
The Death of an Adjunct - akeck
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/04/adjunct-professors-higher-education-thea-hunter/586168/
======
jseliger
Universities treat adjuncts like they do because they can:
[https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/universities-treat-
adjunc...](https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/universities-treat-adjuncts-
like-they-do-because-they-can).

Academia is not a good industry to be in and people should stop trying to go.
This is well known and has been for a long time:
[https://jakeseliger.com/2010/01/21/problems-in-the-
academy-l...](https://jakeseliger.com/2010/01/21/problems-in-the-academy-
louis-menands-the-marketplace-of-ideas-reform-and-resistance-in-the-american-
university-2).

~~~
btrettel
Nice posts.

I've nearly completed a PhD in engineering. A while back I decided that
academia is likely a dead end unless you win the lottery. If the adjunct
situation won't improve until people stop taking those jobs, I'll do my part.
I'd like to periodically teach a class or two, but I would never adjunct as my
sole source of income.

~~~
ghaff
Yeah. There are good jobs in academia. Get tenure at an elite university and
it's a pretty good life. (Although not as rosy as it probably seems from the
outside with politics, pursuing grants, etc.) But that's a pretty tiny
proportion of the positions PhDs hope to fill.

~~~
jostmey
People don't understand how hard it is to get tenure. You have to win grants
from the NIH to get tenure. Why? Because for every grant the NIH gives to
scientist, the Universities tack on indirect costs (whatever that means)
allowing them collect upwards of 50% of the grant for the University. Research
grants are a cast cow, and it's really f __* up

~~~
colechristensen
They take 50% and spend it on flashy buildings and ballooning administrative
salaries.

~~~
apathy
It’s adorable that people think a research university would settle for just
50% indirects.

Try 90% and almost all of it goes to the football coach or the dean’s legal
fees.

~~~
newen
What university takes 90% of grant money for overhead? 30-50% for overhead is
what I familiar with.

~~~
apathy
At one point it was typical — looks like scrutiny has driven indirects down
massively outside of dedicated research institutes in the past few years.

[https://osp.mit.edu/facilities-and-administrative-fa-
rates](https://osp.mit.edu/facilities-and-administrative-fa-rates)

HMS declared rate is 58% but there are a lot of loopholes (as at other R1s
with Institutes)

------
_hardwaregeek
I just don't get it. Where does the money go? Students pay ridiculous amounts
for tuition, while schools try to get away with being as cheap as possible by
hiring adjuncts, using ridiculously cheap food vendors, giving less and less
aid, etc. For regular corporations I'd cite shareholders and profitability,
but nominally, schools don't have that. Some people cite administration, but
I'm not entirely sure of that either. Even the president gets paid maybe 4
million tops, which is 100 students tuition. And schools did just fine 50
years ago with less than a quarter of the tuition.

My current theory is that administrators have figured out a way to get money
out of the school in some form and are squeezing it like cash cows. Or they're
just horribly mismanaging schools.

~~~
77pt77
> I just don't get it. Where does the money go?

Nowadays mostly to pay for a huge class of administrators that mainly manage
other administrators and monitor the violation of rules whose creation they
themselves promote.

~~~
tejtm
Someone has to administer, grade and maintain of those mandatory "Integrity
Booster!" courses and flash based "Digital Security and You! lessons

(Sorry your browser is not supported.)

Oh yea, who else is going to create that "PDF" that only opens on MS running
Adobe?

~~~
puranjay
I studied for a year in a US university before transferring back to a
government run university back in India. My tuition for the latter was about
$100/year.

The amount of bloat I saw in US universities was unreal. Software that no one
used apart from a couple of features, services that served no one in
particular, classes that no one wants, and so on.

Of course, the infrastructure was markedly better. But I can't say that for
quality. Most of my classes were taught by TAs, while my classes in my
university back home were often taught by associate or even full professors,
several of whom had PhDs from top US/UK universities.

And this was at a cheap public university. I can't imagine the kind of bloat a
large private US school would have

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seibelj
Many years ago my neighbor was a woman in debt up to her eyeballs with a
sociology degree, who dreamed of working in the nonprofit sector. She got a
series of (unpaid) internships with nonprofits around Boston but could never
land a permanent position. She wound up taking a job at a local sandwich shop.

Domino's Pizza managers make over $40,000 and don't require a college
degree.[0] They also have benefits. In 2007 when I worked at Dominos the
manager was salaried and worked about 50 hours a week, but he was an ex-
convict and really enjoyed his job. He was a super nice guy who made us
excited to work there.

There is no need to pay $200,000 for a worthless degree to make minimum wages
as you are overworked and stressing yourself to death. If that was me, I'd go
back to Dominos, it was a pretty fun place to work.

[0] [https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Domino-s-General-
Manage...](https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Domino-s-General-Manager-
Hourly-Pay-E2770_D_KO9,24.htm)

~~~
impendia
> There is no need to pay $200,000 for a worthless degree

In general, and certainly in my field (mathematics), Ph.D. students don't pay
tuition, and they get a modest stipend (around 20K) in exchange for being
teaching assistants.

