The teaching structure of higher education has altered drastically in the past two decades and those in power do not want to talk about it on average. I am referring to the adjunct and contingent faculty crisis in the U.S. higher education system specifically. At present, over half of university and college professors (and counting) are paid the lowest income wages, do not have job security, are contingent on a semester by semester or year to year basis, are not offered health insurance or the other benefits of full time professors, are not offered professional development funds or additional training regularly, are not required to have teaching observations or, in some cases, even student evaluations, some do not have offices or departmental support, they work out of their cars, and many must travel between universities just to make ends meet. The stress of all of these factors is brutal. How, one wonders, can someone with an MA or PhD afford to pay their bills, rent, let alone travel to conferences to enhance or share in their areas of specialization or research, or make their student loan payments and save for the future in this predicament?
Last year, John Carroll University professors and scholars Richard Clark, Chairperson of the Department of Sociology and Criminology, Carrie Buchanan, Associate Professor in the Tim Russert Department of Communication and Theatre Arts and myself, now at Roger Williams University, published on the current complications and inhumanities of such a crisis in a peer reviewed journal. Currently, there are over 300 downloads and counting. This is encouraging, but we need to do more. We need structural education reform, and with an emphasis on social justice without and within. Here’s why. Part time employment is not sustainable if we want quality education, to scorch the ills of abusive labor practices in this country, and to model humane treatment of those around us who we work with and who are educating our children.
Jesuit universities, in particular, are positioned well to make positive changes and Clark, Buchanan, and Rawls request they continue to be the model for change for universities in the U.S. Jesuit universities hold an ethos of cura personalis, care for the whole person. Each Jesuit university maintains that it is part of their responsibility to care for social justice, fair treatment of all students, faculty, and staff, as well as to ensure that students are afforded a quality education compatible with the contemporary age and concerns of our time. One aspect of the continuing growth of relying on adjunct professors includes that the majority of those professors, who, until fifteen years ago or so only made up only 30% or less of all university faculty in the U.S., are women and persons of color growing at an alarming rate. This combination of abuse is reminiscent of times not that long ago where many were forced to work for little to no pay. In many ways, this is slave labor. The data and graphs provided in the essay speak for themselves. It doesn’t look good, but we can enact changes if we want to. Those with power can do what’s right and treat their colleagues, who are often specialists and scholars, with the dignity and respect they deserve to live a fulfilling and rewarding life.
Embedded within these University statements is the idea of a mutual respect for the inherent dignity of all, and the notion that this respect for all is a significant part of the glue that binds the various components of the institution together. When we fail to include all members of our institutions in our commitment to justice and the development of peace, we are in fact failing both ourselves and our students. Clark, Buchanan, and Rawls note:
As faculty at Jesuit institutions, we are called upon to recognize the connection between our institutions’ Catholic social traditions and our moral commitment to promote a just workplace. This ideal is supported by Catholic teachings, which state that a basic test of morality is how we treat the most vulnerable among us. Church teachings therefore do not allow us to treat fellow members of our organizations as if they were not fully recognized and important members of our organizations or to be placed in situations where they cannot reach their full potential.
If Jesuit institutions are going to continue to claim such an ethos and emphasis on care for the whole person then changes to the nature of reliance and treatment of contingent faculty needs to be addressed head on. We need to care more for the persons, students, teachers, and staff included, who are undergoing continued education. What are we teaching students if we abuse those doing the teaching? Our article highlights the need for distributive justice, something Aristotle had an inkling about once. We also note that Jesuit universities operate on behalf of all humankind and the divine in ways that speak to teach what is just and good. It’s simply logical to recognize, admit, and enact the changes that now need to be made to curve this growing crisis. The references and statistics speak for themselves. In the link provided one can easily access the article published in Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal. https://epublications.regis.edu/jhe/vol7/iss2/3/
Chris Rawls
Chris Rawls teaches philosophy full time at Roger Williams University. Chris received her Ph.D. in philosophy in 2015 from Duquesne University writing on Spinoza’s dynamic epistemology. Chris recently co-edited an interdisciplinary anthology Philosophy and Film: Bridging Divides with Routledge Press’s series Research on Aesthetics (an experiment for the ages!) with Diana Nieva and Steven Gouveia. Chris also studies/teaches within the Critical Philosophy of Race and Whiteness Studies since 2006 and helped co-found the Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP) archive at the Pembroke Center for Feminist Theory, Brown University.
Prof. Rawls, thank you for this post. I found it quite interesting because I found the reasons which you gave for why everyone in the academic world should care about the critical situation of adjunct and contingent faculty of higher education in the U.S. to be analogous with the reasons why everyone in the ordinary world should care about de-stigmatizing, legalizing, and supporting a mother’s choice to abort her unborn child.
You had written: “Those with power can do what’s right and treat their colleagues, who are often specialists and scholars, with the dignity and respect they deserve to live a fulfilling and rewarding life.
Embedded within these University statements is the idea of a mutual respect for the inherent dignity of all, and the notion that this respect for all is a significant part of the glue that binds the various components of the institution together. When we fail to include all members of our institutions in our commitment to justice and the development of peace, we are in fact failing both ourselves and our students.”
It seems to me that a mother could choose to abort her unborn child for the very same reasons that you cited above — for the sake of preserving her child’s dignity, and as a matter of justice. I mean, you must be f-ing outraged by what some folks are being required to suffer, through no fault of their own, just because they’ve been “born” into the world of professional academia! And I just wanted to say that I appreciate the deep sense of anger and frustration that must have inspired you to write this piece.
As an aside, what’s also interesting (to me) is the irony in the fact that you’ve cited the “ethos” of Catholic institution(s) to buttress your argument.
You are correct to draw such important, interesting, logical and ironically supportive (of a Catholic ethos on human life) points. That could be a book itself…
Thanks for the note & support!
Dear Chris Rawls:
The status of the Adjunct Professor is a disgrace. At present, I know an adjunct who teaches philosophy at two different colleges on Long Island and between both colleges barely made $15,000 dollars, he told me, last year. Part of the reason is a lack of unionization and the negation of the value of wisdom in an increasingly impersonal society. A great number of these Adjuncts are women and minorities, but also white men. This is no way to treat educated people or any person for that matter. Change must come!
Sincerely,
Edward DeLia
Agreed Edward. I was once there too as contingent faculty for a decade. I hear you! There are several adjunct unions. I was on the committee for a short time attempting to unionize the adjuncts at JCU. We made changes!
All 3 of us authors thank you for reading our article (the link to the free essay is at the bottom of the blog above).
Thank you for this, Chris. One thing I’ve noticed is that the situation you’re describing includes one in which faculty governance over the academic mission of the university has been sidelined in favor of managerial control using scarcity rationale as (often questionable) justification. Do you have any thoughts about the relation between the situation of adjuncts and faculty governance?
Thanks Jeremy. We address some of your question in our essay. See link to the free article at the end of the Blog piece if you haven’t already.
Not sure how to addresses this large problem you mention, but one way is to hire more women & WOC, for example as Chairs, Dean’s, Provost’s and Presidents! I say this because many understand the problem having lived it or lived it in other related ways. Sometimes only those who have experienced poverty coupled with the abuse of power can teach & solve the problem. Many in admin positions have had that kind of life experience. They might not understand, but more likely they don’t want to if they’re not the ones actually in the classroom. Food for thought?
Thank you, Chris.