A Kindred Colleague Shares Her Passion for Adjunct Support

Dr. Penny Edwards from University of Rhode Island discusses her dissertation research on Adjunct Faculty Vitality and her passion and advocacy for adjunct faculty with Maggie and John.  There are many similarities between her discoveries and the experience of adjunct faculty and department chairs. 

Theme music composed, performed and produced by James Husni.

Adjunct Nation is a collaborative podcast under the auspices of The Lucas Center for Faculty Development at FGCU. You can learn more by clicking on this link:

https://www.fgcu.edu/lucascenter/

Transcript

Welcome to the Adjunct Files.
We're a growing, diverse community who face challenging work in an ever-changing, higher
education landscape.
Your co-hosts for this podcast are with you in this.
I'm John Roth, Adjuncts since 2015 and now a coordinator for Adjunct Faculty at Florida
Gulf Coast University.
I'm Maggie Hohne, Adjunct since 2022 and currently work in the Office of First-Year Seminars.
Together we hope to have conversations to empower, support, and elevate Adjunct Faculty.
This conversation today is one to do just that.
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Adjunct Files.
John, how are you?
Good.
This is our first podcast where we're using online because our guest today is amazing
and I wanted to definitely connect with her again, Penny Edwards from University of Rhode
Island.
She has done a lot of research on Adjunct Faculty and just finished her dissertation.
Woo-hoo!
Penny, why don't you introduce yourself?
Tell us your role at University of Rhode Island.
We'll ask about your journey in higher education, but you could just kind of jump into that
as well.
Sure, thanks John.
Thanks Maggie.
I really appreciate the invitation to join you guys today.
This is an exciting opportunity.
Also a little nerve-wracking personally, but you know, it's okay.
So as you said, my name is Penny Edwards and I currently am in the role of faculty development
specialist in the Office for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning at the University
of Rhode Island and I have been in this role for a little over two years.
Very excited to be in Rhode Island.
I'm originally from the south and have been thoroughly enjoying my time here in Rhode
Island.
It's a beautiful state, over 400 miles of coastline, so I get to enjoy the beach on a regular
basis.
So that's very, very nice.
So I've been working in higher education for about 20 years.
So we're going to date myself right now.
Darden, at the age of eight.
Ha, ha, ha.
Thanks John.
But no, so yeah.
So I've been, I've been in higher ed from working in higher ed now for right around 20
years.
And I would say the journey has been rather circuitous.
I think my first experience in higher ed was as a grad student.
Over 20 years ago when I was at the University of Florida and worked as a research assistant
and also as a TA towards the end of my time there.
And that was a wonderful experience.
It was a PhD program.
I got pregnant during a PhD program and stopped out at the end of my third year and had my
daughter who was amazing and wonderful and just decided at that point that life is important
and being with her as she was young was the ultimate importance for me and the education
would always be there.
And I think that's a core belief of mine is that education is always there.
And I've said that to many students.
And so a way to keep myself in touch with my profession, which my background is in psychology
was to start as a part time faculty at a local community college.
And so I started my role in higher ed professionally after grad school as part time faculty and
then shifted into a full time faculty position.
And I spent 16 years teaching as higher ed faculty.
And during that time I also served as a social sciences department chair for four years.
And it was just a wonderful experience.
I think in our careers when we've been doing this for a while, we tend to reinvent ourselves
to keep ourselves fresh and vital and engaged.
And so I'd say about every five, six years during that time, I would kind of reinvent
my role.
And towards the end of that time as faculty, I started really, really becoming more and
more involved in faculty and professional development.
And so I would create and offer workshops, book clubs, various things of that nature,
and shifted into the faculty development space, leaving the faculty position and moved into
a staff position at a medical school actually, where I served as a faculty development program
manager and did a short stint working in that role for about two years.
It was a very eye-opening experience in wonderful, wonderful ways.
And then shifted to my position here at URI, still remaining in faculty development.
And so I'd say at this point I've probably had about five years of full time experience
in faculty development and probably in total about three years before that in faculty
development.
So that's kind of been my journey to this position now.
And I'm very excited to be in this position.
Awesome.
Was there a specific turning point or like an instance that made you transition into the
faculty development and step away from the classroom?
Or are you still teaching as an adjunct now?
That's a great question.
Yes, there was.
And yes, I will be.
So yes, there was.
