Careers: Name Withheld by Request

ESL teaching is dominated by part-time or adjunct instruction. In Washington state, for example, 79 percent of all community college ESL courses are taught by poorly paid part-timers. But part-time instruction is hardly limited to the teaching of ESL. Adjuncts make up over 60 percent of the faculty in two-year colleges and over 40 percent across all institutions of higher education.

Part-time teachers have been described as the "slave laborers of the 1990's." Such a characterization might seem extreme, because adjunct faculty are not coerced into signing their contracts but willingly accept them. But part-timers are closer to indentured servants than one might suppose.

Despite variations from state to state and institution to institution, four conditions distinguish adjunct faculty employment:
(1) Non pro-rata pay: Adjunct faculty are typically paid a mere one-third the amount of full-time faculty for an equivalent teaching assignment.
(2) Restricted maximum hours: Adjunct teaching assignments are commonly restricted to some percentage less than full-time (e.g., no more than 75 percent.) This limitation in itself predicts financial hardship, but abysmally so when combined with the non-pro-rata pay. At my institution, the maximum income of an adjunct is $13,500 gross per year, which is more than $3,000 less than HUD's limit of an individual of "very low income." The low wages create a "Catch-22" situation: Because the pay is insufficient to make a living, adjuncts must necessarily have other sources of income, such as multiple jobs and have come to be called "Road Scholars" because of their scrambling between jobs. Yet they have other sources of income, so there is little urgency felt to increase adjunct wages. This logic is circular, not unlike that of the anti-abolitionists who argued that since slaves were not prepared for life in a free economy, they should remain captive.
(3) Infrequent transition from adjunct to full-time status: Whereas in most industries part-time employment may be a stepping stone to full-time, such mobility is rare among adjuncts. The infrequent turnover of full-time tenured faculty within higher education contributes to this, but more significant is the disproportional
expansion in the use of adjuncts over the last 30 years. In Washington's two-year colleges there are 3,276 full-time and 9,312 adjuncts, so even if every full-timer were to resign, only a fraction of the adjuncts could be hired as replacements. This numerical bottleneck alone means that the adjuncts' prospect of becoming full-time are bleak. What it means is that the options afforded part-time faculty consist of continuing to teach with substandard pay or not teaching at all. Adjuncts may not be legally compelled to teach, but such restricted options recall the indentured servant. Unfortunately, conditions are unlikely to change as long as the hiring of adjuncts is financially attractive to the cost-conscious institution. Of course, converting all adjunct appointments to full-time is not desirable since part-time appointments can be beneficial to both individual instructors and educational institutions.
(4) Built-in reluctance among adjuncts to complain about working conditions: Adjuncts are hired on a term-by-term basis and their contracts can be non-renewed at any time without due cause. Job insecurity arising from the perpetual probationary nature of adjunct instruction may cause compromises in professional standards to avoid "problems" that could endanger rehire. Greater leniency in grading (so as to appease underachieving but disgruntled students) could be one manifestation.

The inherent insecurity of adjunct faculty, not unlike that faced by illegal alien workers, certainly discourages speaking out about employment conditions and encourages anonymity in public forums. At one TESOL convention, I met an adjunct who told me that he had hastily exited a session on part-time advocacy when he recognized someone from his home institution in the audience. He was fearful of being seen as a malcontent. In a public hearing before the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, one nameless adjunct described his remarkable experience of teaching at 200 percent of a full-time load. When asked at which institutions he taught, he politely explained that he'd prefer not to say. In an article on part-time faculty in the TESOL Journal (Autumn 1997, p. 54), several contributors signed themselves as "Name Withheld by Request". In Teaching English in the Two-Year College, the editor explained that an adjunct author "requested that we use her pen name because of the sensitivity of the subject ... and because she wants to return to community college teaching" (February 1992, p. 12).

When part-time instructors do not feel at liberty to speak out except on condition of anonymity, they are compromised. This does not bode well for reform, as the political process is set up to handle constituents who clearly express their needs. The resulting lack of outcry about the conditions of part-time instructions, when coupled with the fact that some adjuncts are content with their teaching opportunity, give rise to the disingenuous conclusion that there is no real adjunct problem. But it would be a mark of supreme ignorance to accept that conclusion in light of the radically substandard wages and working conditions that adjuncts face.

Plantation economies were said to be incapable of operating without indentured servants. Higher education takes a similar stance regarding its cost-saving adjuncts. But unlike plantation slavery, the exploitation of adjunct faculty can be ended with much less trouble through legislative mandate accompanied by funding. The solution is pro-rata wages and benefits, which would remove the cost incentive to hire part-time faculty. Not only would this end much of the economic hardship faced by adjuncts, it would mean their employment would be governed by genuine educational factors. Part-time instructors would be teaching part-time voluntarily, not involuntarily.

If reform is to happen, it will not be the result of spontaneously legislation and budget adjustments. It will be the result of a forceful case made on behalf of part-time faculty. If individuals part-timers cannot make the case, then their unions or their professional associations, like TESOL and its Caucus on Part-Time Employment Concerns, must be called upon to state their case for them.