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    Ed SpockHamilton Nolan
    5/02/16 11:19am

    I really hate to say this but people who have career jobs, and not something that is supposed to be a stepping stone to something bigger, are having a hard enough time trying to secure any kind of pay raise or decent medical or retirement benefits. I doubt there’s going to be a lot of concern for the adjunct professor community.

    I sympathize with their plight but, especially since the recession, all kinds of careers that used to be a solid choice for a decent lifestyle have taken it in the earhole, due in large part to the relentless efforts of our lawmakers, backed by ALEC and billionaire donors, to pass legislation that makes it all nice and legal.

    I wish them the best, but right now it’s become so bad that people have to look out for themselves first and there isn’t a whole lot of time and effort they can afford to waste on others.

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      Salt KnightEd Spock
      5/02/16 11:22am

      I doubt there’s going to be a lot of concern for the adjunct professor community.

      That’s the kind of “divide and conquer” attitude CEO’s and corporations use to fuck everyone over.

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      Ed SpockSalt Knight
      5/02/16 11:34am

      Yeah and it’s worked because people are stupid, greedy and jealous.

      I’m not actively pointing at any one working group and screaming “Hey that’s not fair!!!! I don’t get that” and neither am I saying to groups who have it worse off “Well tough shit. That’s life”

      But I have been on the receiving end of a lot of hatred and bitterness directed towards my career because others felt screwed and wanted to bring me down with them, with some level of success too.

      I’m sorry for people like AP’s and the like but, like millions of others, I’m in a struggle to maintain what I worked so hard to earn and provide for my family and I quite literally do not have time to worry about others right now.

      I guess it’s selfish, but that’s the way it is. As long as people elect pieces of shit like Scott Walker, Rick Snyder, Rick Scott and the like, we can protest all we want but nothing is going to change because these people DO NOT GIVE A FUCK and have no conscience about ruining people’s lives.

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    Murry ChangHamilton Nolan
    5/02/16 11:19am

    “Administrators and trustees are now dominated not by educators interested in higher education, but by business people who see universities are places to make money”

    Key point right here.

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      Venus_in_fursMurry Chang
      5/02/16 11:23am

      *ding ding ding*

      We have a winner.

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      Salt KnightMurry Chang
      5/02/16 11:24am

      by business people who see universities are places to make money”

      So higher education is just turning into every other area of public interest.

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    ReburnsABurningReturnsHamilton Nolan
    5/02/16 11:23am

    one group has the power to change this instantly and forever, and that group is the students. If students began staging protests demanding exclusively full time faculty, the problem would resolve itself.

    Well, we know for sure that this guy isn’t a historian or a labor economist.

    Look, here’s the deal, the quoted sentiment is true of literally every single labor problem. Consumers could stop all kinds of terrible things, such as unsafe working conditions in Bangladesh or the NFL’s propagandizing about the safety of their sport, or the terrible conditions most adjunct faculty work in. It has always been true.

    Consumers just don’t care enough to move that needle. They sure don’t mind taking the opportunity to hop up on soapboxes though.

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      DR honkhonkhonk, tyvmReburnsABurningReturns
      5/02/16 11:31am

      I used to agree with you on that, but now being a cash-strapped consumer, I’ve moved more toward caring when I can afford to care, which is not often enough to change the world (and while I’m poor, most are poorer). I think this kind of thing has to get changed from the top.

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      ReburnsABurningReturnsDR honkhonkhonk, tyvm
      5/02/16 11:36am

      Change doesn’t really come from the top. If adjunct faculty want things to change, they are the ones who will need to be willing to make even more sacrifices.

      While there were big, important laws that were passed that helped labor, ultimately any individual labor group in the 20th century was only was able to win by engaging in unified negotiation where their backstop was a willingness to engage in a strike for a reasonable period of time. They don’t even necessarily have to strike so long as the threat of them striking is credible.

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    whatisuptampaHamilton Nolan
    5/02/16 2:35pm

    Wait a minute. You are saying the ACA has had a negative effect on full time employment?? That can’t be true. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

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      PunditGuywhatisuptampa
      5/03/16 10:00am

      Yeah — those record 74 weeks of private sector job growth would have been oh-so-much more growthier without the job-killing ACA. And we wouldn’t have the highest percentage of people with health insurance since they started keeping records — but that’s not the point. The marginal harm to adjuncts should have trumped all that. How could we have been so short-sighted?

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      whatisuptampaPunditGuy
      5/03/16 10:58am

      I guess we need another 74 months of growth before the labor participation rate gets back to normal.

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    DR honkhonkhonk, tyvmHamilton Nolan
    5/02/16 11:18am

    I have a minor criticism about “more PhDs than the market can sustain.” I guess it depends on how you define “the market,” and would vary a lot by which field of PhDs we’re talking about, but I don’t think many people would say we should be cutting back on the amount of STEM research that gets done by people with or obtaining PhDs. (I personally think the same of non-STEM fields - moar research, please - I’m just guessing based on hoi polloi assumptions.)

    Not that I have any kind of answer for the adjunct crisis, though.

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      NewYorkCynicDR honkhonkhonk, tyvm
      5/02/16 11:27am

      I left my Ph.D program in Chemistry a few years back when my mentor told me that I should begin considering moving to China or India if I wanted a job other than as an adjunct. Most of the Ph.D students I know who completed the program are still adjuncting, or are on their second/third post-docs making less than $40,000. I know it’s anecdotal, but from what I’ve seen, a Ph.D in a STEM field isn’t a ticket to gainful employment either.

