Sector is Just Broken: From Guardian's Friday the 13th

“Have you been following what happened at the University of Virginia?” That was a question appearing in a live chat sponsored a couple weeks ago by the Guardian’s higher education blog.

Also referenced, early on, was an old favorite from AAUP on the bleakness of things, in 2010, which had a subheading “the Collapsing Faculty Infrastructure.” 

Which, really, was the main subject of the Guardian's Friday the 13^th conversation, entitled, “Freelance, part-time or fixed-term: is this the future of academic careers?”

This produced comments so rich, and varied, that I have taken the liberty of excerpting a number of them, with enough editing to yield “one-liners.” I think I have not altered  anyone’s fundamental views.

Now, although they were obviously aware of grim parallels in the United States, the respondents seem to be mostly British, no surprise, an Australian or American here and there, and mostly lecturers—limited term and part/or part-time, “fractionals”—and graduate students. There were also some “staff” folk, and at least one senior tenured professor, and a gaggle of panelists who are listed here. 

The chat was kicked off by the news that a job advertisement, from the University of Birmingham,* had elicited applications for a "voluntary postdoctoral position.” Well, even in Britain they’re not going for an entirely voluntary higher education faculty yet, and so the comments more often involved “fractional” and other sorts of arrangements that are very familiar to American adjunct and contingent faculty.

Of course, anyone can see the original comments whenever they wish, but I read them all, in one bleak and unbroken binge, and I am trying to convey here what I heard as a sort of opera, with voices of despair, grief, cynicism, solidarity, resignation, sadness, amusement (not much), anger, and resolve.

Um, before we go on, have you seen New Faculty Majority's new website? That will help you get through this or, after you've read the whole thing, get over this. 

Ok, it was a downer, altogether. I didn’t, for instance, read anything that sounded like good fun. You know, a bunch of teenagers preparing to toss a burning motorcycle through a bank window, that sort of stuff. 

And I guess I was a bit surprised by the lack of revolutionary zeal.

Also, not much about fattening administrative salaries or pharaonic building projects.

And not much class-based chat either. Some, not much: Brits, we really do rely on you for this. What gives?

Well. Here it is-almost everything is in order of appearance, with a few switches, and a few parenthetical indications, for the sake of intelligibility. I didn’t sample every single comment, but most of them. Also, I’ve linked here and there to some sites that explain some special topics.  

__________________________________________

Sad to hear that this is happening.

Sector is just broken.

Fractional contracts insufficient to live on.

Interactions lead to inequalities....nobody has managed to eliminate them.

Unless/until full time staff begin to value part timers and support them.

Existence of contingent faculty downgrades the value of every professor. 

In America, the pundits are continually asking why isn't college cheaper? 

Declare a fiscal emergency and tenure goes out the window.

Short-term, part-time contract was perfect. (Then) 

[But] Opportunities for permanence are not so forthcoming. (now).

Their career is something they're passionate about.

Supporting the status quo....actually part of the problem

Underpay and overwork new entrants to the profession.

Blight of casualisation.

UCU Day of Action on Casualisation great opportunity.

Universities know they are losing out to entrepreneurs.

Universities tend to be appalling employers.

Mundane factors...eating and sleeping and having basic job security.

Support...that you hope to get from senior colleagues...patchy.

Closed off to workers on casualised contracts...getting a mortgage.

PGWA resists... increasing exploitation of PhD students.

Someone who completed her PhD...working as a “honorary” research fellow!

Concordat says "value and afford equal treatment...regardless of contract.

Boggles the mind what they think they can and.. actually get away with.

Has the concordat actually made any difference?

Tend to avoid these kind of discussions because they fill me with panic.

Very long way from being paid fairly for the work they do.

Wait until you have to compete against every Ph.D. all around the globe.

Women academics are also twice as likely to work part-time.

I have been advocating the 'branded academic' and portfolio professional.

The level of responsibility that senior academics do or don’t’ feel.

The HE equivalent of selling off the family assets in order to survive today.

It’s about intergenerational responsibility, innit?

Can't get a job in academia, need to look outside it(?) Seems a tad harsh. 

There's clearly something rotten in the industry that needs to be sorted.

I'm more keen on tackling these problems than just throwing my hands up.

How about having limits on the numbers of PhD students trained?

Wish I could be as optimistic about the future as you.

Administrators primarily have cutting labor costs in mind. 

Have you been following what happened at the University of Virginia? 

Replace professors with machines...few people left to fight for ...education.

