<p>I don’t think an adjunct professor should get paid one dime more than they are able to squeeze out of their employer for the work they do.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone should get paid one dime more than they can squeeze out of their employer.</p>
<p>At least so says the salesman who can’t get paid one dime more than he can squeeze out of customers.</p>
<p>My bottomline is that someone willing to work for low pay should not expect to get more than a low pay. Someone not willing to do what is necessary to get higher pay should not expect higher pay.</p>
<p>People should refuse to work for pay that is too low or work for pay that is too low only temporarily until they qualify for a job that pays more than a pay that is too low.</p>
<p>The world isn’t much more difficult than that. Although an unskilled 80 year old, will find it very challenging to boost his/her skills to command higher pay.</p>
<p>Of course, there are adjuncts who are well-paid. Did we not debate the perks and salary offered to Gen. Petraeus. Although it is not over pay, some are still giving and getting bruises over the class.</p>
<p>Fwiw, I am also afraid that one needs to separate the superstar or even the highly recognized person who can parlay its fame or recognition into a plush adjunct gig from … the adjuncts who toil at the lower end of the spectrum. In a way, it seems that we might compare a Las Vegas headliner to someone who has to travel to several clubs a week to make ends meet. </p>
<p>In the end, at the heart of the problem, we only have the faulty economic model (ab)used by the schools to blame. Life is good at the top of the pyramid, and not so good at its base. It only works when the apex is kept small and the base comprising the exploited and screwed pretty large.</p>
<p>This is reasoning that supports exploitation. Essentially, you are saying if a business can get away with paying cheap for its labor it should do so. What if supermarkets decided to charge triple for food, do you have any choice but to buy it anyway?</p>
<p>The point is that there should be decency and fairness and justice in all of these types of decisions. Maybe I’m different. When I buy a car . . I expect to pay a fair dollar for fair value, not to wring every penny I can out of the salesman who is just trying to make a living. Exploitation is what has gotten our country into the mess it is in and no telling if we will ever claw our way out.</p>
<p>I am currently in Pittsburgh visiting my sister. There is an article in the Post -Gazette today written by a friend of hers, filling in some of the gaps. Can’t post the link but the title is "“Margaret Mary the Adjunct Professor.” The author is a retied judge and he and his wife were friends of Margaret. Margaret lived in her childhood home, probably never married , worked at Pitt before Duquesne. She lived within walking distance of her Catholic Church and her priest cousin did her funeral service. The judge said the spartan cardboard casket was a “symbol of her austere life and her minimalist views.” He felt that is what she would have wanted. He also said that “I’ll leave it to others whether they could have helped more. Heaven knows, even Margaret could have helped herself more. She drew a line, and may God help anyone who decided to cross it.” I am very familiar with her neighborhood. It would not be at all uncommon in this very working class, somewhat depressed area for her to have ended up in her childhood home . She apparently did some caretaking over the years of a brother and I would guess her parents at some point.</p>
That certainly supports my view that eccentricity and stubbornness caused this woman’s poverty, not Duquesne. She held on to a house that likely should have been sold to reduce her expenses and provide a source of funds for living costs, she refused help from social services, and who knows what other poor decisions led to her situation. What’s clear is that her story has no place in the debate over adjunct compensation. It was an insult to this woman’s memory to publicize her embarrassing financial status as part of a sensational screed against the university.</p>
<p>Exactly how do you determine what a “fair dollar for fair value” is? Is it the same for you as it is for someone whose salary is less than the car salesman’s? Should they try to wring every penny they can off the price?</p>
<p>I agree, MommaJ and I believe Margaret’s situation really has nothing to do with the adjunct compensation debate and it is too bad her situation has been drawn into what is probably an important general debate going forward. I would not be surprised if Margaret was encouraged many times to leave that old house (worth about 45,000 according to Zillow) by friends ,relatives, nieces or nephews but just wouldn’t do it. Not uncommon with women of that generation in that neighborhood. Many older folks there grew up there and just don’t want to leave the family home. There is actually a very nice adult community where rents are based on income within walking distance of where she lived. She lived her life her way though it sounds like and that was her business. And she sounded like a proud, rather stubborn woman who would not have wanted her personal business exposed like this.</p>
<p>*However, after World War II ended, and recognizing that many wounded veterans returning to Homestead needed help, Margaret turned to nursing as a career.</p>
