

[@markhuber5981]

My daughter just walked away from her tenure track liberal arts job to be closer to family. Luckily her husband has a high paying IT gig. You paint a very bleak picture of her future prospects in the field when her babies head off to school and she wants to get back in.

[@matthewmeeker8016]

Because it is pretty bleak…

[@orca042]

I wouldn't count on getting another tenure track job. There can be hundreds of applicants, and PhDs expire.

[@Nhurgle]

Where I leave in Canada, our adjuncts are paid 10k per class. My favorite professors are all adjuncts because they can tell us what is really going on in the markets. That means they all have jobs, and being an adjuncts just means a way to forget about their stressfull day and be with a bounch of bright eyes 20 years old who are eager to learn and do more. It seems to revitalize them. On the other end, the full time tenure professors all seems to hate teaching... They are not paid for that anyways, just punished. They are paid to do research that will lead to publication. Teaching takes time away from research. And those that seems to enjoy it always try to convert people into the academic life.

[@seekernomanjango]

Wonderful video as always. Here in the UK we don't have adjuncts in name but the same culture of zero hours work and temporary and exploitative practices exists. Just one question, you flashed up a thing about learning styles. Is that about the classic visualphysical/etc. learning styles or specifically about online learning compared to in person? I think the controversies around the two things have different bodies of thought.

[@acollierastro]

Oh yeah I was making a joke. I understand that people have a preference toward online/in person learning. But at the time...it wasn't really online vs. in person. It was online vs in person during a pandemic when no vaccine existed.

[@seekernomanjango]

@@acollierastro That makes sense! I miss humour sometimes. And absolutely there shouldn't have been an argument between online vs in person during unprecedented pandemic because people's health really should take priority.

[@williamhollifieldmusic]

FWIW, I'm an adjunct at a private uni in Georgia in the US. I'm a saxophonist. However bad the problem is for engineers, please know that it is even worse for the degrees deemed "unnecessary". And, we have even less power to change anything.

[@mirmalchik]

Hell yes. You f*****ng rock, thank you for calling out this problem and actually tying it to the things political institutions can do about it if and when we force them to. My one note is that doomerism about the ability of adjuncts to get organized is kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. We need two feelings above all others to win: anger, to move us through our fear; and hope, to move us through our helplessness. Believe me, I get it if you're feeling hopeless yourself. But that's why we all need to practice dreaming of better worlds. So we can one day build them. Much love, keep up the fire.

[@GreenCurryiykyk]

Glad you called out Reagan. He cut aid I received to attend school in the 80s (CU in fact, they had a shitty over-paid football program back then too). He set so many aspects of our nation on a downward spiral that continues today. I appreciate you noting such things in your vids. Gives me a glimmer of hope!

[@aniellodimeglio8369]

A adjunct union is definitely needed. Let university deal with collective bargaining.

[@dosgos]

In some graduate programs, professionals can bring specialised skills and knowledge that academics won't have. I think this is more for some advanced vocational areas such as: engineering, law, business, architecture, etc. These adjuncts typically have full-time jobs and many do not accept (or return) the stipend. There is a delicate balance among the faculty, adjuncts, students, administration, budgeting, outside perception, even at the famous universities with "unlimited" funds. This video shows a level of respect and compassion to the plight of many academics. I didn't realise how difficult it has become.

[@wraithwrecker_]

This shit makes my blood boil. My senior year, my school got rid of a bunch of humanities departments and fired a ton of faculty just so they could inflate the sports budget. The president retired that year with a huge golden parachute and all my professors were out of a job. A bunch of freshmen in the philosophy major came up to me (as it was also my major), asking what they should do. The school """"""""""promised"""""""""" that none of the majors were going away and that whatever you started as, you'd be able to finish, even if your department had just been axed (bullshit). I told the freshmen to leave and get into a state school. I will never forget what they did to us. And I will never forgive them.

[@noltingcr]

As a Non-Tenure Track Visiting Professor, a lot of this applies to me as well, just a bit less extreme. We still teach courses with very little job security and significantly lower pay than a Tenure Track Professor. The pay is better than Adjuncting, and there are benefits like health insurance, but it is still exploitative… And probably low chance of getting the ‘real job’ 😢

[@vitamin9165]

So I've been watching a few of your videos as an undergraduate (good videos btw, the one about string theory while you were playing isaac was a banger) and the overall message I'm getting is I should be running away from academia as fast as I can. But I really like what I'm studying right now (biochem) and don't want to work an office job. Is there any hope out there for people who like science and want to keep working in science, but get paid enought to live? What's the best case scenario for this type of person? Should you go for industry? How many people do you need to outcompete to be able to get a liveable job? Also these videos have made it pretty clear that talking to people and getting advice is pretty critical. As someone that has taught before do you have any advice on how to approach professors and TA's and talk about job stuff? In New Zealand we don't have advisors, whatever those are.

[@eqfan592]

You were spot on about the impact commuting in traffic has on our mental health, and I don't think it's something that's being talked about enough. Also, having lived in the Austin area in the past, the idea of making that commute every day makes my stomach drop. That stretch of I-35 between Dallas and San Antonio is one of the most heavily travelled strips of freeway in the country I imagine, I don't think I've ever driven on it at any time of day when there wasn't at least moderate traffic, and even if you're going through late at night, that's when they are doing most of the construction work so it's still a mess.