~~~
barry-cotter
Ph.D. students outside top tier programmes in the humanities and social
sciences often get admitted without funding _and enrol as students_. They
might get a teaching assistantship or they might go into enormous debt. Then
if they graduate they’re competing for jobs against people from graduate
programmes in their field that are well known and respected. Most of those
people don’t get tenure track jobs. The ones from no name programmes are just
screwed.

Fredrik deBoer got a Ph.D. in English (Rhetoric) from Purdue, applied to more
than 300 tenure track jobs and gave up, eventually becoming an administrator
at NYU. Unfortunately he’s deleted the essay along with most of his blog but
he said that the tenure track job hunt was the worst thing that ever happened
to him and he’s an orphan.

That’s someone with statistical and programming skills graduating from one of
the top programmes in Rhetoric.

~~~
puranjay
Apparently, the chance to get funding for a PhD in UK is about 1 in 20.

Most startups have a higher success rate than that.

------
distant_hat
I did the whole PhD gig, few years as a post-doc and then obtained a tenured
position only to quit it and go to industry. While I don't regret all of it, I
wish I had quit for industry sooner.

Industry is far, far nicer than academia. The amount of time one puts in for
massive amounts of bullshit meetings and form filling and constant
justification of how what you are doing is beneficial for society is insane.
What I realized was that, in many ways, academia is not that different from
the glamour world. Young, naive people see superstars at the top, receiving
adulation and sex, and see no reason why they can't be one of them. The
superstars are relatively accessible and you meet them and they tell you all
you need is talent, hard work, and all of this could be yours too. Grad
school, at least in fields like Physics, Math, etc is cheap as long as you
don't have family or other dependents. It is an artificial environment with
its own rules, and you get sucked in hard. It actively encourages you to not
care for yourself or anyone else around you and just focus on research (read,
what gets your advisor publications and awards). Over the span of my PhD I saw
two suicides, almost every person who was married divorced, and practically
everyone was on anti-depressants.

This doesn't end after getting your PhD. Since academic jobs could be anywhere
and because the typical post doc grants come for 2-4 years, you can't really
settle down and start a family. There is crippling uncertainty about
everything. While your peers at this time have had kids, you are still
wondering _whether_ your academic career will happen. The senior folks who got
their PhDs in the golden period in 70s and 80s are at best oblivious to how
things are now, or actively feed you lies because you continuing to work in
this system for as long as possible is in their best interests.

When I walked away from the tenured position after going through all that,
everyone was like who does that. But, personally, it was a huge relief to me.
My first salary in the corporate world was 4x what I was offered in academia
(am a physicist, transitioned to AI/ML). Ironically, I have more time to read
research papers and actually think about research now.

------
Footkerchief
> She had a number of ailments that bothered her—her asthma, her heart—and the
> rigors of being an adjunct added to them.

> Two deaths occurred back to back. First, Cooper, her companion. Then, a few
> months later, her mother, Grace.

> If Thea had a tenure-track job and access to proper health insurance to be
> appropriately diagnosed, she might still be alive, they said.

The factors in her death -- work stress, health issues, life tragedies, and a
lack of health insurance -- don't seem more strongly linked to the job of
adjunct professor than to any other low-status job.

~~~
romwell
The times we live in, when _university professor_ is considered a _low-status
job_.

~~~
pwinnski
I have a friend who was an adjunct professor for a number of years, and I
would describe him as barely above homeless most of the time. He never knew
whether he would have a job in the fall, and the pay was barely above minimum
wage. He was planning to give up and move back to his hometown before this
year when he was hired as a full-time professor.

I learned a lot about modern higher education from him, and I would absolutely
describe _adjunct professor_ as a _low-status job._

~~~
romwell
I don't disagree; that's why I decided not to try the academic job market
after getting a degree.

But it's a remarkably sorrowful state of affairs.

------
thorwasdfasdf
At least she had the opportunity. Some people through academia their entire
lives without ever getting tenure:

"The gig was ideal: It was tenure-track, it was in her field"

She actually had a tenure track position (that's pretty rare and not something
to be thrown away). But she felt insulted because a few people had mistaken
her for the janitor (and a few parents called the school to complain about
her), so she quit.

~~~
idiot900
Agreed. Her story is tragic but it's hard to feel sorry for someone who threw
away a tenure track position, didn't want to leave NYC, didn't want to leave
academia for the sake of her health. All of her self-imposed requirements were
ridiculous, and lack of insight is no excuse.

Adjunct professorships are a real problem but this article is below the
Atlantic's usual standard.

~~~
xkcd-sucks
Actually getting tenure can be pretty tough and very political. Presumably she
estimated that her political circumstances were bad and it that it would be
better to start fresh than try turning things around, which is a rational
decision that many assistant professors should make but do not.

~~~
idiot900
The article certainly doesn't make it look that way. She joined in 2004 and
left in 2006. Way too short even for a five year tenure clock, especially when
she very much needed the health insurance.

