Why the backlash against adjuncts is an indictment of the tenure system

Editor’s Note: We’ve devoted a lot of Making Sen$e coverage to the struggles of adjunct professors, who make an average of $2,500 per course and often balance part-time teaching loads at multiple institutions to make ends meet. But many adjuncts used to make as much, and still teach as much and publish as much as tenured professors.

Why the backlash against adjuncts is an indictment of the tenure system Tenure-1024x768

Why the backlash against adjuncts is an indictment of the tenure system Tenure-1024x768

The backlash against adjuncts, Denise Cummins writes, is in part an acknowledgement from full professors of just how meaningless the tenure division is; they know their adjunct peers are just as qualified to be sitting in their offices as they are.

Cummins is a research psychologist who has held faculty and research positions at Yale University, the University of California and the University of Illinois, and is an elected fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. She’s written for the Chronicle of Higher Education and blogs at Psychology Today.

Making Sen$e first explored the tenure-adjunct divide in our segment on the graying of academia, where we met adjunct Joe Fruscione, who, like many adjuncts, found himself locked out of tenure-track positions because older faculty are staying on the job longer. We followed Joe in our deeper look at “adjunctivitis” on the NewsHour, and since leaving academia, he’s written about why students and parents should care about the plight of adjunct professors.

Cummins adds to those appeals, pointing out how the tenure system discriminates against adjuncts and women pursuing full professorships.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/why-the-backlash-against-adjuncts-is-an-indictment-of-the-tenure-system/

Why the backlash against adjuncts is an indictment of the tenure system

Why the backlash against adjuncts is an indictment of the tenure system

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