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A Declaration of Educator Independence by Steven R. Van Hook, PhD srvanhook@wwmr.us  Talking
to people outside of academia, it’s hard to
find much sympathy for the plight of adjunct
instructors taking on much more of the college
teaching load for much less pay.
The economic trends
are systemic, certainly not specific to academia.
Any groups expecting disproportionate public
sympathies are bound to be disappointed.
Other trends in the
economy may be closer to the average person’s experience.
Most every time
I’ve whined about the life of an adjunct, I hear
stories back of conditions even worse (in aviation,
health care, retail – just to name a few).
In the retail
industry, for example, over the last 20 years fulltime
jobs fell from 80%, to now more than 70% working
part-time, saving employers substantial payroll costs.1
It’s a telling
correlation.
In 1975, nearly 60%
of all higher education faculty were in the tenure
system. Now more than 70% of faculty are
part-time adjuncts, and by the time the trend peaks,
it could be 85%.2
Adjunct instructors are
intractably replacing tenured professors – if for no
other reason, you can hire adjuncts at
4-for-the-price-of-1 tenured. And adjuncts often do as
good a job (if
not better).3
Even though I’ve
been one for some 15 years, I don’t like to think of
myself as an adjunct (or an appendage) to an
institution; and certainly not as a contingent worker
(contingency on institutional whims).
I prefer to call
myself an independent educator, dependent on my own
energies and abilities, even if the IRS wishes to
misguidedly classify me as an employee; an instructor who
does other things too (website publishing, freelance
writing, sailing instruction, weddings at sea, etc.)
The institutions I
teach for are adjunct to my life; are contingent on my
availability and preferences.
It’s a change in mindset I’ve
worked for over many years of independent teaching.
Certain lifestyles
demand certain sacrifices.
I’ve held a number
of jobs I really loved, but paid for with lower wages:
reporter, social worker, dog washer ...
I’ve also held
well-paying jobs I was not so happy at. What I’ve
learned in some 40 years of working: the more they
pay, the more of yourself you often have to sell.
So here we independent educators
stand strong, educated, aware, if not united.
As freelance
instructors we are short on any kind of
powerbase. We may hope to climb ourselves into a rare
tenured or contracted spot. Those who have, I’ve
seen, sometimes turn cold to their sister/brother
adjuncts left behind.
In spite of the road miles and
segmented lives that keep us apart, we can network,
share resources, cherish one another in our mission.
We can seek a greater
perspective on the
transformational changes underway worldwide.
And through it all, we
can better empower our students to fix the many wrongs
soon to be in their hands, with the many rights they
inherit as well.
~ Steve
1 Greenhouse, S. “A
Part-Time Life, as Hours Shrink and Shift.” New
York Times,
October 27, 2012.
2 Figlio, D,
Schapiro, M, and Soter, K. “Are Tenure Track
Professors Better Teachers?”
National Bureau of Economic Research, September, 2013.
3 Ibid.
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