~~~
xkcd-sucks
It's pretty easy to figure out who's on your tenure committee, who the
competition is, and which bridges have been burned

~~~
jfnixon
Sure, but leaving without securing another tenure-track position? You can't
reset the clock, still, leaving early is Not A Good Sign you know how to play
the game.

------
chrisseaton
I don't understand how someone can get a professorship but not be tenured. Why
would an institution give a chair but not be prepared to give tenure? How
would you get close to the point of being considered for a chair and not pass
through the point of being tenured?

~~~
amyjess
A few things:

* Colloquially, we use the term "professor" to refer to anyone who teaches at a university, but it's probably not her actual job title. For example, at my alma mater, non-tenure-track instructors typically have the title "Senior Lecturer", but everyone calls them professors.

* There is a difference between "tenure" and "tenure-track". It's possible to not have tenure but still be in line to receive it upon a future promotion. If your position isn't tenure-track, though, then you will never get tenure unless you leave your job and find a tenure-track position elsewhere. As there are few tenure-track positions open, this is harder than it looks.

* For actual professors (i.e. tenure-track jobs with "Professor" in the job title), the entry level position doesn't carry tenure, and it comes with a promotion. They start out as an Assistant Professor, get promoted to Associate Professor, and eventually to full Professor. Tenure is typically granted with the promotion to Associate Professor.

------
thatoneuser
It's pretty simple - the product universities sell ("education") is highly
inflated. Thus universities can have someone hardly trained in their field (a
current grad student) to instruct it. (Of course if you're being taught by
what is an older classmate then how much value are the classes really?)

I feel so much for my colleagues who are in this path.

------
black_13
Make it a right and make it universal stop Splitting hais on nature of career.

------
dang
A similar story from 2013:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6429457](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6429457)

------
purplezooey
Decades of state tax cuts. Prop 13 and similar in other states. Higher ed took
most of the damage and just raised tuition to compensate.

------
TheOperator
This happens due to administrators trying to get around racial quotas.

------
black_13
Make it a right and make it universal stop splitting hairs on careers.

------
rayiner
> If Thea had a tenure-track job and access to proper health insurance to be
> appropriately diagnosed, she might still be alive, they said.

This is a bizarre take-away from this story. What about all the people who
weren't fortunate enough to attend Columbia University and live a life of
learning? Shouldn't they be able to get a check-up that would have caught
fluid build-up in their lungs?

This story could've been written about an Uber or Lyft driver, and the take-
away would have been the same: America needs a better health-insurance story
for people who aren't poor, but who don't have consistent full-time work. The
adjunct angle just adds an ugly layer of classism to that point. ("Oh, this
person had a degree from Columbia, she shouldn't have faced the same struggles
as an Uber driver.") Everyone should be able to get a regular checkup,
regardless of their job. Beyond that, if the market values historians
similarly to Uber drivers, well, so be it.

~~~
dredmorbius
Whataboutism, two wrongs don't make a right.

The story is abut inhumane working conditions, inadequate compensation, and
access, literally, to the necessties of life, via systemic faiure.

The local failure is on Columbia University.

The broader failure is not.

~~~
rayiner
The story is a call for middle class welfare: paying an educated, relatively
privileged group more than their market value—and more than what we deem the
societal minimum—so they can have a higher standard of living than say food
service workers and retail. (Who likely would consider the “inhuman” working
conditions of being an adjunct professor quite a step up.) That’s not moral.
Nothing about having an advanced degree entitles you to a better life than
people without one.

~~~
dredmorbius
Let me suggest an alternate summary: The story is a call for _welfare._

Have you read your Marx?

 _No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater
part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that
they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have
such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably
well fed, clothed, and lodged._

Or:

 _It may be said that of this hard lot no one has any reason to complain,
because it befalls those only who are outstripped by others, from inferiority
of energy or of prudence. This, even were it true, would be a very small
alleviation of the evil. If some Nero or Domitian were to require a hundred
persons to run a race for their lives, on condition that the fifty or twenty
who came in hindmost should be put to death, it would not be any diminution of
the injustice that the strongest or nimblest would, except through some
untoward accident, be certain to escape. The misery and the crime would be
that any were put to death at all. So in the economy of society; if there be
any who suffer physical privation or moral degradation, whose bodily
necessities are either not satisfied or satisfied in a manner which only
brutish creatures can be content with, this, though not necessarily the crime
of society, is pro tanto a failure of the social arrangements._

Trick question -- Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, respectively.

[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_I/...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_I/Chapter_8)

[https://archive.org/stream/chaptersonsocial00mill#page/264/m...](https://archive.org/stream/chaptersonsocial00mill#page/264/mode/2up/search/of+this+hard+lot)

~~~
rayiner
Those quotes express the view that there should be a minimum standard that is
adequate. Which I agree with. What I disagree with is the idea that being a
professor entitles you to something higher than that minimum standard, which
is the premise of the article.

~~~
dredmorbius
Does your minimum standard fall above or below the necessities of life?

I don't see the conditions being described in. the article (or many others of
adjunct or even full-time professors) as extraordinary. There's another
passage in Smith discussing the constituents of pay I recommend considering.

What do you earn? Is this above that minimum standard?

What of college football coaches? Or VC?

Why should colleges (or any other enterprise) be charities paid for by the
sacrifices, and lives, of instructors or workers?