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      DR honkhonkhonk, tyvmNewYorkCynic
      5/02/16 11:35am

      Sure, not disputing that. (And I’m sorry you decided to leave.) What I’m saying isn’t so much about the job market/job prospects, but more about what the larger market demands. Research and innovation demands won’t just disappear because we’re paid shit - that’s the market I was referring to.

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    Thewholetime?Thewholetime?THEWHOLETIME?Hamilton Nolan
    5/02/16 12:59pm

    So why are people staying in these jobs? You could teach at a high school and make between 40 and 60 grand a year, depending on where you live. If people refuse to take these shitty jobs then the universities will be forced to compete and offer better pay and benefits, right?

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      TheWhiteBorpoThewholetime?Thewholetime?THEWHOLETIME?
      5/02/16 1:49pm

      I tried to do that but my PhD made me “overqualified” (too expensive and they were afraid I'd leave at the first chance). Fortunately I was able to get a FT job teaching college; I'm not sure if I'd ever have been hired for K-12 despite being certified.

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      AK7007TheWhiteBorpo
      5/02/16 4:53pm

      Depends where you are. My PhD was an asset in finding a HS job, not a detriment.

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    IanHamilton Nolan
    5/02/16 11:22am

    You guys want an idea of the push to hire adjuncts? Go to the University of Cincinnati’s website, check their jobs page. So...many...adjunct positions. Maybe if they don’t apply for them...they’ll stop offering them...? I personally don’t have any ideas for solutions.

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      PeeEssAyIan
      5/02/16 11:34am

      That is exactly the solution. This is completely a supply and demand problem: there are too few professor positions and too many qualified people who want them. No amount of unionizing or student complaining is going to fix that.

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      IanPeeEssAy
      5/02/16 11:53am

      There’s always the private sector. They are always needing R&D people...statistics-driven people...etc. etc.

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    TheScrobocopHamilton Nolan
    5/02/16 11:57am

    This is not a knock on the choices of adjuncts, but for those who are struggling, I would urge them to consider alternative certification so they can teach public school. Teaching middle and high school students may not offer the personal freedom of college, but it certainly has better pay, benefits, and job security than adjuncting. Frankly a lot of districts could use and appreciate those highly-educated but dissatisfied academics who just want to teach and teach well.

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      SmarktalkTheScrobocop
      5/02/16 12:11pm

      This is a good idea. I know a couple people with graduate degrees (not PhDs) that teach public school and also do tech some summer college courses at the community college. They are still waiting for an opportunity but it allows them to have a good job and still have the teaching experiences.

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      AK7007TheScrobocop
      5/02/16 4:41pm

      That describes me pretty well. I’m a biochemist, was ready to leave bench science, and really liked teaching. Adjuncting sounded like hell, and full time positions are hard to come by. So, I decided to teach in secondary school. I think it was the right choice, and I actually think that it is a shame that I’m one of the only PhD’s in my district. We should have highly educated science teachers all the way from K-12. A lot fewer voters would have the insane beliefs about science that they do if they had an actual scientist for a teacher during their formative years.

      I’ve looked for adjunct jobs as a summer gig, but the work being offered for the relative pay doesn’t exactly line up. I’d be doing it as a favor.

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    notthefirstHamilton Nolan
    5/02/16 2:40pm

    nah, f them. I’m graduating from college and too many classes I would have liked to enjoy were taught by these idiots. Get them out of the classroom, students are not professors.

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      TheWhiteBorponotthefirst
      5/02/16 2:41pm

      You seem to be confusing adjuncts with teaching assistants...

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      ThrowRocksAtBoysTheWhiteBorpo
      5/02/16 3:05pm

      You’re absolutely correct, but I wonder if they’re vying for the same positions? If a FT can bump out an Adjunct, can that FT then just assign a TA to do the class?? How does that work? (I honestly cannot recall ever having a class taught by a TA so I’m not sure.)

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    Doofenschmirtz, Inc.Hamilton Nolan
    5/02/16 12:03pm

    If you’re going to ask for public sympathy, it would help if you kept your discriminatory thoughts about sick students to yourself.

    Yes, some students have so much effing cancer.

    Be grateful that you don’t, jackass.

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      BerkolateDoofenschmirtz, Inc.
      5/02/16 12:19pm

      While I can’t know the original writer’s intent, I read it as empathy and exhaustion, not a discriminatory statement toward students with cancer. As a professor, I hear so many first-hand stories from students who are struggling with money, dealing with illness, trying to manage parents who threaten to cut them off for being LGBT, etc. Students tell us these things because they need extensions on assignments, or maybe they just want us not to judge them too harshly if they’re turning in subpar work. And sometimes there’s a week in the semester where it seems like everyone is struggling. We don’t resent students for having those problems, but—as in every profession that involves some degree of caring for other people—it can lead to feeling burned out.

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      Doofenschmirtz, Inc.Berkolate
      5/02/16 12:30pm

      If your students are struggling financially or with their health (or anything else) and asking for extensions on their assignments, it has ZERO impact on you being burned out. So complaining that your students have cancer and how this is an inconvenience and stressor to YOU makes you an ahole.

      You’re not paying their bills or doing their assignments for them. Whether they hand it in on time or not, your job is still to just mark that one assignment.

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