ACADEMIC LABOR AND CONSUMER-SIDE POLITICS: The Adjunctification of Education

Michael Loadenthal, PhD Center for Social Justice, Research Teaching & Service (Georgetown University) Program on Justice and Peace (Georgetown University) School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (George Mason University) Prison Scholars Program (Jessup Correctional Institution) Center for the Study of Ethics & Contemporary Moral Problems (Hebrew Union College)

THE PROBLEM AS WE KNOW IT

THE PROBLEMS AS WE KNOW IT Adjuncts Have…. �  Lack of job security

�  Jobs canceled due to lack of enrollment

�  No continuity semester-to-semester

�  Having to find work and renegotiate contracts every 4 months

�  Lack of healthcare, retirement, sick pay and other benefits

�  Lack of infrastructure required for instruction �  (e.g. office space, photocopy resources, library access, parking,

TAs)

�  Lack of training, orientation, incorporation into departmental culture �  (e.g. committees, decision making processes, awards, monies)

�  Low pay with often full time (i.e. 2:2) teaching loads: �  Georgetown: $22,000/year

�  George Mason: $12,444/year

�  A well defined (and low) place in the academic hierarchy

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

�  How is the adjunctification of the university workforce influenced by macro practices of neoliberalism and the micro politics of consumerism?

�  How have we come to know the student as

consumers and the lecturer as producers?

PRESUMPTIONS �  Neoliberalism, a process which dismantles collectivism and promotes individualism,

and presumes the chaos of markets will provide all citizens with fair opportunity, is based around a desire to reduce labor costs (for employers), reduce public expenditure (for the state), and make work function more flexibly for the employee with the aim of maximizing productivity.

�  Neoliberalism not only crafts the economic order but its more ideological components have penetrated the pubic consciousness and have major impacts on the way we understand power, work and economies.

“The movement toward the neoliberal utopia of a pure and perfect market is made possible by the politics of financial deregulation. And it is achieved through the transformative and, it must be said, destructive action of all of the political measures…that aim to call into question any and all collective structures that could serve as an obstacle to the logic of the pure market.”

-- Pierre Bourdieu, The Essence of Neoliberalism

AND ME? �  Taught 14 courses in 4 years

�  Taught at 4 institutions in 5 states

�  Began PhD as a fully-funded Fellow, but this wage reduced each year �  At the end of 4 years it had declined from

$19,000 to $12,000

�  Consistently worked in service industry to cover basic living expenses

�  Because irregularity of contracts, I move back and forth between ‘home’ (Ohio) and ‘work’ (DC) states. �  Institutions hesitant to offer consistent

employment as this would allow workers to petition for ‘full time’ rights.

WHAT IS THE CONSUMER MODEL

A REVIEW OF AN ACADEMIC HERO

…AT LEAST MY CUSTOMERS LIKE ME

THE IMPACT OF THE CONSUMER MODEL

�  Incentive for Professors to be ‘easy’, ‘liked’ and available 24/7

�  Disincentive for Professors to be difficult graders or otherwise hold students to high academic standards �  Especially true for early career laborers

�  With little to no job security, the contingent laborer (as seller) REQUIRES a happy customer (as buyer) or risks being replaced by another, more consumer-friendly individual.

�  To put it bluntly: �  high academic standards àbad grades à bad reviews

= decreased job security

�  Maybe sometimes the customer is not right?

WHAT DO WE CALL A COUNTRY OF EXTRA TERRESTRIALS?

�  (I) Alienation of the worker from the work — from the product of his labour

�  (II) Alienation of the worker from

working — from the act of producing

�  (III) Alienation of the worker from himself, his essence

�  (IV) Alienation of the worker from other workers

From “Economic and Philosophic

Manuscripts of 1844”

IMPACT OF A CULTURE OF PRECARITY

�  Though workers are maintained contingently, they are constantly reminded that the opportunity to work is a privilege.

�  For many graduate students unable to even reach this level of quasi-employed exploitation, they grow resentful of cohorts in teaching roles. �  This further fragments workers and destroys

bonds of solidarity

�  There is a stigma around workers in knowledge production complaining about labor conditions because they are not doing ‘physical’ work.

�  The opacity of the selection/assignment process reeks of nepotism, despite academic laborers being told that the ‘academy’ is a meritocracy.

NEOLIBERALISM AND THE 168 HOUR WORK WEEK �  Myth: We teach because we love it, therefore, responding to student emails on

Sunday, writing letters of recommendation while on vacation and providing feedback on your essay during the time we make for our families is not work. It is just us getting paid for doing something we love anyway!

�  Truth: You have to love teaching to stay in this field. So YES, we love to teach….but we respond to emails, agree to work on our ‘off ’ time from a desire to fulfill our roles as product providers to a consumer base with endless needs.

�  The breakdown of the work/play dichotomy is a key component of post-industrial, neoliberal capitalism; the integration of economy into the realm of daily existence à inescapable workplace that follows us always via our phones.

…Adjuncts are not regular members of the faculty; we are paid an hourly rate for

time spent in the classroom. We are not paid to advise students, grade papers, or prepare materials or lectures for class. We are paid for one office hour per week for all of the classes we teach. We are not paid to communicate with students outside of class or write letters of recommendation. Out of dedication to our students, adjuncts regularly perform such tasks, but it is essentially volunteer labor.

To ensure that we remain conscious of the adjunctification of the university, we ask

that you do not call us “Professor.” We are hired as adjunct lecturers and it is important that you remember that. You deserve to be taught by properly compensated professors whose full attention is to teaching and scholarship.

Students should be aware that it is not in your best interest to ask an adjunct for a

letter of recommendation. Institutions tend to take such letters less seriously than those written by full time faculty and adjuncts are not compensated for this time consuming task.

SO WHAT TO DO?

�  Speak openly and with transparency with our students.

�  Do not be afraid or embarrassed to speak in terms of dollars and cents.

�  Work towards a language shift that allows for the invisibility of contingent faculty to be more obvious.

�  Organize disruptive actions (e.g. walk outs) to raise visibility and impact the university’s operations.

�  Help build networks of mutual aid, solidarity and support amongst all levels of precarious/contingent laborers.