Actually, it was my experience as a department chair that solidified that shift for me.
One of the reasons why I became a department chair is because I wanted to be in what I
perceived to be a position that would allow me to more strongly advocate for and support
our faculty, including our part time faculty.
And I realized after serving in that role, which was a difficult and challenging role,
but also something that I greatly appreciated was that sometimes to be the advocate that
you want to be and to be the strong supporter that you want to be for faculty, maybe you
don't need to be supervising them.
And so that was kind of my realization that, yeah, that's a different type of thing.
It's a dynamic, an important dynamic, but a different dynamic.
And I couldn't really be the advocate and the supporter that I truly wanted to be for
them in that role.
And because I was the boss, I was the supervisor.
And that's not, I didn't want that power dynamic.
That's not who I am.
And so I was like, okay, this is definitely not going to be the way for me to do this
to enact these kinds of changes and support that I want to do.
And so that solidified my decision into now I need to be in a different space to advocate
for and support.
And then I have not been teaching for the last four years as I've been working on my
PhD, which I've been very kind of sad about because I love teaching and I miss teaching.
But I'm very excited about the fact that I will be back in the classroom this fall,
and I will be teaching a graduate level course.
I'll be co-teaching with a colleague of mine.
I've co-taught before.
And so this time I'll be co-teaching a graduate level class on basically the college teaching
toolkit, working with our grad students on what are some of the evidence based or evidence
supported practices and teaching approaches and helping them develop an initial sort of
teaching portfolio.
So I'm super excited about that.
That sounds like an amazing class.
It's new for us.
We just started a graduate certificate in college teaching.
And so this is one of the foundational courses.
It's a certificate that's open to all of our graduate students.
And I also sent an announcement about it to all of our part time faculty so that they
would know that it was available.
Amazing.
Congratulations again on your defense of your dissertation.
Here's a little about what you were researching with that.
Sure.
Yes.
So my research focused in on a concept known as faculty vitality, which originally
stems from psychology and the things that we think about around vitality, self-determination
theory, energy, flourishing, thriving within the broader field of positive psychology.
But there is a quite robust set of literature going back 60, 70 years that specifically
focuses in on the kind of vitality that faculty experience working in higher education.
And so after doing some literature work on looking at the various models that have been
out there in history in this area, I identified one and it's a more contemporary model.
It has been around in the literature for about the last five years, five, six years.
And it's a fairly comprehensive model that has multiple components.
And one of the key kind of absences in the literature around faculty vitality is that
no one has looked at part time faculty.
And the part time faculty experience in higher education, specifically around faculty
vitality.
And so my dissertation study looked at the experience of vitality by part time faculty
at a single institution.
And I can go into more detail if you like.
Yeah.
No, I, what's the model?
What is that called that you?
So sure.
The model that I leveraged was a model that was originally put together by Andy Filippo.
And it was published in an article by Andy Filippo and J.D.
And they worked together to kind of put together this model.
And so the model has, I would say four major components or four major areas.
And so the first one is sort of the core characteristics, attitudes, dispositions of
faculty vitality.
So we're talking about things like motivation, energy, curiosity, optimism, grit, creativity.
And so Dave Filippo and D sort of argued that faculty who have these sort of attitudes
and dispositions would then in turn engage in certain behaviors as sort of like examples
of their sort inherent vitality.
And so these things might be like seeking out challenges or taking risks, collaborating
with colleagues or with students and a deep interest in self-improvement and sort of engaging
in professional development.
And they said that this is certainly something that is highly dependent on institutional
context.
And that is one of the key threads to all of the literature on faculty vitality is that
the experience of vitality for faculty is very dependent on the institutional context.
And so Dave Filippo and D described these antecedents of faculty vitality that would influence sort
of the presence of these vitality characteristics and these vitality behaviors.
And they talked about it from an individual standpoint.
Whether that be like mentoring, professional networks, prior socialization.
And they also talked about it from an organizational standpoint.
So talking about like that supportive leadership, flexible structures, reward systems, the workplace
climate, thinking about relationships with coworkers and professional development.
And so those were sort of those antecedents.
And then it's a big model at the very kind of end.
If you think about something of a linear kind of a model, Dave Filippo and D said, okay,
well, if we have these amazing antecedents like these faculty have all these wonderful
experiences, great leaders, great department, you know, these great personal experiences
coming into their roles.
