Doctoral Candidates Anticipate Hard Times

At the school I am an adjunct at, Miami Dade College, 2/3 of the faculty is part-time. There is roughly about 175,000 students enrolled. That's a lot of adjunct faculty!

 

Exactly- the students at CCs don't know unless we tell them. IN FACT, in our dept, students expect our teachers to also be working in industry. It hasn't occurred to them that teaching is "their job." I get asked every semester where I work LOL. I doubt the business or English teachers get asked that question, but I'd be blown away if even 10% of our 7000 incoming fall student population could define the word "adjunct."

 

Why would you doubt that business instructors would get asked about what "their job" is. Business, unlike the liberal arts, is the quintessential field in which instructors can have full-time jobs in industry while holding part-time adjuncting positions. Now, for faculty positions in English or history or other liberal arts fields, sure, there are plenty of adjuncting positions, but not that many degree-relevant positions in private industry. (Hence, the classic question of liberal arts majors, "And what can you do with that degree ... besides teach?")

 

I am noticing that many students simply do not ask anything about their instructors anymore, most will simply state they are there for 8 weeks and just to get a grade. While the online universities I work for all require that the instructor post a short bio of themselves in each course, I am finding out that some students really have no idea who their instructor is. Of course it depends on the instructor also and if they want to volunteer information, since I am a technology instructor I talk about my IT experiences and things I have seen in the IT industry so far. When I worked for a traditional campus, the students were more open and talked about themselves more and asked questions about myself.

 

I guess that in this debate I'd give the edge to the person actually doing the job.

 

That's interesting, because most of the time, at least some of my students will make a comment about my education history in response to my biographical sketch.

 

Re: Comment

I think in due course the PhD will become common and value will be deflated to suit the masses as has been the case for MBAs and BAAs. I lecture full time at an Asian university college and do part time for a public university, an American online university and am a tutor for a local online university. From what I gather standards have fallen somewhat and is pandemic and widespread. The commercialism and corporatisation of universities has meant that salaries are now under the microscope of not just executive management but also shareholders. The UK Quality Assurance system has also been suspect and I guess it is because cost cutting measures are in place, the UK uni franchises in Asia are pretty much lacking in transfer of expertise and if I were a franchisee I would convey that the contract has not been upheld to the best of the franchisor's ability. What is worse is that the franchisee sets the exam paper and assignments which are then used by the franchisor university in the UK to test their home students. A common practice of outsourcing but franchise model as a front. The franchisee's lecturers and examiners who are underpaid and overworked work 12 months a year with no break whilst the UK counterparts go on long Summer breaks.

What surprises me more is that the franchisees employs staff from the franchisor who condescending denotes that the British Empire still reigns supreme even though it has been yonks since independence has been declared in nations under the Commonwealth. The seconded staff heads the departments, makes no effort to greet their local employees and behaves like a British Raj of the 19th Century. Oh by the way they still harp on how wonderful Britain is as British subjects but makes no attempt to make a return to the shores of Britannia.

 

Re: Competition

It is this outsourcing by British universities that are providing American universities with the greatest competition at low cost after all they are making use of sweat shop labour. Further, it is also cheaper to set up operations in emerging markets using local talent to undercut established universities elsewhere.

The lack of quality controls and the freedom to set up universities in the developed world be it accredited or not is also disturbing. If banks were not checked then how do educational establishments tow the line? The most complex systems in our world were not regulated and thus even academia is not immune to such negative symptoms of recklessness. One Ivy League business school lost 9 Billion USD which I guess explains so much about their syllabus in Finance which I dare not subscribe to if there is anything to go by.

The world of management education and education in general has to be re-looked and not thought of as an off the cuff after dinner subject. It is time academia were more accountable, professional and made responsible to some extent in the way they contribute in moulding minds that corrupt or are their for the good of humankind.

 

15 years ago, most adjunct positions would require only a master's degree. Nowadays it seems the PhD is becoming the standard for adjunct positions and common now in community colleges. Some saturated fields like computer science now require post docs and many publications before you can be considered for a tenure track.

 

Certainly in fields such as Math and English, it seems to be the case from what I saw at the recruiting fair I attended. However, I'm not so sure about the more occupational subjects. Would a CC want an adjunct with a PhD just out of school vs someone with only a masters but has maybe 20 years of industry experience?

 

I only have experience with IT, most CCs would consider more a Microsoft or Cisco certified trainer than a PhD.

 

Humanities...

 

It depend

It does not matter if the PhD is fresh out of school or Masters with experience. What matter the most for CC is that he or she can teach. many people assume that job experience is great, and this might be true, but if one can not teach, then they are not qualified.

 

I'll tell you, if I had a PhD (I don't) I would not be spending too much time looking for some mythical tenure-track university teaching position. I would be doing one of three things (maybe all three). I'd be veryvery busy writing a book or I'd be veryvery busy looking for some sort of crosover job in private industry or I'd be veryvery busy looking for a university teaching job in some exotic (non-US) location. As it is, I'm just planting fruit trees. And I'm all good with that.