Are adjuncts better teachers than tenure-track faculty?
Sunday Dialogue: Academia’s Two Tracks
The New York Times: November 16, 2013
To the Editor:
A recent study of Northwestern University indicating that non-tenure-track faculty are better teachers than tenure-track faculty (“Study Sees Benefit in Courses With Nontenured Instructors”) has been met with disbelief and derision — by tenure-track faculty and the American Association of University Professors.
It calls into question the myth that the two-track system in academe is an equal opportunity merit system. It is not; it is in fact a caste system with the tenured faculty occupying the upper caste and the off-track faculty serving as the “untouchables.”
This is not the first study to indicate that adjuncts and other “contingent faculty” are the best teachers. In the book “Off-Track Profs: Nontenured Teachers in Higher Education,” John G. Cross and Edie N. Goldenberg studied student evaluations at 10 elite research universities, including Northwestern, from 1989 to 2001.
They concluded that non-tenure-track instructors “usually (but not always) obtain higher scores than other types of instructors.” They added, “This is not surprising since non-tenure-track faculty are hired as teachers and are evaluated with teaching performance in mind.”
Following the adage “publish or perish,” tenured faculty, by contrast, may view teaching as an ancillary function to their research. I would add that the scarcity of tenure-track positions has led to the hiring of adjuncts with excellent credentials, who, lacking any job security, must stay at the top of their game.
While the tenure-track faculty have comparatively high wages, great benefits and lifetime job security in the form of tenure, one million contingent professors have none of these things, often teaching for decades for poverty-level wages, and wondering whether they will even have a job next quarter. Last year The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article called “The Ph.D. Now Comes With Food Stamps.”
KEITH HOELLER
Seattle, Nov. 11, 2013
The writer is the editor of the forthcoming book “Equality for Contingent Faculty: Overcoming the Two-Tier System.”
Readers React
In our study, Morton O. Schapiro, Kevin B. Soter and I found that non-tenure-track faculty tend to outperform tenure-track faculty in introductory courses. The interpretations of our findings have varied immensely across academic, policy and media circles.
What some of these interpretations have failed to note is that in the milieu where our study takes place (Northwestern University), most non-tenure-track faculty members are long-term, full-time instructors with benefits, career ladders and job security.
In other words, our study compares full-time faculty who are recruited, retained and rewarded largely on the basis of their teaching quality to full-time faculty who are recruited, retained and rewarded largely on the basis of their research quality. It’s not surprising to find that designated full-time teachers excel at teaching.
Tenure-track, research-intensive faculty — many of whom are exceptional teachers themselves — play an important role at the heart of the research university, and so do faculty members who are primarily instructors. All faculty members deserve our respect — and the opportunity to advance in their careers.
DAVID N. FIGLIO
Evanston, Ill., Nov. 13, 2013
The writer is the director of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, and co-author of the study at the center of this discussion.
As head of an academic department at a doctoral-research university, I am not surprised at the Northwestern study findings. In fact, I would be dismayed if this were not the case, because when I look to hire a non-tenure-track faculty member, I am looking specifically for a good teacher. When I hire someone for a tenure-track position, I look for someone who can teach, yes, but more important conduct fundable research that meets the university’s land-grant mission.
We cannot afford to pay adjunct faculty as much as tenure-track faculty because their jobs generally don’t include bringing in external dollars that help keep the whole enterprise going. At a time when state legislatures keep cutting back on resources to universities, I don’t see that we will be able to resolve that discrepancy anytime soon.
MARK BRUNSON
Logan, Utah, Nov. 13, 2013
The writer is head of the environment and society department at Utah State University.
Mr. Hoeller makes several fair points that are largely undisputed by tenured faculty: that non-tenure-track faculty teach for crummy wages, enjoy neither the job security nor health benefits of tenured faculty and are often of as high quality as those who have secured tenure-track employment.
The prevailing view of those outside academia seems to be that tenured research faculty are pampered, underworked and lazy with respect to their teaching duties. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
In public universities, passing a tenure review requires assiduous attention to the caliber of teaching. Most crucially, Mr. Hoeller does not acknowledge the intense mentoring workload that tenured research faculty carry and “contingent faculty” do not.
Directing theses and dissertations, writing hundreds of letters of recommendation for students each year, reading thousands of pages of dissertation or thesis chapters, committee work for curriculum and university oversight — are all duties of the tenured research academic, who must also continue to publish in order to see even the most negligible of salary increases.
We all want to see “contingent faculty” be less exploited. But it doesn’t help to make a false argument that their work is better than their “luckier” colleagues.
LINDA CHARNES
Bloomington, Ind., Nov. 13, 2013
The writer is a professor of English at Indiana University.
Most of the points raised in Mr. Hoeller’s letter reflect my experience as an adjunct assistant professor of political science at a college in the City University of New York. I fully endorse the view that there is a caste system in the faculty.