And they have these kind of inherent qualities of optimism and grit and these kinds of things.
And they're engaging in these behaviors that then sort of sustain and bolster their vitality.
Well, then at the end of the day, they're going to be very productive and they're going
to feel very satisfied in their jobs and feel very fulfilled.
They're going to have like a sense of agency.
They're going to have a better work-life balance.
And so that model is the model that I used in my dissertation study to look at what does
this look like for part-time faculty?
And I kind of bounded it within one institution.
And I did a mixed methods approach where the first thing I did was administer a survey
to part-time faculty.
It was about 413.
That's actually a very specific number.
So 413 faculty received the survey.
And I had 77 of them respond and they reported sort of a moderate level of vitality at the
institution where they worked.
And then my entire purpose really for that first quantitative phase of this mixed method
study was to find out who are those faculty who are reporting high levels of vitality.
Because I wanted to talk to them.
I wanted to have a conversation with them about what's working.
So I leveraged an appreciative inquiry approach and used that to frame interview questions.
And so then I conducted interviews with six part-time faculty who were reporting high
levels of vitality and talked to them about their work experiences.
And this whole process really was, for lack of a better phrase because it is rather qualitative,
it was kind of a replication, if you will, of what De Folipo did in her original research
with full-time mid-career faculty.
I leveraged her survey with her permission and her interview protocol with her permission
and then modified them to fit the part-time faculty audience.
And then had these interviews with wonderful folks and learned a great deal about their
experiences and sort of what was influencing their experience of high vitality.
What was the most important or the most surprising thing that you found?
Great questions.
I would say probably the most important thing that I found, which is not terribly surprising,
I think to anyone who has known or worked with or been part-time faculty, is that the
department really matters.
That unit climate, that departmental experience that the part-time faculty person has really,
really has a strong, strong influence on their perception of their own vitality, what sustains
their vitality, what helps them feel connected to the institution, what helps them feel prepared
to be able to teach their classes, what helps them feel like they belong and that they
have value.
It's really kind of that departmental culture and experience, which of course should be
situated within a larger institutional culture of support and value placed on part-time faculty.
Let's say that's probably the most important kind of finding, which again is maybe not surprising.
But kind of related to that is these are part-time faculty who come into their roles with a strong
sense of internal vitality themselves.
They are very passionate about what they're doing and students and student relationships
were critically important to them and this idea of giving back was very, very important
to them.
I would say the most surprising finding from my research was that every single one of the
interviewees, and it is only six, but still every single one of these interviewees who
were reporting high vitality in my research study, they were all alums.
I was not expecting that.
I'm going to go back and do some more work in the literature to kind of see because it
really is very curious and they weren't the same type of alum.
So we had folks that were undergrads here at the institution where they were teaching.
We had folks who were graduate students and then there was even a postdoc who did not
come to that institution for undergrad or graduate school but came as a postdoc and then
stayed.
And so it was really, really interesting that that's kind of how that manifested for this
particular sample.
John, you have all kinds of thoughts on your face.
John, we're trying to look at some of these same things here at FGCU.
This is, I got to read your dissertation.
I just have to now.
What were some of the characteristics of departments where faculty feel most vitalized?
Did you find some of those aspects out?
Yeah, that's a great question.
So first and foremost was incredibly strong supportive leadership from the department
chair, a department chair that truly valued the investment that they were making in part
time faculty and demonstrated that in concrete ways as well as establishing a sense of care
and concern around the part time faculty within the department.
So that could appear to be something literally as in, oh, here's an office for you to use
because physical space, as you may not know, is sometimes hard to come by for part time
faculty.
And so that was actually something that several of the folks talked about was having the physical
space available to them that their department chair provided to them was really helpful.
Having the physical resources to be able to teach, the necessary, you know, literally
like Scantrons if you're going to use Scantrons and a Scantron machine to actually score them.
It's like having actual physical materials to teach the classes, having the physical space
to teach the classes, having the department chair help connect the part time faculty member
to the colleagues and the other faculty within the department.
And then subsequently the relationships that part time faculty had with their colleagues
and co-workers in their department.
Usually there was a more senior full time faculty who provided course materials,
syllabi, you know, actual assignments and assignment instructions for the part time faculty to be
able to modify and speak to your modification.