<p>Its easy to get the invoice price these days, and through True price, what others are paying, but this all begets the point. Just because somebody desperately needs a job and is willing to accept substandard wages does not mean the employer, if he is making good money, should pay those substandard wages, especially at the same time the CEO is making tens of millions. It comes down to ethics, decency, fairness and justice, something the Narcissistic boomer generation who has been managing our top institutions, including banking and the educational industrial complex care nothing about. It is no longer about educating our children, just exploiting them, charging them an arm and a leg while they obtain worthless degrees at costs that will leave them indentured for life at the same time these narcissists are exploiting the actual worker bees, the educators who labor in our classrooms.</p>
<p>Why do people even bother nowadays to pursue a career in academia if this is the reality for most of them? It’s like showbusiness. A handful of actors become superstars, and the masses are extras or do toothpaste & insurance commercials.</p>
<p>Could the concept of tenure be to blame for the situation? Why would lesser endowed colleges offer employment with regular hours & pay to adjuncts, if the colleges are already already saddled with supporting tenured sinecures to their tenured faculty? Aren’t countries w rigid labor laws similarly loath to hire new fulltime staff?</p>
<p>Is that the question? Why do so many pursue academia when it is so overcrowded that decent paying jobs are scarce? Is that the U’s fault for not paying more? Even if they did, what about the hordes who simply can’t get any offer or where there is only one class available? You have to decide if you want adjuncts employed in masse or are complaining about their use, in the first place. And for one or two classes, I’ll ask again: what is fair pay?</p>
<p>Well, yes. The market is grossly oversaturated. PhD programs pump out way more candidates than there are jobs. People go into academe for love of the subject. They are obsessed, much like performing artists. They feel less alive when they cannot work in the area of their obsession. I wish more people would realize how low the odds are of getting a stable paying living in academe as a professor. Getting a PhD is as risky as striking out as an artist. The chances of making a stable living doing what you love are remote.</p>
<p>Speaking as a member of the “boomer generation” I deeply resent this characterization.</p>
<p>The types who have been managing those institutions for generations have regarded the rest of us as little more than beef on the hoof. That’s generally the type of person who “rises” to that sort of position. Look to Jack Welch and “Chainsaw” Al and company.</p>
<p>The reasoning is that if you choose to be unskilled, you will be valued less in the business world. Why should we let the unskilled exploit businesses out of higher wages than they deserve. Yet, companies would be fine having people perform unskilled labor if they didn’t demand more and make threats about it so they are forced to replace people altogether with automation & outsourcing.</p>
<p>The new American Way that has been long emerging is a sense of entitlement for more money and stuff without having to work hard and make self-improvements to get it. We can elect people to give us stuff, form Unions to get us stuff, sit at home and wait for stuff in the mail, go online and get stuff, rely on parents to give us stuff.</p>
<p>The new American Way believes that hard work, education and high standards are for suckers and we need to make those people pay for all our stuff.</p>
<p>Maybe if we rewarded hard work and punished laziness and ignorance simply by letting lazy and ignorant people live with the results of their lifestyle choices, things would improve for the better.</p>
<p>The issue with over paid corporate CEOs is the exact same problem with fast food workers that are greedy to make more money without doing more work or bringing new skills to the work. They are all greedy for other people to pay their way.</p>
<p>And while I’m anti greed in all cases meaning I don’t like greedy rich people the same as I don’t like greedy poor people. I grew up poor so I know what I know. Some of you may idolize the poor and could never see a poor person as greedy but I know what I saw growing up and still see to this day. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that greed is a selfish human trait that needs no training or education to develop so I’m not against people selfishly pursuing their own highest self interest. I think the breakdown is that we have a system that allows cheaters to get away with it. Rich people can cheat people and get away with it and lower and middle income people can cheat the system or elect politicians to rig it in their favor for them. Politicians cheat, CEOs cheat, the poor cheat, doctors cheat, lawyers cheat, democrats cheat, republicans cheat. Our whole system is becoming one based on cheat-ism, not capitalism. This is going to bad in the long run for everyone.</p>
<p>So greed is why a PhD would like to earn more as an adjunct? Or why the value-adding tiers might want a fair wage? How did we get to “unskilled?”</p>
<p>Figures I’m seeing suggest an adjunct works 3 hours total for every class instruction hour. If so, 15 or 16 weeks is about 150 hours. At $3500/class, it seems to equate to over 40k. (Based on those hours.) I’ve seen average prof salaries shown as 62k. Granted, averages can mislead and we’d have to know where this pools. But a prof or assoc prof generally teaches 4 or 5 courses/semester, plus committee work, advising and perhaps his/her own research.</p>
<p>The new healthcare law affects adjuncts, using the 30 hr/week tier for benefits. The IRS is apparently engaged in the discussion of how many hours per semester one adjunct class entails. The 3:1 figure came from that.</p>
<p>If you just look at this as big bad U, a poor adjunct and ripping off students- or greed- I think it gets skewed. I think we need the views of an economist not just politics or social psychology.</p>