In the midst of the state’s budget crisis, college institutions are not the only ones experiencing scarcity. With job cuts, low enrollment numbers and lack of scholarships, adjunct faculty members are just as frustrated as students and other professors.
“It’s very unfortunate that they are cutting funds for education,” professor Traci Minnick said. “We need to make education a priority.”
Minnick is an adjunct sociology professor who is currently teaching nine classes at four institutions. They are Moraine Valley, Harper, Triton and Oakton colleges. She has been an adjunct all of her teaching career and usually teaches two classes in one day. She has been at Moraine Valley since 2007, and she considers that to be her full-time “real gig” even though she travels around frequently.
“It’s actually really cool. I don’t have that many other friends that love their job as much as I love my job, and that’s why we put in so many hours traveling around the place,” Minnick said. “It’s just so much fun.”
However, if the weather isn’t perfect, she said it’s an unpleasant feeling trying to get to her next institution.
“When I get done here (at Moraine Valley in Palos Hills) I only have one hour to get up to my next class and that’s every Monday and Wednesday,” Minnick said. “So if there’s like one snowflake or a car accident, I’m in a bad place — like I’m hauling to get up there.”
Although she loves her job, Minnick also expressed hardships she and other adjuncts are experiencing with the budget crisis.
“As far as cutting adjuncts, it’s really unfortunate. It happens to all of us every semester,” Minnick said. “If there’s low enrollment, a full-time instructor gets to take a class and then an adjunct is left without a class. That’s like our livelihood.”
Adjuncts depend on their two or three classes a semester, Minnick said. She also said it stinks when they get the boot and their class is given to full-time faculty. For many adjuncts, it’s a guessing game to figure out how many classes they will have.
“I’m supposed to have four classes this summer,” Minnick said. “I might only have two. I might have to get a different job. It’s a waiting game.”
That different job she alluded to is a seasonal job such as at Home Depot, Starbucks or Hobby Lobby. When a class gets canceled, there is a sense of urgency all adjuncts have to find a way to pay their bills, she said.
“We rely only on this like 85 percent even if this is your full-time job. A lot of the different institutions I teach at have different policies like that,” Minnick said. “If there is a class cancellation they try to let it ride out as long as possible, because if things like enrollment are down, they will give you a week before school starts. So the week before you’re supposed to be working, you don’t know if you have a job.”
Despite the uncertainty, Minnick doesn’t regret her decision to teach. She said it comes with the job and adjuncts are fully aware of what they are getting into. Once you become an adjunct, you get stuck, she said.
“It’s stinks, but it’s a part of life if you want to live this lifestyle. As far as teaching at the adjunct position, I really enjoy it,” Minnick said. “So I’m going to bust and do whatever I have to do and get a crummy job in the summer if I have to, because I really — really like what I’m doing.”
Another aspect of the adjunct lifestyle is adjusting to the academic schedules of different institutions. Midterms, Christmas beaks and spring breaks have always been challenging and stressful, she said.
“That’s the worst part of it. Everyone asks are you going somewhere for spring break? I’m like — no, I have four different spring breaks,” Minnick said. “So some of them coincide but that’s where it gets a little stressful. It’s just a matter of time management.”
Minnick’s time management skills have developed over time and she knows what college she should be at during the week. And she knows all of her students’ names in each of her nine courses, she said. As Minnick looks back at her journey, which started as an elementary education major in college, a sabbatical from teaching English in China, she is truly happy and satisfied with being an adjunct.
“It’s a lot of fun. I enjoy it, it’s rewarding,” Minnick said. “I like to see my kids excited about sociology and education. I feel like I’m doing a good job.”
jrship • Apr 4, 2016 at 5:12 pm
$5k/class. $1k nonrefundable retainer. We all teach at several colleges in the Chicago area. We should have one union and one simple non-negotiable contract demand.
Onesense • Apr 4, 2016 at 4:26 pm
So happy for you that you’re so happy being overworked, underpaid, and exploited. You do all adjuncts a tremendous service by making them realize how truly thankful they should be for their lot. But if you can stop thinking for a minute about how your situation is so rewarding for you, maybe you can think about what it’s like for your students to have a professor who can’t stay after class to answer student questions, or maybe just chat about this and that, because she has to run off to another job at another college that starts in an hour. Or what it’s like for students to have a professor who isn’t supplied by the college with the basics in equipment and training to provide them with the full benefit of the education they’ve paid for. Of what it’s like to have a professor who doesn’t have the pedagogical necessity of academic freedom and can be fired, no questions asked, on the basis of just one false complaint by a student. Or what it’s like for students to have a professor who is supposed to be a model of the benefits of a college degree and the better lifestyle it can bring, but is herself scraping by on precarious employment and poverty wages by the very college that touts the value of the degrees its selling. Adjuncts, individually, may be wonderful teachers, but their working conditions stink for students. Instead of being so wrapped up in how rewarding adjunct teaching is for you, you should be concerned about how devastating it is for students nationwide.
jrship • Apr 4, 2016 at 5:15 pm
It’s a balancing act. The job is very rewarding on a personal level. We do it because we have a calling to teach. But they’re taking advantage of us because of that. We could do much more for our students if our institutions would commit to supporting educators as their budget priority. They won’t do it unless we force them. One region-wide union. One non-negotiable contract demand $5k/class with a $1k non-refundable retainer.
Tommy • Apr 20, 2016 at 1:27 pm
Don’t you actually do it because you need a job? By the way, whether under any state’s or the federal collective bargaining laws, it’s illegal to make non-negotiable demands at the bargaining table; it’s an unfair labor practice for either management or the workers to make non-negotiable demands and, if you were to strike over it, your strike would be declared illegal.