There was that sense of trust that the leadership within the department, including the senior
faculty and the department chair engendered within the faculty member, within the part
time faculty member that they had the autonomy to be able to make changes, even if that was in
conjunction with, you know, more senior faculty.
So those were just some of the things that came out of that.
In your research, did you see any higher levels of vitality and specific disciplines?
Mmm, that is also a great question.
I would say that that would be difficult to pinpoint, mainly because if I were to think
through the quantitative results from the survey and those individuals who reported high vitality,
it was across a variety of disciplines.
We had 30, 33 departments represented across the survey, which I was very pleased by.
And I don't have the numbers off the top of my head about those who reported high vitality,
what the spread would be across the departments.
I will say that of the six individuals that I interviewed, there were two part time faculty
that were within the same college, which was the college of education, but they weren't in the
same department or the same area within education.
And I don't know necessarily that that would be connected to the high vitality that could be
more connected to education folks, appreciate education research and might have been a self-
selecting bias to actually participate in the study.
So that would be more inclined to think that that would be why more so than the high vitality.
So at this point, I could not say that there was something unique about a particular discipline.
Henny, you're in a center for teaching and learning.
Did you find in your research that a CTL has a role in this or is it just mainly the departments?
Or what can a set of for teaching and learning do to support vitality among adjunct faculty?
Fantastic questions. I would say, so for our institution, hiring and whatever onboarding
does exist, happens with, yeah, exactly, within the departments.
And so we have a very decentralized experience for part-time faculty.
And so a lot of that kind of hiring and onboarding, if it exists, happens within the department.
I do believe that there is a place for a center for teaching and learning to support part-time
faculty. And I think that that is one of the best locations in an institution to have part-time
faculty support. And so I think for my role here, the role that I have in this institution
is has morphed and changed. So I might answer other questions as I'm trying to answer this one.
So when I was first hired here in a center of teaching and learning, I was hired as a generalist,
a general faculty developer, a little bit of everything. And over time, as my role has shifted,
and my research has become more focused on part-time faculty support,
my job position has also morphed and changed. And so at this point, one of my primary roles and
responsibilities within my job is part-time faculty support. And so I think that having an individual
within a center for teaching and learning, and ideally in other units across campus,
who's like, maybe not sole responsibility because it's not my sole responsibility,
there's other things I do. But having someone who's like, that is part of their job,
and they have the time and the space and the bandwidth to dedicate to that support, I think
is really important. Part-time faculty to me have a different set of needs than full-time faculty,
not in any way to take away from the full-time faculty needs and their circumstances, because
there's certainly a lot of need there and support that CTLs can provide there. But I think part-time
faculty are a bit of a different group. And I think it's important for a CTL to have an individual
who can offer support to part-time faculty. And I think that can occur in different ways. I think
if you have someone in a CTL whose focus is on part-time faculty support, they can be a connector
through the department chairs to the part-time faculty. So in our case, it's very decentralized.
So part of my role is to be a connection or a conduit from me to the department chairs and
to the part-time faculty. But that is not the only conduit or the only connection. There's also
a direct connection from me to the part-time faculty. I strive every semester to get an updated
list of part-time faculty, usually a few are human resources. But because we're so decentralized,
that complete list doesn't actually exist until after the semester starts.
So hence the relationships with the department chairs become incredibly important.
And so for us, we do part-time faculty specific email communication. We have something that is
akin to a little bit of a listserv, which will be further developed as time goes by. I think part-time
faculty specific newsletters or things like that kind of email communication can be really helpful
so that part-time faculty can feel seen and valued and appreciated. I think recognition in
other ways is important for part-time faculty. That doesn't necessarily have to live within a
CTL. For us, it exists in another area of our institution. We do have a part-time faculty teaching
award, which I think is really great. And I've started on that awards committee for the past three
years. Great, great experience. I think, you know, sort of having that dedicated staff position who
can be that connector with human resources, with department chairs, but also from like a programming
standpoint. I mean, I think it's really important to recognize that part-time faculty have a lot of
challenges around time, full-time faculty too, but it's a little different if you're a part-time
faculty member and you're also working a full-time job somewhere or if you're caregiving or caretaking,
or if you have, you know, six part-time faculty jobs because you need to make a living wage.
And so I think that's a piece for the programming aspect. So thinking about asynchronous options,
thinking about just-in-time opportunities, thinking about micro-learning kinds of things,
and then thinking about, you know, if you're going to offer something synchronous, maybe it's in the
evening, maybe it's earlier in the morning than you might do otherwise, maybe it's even on a weekend.
