Adjuncts are Expendable

Adjuncts are expendable commodities.  When an adjunct is used up or begins to be problematic, s/he is relieved of duties and another adjunct moves in to fill up the empty spot.  An adjunct becomes problematic by 1) pointing out problems within a course or department or 2) is brought to the attention of the administration for any reason or 3) fails to meet standards measured by student evaluations.  So what's an adjunct to do? Here are some tips.

First, never point out a problem with a course, department head, or anything in the department.  No matter what problems arise in your course, handle them yourself with a smile.   This may mean giving out good grades for bad work, extending deadlines because of student laziness, or apologizing to your students for not teaching the class the way they want to have it taught as well as changing your methods to meet their requirements and expectations.  Remember, you are a professional.  There is no problem you cannot fix somehow.  If college level pedagogical practices don't work, reach down to what you would use in high school, junior high....oh, heck.  Try kindergarten.  After all, the students are paying the tuition and thus your salary (puny as it might be), so give them what they want. 

Expanding on this first point, I want you to be sure that you never complain about or to your department head.  By all means, never admit you have been sick, dealing with a personal issue, or overwhelmed.  Do not seek help or adivce.  You are supposed to know everything; that is why they hired you.  If you find your department head to be incompetent, don't complain to administration.  Accept it as part of the way things are.  The better the professor, the less that professor wants the job of department head.  Most PhD's don't want the added burden of administrative tasks.  They don't want to schedule courses, staff them, and (heaven forbid) deal with adjuncts.  Chances are the person who has the job took it for the extra money involved and the smaller teaching load.  Remember too, that any problems you experience add to the woes of the beleaguered department head.  Your department head doesn't want those woes, so the easiest way to get rid of them is to get rid of the adjunct who brings them to his/her attention.

2) Administration is not your friend.  I'm not sure they are anyone's friend, but they certainly aren't there to make the adjunct's life better.  You belong to your department head, and the only time your name should come to the attention of administration is if you have been unanimously voted to be adjunct of the year, or if one hundred students are lined up at the registrar's office clamoring to take just one more course with you.  Unfortunately, when a student or a parent of a student (Those helicopter parents are still hovering.) has any kind of a problem, the complaint will go directly to admnistration - usually a dean.  Most of the time the complaint is not valid and easily cleared up.  Case in point is the mother of a student who complained that I had failed her daughter's research paper without cause.  I had in my posession a paper that was half the length, had no citations or bibliography, and was poorly written.  I gave the student the benefit of the doubt and asked her to upload the final version rather than the "draft" she  must have "mistakenly uploaded."  No other paper was uploaded.  Case closed.  Still and all, this was a "problem" for the administrator who had been contacted.  Just like a person who has been wrongly accused of something like child molestation, I'm wrong, even when I'm not. 

Additionally, you don't want to complain to administration about your department head.  Chances are they know exactly how incompetent your department head is, but since no one else wants the job.....

3) If you are on the "hit" list, all evaluations will be "problematic."  It doesn't matter that the aggregate value of your evaluations is a 4.55 out of 5.00; if your deparmtent head says, they are problematic, rest assured they are.  Of course, don't expect anyone to tell you why they are problematic or what the minimum score is for your school or department.  When all else fails, your evaluation scores will be enough to make sure that your name is not on the next semester schedule.  Chances are, the scores are problematic because you did something listed in 1) or 2) above.

All of the above creates a serious problem.  Adjuncts are now appeasing students even when they shouldn't; they are participating in grade inflation; they are dropping their standards regarding all methods of student participation and performace.  An adjunct who is concerned primarily with operaing under the radar cannot be a good teacher.  An adjunct who does not feel that the department head is providing understanding help and support has nowhere to turn when a legitimate problem arises. 

It's bad enough that in many educational institutions, adjuncts are made to feel as if they don't really belong.  They have no offices and carry everything around with them (including laptops to the bathroom, so they won't be stolen), and often are left out of the loop regarding important information that is routinely sent to full-time faculty.  Adjuncts rarely know the full-time professors and have no one to talk to, never mind seek advice from, regarding students or other school related issues. 

Adjuncts teach well over 50% of the nation's courses.  If we all decided to not teach for only one semester, we could seriously cripple most educational insitutions.  Yet we are considered expendable.