In terms of solutions, unfortunately, there are no easy fixes

Personally happy to (at least have accepted that I'll) work part-time.

What disheartens me is that this is expected.

Burden this puts on people not as lucky as I am in having partner who earns.

In US and Australia university teaching is casualised to a staggering rate.

Fraction of the cost of meaningful salaries.

Absolutely no business incentive whatsoever to higher education institutions.

We all hate to think that this is what's happening.

Try to find constructive answers.

The problem now goes...beyond individual academic career disappointment.

Someone looks at the evidence and decides it is time to do something else?

Many were working below the UK minimum wage.

Knock on impacts are huge... impacts upon support staff.

Casualization....going hand in had with relentless drive of marketisation. 

Increasingly seeing privatization of higher education.  

There is a LOT rotten in the industry!

When I [Senior faculty] catch cold, contingent faculty catch pneumonia.

All facing the same epidemic...should work together in order to stamp it out.

Without support from senior academics

Grassroots' groups ....little power to make any significant changes.

Real need for criticism of the system by those...already tenured.

"Lecturer" is part research part teaching, I don't see it w/only one part.

Flexible workforce... balance of financial incentive and professional esteem.

Reward flexible workforce: trust in you as employer will reap rewards. 

They'll keep you innovative, lean, on the cutting edge.

The very knowledge creators that your business depends on.

I doubt I'll get an academic job or post doc funding.

Get a job, almost any job...see if I can do a bit of research on the side. 

I'm 30—I want a pension and to start a family.

Think they'll get....jobs...supervisors don't seem to let them know the odds. 

Support staff...far more job security than people doing teaching or research.

Hell, some panelists (for live chat) have these kinds of staff positions.

Have hopes...but you should not have expectations.

* Now have look at this, for, not University of Birmingham, but University of Alabama at Birmingham where, strangely, they offer not one, but two "volunteer postdoctoral positions." Of course, we are a much bigger country. And, sure, it's for orthodontics students, and those guys stand to make a little money down the road, but still, there it is. 

And, again, just pointing it out: New Faculty Majority's new website? That will help you deal with all of this. 

Justice: Perception and Reality—Which costs less?

My last post here involved the Human Resources and Mission: Discussion Blog for Catholic Colleges and Universities, and I considered a discussion there about health care and its possible extension to part-timers—including most adjunct and contingent faculty—at Catholic institutions.

This blog has a whole bunch of cute little clueless trios. 

This post involves the same Discussion Blog, and the particular topic now is “Organizational Justice: A Core Competency for Catholic Colleges and Universities,” again written by Gary L. Miller, who has been working at DePaul University since 2003 in a number of human resources roles.

First, read the following, which is from the bottom of Mr. Miller’s essay. It’s a helpful summary of what he views as some key concepts, trends, and documents. (I have provided a link to Pope John Paul II’s Centesimus annus, and you will be quizzed on it next week. But, for right now, just try to listen and stop worrying about grades all the time. Learning should be fun)

The title of this column suggests that organizational justice should be a core competency for Catholic colleges and universities. In Centesimus annus, the Blessed Pope John Paul II states that “the purpose of a business firm is not simply to make a profit, but is found in its very existence as a community of persons who in various ways are endeavoring to satisfy their basic needs, and who form a particular group at the service of the whole of society.” While Catholic colleges and universities are not business firms, they can serve as models for employers of what it means to be a “community of persons”

Ok, that seems clear, so now consider the substance of the post, which is largely an interview conducted by Mr. Miller with Jed Babbin, an HR specialist.*

Mr. Miller introduces the topic this way: “Over the next few years, workforce trends will create new management challenges,” one of which being that “employee engagement levels are at record lows.”

Is that true? I’m not sure. Certainly the sharp uptick in the formation of adcon faculty unions, and the activity of adcon advocacy groups, would indicate that our “engagement levels” are at record highs.

Probably not what he means.

Anyway, if you work in the Human Resources department at DePaul, you probably do know something about the general topic,  given that the number of part-time faculty there has just about doubled between 1995 and 2009.

 “Low engagement levels,” in Mr. Miller’s view, “could translate into turnover,” as the economy recovers, and “record numbers of older workers will be retiring,” as a result of which, “the challenge to recruit and retain talent will intensify.”

As that challenge intensifies, then, “considerations for organizational justice,” will become  “central to any effective management response.”

Consider, in this regard, “the rise in the number of credit hours taught by adjunct faculty,” and also the fact that “some have asked…if these contingent faculty are being equitably paid.”

