Dear Anna,

If I may offer a couple thoughts on your clarification, I’d distinguish two issues.

First, the adjunct role has different meanings in different nations. The term “adjunct” seems to mean what we would call “sessional staff” or “casual labor” here – untenured, part time positions hired as needs are determined each semester.

In most Australian universities, and certainly at Swinburne, an adjunct title is the equivalent of the same title in its ordinary form. The role is unpaid, though an adjunct who comes to teach a seminar or run a project may be paid for the project. Generally, our adjuncts are full professors fully employed at top universities elsewhere, such as Prof. Paul Hekkert of Technological University of Delft or Prof. Lily Diaz of Aalto University. Some adjuncts are senior professionals who hold a role with us for other purposes, such as Adjunct Senior Research Fellow Carolynne Bourne, former Director of the ISSI organization or Adjunct Research Fellow Russell Kennedy, past president of ICOGRADA.

The second distinction worth making is the degree of freedom and opportunity within those roles labeled adjunct in the US for untenured, part-time work. While folks in these roles may be professional practitioners in such project-driven fields as design or information technology, the vast majority of untenured, part-timeuniversity teachers are in fields that do not operate on this basis. Teachers in the humanities or fine arts do not generally teach on the side of a thriving practice – not even a growing practice. People don’t teach part-time to supplement income at a theology shop or a philosophy take-away. Very few people teach while their medieval English literature start-up is maturing. I’m not making a case for or against these fields, though I believe we need them. Whether or not we need these fields, however, professional practitioners insuch fields as theology, philosophy, or literature conduct their professional practice in universities. A handful of private research centers or specialized organizations employ such people, but they offer far fewer jobs than universities or colleges do. In a zone between project-driven practices and the humanities, most professional practitioners in the social, technical, and natural sciences either work in sectors of business and industry where they are too busy for part-time teaching or they work in universities.

It is true that some people with small design practices enjoy such teaching to supplement their income or simply like to keep their hand in. Mostly, though, people with a growing business can’t afford to teach part-time unless they need the income. While this is a mutually beneficial relationship in many respects, I observe that many people in these kinds of jobs would be happy to have full-time employment.

While it is technically true that “every adjunct has the option to ask for more compensation and to decline an offer to look for other work,” the reality is quite different.

Most pay scales are set on a central basis by the university. While these scales are sometimes negotiated with the unions, they cover all forms of work. They are generally based on such issues as level of the individual’s qualification — someone with a PhD earns more than someone with an BA. It also involves such factors as whether the work done is a “first-off” or a repeat – for example, the same lecture delivered three times is a first-off the first time, a repeat the next two times. The pay for the first lecture is better than for the repeats. If you live in a town with two or three universities and colleges that offer subjects you can teach while hundreds of other part-time teachers seek opportunities in the same field, the option to ask for more compensation in a contract-based environment is meaningless. If you work in an area typified by high unemployment while you have rent or a mortgage to pay and a family to support, declining an offer to look for other work is not a reasonable option.

The idea that untenured, part-time teaching brings research opportunities is incorrect. First, research opportunities require time, a research community, and access to resources. Untenured, part-time jobs focus on students in the classroom. People whose circumstances require them to work at several schools may spend more time on the freeway than in the classroom. It is hard enough for junior academics to finish a PhD and to get their research under way with regular, full-time employment – and that’s at places with good mentors and a systematic development program for young researchers. While there are examples of untenured part-timers who do research, they are few, and their research is generally independent of the places where they teach part-time.

In the late 1980s, I worked as an untenured, part-time staff member at the old Oslo Business School before it merged with the Norwegian School of Management. That’s when I created the first course in strategic design to be taught in Scandinavia. None of the design schools knew what to do with someone with a PhD involved in research but not design history, so I found myself developing courses based on the proposition that design creates value for business andindustry. While part-time teaching was not ideal, it was manageable – and in Norway, the broad public health system meant that I had insurance coverage, while the ability to work as a consultant kept me alive. I still had no time for research, though. The fact that I had neither a wife nor kids meant I could scrape by – things would have been even more difficult than they were if I had had a family.

In 1994, I got a regular position at the Norwegian School of Management. I can tell you which job was better.

Speaking as a dean – at least for the next three days – I value our untenured, part-time staff. We need them. They bring value to our students, they help us to bridge our teaching needs when we do not have as many full-time staff as we’d require, they keep us connected to the working world of design practice.

Speaking as a person who knows untenured, part-time teachers who are underemployed, I’d argue that your view of these issues does not tell the full story. One of the best and most talented artist-teachers I ever knew went from full-time employment in the 1970s to two decades of untenured, part-time work before finding another proper job. He held a range of jobs from flipping burgers to running a photo pick-up booth to feed his kids and stay alive. To me, this was a waste of talent – whether or not he was an artistic genius (though I believe he was), he was on all measures an excellent teacher caught on the wrong side of a downsizing exercise. Another friend of mine was a brilliant anthropologist who wrapped up her PhD during the slump of the middle 1970s. She had one of those five-university commutes for several years before landing a good job. The fact that this job was not in anthropology deprived the world of a great talent and an early researcher who had much to offer the field of aesthetic anthropology.

My sympathies lie with the part-timers whose skills and talents should bring them secure, reasonable jobs in a world where we ask increasing numbers of bright young women and men to get a university education. I am under no illusions about the problems that one faces as a research scholar or scientist in any field that requires the infrastructure of a university to do proper work in his or her field while there are too few university jobs on offer to permit the professional practice of research. These people do not lack full-time jobs because they don’t want them or because they lack the initiative to seek them or to find ways forward. The problem is much deeper and far more complex.

Yours,

Ken

Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Ph: +61 3 9214 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design>

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Anna Carlson wrote:

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Adjunct faculty are (usually) practitioners in their field and/or have completed graduate work.

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It is true adjunct positions are underpaid and under-appreciated. However, every adjunct has the option to ask for more compensation and to decline an offer to look for other work. Adjuncts may seek these positions to supplement other income, or because they may only want part-time work. There are additional benefits to the association with an institution that should not be overlooked: research andlearning opportunities, networking, and the notch on one's CV/resume.

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