The growing use of adjunct or part-time faculty by public colleges and universities and, especially, community colleges has now reached the "crisis" level, according to the title of an April New York Times editorial.
In some regards, the use and treatment of adjuncts has been disgraceful for many years. A few years ago, I read an article about an adjunct who taught five courses in four colleges in different boroughs in New York City. This adjunct's total income was $20,000 without any health or other benefits, including having no desk or office.
Part-time teachers are treated as "transient workers" and are often given no reason to make an investment in a higher education institution. My adjunct experience has been mixed.
Over four decades beginning in the 1970s, I have had various part-time roles at the University at Albany. In the 1970s, when the university offered noncredit courses for a fee, I taught a course called "Environmental Law for the Layman." I was paid a portion of the fees. My students ranged in age and had a variety of reasons for taking the course. Some were considering whether to go to law school and others were looking to augment their knowledge in diverse fields.
Teaching was helpful in my day job as a legislative bill-drafter. Preparation for teaching a class got me to keep up with the literature on emerging issues of environmental law. I also liked meeting former students who were inspired by the class to go to law school or change to an environmentally related job.
When the noncredit program was terminated in the 1980s, I organized an annual environmental conference open to the public at the university. It attracted more than 125 participants and was intended to address the latest development in environmental law in the preceding year.
My growing interest in the Adirondack Park, urban parks like Albany's Washington Park, greenways like the Hudson River Greenway and the establishment of a new form of park first called urban cultural parks and now called heritage areas led me to propose a new course in the UAlbany planning program that I taught for about 14 years.
I was told students would be more interested in courses like transportation planning, because it leads to jobs. That may be so, but a number of my students ended up with jobs relating to park planning and management. One of the last interns I placed was for a parks student with a downstate regional state transportation office. Even transportation agencies have become park-sensitive.
My experience as an adjunct was mostly positive, but I saw things at the university that should be improved. I rarely saw full-time professors reach out to adjuncts for collaboration or saw professors cross lines with disciplines other than their own. Last year, for example, I went to a history research conference at the university and saw little if any participation from disciplines other than history, even though history papers were on a wide variety of subjects like religion, immigration, environment and cities.
During the more than 30 years I was president of the Albany Roundtable civic lunch forum, which was open to the public and attracted a wide diversity of professionals and others to hear community leaders speak, I rarely if ever saw professors attend.
Compensation for adjuncts is a serious problem. We need to give more attention to the good that can come with experienced adjuncts as well as give attention to other reforms like capturing missed opportunities for collaboration both inside universities and between academics and the communities in which they live and work.
Paul M. Bray's email is secsunday@aol.com.