Very often, universities deliberately leave tenure-track positions vacant because they find it cheaper to get the job done by adjuncts, who, as the letter says, work “for poverty-level wages.” They remain at that level even if they teach two or three courses a semester, which is the same amount of work done by the tenure-track faculty who enjoy “high wages, great benefits and lifetime job security.”
Just to keep the wolf from the door, adjuncts are forced to supplement their income by taking additional jobs outside teaching. In a profession governed by the “publish or perish” rule — it is not merely an “adage” any longer — adjuncts perish, because they have no energy and time left to do research and produce publishable material.
Frustrated and tired, many of them not only give up their dream of becoming tenured professors, but they quit teaching altogether. I am one of them.
M. P. PRABHAKARAN
Jackson Heights, Queens, Nov. 14, 2013
To the extent that judgments about which teachers are better depend on student evaluations, those judgments may be flawed for at least two reasons.
First, student evaluations can be manipulated. I get better evaluations when I hand out doughnuts during the class when students fill out evaluations, even if I announce that I am attempting to affect the results. Adjuncts whose retention depends on teaching evaluations have a greater incentive to manipulate evaluations than tenured faculty.
Second, while students are able to assess some things, other important matters are beyond their ability to evaluate. For example, students cannot be expected to know when professors make inaccurate statements or skip over important points.
Student evaluations are a better measure of popularity than competence. Adjuncts may in fact be better teachers, but studies not based on student evaluations are needed to prove it.
JEFF SOVERN
New York, Nov. 13, 2013
The writer is a professor at St. John’s University School of Law.
There is an alternative, of course, that Mr. Hoeller’s letter does not mention: a professionalized, tenure-track appointment as a lecturer, as is common in the University of California system and I’m sure elsewhere.
Individuals with aspirations in teaching, rather than original scholarship, are hired as lecturers with “potential security of employment.” They are evaluated for tenure in the same time frame as assistant professors, and the evaluation is based on teaching and service, broadly envisioned. Such a system validates the teaching track and provides those who choose it with the respect they deserve.
Unfortunately, temporary “adjunct” appointments, without benefits, are cheaper. That probably explains why the professional lecturer paradigm is not as widespread as it should be.
JOHN PERONA
Portland, Ore., Nov. 13, 2013
The writer is a professor of biochemistry at Portland State University.
What Mr. Hoeller describes is life in the big research institutions, a place where few newly minted Ph.D.’s will ever work. Most Ph.D.’s will go to smaller state teaching institutions, where quality teaching is the primary focus.
With a four- or even five-course load per semester and little time for research, quality teaching is paramount, and the primary consideration for tenure and promotion.
M. STEWART LEWIS
Savannah, Ga., Nov. 14, 2013
The writer is an assistant professor of English at Savannah State University.
Yes, I am one of those million “untouchables” that Mr. Hoeller described so accurately.
I earned a Ph.D. in drama from New York University in 1974 with dreams of becoming a professor of theater arts one day. Like most dedicated professionals, I spent years researching, writing and publishing with high hopes that my impressive résumé would eventually catch the attention of some hiring committee. Yes, I was offered plenty of work, but it was all part-time, nontenured teaching.
Over time I accumulated a fairly large stack of positive student and faculty evaluations, which I proudly kept in my files, thinking they might come in handy when a full-time position became available.
Now, 39 years later, after having spent decades working as an adjunct instructor at dozens of universities for poverty-level wages with no benefits, and no lifetime job security or even professional respect for that matter, it is so consoling to know that a recent study of Northwestern University indicated that non-tenure-track adjuncts make better teachers.
This will be a comforting thought when I am again offered only a part-time position and told that I should be grateful for the job since “adjuncts are a dime a dozen and save the colleges a ton of money.”
PATRICIA FLINN
Warren, N.J., Nov. 14, 2013
The Writer Responds
I certainly can agree with Mr. Figlio, co-author of the recent Northwestern study, that “all faculty members deserve our respect — and the opportunity to advance in their careers.” But this is precisely what the two-track system in academe fails to provide to three out of every four college professors who teach off the tenure track.
Mr. Figlio explains his research findings — that off-track faculty are more effective teachers than tenure-track faculty — by suggesting that Northwestern’s contingent faculty are treated better than those elsewhere. But the Cross and Goldenberg 10-campus study had similar findings, so Northwestern cannot be that unique. And contrary to Mr. Sovern’s point, their study concluded that student evaluations were the best available measure of teaching effectiveness.
The non-teaching duties of tenure-track faculty can in no way justify the vastly inferior pay and lack of job security for contingent faculty. Ms. Charnes and Mr. Brunson don’t mention that adjuncts also engage in non-teaching duties, for which they are neither paid nor rewarded.
Mr. Perona cites what has been called “professors of practice,” who are rare and generally not treated equally.
It is not surprising to see the two-track system defended by those who profit from it the most. But as the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education, even a “separate but equal” system is inherently unequal. It cannot be reformed; it must be abolished.
KEITH HOELLER
Seattle, Nov. 15, 2013