Yes, that does sound familiar.

But, in case you believe that “the contentious issues … center around compensation,” think again, and you’ll yourself asking if “these justice concerns are fueled by issues independent of actual compensation?”

Now, Mr. Babbin responds, and I must paraphrase, because the considerations are lengthy and technical. I gather, though, that I may safely report that organizational justice is a relatively new topic, that a lot of it involves perceptions, and perceptions are sort of about what people think about things as opposed to how things actually are.

So, for instance, there are studies indicating that if you behave in a manner that other people think rude or deceitful, other people might well come to the conclusion that you are in fact rude or deceitful.

One of the studies brought up by Mr. Babbin suggested that there is connection between the way that communication was “used to inform employees of an impending pay cut,” on the one hand, and the rate at which those employees resigned.

And there’s more!

That same study showed that the way managers told employees about an impending pay cut even affected the “rate of theft by those who stayed.”

So, as Mr. Miller asks, during the course of the interview, are these perceptions “as significant as, say, actual pay levels?”

Amazingly. one gathers, from Mr. Babbin’s response, “these drivers” substantially influence how folks think about “actual outcomes.”

Mr. Babbin also wants us to remember that we’re “talking about perceptions, not necessarily reality.”

Are you following this? Does it seem a bit sleazy? Because it sure does to me. Anyway, more tomorrow, about something that really needs a “religious exemption.”

* This Jed Babbin, by the way, is not the Jed Babbin who was an Undersecretary of Defense for George H.W. Bush and is a current editor for American Spectator.

The Tip of the Iceberg

I just read the opinion of a very nice man, Associate Professor Matthew Schneirov of the Duquesne University Sociology Department, who believes that "the adjunct issue may be the tip of the iceberg."

I think there are more than 7000 tips of icebergs to be found just today! This one if from folks who think a lot about lucid dreaming.                                 When they're awake, of course. 

But then I thought: No! That can't be right! 

I mean, shouldn't the adcon issue be the bigger part of the iceberg, since there's so many of us?

So now I am all confused, and my herbalist recommends that I take a couple days off, which is ok, but the rest of you should have a look here to figure out more about this iceberg problem. 

We really ARE Flexible

We really ARE flexible, or so people seem to think. Consider, for instance, how helpful we can be in an economic crisis.

Logo is from the fine people at Flexworks: don't know if they do faculty staffing, but maybe they'd be interested.

Case? Guilford College has lost ten percent of their full time tenured or tenure line faculty since 1995, so that, by 2009, less than 50% were of this “traditional” character. This info I glean from the very handy MLA site on the academic work force.

The slack at Guilford, of course, has been taken up by full and part time non-tenure track faculty, which means in this case, mostly part-time adjunct faculty.

Were all those years boom times or lean times? I forget, Anyway, now we learn that Guildford needs to make some cuts and, no surprise, Guilford's president assures us that “any cuts to faculty will come from part-time and adjunct professors, not from tenured or tenure-track faculty.”

The comments are sparse, in this article in the Business Journal-Triad Area, but what comments there are indicate curiosity about cuts to administration.

Well, administrators just aren't all that flexible, is your answer there.

Now, to University of Louisiana at Monroe, where we see adjunct and contingent faculty flexibility in full bloom. 

From UM-Monroes Roadmap for the Future, Excellence in Action: Strategic intitatives 2008-2013, consider that, in line with the goal of sustaining a "culture of education," item d. recommends "Reduce the use of part-time and adjunct faculty to teach classes."

Now don't get lost here-that's not where the flexibility is. The flexibility is between item d. above and then this item g., which is in line with the goal of enhancing the academic learning environment by "increasing the number of fully online degree prorgams."

And then item g., get it, which is less toward the 2008 and more toward the 2013 area, recommends that UM-Monroe "Hire adjunct/part time employees to assist with startup programs."

Remember flextime? 

As America emerges from the worst recession in modern

memory, smart organizations recognize that now is the time

to take care of their most valued employees.

Is this what they mean?

Cosmetic Improvements in Higher Education

The other day I posted an appreciation of the United Sates Army War College's view of their faculty. Now, by way of continuing this new project, which aims to recognize institutions who really understand the central importance of faculty, this award goes to the Fountain of Youth Academy of Cosmetology.

Way to go FYAC!

"Our faculty," according to their website, is that worthy institution's "heart and soul."

This is the sort of thing all faculty need to hear every now and then. Check here for another group that understands the needs of the nation's higher ed faculty.