And so that's kind of a little bit different way to think about it. And of course, having a staff
person who's willing and able to be able to engage in those kind of off hours is important,
because not everybody can do that. So those are just some of the things I think I answered.
Oh my goodness, you answered a lot.
I kind of use the analogy of an hourglass and department chairs that little nexus in the middle
where everything has to pass through from upper administration as well as in all the
responsibilities below knowing their job is like ridiculously complex with everything going on,
kind of being in that middle. And yet knowing and advocating for adjunct faculty being
supported properly within departments, how are you going to present your findings in this dissertation
to the University of Rhode Island departments in a way that doesn't like they either blow it off
or feel like they're overwhelmed with what they need to be doing. There's a lot of questions in
there, John. Just like my brain's going nuts over this. So I think there's a few things that I kind
of have in my mind in response to that. All of that wonderful, wonderful thinking around that,
because you're right. I think I really do think department chairs in many ways are the key.
And having been a department chair, I think that that is an advantage that I have in these
conversations. And I do lean on that. I mean, I do share when I have conversations with department
chairs and when I email with them, I do share. I've been in that role. I understand the pains.
I understand the challenges of that. And I've hired part-time faculty. I've evaluated them. I've
had to let a few go, unfortunately. And it's like, I understand the complexities around that.
So I do lean into that part of my background and identity as a way to connect and relate.
And I also recognize that we are, I am in the center for teaching and learning. And part of
the way that I try to frame things with department chairs too is basically along the lines of,
help me help you. I want to help you in the work that you're doing. You value your department.
I'm going to always go in with a positive assumption, even if I have been told things about certain
departments. I'm still going to enter the conversation, the positive assumption, and positive intentions.
So I might kind of enter in that conversation of, I know you want to support your faculty.
You want to support the students that are in your programs and things like that. So help me
understand, how can I help you work with your part-time faculty? What are some things that you
are already doing? What are some things that maybe we can do on your behalf with them?
Can you connect me with them? Can you serve me up as a resource to your part-time faculty and
take some of that load off of your plate? Is there someone else in your department who works with
part-time faculty? Connect them with me and I can help them who are helping you. And then in turn,
help the part-time faculty, which always in turn helps the students because that is the ultimate goal.
And so that's kind of how I approach that. And I will share that so much of the work that I'm
doing here at URI is it's ongoing and it's really kind of in some of the nascent stages.
Prior to my role being shifted into the way that it has been shifted, there has not historically
been someone supporting part-time faculty across the institution like this.
So there's a lot of foundational pieces that I've been trying to sort of lay the groundwork for,
a lot of relationship building, a lot of connections across campus, a lot of identifying like who
are the people, which offices do I need to be connected with? How do we need to do this? And so
I definitely have a long-term plan, you know, three-year plan, five-year, 10-year, you know,
to build this out. And so I'm still in that kind of very foundation building phase. I did send out
a survey to our department chairs this past academic year and ask them many questions about
their part-time faculty hiring, onboarding, and support experiences within their departments.
And I will be gradually building out sort of department profiles to kind of understand what
are the differences and similarities across the departments. This is going to be time-consuming.
And as you can imagine, doing that at the same time as I'm, you know, doing an dissertation,
kind of got to prioritize here, here and there. But fortunately, my research and my job very much
dovetail nicely and beautifully together. And I'm very grateful for that. So yeah, so I think
there's definitely a ways to go, you know, for other things that I want to develop. And that
absolutely is critical to have that partnership and those relationships with department chairs.
And I believe in what they do. I'll add a little nuance for us too. The department chairs here at
our institution are typically on like three-year contracts, three-year terms. And so it's possible
that they will change every three years. And so that's something that is common at some institutions,
but also uncommon at other places. When I was a department chair, that was not a thing. So that's
been something I've been kind of navigating as well too. And there isn't a specific rotation
across the departments. You know, it's kind of, you know, hot podge. So it is a, it is probably one
of my biggest challenges is kind of just getting the lay of, you know, the land here with that and
making sure that I'm doing the best I can to meet them where they are and provide them with the
support that they need so that they can then in turn support their part come back early.
Once you've laid the foundation and you've kind of done all the nitty-curdy, what does the next five
to ten years look like for you? Like what's your goal? I wasn't on there was the questions who gave me.
