Reynolds on adjuncts (Signifying Nothing: how does saying nothing at all become so loud?)

Monday, 24 July 2006

Reynolds on adjuncts

Glenn Reynolds, in responding to the Kevin Barrett kerfuffle, writes in part:

More importantly, they need to realize that people pay good money to send students to Wisconsin because it’s “branded” as a place that provides quality education from quality professors. When you respond to criticism by basically disclaiming any responsibility for what’s taught in classrooms, you also destroy the brand. Why send students to Wisconsin if that’s the case? Where’s the quality control? What does it mean to be an elite institution if you let any bozo teach whatever he/she wants in any course?

Without some reason to think that Wisconsin is better than other schools why go there?

The broader question left unasked is why any student paying to attend an “elite” institution should be taught by an adjunct in the first place. It’s not that big a leap, after all, from “why is this course being taught by a kook?” to “why is this course being taught by someone whose pay is less than my tuition bill?”

Quality control is always an issue (particularly in the academy, which is generally much more risk-averse in both hiring and firing than private industry), but at adjunct salaries the mentally stable underemployed PhD may be more likely to take the alternative job at the drive-through at Mickey D’s than the slightly-kooky adherent to nutbar conspiracy theories who needs an audience for his sermons.

3 comments:

Any views expressed in these comments are solely those of their authors; they do not reflect the views of the authors of Signifying Nothing, unless attributed to one of us.

1. Simon Spero wrote @ Tue, 25 Jul 2006, 3:37 pm CDT:

I don’t understand why R1 universities would use adjunct professors when,by definition, they have all those grad students around who need teaching experience, and who don’t cost nearly as much to feed.

What I really don’t understand why the true S-class professors seem to still get a rush out of teaching, even when it’s just an intro class, but the B-list professors seem to treat it as something so far beneath their dignity that they need to shower after walking past a classroom door.

2. Chris Lawrence wrote @ Tue, 25 Jul 2006, 3:55 pm CDT:

I suspect the grad student is actually more expensive on the bottom line: at a flagship school, figure $12k+ in stipend, plus tuition remission (admittedly a shell game, but one that hits the bottom line of a department budget), and they’re only on the hook for one or two classes a semester.

On the other hand, you can hire an adjunct at $2500—$4000 per section. At the low end of the range, the math favors adjunctification.

Granted, if you have grad students around you want to get something load-wise out of them, but in the grand scheme of things the hordes of humanities ABDs teaching freshman comp/history survey courses are doing better than the adjuncts in the same position.

As for your latter point, I’m fully agreed. Then again, I’m the sucker who volunteered to do three preps each semester next academic year (when I could have gotten away with two).

3. djw wrote @ Fri, 28 Jul 2006, 4:29 pm CDT:

Um, because quality of undergraduate instruction has precious little to do with reputation for R1s? Surely G.R. knows this?

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