Building a Career Out of Academic Table Scraps: An Advantage, a Disadvantage, and a Proposal.
Trista Cornelius

Teaching as an adjunct instructor is not good work--at least not in composition. It is not "good with regard to status, title, pay, financial and professional security, or overall stability. However, many people try to make a living this way. After a year of teaching "full-time as an adjunct instructor at a few different colleges and universities, I,m wondering why I do this. Why do any adjunct instructors do this?
In writing this article, I,ve worked to look for benefits of adjunct teaching. Rather than focusing only on the negatives and the disparities between full-time contracted faculty and part-time term-to-term faculty, I imagined what my life would be like in a tenure-track position. What would I miss about being an adjunct? I found only one trait of adjunct life that I could consider a benefit, and maybe an advantage, over being a full-time contracted faculty member. If the advantage(s) prove so difficult to find, why do we do this in the first place?
Like many full-time faculty, adjunct instructors teach because we love what we do. We love it because of the opportunity for dynamic intellectual engagement with a diverse range of students and colleagues about our topic of passionate life-long study. We do it because we love the questions and reactions students bring to us and because of what that teaches us about our subject. We love the institutional support of libraries, computers, lectures, movies, concerts, and all the other events that make a place a "college.

We teach as adjunct instructors second because it,s who we are. Even though we do not have full-fledged membership into the institution, we want and need a place for our creative/scholarly endeavors. The college environment affirms who we are and gives shape to our identity; this environment legitimizes our time spent thinking, musing, and creating because it places creative/scholarly accomplishments above more materialistic symbols of success. The college recognizes the value of ideas and of musing over things. This priority of values supports our time spent thinking about and researching the topics we love.

In the February/March 2000 issue of Ms. Magazine, Barbara Croft explains why many of us teach as adjuncts, even when there is no possibility for promotion or permanency as a full-time faculty member:
Being an academic is not just a job. It,s an identity. Colleges and universities are, literally, alma maters, nourishing mothers,, social systems that mimic the family and provide, for a lucky few, a deep, personal sense of belonging. Emotional ties to academia are so strong that many academics cling to any connection with their field, no matter how marginal, "choosing to be exploited as part-timers rather than be shut out altogether. (45)

The college gives our identity and our scholarly/creative ideas not only a place but also a purpose.
Adjuncts endure incredible discrepancies between the work they do and the monetary compensation they receive in order to belong to a place that values critical thought and creative inquiry. Although no characteristic of adjunct teaching can compensate for our challenging work conditions, adjunct teaching does have one benefit"autonomy. Although we want to belong as full-fledged members of the college, we have autonomy as auxiliary staff that full-time members do not have. Our subordinate positions free us from any responsibility outside of the classes we teach. By recognizing and utilizing this benefit of adjunct teaching, we can sustain our professional ambitions until a time when adjuncts find a more secure role in the institution.

The Benefit of Adjunct Teaching
At most institutions, adjuncts teach one to three courses. Adjunct instructors balance a full four-course load each term by working for at least two institutions at a time. Ideally, we have full intellectual freedom to create our courses in a manner that fits our personality and pedagogy as long as it works to meet the institution,s goals. Our required duties do not extend beyond the classroom.

Without departmental meetings to attend, presentations to prepare, administrative duties to maintain, or academic advising to do, adjuncts are free to leave after class or office hours. Our only scheduled hours are the hours we teach in the classroom (or online). Without an eight-to-five routine conforming our energy to meet the institution,s schedule, we have flexibility that some full-timers do not have during the September to June school year. If we recognize this autonomy and arrange our schedules around our own priorities, we can make time for the intellectual and creative pursuits that got us into this teaching career in the first place.

Not all full-time faculty are burdened by non-teaching duties at all times during the academic year. Many get summer vacations which give full-timers a different kind of flexibility than adjuncts who can manipulate their schedules during the term to fit in time for scholarly/creative work but must continue teaching a full-load in the summer to make ends meet. Full-timers also have the opportunity to work toward sabbatical. But most of the full-time faculty I work with, although I envy their positions, work long hours with many obligations to the institution. A colleague of mine who recently accepted a full-time position feels obligated to the institution. She feels that full compensation for her work makes her owe more time to the institution and to the department that holds higher expectations for her than it did when she was an adjunct. Although saying no to the dean asking her to join another committee does not threaten the longevity or security of her contract like it would for an adjunct, the implicit departmental expectations make her work environment uncomfortable if she does not carry the overload of non-teaching work expected of "new hires in this institution. In a sense, the institution owns full-timers in a way it doesn,t own adjunct faculty. Departments appreciate adjuncts with flexibility to meet last minute teaching needs and adjuncts who fulfill their teaching responsibility successfully. Beyond this, I have not felt any further expectations.