But I love that. I mean, okay. So if we could, you know, maybe for a moment,
suspend reality and think about kind of like my ideal pie in the sky plans for part-time
faculty at our institution. I would love to see an institution wide onboarding program
for our part-time faculty. And it can all attend in some capacity, whatever that might look like.
I would love for it to be able to be in person, but I absolutely recognize the challenges around
that. So maybe there's an in-person option and a virtual option. And we can bring all part-time
faculty together across the entire institution and do that from an onboarding standpoint or
orientation standpoint, because we don't have that. I would love to see, you know, in addition to
that, I would love to see college-specific orientation or onboarding options for part-time faculty.
And I think that's a, that's something that would be really helpful. I would also like to see
a stronger connectivity between the different areas on the institution that support part-time
faculty. So in addition to our office and my role within our office, and of course the department
chairs and the colleges and, you know, HR, our HR is kind of morphing and changing a little bit
and progressing in wonderful ways. We also have a part-time faculty union, which is not common
across the country. And so we can come back to that in a moment. But I do want to say, since
we're, you know, pie in the sky dreaming here, that I would love to see additional like connective
tissue, if you will, across the part-time faculty union, human resources, the colleges and the
department chairs and our office to kind of really, you know, provide part-time faculty with a network
of support across the whole institution. And those are very organizationally oriented kinds of
goals and ideals. From a teaching and learning standpoint, I'd like to see more part-time faculty
specific programming. I'll be working on developing part-time faculty specific resource guides that
we'll post on our website. So there's things like that that I would like to see in the next three to
five years. I would like to see more part-time faculty able to engage in what we do. I'd like
to have more asynchronous resources built out. We've got a few, but I'd like to have more of those
built out and really just have more options for them and a handbook. There are certain
department or college specific handbooks that are available for part-time faculty that is very,
very few and far between. Very, very few. I'd like to have something that's a little bit more
institutional that the colleges could then maybe plop in kind of their own specific things.
So yeah, so those are just some of the, all something grand idea that I have.
It's good to hear because I think we're on the same track in some ways. Our institutions are
totally different in some ways. There is no possibility of an adjunct faculty union here.
But a lot of the, the needs are the needs across the board. Yeah, it's great to hear your ideas.
I just love them. Maggie, what are you thinking? What excites you? What other questions does this
raise for you? It all excites me. I love professional development and just like continually improving
myself. But I think that what you found from your research about alumni from the institution,
having a higher sense of vitality, I'm an alumni from this institution. So once you said that, I was
like, oh yeah, that's me. And I know like 20 other people that I went to school with the now adjunct
here and do all the things. So I'm not, I wouldn't say that surprised me, but I am one of those people.
So I thought that that was very, very interesting. And now I want to do like my own little research
and scope around on campus and see what we can find. It's exciting. Yes.
I just love a lot of the work that you're doing now. We did have a question also about just the idea
of equity. The union probably has some involvement with those types of issues there. We have a faculty
senate here, but adjunct faculty are not part of it. Cannot be a part of it. It's not a part of any
in the floor, University of Florida system, the state university system. We're trying to just have
some kind of voice. I go to those just to represent adjunct faculty, trying to make those connections.
Where's the voice or where's the, is that part of what you're hoping to have, have happened a little
more for the part time faculty at URI? I'd love for them to have a voice within the faculty senate.
They don't currently, but I think that would be fantastic. I've attended the faculty senate
meetings here at our institution because I've served on faculty senate as a faculty member in
the past and have an appreciation for them and the nuances in the politics and things that occur
in such a place. But no, the part time faculty do not have representation in that way. I think
that would be a really great way to sort of elevate their role and their voice at our institution.
The union is a strong union here for part time faculty and we're very fortunate to have that.
And that is actually something that came through in the interviews in my research quite strongly
that they very much appreciated the advocacy of the part time faculty union. I would say,
you know, in terms of, when I think about equity, there's lots of things that I could think about
with that. I mean, you know, really part time faculty are the most marginalized group in all
at academia from an instructor standpoint. And, you know, the pay is notoriously horrible.
You know, there is no living wage available for a part time faculty member. And there's often
like no benefits of any kind. And, you know, that I think is horrible and very problematic.
