The CPFA Forum - Adjunct Instructors, the Burros of Academia

Adjunct Instructors, the Burros of Academia

By Dr. Burton Fletcher

Every day, adjunct instructors trudge from their homes to the local colleges and universities with their energy and course materials, ready to make a difference in a thankless society. They love teaching, but it is true that colleges and universities don't love them back.

They work for little pay--sums well below those earned by their full-time colleagues--under stressful conditions and minimal prestige. They toil as if they are expendable. The message is harsh and unmistakable: "If you quit, we'll just hire someone else to replace you!" They know the truth of a statement like this. When the instructors can no longer carry the heavy load, they are replaced. They are the beasts of burden relied upon to carry the academic load, only to be exploited and abused by the masters of academia.

Even before being hired, they are required to complete lengthy applications, with every college needlessly using a different application form. They are scrutinized and interviewed, and they must jump through the political hoops common at our educational institutions.

They pay for their own physicals and TB tests, and the necessary "official" transcripts, since unofficial transcripts will never do. They must pay for their own fingerprinting, too. These are the dues they pay just to join the ranks of the exploited and badly treated.

If hired, they must often pay for parking privileges as well. They are often forced to search their way through a bureaucratic maze to pay for a parking permit, in a process that is not adjunct-friendly. At some colleges, they must drive around parking facilities with inadequate parking, searching for a place to park their car. They are competing with students for the same over-booked parking spaces, often waiting for long periods for a space to open. They may even need to walk five blocks or more if spaces do not become available. Because no storage facilities are usually provided at the colleges where they teach, they are reduced to carting their texts, exams, and classroom resources. If they are late to class, they may not have employment next semester.

They finally arrive on campus to teach, sometimes driving more than 50 miles one way, occasionally after a long rush-hour drive. Their schedules are often the dregs, as they are frequently assigned courses during those hours when no full-time instructor wants to work, in undesirable locations, and in rooms with long walks across campus. They are overloaded like no burro should ever be encumbered.

Often, they must meet students in their classrooms before or after class because they do not have offices. They receive calls at their homes and meet students during their own time because they are usually not paid for office hours. Truly, the contingent laborers of academia carry a heavy load, and they are mistreated as if they were mere pack animals!

Their employers seldom provide them with the tools of the trade--desks, file cabinets, telephones, computers, teaching assistants, or even teaching assistance. They must type their lecture notes and research papers, as they are not provided with even basic secretarial assistance. They spend their own money buying resource books, purchasing and maintaining their computers, paying for Internet service, paper and printer supplies, and copying services at the local print shop. Continuing education is often purchased with their own dollars also. They are a humble and talented lot who are dedicated to the ideal that they want to improve society. They carry their burden stoically, often with their heads down, and with their eyes looking downward at the ground.

They toil under substandard conditions where they seldom receive medical, dental, optical, or life insurance benefits. If their financial resources permit, and they are lucky, they may be able to purchase their own benefits, but only at rates higher than the group rates afforded to full-time employees. After years of service, many will receive little or no retirement benefits and, when retirement does arrive, they will often live lives of quiet desperation.

Even though they are the profit centers for colleges and universities, they are tossed crumbs after all others have grabbed the majority of the academic pie. They toil away, semester after semester, like the beasts of burden that they are. They toil for our community. They labor for you!

They have become an underclass of professional employees, exploited and abused by the "system." Their labors allow others higher in the academic food chain to enjoy middle-to upper-middle class lifestyles, yet these burros toil and often live humble lives amounting to lower-class lifestyles. They are the lowest professional class; some might say; they are of a lower caste, hired into a caste system that allows few to move up to the higher caste.

Often excluded from campus committees and campus events, with little or no meaningful participation in campus leadership, they endure quietly with the fragile and often empty dream, more likely an illusion, that someday-some day-hopefully not too far away, they will find full-time work with adequate pay, benefits, and a decent retirement.

Even when invited, the long drives, overworked, and often-meager existence discourages their participation in campus activities. Many drive long distances for the exposure to those institutions, which may someday give them that exalted nod that invites them into the ranks of full-time employees who are appreciated within the walls of the ivory tower.

In reality, these burros delude themselves--sometimes for an entire career--that they will, one day, be one of the chosen few, in a political and educational environment that is based upon exploitation and all-too-common age discrimination. The self-delusion is necessary to maximize the heavy collective workload carried by these professional burros, for it is the delusion and the reward of the occasional carrot that drives many to toil semester after semester. It is a life of professional exploitation!

Many adjuncts work multiple jobs, some flying the freeways, college to college, and all working without compensation for their many hours of preparation time. Without medical insurance, they must rely on public welfare if they are injured on the freeways driving to their next classroom assignment.

They are on the go, loaded with responsibilities, with little time to spend with their students. They have no tenure and they work without even the guarantee of compensation for the long hours of unpaid course preparation. Courses promised may be pulled at the last minute and given to a full-time instructor, or even cancelled, even after the instructors have taught the class for one or two weeks. Many work for an effective wage that is less than minimum wage. It is a lonely life!

Some adjunct instructors sustain themselves in their difficult circumstances with the positive affirmation of the burro. Many feel like the old burro that fell into an abandoned well and couldn't get out. The farmer made the decision that the burro was not worth rescuing, so he called in others to help bury the burro on the spot, as the sound of its plaintive wail was too much to bear. The farmers shoveled in dirt, leaves, and manure, whatever they could come across. The burro just shook it all off, continually repeating a mantra to remain calm, "I must shake it off. I must stomp it down. I must not allow them to bury me. I must rise above my circumstances." As they shoveled, the burro rose, and, in time, to everyone's surprise, the burro was able to walk away. Those who survive adjunct hell often tell themselves, "When they dump the manure on you, shake it off, stomp it down, and rise to a higher level." After all, it is a matter of survival, which is better than the alternative.

Each and every day, the burros are being dumped on from above. To their credit, some do rise to that higher level. However, many, overwhelmed by the abuse, succumb to the negative environments in which they work, and either leave the profession, or become buried in a somber grave. If we live in a humane society, we must feed and reward the burros of academia, and reward them for their toil, for to ignore their circumstances is cruelty to those who have given so much to our communities. Indeed, to advance as a society, those who toil to teach others deserve our respect and our gratitude. Indeed, it is time that we lighten the burdens that we have placed upon their backs and treat them like the professionals they are!

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Dr. Burton Fletcher is a freeway flyer who resides in Torrance, California. He has worked in education for nearly 25 years, with 19 years as a full-time educator. He has taught a wide variety of subjects, including management, human resources management, business and personnel law. During 2002, he taught part-time for five colleges, and one university, in addition to working in his private business. He can be reached at Fletcher@CallOurLawyers.com.

Copyright, 2002, 2003, Burton Fletcher. All Rights Reserved.
NOTE: This article first appeared in the Chicago COCAL News, www.chicagococal.org/news/Burros-of-Academia.htm. It appears here with the permission of the author.

*****

Dr. Burton Fletcher is a freeway flyer that resides in Torrance, California. He has worked in education for nearly 25 years, with 19 years as a full-time educator. He has taught a wide variety of subjects, including management, human resources management, business and personnel law. During 2002, he taught part-time for five colleges, and one university, in addition to working in his private business. He can be reached at Fletcher@CallOurLawyers.com.