In order to take full advantage of this autonomy, I leave campus immediately after my office hours. I schedule research and writing time each day. Even by leaving campus as soon as I,ve met my responsibilities for the day, I still may only get an hour for my own work, but that hour accumulates into essay drafts and a fulfillment of my own scholarly/creative pursuits.
Taking advantage of this autonomy, does not mean that I don't want to be involved in the institution or that I find
non-teaching work less valuable. In fact, I want this involvement and connection very much. But, time committed beyond a committee or two starts to feel like abuse. My salary does not cover the hours I spend for each class as it is. As I add other obligations, I start to resent my time spent at the institution and feel used instead of appreciated and needed. To come full circle with this idea of autonomy as a benefit of adjunct teaching, by using this freedom to pursue our scholarly/creative interests, we refuel ourselves for the demanding role of teaching and maintain an energized approach that may stand out to a hiring committee.

If we earmark our non-teaching time for creative and scholarly work, we will keep rooted in scholarship and academic practice. This ability to make time for the work we love makes us even better teachers. For example, I teach composition courses. For every question or frustration students have with writing, I can give them theories as well as personal examples from my own writing practice. These real life accounts of my professional work give me credibility in the classroom as a "real professor not "just an adjunct. Some students have begun to discern a false difference between full-time faculty and part-time faculty. Without any institutional badges of legitimacy like an office, business cards, a photograph in the staff directory, a name plate beside a door, or any space designated as belonging uniquely to them for instructional purposes, adjuncts must rely on their "real world knowledge to maintain, and in some cases gain, credibility as scholars and teachers in the classroom.
Using our time away from the classroom to engage in fulfilling projects, energizes and informs our teaching. It also keeps our attitude positive in a career that quickly drains even the most passionate and energetic teacher-scholars. However, the autonomy that enables me to enjoy adjunct teaching might also be what keeps me from getting a full-time contracted or tenure-track job.

The Costs of Adjunct Autonomy
The problem is, by taking time away from campus and working at home, I am not standing around the water cooler meeting other instructors; I am not at the copier when the dean comes by; I am not around to hear the gossip of what,s happening at the institution. And worse yet, if a position opens and I apply for the job, the search committee may not be able to put a face to my name. They might ask why they don,t see me around much. They may say, because she teaches at three other campuses and has three other courses. But it,s highly probable that they,ll overlook this and start to list the things I don,t do, or assume I must contribute more energy to a different institution. I must not really want the job or I would have been around more. And this is partially true.

Adjuncts have a lot to gain by being seen late at the office, attending workshops and meetings, and being on campus often and at many events. Our physical presence may demonstrate more commitment than our solitary scholarly/creative work that can take years to complete and publish. I know tenured and promoted full-time faculty who have fulfilled their administrative duties time and again over the last 10-15 years who now successfully pursue research and writing in their field, and some who practice other arts "on the side while managing their full-time work load well. But they have two advantages the adjunct does not. First, they have the job security to make their own hours and tell the dean they won,t be in on Fridays because that's their day to use the research library. Second, full-time contracted or tenured faculty get paid to pursue their interests"are even encouraged and expected to research and work outside of their class load and may get release time and sabbaticals to do this.
The scholarly/creative work adjuncts do outside of the classroom comes without financial reward and with a burden of hopefulness, a heavy weight of potential. The more scholarly/creative work I engage in and complete, the more hopeful I am that my good work will somehow win the favor of the next hiring committee. If our work is recognized, we may get that full-time job. Such pressure, however, without financial support for the work-in-progress can stifle the creative mind capable of making valuable contributions. However, adjuncts who take control of their schedules and build in time for their scholarly/creative work have a professional flexibility that I,ve only seen in tenured, long-term faculty. In other words, adjuncts have more autonomy than relatively new full-time faculty still working to earn their privilege of paid time for research and creative/scholarly work.

For now, adjuncts must find a balance between fulfilling their teaching responsibilities, proving their commitment to colleagues who may later be on a search committee, and keeping their own intellectual work as a priority equal to the often more immediate demands of the classroom. The one advantage of the adjunct life is the flexibility to pursue our academic and creative interests, albeit without pay. The more we use this flexible time to spend on our interests, the more energy we,ll have for teaching.