And something that I think academia as a whole really needs to address. We really need to do better
in terms of paying adjunct faculty. And I think, too, you know, there is a tremendous amount of
invisible labor that part time faculty engage in. And I'm not just talking about the extigrating
or the extra course prep that's not included in your teaching contract. There's student hours,
there's student advocacy, there's student work that you're doing. And, you know, there's the
plethora of emails that you're answering on vacations and holidays and the weekends,
you know, that doesn't end. And that's not included in your contact hours and your teaching contract.
Heaven forbid you actually go to a department meeting that you're not going to get paid to
attend if you're even invited. Yeah. You know, there's we should pay them
well. And like all of this invisible labor that they're engaging in should be included in some
capacity in a teaching contract. You know, we have lots of part time faculty who engage in like
student learning outcomes assessment and program outcomes assessment. You know, and like, let's
have a contract for that. Let's pay them for their efforts. You know, if you're going to have them
come to a department meeting or things like that, you know, pay them for that. Pay them for professional
development. You know, they don't they make a pittance. So I mean, it's like it's not like
they're not going to be making more than any full time instructor ever. So, you know, we could
at least pay them a living wage, give them some benefits, you know, give them some, you know,
healthcare options, retirement options, things like that. And not only that thinking about equity,
you know, as well, there's a huge percentage of part time faculty that have other minoritized
and marginalized identities. And they're carrying the workload. They are the backbone of our
institutions. Oh, and I think that's really lost on a lot of people.
Henny, I just wish you were passionate about this. Sorry.
I'm just like, reach it. Let me step off my soapbox. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
get down yet. Come on. Wow, that was that was wow. What do you think Maggie? Your reaction.
I was just like, yes, keep going and preach. Please. I'm like, I want this whole monologue on a t-shirt.
But everything you said was completely true and valid. So and it's like,
I don't see you. So you're just like out there. You're like an idea. You're not a part of my day-to-day
kind of thing. The hidden gems in the background. Yes.
We did find here for the majority of department chairs when we interviewed them
that they were struggling with what they expected out of adjunct faculty for how much they were
able to pay them. And they felt their hands were tied because they didn't have any more funding
to do it. And so they hated to ask for more. And yet they knew they needed to. It was just a,
I don't know if as a department chair, if you felt that as well, this like stuck in the middle.
You're sort of raising another kind of hidden piece to this in that higher education does not
support department chairs enough. That's true. And if we could support department chairs any
more robust, meaningful way, then they would in turn have the ability to support part-time
faculty and the rest of their faculty within their departments. And that I think is a piece too
that is critically important that I also don't hear enough talking about. That'll be my future soapbox
is, you know, give department chairs more support. So right now I'm focusing on the part-time faculty,
but I do have, I still also will have a soft spot in my heart for all department chairs. The way
that I do for part-time faculty, because I think it's just, it is an underappreciated position. And
very important. Very important. And right. Yeah, very good. I think
it feels like here at our university, at least Maggie, you can, most people have at least two
jobs if not more. And they're paid for basically one. And we're not even, you know, we're struggling.
We're a low-wage state in a high rent area. Maggie, you want to add anything to that?
I'm just excited, like hearing your research and just everything that's going on,
knowing that hearing that John and you were on the same page with what you're doing to support
adjunct faculty. I'm like, whoo, we're all moving in the right direction. So I think that
this whole talk has been fantastic. And like John, I want to read your dissertation 100%.
We're going to have- I'm very curious. Penny, this is wonderful. I just hope you have now.
Were you able to celebrate or will you celebrate yet finishing your dissertation?
I don't know. I did, I've been getting a little more sleep and that has been so refreshing.
I think the, you know, the dark circles and bags under my eyes are a little less prevalent these
days, which is nice. And I did manage to have a nice long weekend with my partner over in the
Berkshires in western Massachusetts recently. And that was really lovely. I had not visited
there and it was just a beautiful area, a beautiful space. And so it was nice to
not take a computer with me. Awesome. I left it back at the office and my personal one at home
and so it was nice to decompress for a few days. But other than that, just kind of, you know,
keep going and, you know, I'll be visiting the beach more this summer since it's so close.
Yes. Well, this has been fantastic and we really appreciate it.
Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you so much.
We'll see you again. Thanks a lot for listening. Thank you so much. Thanks, y'all.
Bye-bye. Take care.
Music for the adjunct files was written, composed, and produced by James Hussey.
Music