The Rise in Contingent Faculty Hires Across Higher Education and its Effects, Implications, and Alternatives
By: Lily Naifeh-Bajorek, Staff Writer
I have been a Creative Writing major at Oberlin since the spring of last year, but before that I was strongly considering majoring in Studio Art. In both departments, I’ve noticed the high rate of faculty turnover, with multiple visiting professors arriving and leaving each year. I have also had two visiting professors as advisors, after my first year advisor retired, which means I’ve had a different advisor every year I’ve been in college. My visiting advisors, Jennifer Blaylock and Sam Cohen, have been two of my favorite professors here at Oberlin, and it is sad to feel like those relationships have been/are going to be cut short. These observations and experiences led me to look into why contingent faculty hires (visitors, adjuncts, part time and non-tenure track positions) are increasing in higher education while tenure track jobs are harder and harder to find.
To get a little background on being a visitor in the creative writing department, I spoke with my advisor Sam Cohen. To get intel on what goes on at other institutions and on this trend more broadly in academia, I spoke with my mother, Jennifer Bajorek, who is a tenured professor of comparative literature and visual studies at Hampshire College, as well as Hampshire’s chair of the Executive Committee of the Faculty.
First, a bit of background on what visiting professor and adjunct positions actually are. Visiting professors typically get offered non-renewable, one-year contracts, but can be offered a second contract and kept on for another year. Both of my aforementioned advisors were kept on for an additional year. At some institutions, visitors are given one year contracts year after year, an exploitative and non-committal hiring practice. Adjuncts work a bit differently, as they are hired on a semester-to-semester basis and paid very little on a course-by-course basis. Speaking from precious experience, Professor Cohen says that people who adjunct often teach several classes at a time to make ends meet, which is exhausting for them and unfair to their students.
Positions like visitor and adjunct were not originally created to be used the way they are now, or to be renewed like they often are now. Professor Cohen explained to me that the idea behind having people visit is that a college can get a prominent scholar at another institution to come teach at their school for a year. The original purpose of adjuncting is similar, in that it was created for institutions to host people who are acclaimed in their fields but are not necessarily academics to teach one course. So why are the majority of academic hires these days contingent positions? And why do many institutions rely on renewing or re-offering short term contracts, instead of hiring people who they clearly need on a permanent basis?
First of all, in order for a department to hire new tenure-track faculty, they have to apply for a tenure track line, which must be approved by the college. Both public and private universities are facing widespread disinvestment by federal and state governments, as well as private investors (Grantford). This means that colleges have to decide where to focus the majority of their budgets, and that means more funding for departments which wealthy donors believe should be prioritized, as Dr. Bajorek confirms, i.e. not the arts and humanities. If there is less funding for academics in these fields to do research, then it is more difficult for departments to get a tenure track line. It is not only funding, however, which incentivizes contingent hires, but shifting student interest. In general, our generation is focusing more on getting a specific degree that leads to a higher paying professional career, or has more of a vocational mindset, which a liberal arts degree does not necessarily align with. And I do not blame students for this! We are faced with more financial instability than previous generations, and getting a “useless” degree seems less and less feasible if we want to ensure financially stable and independent futures.
However, student demand in the creative writing department here, for example, is increasing just enough for the department to need new people, but not to make it look particularly sexy to donors or admin. I should add that Creative Writing created two tenure track positions and two lecturer positions this year, and hired people to fill them beginning next year. Part of the need for visitors in Creative Writing was created by permanent faculty going on sabbatical, so my observations of this particular department do not exactly align with the greater trend in higher education. That being said, they are not unrelated either, as all colleges are affected and none exists in a vacuum.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) sums up the issues with this hiring practice very well in a report based on data from 1987-2021, concluding that “Overreliance on contingent appointments, which lack the protection of tenure for academic freedom and the economic security of continuing appointments, threatens the success of institutions in fulfilling their obligations to students and to society.” The misuse and overuse of contingent faculty hires is an exploitative labor practice affecting both contingent and permanent faculty due both to the factors listed above and because “The isolation of contingent faculty from… their tenured colleagues and [participation] in faculty governance, professional development, and scholarly pursuits promotes divisions and distinctions that undermine the academic community.” The workload for permanent faculty is increased beyond their job descriptions and salaries because of the extra administrative roles they must take on that visitors and adjuncts cannot, and the workload of contingent faculty often goes beyond their salaries as well, for example when part-time faculty actually have to take on a full-time courseload, as Colby from the AAUP mentions in this study. This practice affects women and what the AAUP calls URM (underrepresented minority) academics disproportionately, as their data shows that the majority of contingent faculty are women and URM, and more tenure track faculty are white men. And, as I’ve mentioned, this hiring phenomenon affects students because of the lack of consistency, but also due to the fact that contingent faculty may not have the same academic freedoms and resources to oversee projects as in-depth as tenured faculty can.
On the flipside, colleges like Hampshire have chosen to allot a limited number of contingent hires per year in order to avoid exploitative labor practices, but this decision also has consequences. Since it takes more financial resources to pay more tenure track faculty, Hampshire has almost gone under multiple times in the past few years. This has necessitated pay cuts, causing professors to leave in droves and creating a higher workload for those who are left, whose salaries have been reduced. In trying to stick to its principles and mission, Hampshire has created a different situation which is similarly exploitative and exhausting for its faculty, and therefore detrimental to its students’ learning.
How are colleges supposed to choose between unethical labor practices and integrity, if integrity also ultimately leads to financial instability and a heap of other problems, as in Hampshire’s case? Can any one college really make a decision that prioritizes and benefits its faculty and students, in a system that incentivizes, and even seemingly necessitates, exploitation in some form or another? Can institutions even try to do right by their faculty and students in a system that seems so antiquated and broken, or is the only answer to dismantle it and start anew? I don’t have an answer to that right now, though I have some ideas.
As the kid of an academic, I have heard about every event, problem, disparity, dispute in higher education since I can remember. My mom has had part and full-time positions at a number of institutions, in multiple states and even countries, over the course of my lifetime. Shehas always discussed her job, experiences, and opinions with me and is an advocate for labor in academia as well as her students. She has made sure I understand what’s going on in this world especially since I became a college student myself. I know that this is not the case for the majority of students, and it is critical now more than ever to stay informed on and gain insight into what’s happening in higher education. I hope this article can provide a partial look into this one, very convoluted issue. I highly recommend talking to your professors about their experiences in higher education, stances on issues, and questions you have, as they have a lifetime of experience and knowledge of this realm in more ways than we know. Faculty and administration are not one by any means, but they are supposed to share governance, and many faculty are on committees that have significant influence on the administration. They can advocate for us as we can advocate for them as we can advocate together on greater issues (divestment, hello?). We need to understand the system that is irrevocably shaping us, and we need to shape it back.
