Adjuncts and tenure-track faculty have more in common than you might think.

Among the magical appearing/disappearing links showing up on my WordPress dashboard this morning was this one from Burnt-out Adjunct:

The structure is not in place that will allow adjuncts to move out of their Untouchable position in this caste. Institutions have melted (I hate to say evolve here) into the current position because it pays the best for them. Farm out the overflow or the inconsistently enrolled to contingent faculty, freeing up the tenured to persue their passions. If you are one of the few Chosen Ones, then feel complacent and safe–which I know you do–knowing that you need not worry too much except for a system-wide implosion (see California right now).

I can’t disagree with the assessment of adjuncts here, but I think Dan Hamermesh (who actually co-wrote the later versions of my father’s textbook, but that’s a story for another time), writing this morning in Freakonomics, pretty much blows this “complacent and safe” business out of the water:

There are at least four ways of meeting a decline in labor demand: laying off workers, cutting nominal annual salaries, cutting hires, or reducing hours. It is difficult to lay off tenured faculty; but in this recession, universities are using two other methods of cutting payroll.

Some schools have imposed faculty hiring freezes. Others are furloughing faculty: Arizona State, for example, has imposed 15 days of furlough over the next six months. Many years ago, Michigan State met a budget crisis by postponing the implementation of a previously agreed salary increase, essentially a wage cut.

Despite tenure, senior university faculty members are not immune to recession-induced budget crises. Our only consolation is that layoffs are rare.

Of course this is a better economic position to be in than that of the typical adjunct, but we are all in this together to at least some degree. Solidarity means reaching out across caste lines, whether up or down.

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