A Proposal
In the short term, institutions can help in this matter with minimal (if any) costs while we continue to debate and negotiate adjunct roles and rights. Institutions need to create a space to showcase adjunct accomplishments that come into being in solitary spaces away from the campus community. This is a different kind of support than "professional development opportunities.
For example, one of the community colleges where I teach has a Teaching and Learning Center that offers classes in technology, lectures on topics of academic research, and a comfortable space for reading or meetings. The classes are free and some workshops include stipends to adjuncts for attending. The stipend compensates time that would otherwise be volunteer time"free work toward personal development that also benefits the institution. I am grateful for a workshop I attended (and earned fifty dollars for) about creating web pages. This benefited me directly, but it could also benefit the college in terms of recruitment and marketing. My web page could be linked to my two alma maters advertising all three schools for transfer students and employers. A more experienced web designer might be able to procure grants and funding for Internet related research that would all come with the college,s name attached and advertised even though that college is only one of many colleges the adjunct represents through teaching. These excellent professional development opportunities add valuable skills to a curriculum vita. However, many adjunct faculty do not need this support for their teaching lives as much as they need recognition and support of their creative/scholarly work.
What seems to be lacking, so far in my experience, is any place where the institution learns about the scholarly/creative accomplishments of the adjunct faculty and communicates that to the rest of the community. The tangible results of those private ideas that we explore through the resources of the institutions and in our solitary work spaces away from colleagues need opportunities for recognition. Full-timers, success stories appear in newsletters, announcements, web pages, and fliers and are supported by grants, release time, and more adequate salaries. Adjuncts are too easily known only as "staff or "TBA in the fall catalogue and appreciated for their good work filling in when needed, but not seen as the well-rounded academics they may be. Building a space for this recognition could be quite simple.

College departments could dedicate one meeting per term to the adjuncts teaching in that department. Offering a stipend or a complimentary lunch to adjuncts would welcome them to attend and would demonstrate a genuine collegiality on the part of the department. The part-time instructors could then introduce themselves to the full-time faculty, the administrators of the department, and to each other. Time should be allotted for each part-time instructor to give a brief presentation of the work that defines them as scholars or artists. Most likely, some of their solitary work will complement the department,s goals or the scholarly/creative work of a full-time faculty member resulting in supportive partnerships and open communication about work outside of the classroom.

An easily accessible communal space could be made to show artwork, display copies of recent publications, or models of technological or architectural designs completed by adjuncts. A designated space central to the campus would provide a gallery for adjuncts to volunteer work for display. That space would then be advertised in regular campus publications"for faculty as well as for students.

Many schools have created online publications. Perhaps an online journal could showcase the accomplishments of the institution's faculty. A percentage of space for adjunct work should be reserved that equals the percentage of adjuncts employed at the institution. A student club could create and maintain this site for academic credit and work experience.
These opportunities to showcase adjuncts, intellectual work must not increase their workload or be presented like one more unpaid obligation. The institution should simply offer an established and maintained space at the campuses where adjuncts sprint in and out of each term. This space would provide an institutional record of the Road Scholars who come and go with more impact on the institution than officially recognized. The opportunity would give adjuncts a feeling of stability through having a space of their own (even if it,s cyberspace), and some legitimacy to their role on campus while supporting the time they spend away from campus working at their own solitary pace on projects, dreams, and research.

My simple recommendations meet short-term needs for adjuncts in institutions with currently fixed budgets. As numerous articles and studies attest to, more needs to be done not only to compensate and support adjunct instructors but also to clarify the role of "adjuncts within an institution. We need reasonable boundaries that offer adjuncts enough space to fully participate in the academic community while protecting us from abuse by the institution.

This abuse of labor falsely perceives the role of "teacher as something static, a cookie cutter position that most anyone could fill. Showcasing adjunct instructors, scholarly/creative accomplishments in a space and venue central to the heart of the institution, would frame the flexibility and convenience of adjunct labor within a deeper context of powerful scholarship, creativity, and intellectual engagement. A college could not then justify patching gaps in staffing with any available instructor while also recognizing the expertise and academic accomplishments each instructor brings to the classroom and to the college. In other words, once we are seen as the well-rounded scholarly/creative human beings that we are, this practice of cheap labor and short-term hires within a vacuum of support would no longer be justifiable. Using our autonomy to make time for our academic/scholarly endeavors while finding ways to showcase these accomplishments will build tangible evidence that a successful teacher, in any discipline, does not conform to a cookie cutter shape that meets an immediate need for a body in a the role of "instructor. The scholarly and creative accomplishments of adjunct instructors prove that it is in the institution,s best interests (long and short term) to hire adjunct instructors more conscientiously and to support and integrate their professional identity more fully.