Today is National Adjunct Walkout Day. Adjunct professors on campuses across the country hope to draw attention to what many say are poverty-level wages, with no chance to advance to a tenured track position. We are joined by Louisa Edgerly, an adjunct instructor at Seattle University, where she will join other adjuncts and students — along with tenure-track professors — in walking out at noon today.
19 replies (most recent on top)
Hey 267, you are rolling the turd in the righteous direction. But how long can you push that thing uphill?
Even though instructors at "at-will" ECMC can't fire or can the full-time ones now if their position is not removed. I mean, they can, but are open to potential lawsuits for wrongful termination. As such, they use the full-time instructors and then flex the number of adjuncts depending on enrollment.
If/when enrollment tanks so bad there are too many full-time instructors then you will start to see them go.
242: Yes, enrollment is tanking, but I suspect that adjuncts are less expensive than FT instructors. I would be interested to know if campuses have lost FT instructors and not replaced them, using adjunct instead.
There are still adjunct instructors? I thought they were no more because of the collapsing student enrollment.
196: Informed Opinion is ALWAYS on this site. He's Camden Kid. And don't let him fool you - he'd take ANY job that he was offered.
Informed: get yourself educated. This wasn't just about this company. Clearly your reading skills need some work.
Informed Opinion: (1) Why in the world on you on this site? Weird. (2) I would never hire you as an instructor. Poor attitude and communication skills. (3) What in heck are you so angry and bitter about? Jeez!
774....you cannot be serious. Published, well known instructors with doctoral level degrees see this latrine for what it is, and we will leave it to you flies, maggots and dung beetles (yes, I teach entomology). Get a grip and stop feeling compelled to comment when the thread is WAY outside your area of expertise. Unless you just really need to roll that turd around. Good luck with that.
The end result will be that they add more tenured positions, available only to the very elite (published, PHD, well known, etc) and get rid of adjunct positions altogether. It's a part time job that averages between $15 and $25 an hour, depending on the hours per term you work. ADJUNCT EQUALS PART TIME! If you want a career, find a full time job. So, even if this big 'walk out' works, who wins? NOBODY!
What do you call an adjunct who walks out on their job? Waitress.
Whatever. There are thousands who will take the place. I'm proud to be an adjunct and I have a great job (NOT with Zenith or CCI or whatever, anymore) I would never walk out.
728 here. Sorry if i was not clear before. To clarify, why would management be motivated to change when there seems to be an adequate supply - or even an oversupply - of adjuncts willing to work for the prevailing wage and under difficult conditions? If the supply changes, through attrition, or mass resignation or some other market factor, then management will need to adjust. Until then, those relatively few who "walkout" are asking for a termination letter.
Anonymous70755: No, nobody's going to bail on any classes.
So will teachers bail on our classes today?
728: I apologize. I think we are in agreement but I misread your comment and thought you were agreeing with the OP. Your grasp of Econ 101 is fine!
728: "Unemployment" Day is correct (did you mean that, or was it a Freudian slip?)
Anonymous70728: Wow, you've really been paying attention to our society, haven't you? Remember way back in college when you learned about overcrowded rat behavior? The rats are like the adjuncts - way too many for the positions available. If you imagine for one second that you are going to get a critical mass of them to stick together and potentially get screwed even more doing it, you are a complete idiot! And since you like to imagine you understand economics - why don't you explain to us how this relates to game theory (and in the real world please, not your overactive imagination)?
Tomorrow is National Adjunct Unemployment Day. Econ 101: Conditions and compensation will change when resources become unavailable under the current conditions and compesation.
Wow, this sounds like a good idea - to anyone waiting patiently for a local adjunct job to open up.