Perspective

Professors take the long course in poverty

By MELANIE HUBBARD, Special to the Times
Published January 6, 2008

Are you a professor? Are you on a search committee?"

I was asked these questions with some frequency last week at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association in Chicago. They replaced the one I've grown used to over the years: "Are you looking for a job?" I look like a tenured associate professor ready to hire the newbies (I've grown old, I've grown old), but after 10 years of searching for a steady, salaried gig, I am, in fact, still looking.

I am not alone. At MLA, the largest meeting of its kind in the nation, with roughly 14,000 participants from graduate students to English and foreign language professors, the latest devastating statistics were all anyone talked about: According to the American Association of University Professors, 68 percent of all jobs in higher education are part-time, temporary, or both. By the stricken looks of my peers, these facts are hitting hardest in the humanities.

From what I've seen, professors are often paid no more than $1,600 to $2,400 a course, without benefits of any sort, much less contracts extending beyond the current term. Though 20 percent may have full-time but temporary work, 48 percent in all disciplines nationwide are adjuncts. Known as "freeway flyers," these homeless professors may cobble together part-time course loads from two or three institutions in a futile attempt to break above the poverty line. One professor I talked to, Andrew Smith of Tennessee Tech, spent so long on what he calls the "tenuous track" that his family was forced to go on food stamps.

Knowledge workers are now disproportionately female, providing a downwardly mobile second income - and volunteer labor - if they choose to remain in the profession at all. Think about it: In order to earn a modest yearly income, say $33,000, an adjunct would have to teach 20 courses at $1,650 per course - an impossibility, and twice the workload of her salaried peers.

Americans would not tolerate having their surgeries performed by itinerant doctors paid by the piece (Dr. Barber will be doing your prostatectomy for about 20 bucks in the back of his car - he's not a urologist, but don't worry, he does these all over the state), so why would we tolerate the reduction of the teaching profession to wage slavery? Why do institutions with adjunct rates above 40 percent continue to receive accreditation? Perhaps the public is simply unaware of the problem, but students are aware.

"I've been going to this school for two years, and you're the first real professor I've had!" a student said to my husband. That was 15 years ago. Students are paying much more for much less: Tuition has outpaced inflation by 3-1, while the full-time professoriate has dwindled in the midst of surging student enrollments. First- and second-year courses are now routinely subcontracted, so students are getting less than they ever have while working harder and harder, or amassing crushing debt, to pay for it.

Of the "abysmal" prospects for those wishing to become professors, Robbi Rhodes, a graduate student at Ohio State, told me, "I don't think I'd encourage students to go to grad school - not in good conscience." About to finish her dissertation in Victorian literature and science, she'll give her own job search another year. And if it doesn't work out? "I'll go to medical school."

The hard truth is that colleges and universities have figured out that it pays to exploit the workers. Financial setbacks and pressure from states unwilling to fund higher education have led to a corporate profit-seeking model which bears little relation to the educational mission.

This near-famine for the professoriate has direct consequences for students. Studies indicate, for instance, that the more community colleges rely on part-time labor, the lower the graduation rate of their students. Part-time faculty generally share office space with as many as 50 other part-timers, making student conference time haphazard at best. But individual attention is the backbone of most real education, and the student's relationship with a faculty member forms the basis for the all-important letters of recommendation the student will need when applying for a job or further education.

Part-timers and temporary professors are strapped for time; it's hard to generate new research in our cars. We thus fail, as a profession, to present students with the most groundbreaking work in our fields, and in a globalized economy, they will pay the price of our ignorance.

But, you say, we're still competitive, right? Nope. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, 43 percent of Americans are literate enough to sign a form or read a TV guide - and that's about it. Only 13 percent of us can read well enough to compare viewpoints in two editorials.

A friend of mine, a corrosively brilliant new Ph.D., will be teaching this term at a local community college. For every hour she spends outside the classroom, be it helping her students with their writing skills, advising them on a career choice, writing a letter of recommendation, or discussing a book or idea, she will be taking money out of her own pocket. She tells me, "It's an honor to be the person who introduces someone to Homer. But choosing to be an academic has destroyed me financially." She's made far better money laying carpet. School starts Monday.

Melanie Hubbard received her Ph.D. in English from Columbia University in 1998. Her research has won national fellowship awards, including a Whiting and a National Endowment for the Humanities. Currently finishing a scholarly book, she is unemployed.

[Last modified January 5, 2008, 21:05:35]