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Secret lives of Bay Area part-time profs: Here's why they work at Safeway, live out of cars
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1ke
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It’s not just in the bay area. Part time and adjunct faculty in most places have the same problem. It is one of the reasons that I have not pursued adjunct faculty positions, because I’ve had friends that have done it and it does not pay. It’s great if you need a resume builder, but it doesn’t make you any money based on the time that you have to put in.
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Prodigal_Son
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That $70 an hour figure is completely irresponsible to publish. In fact, adjunct profs make something more like $15-20 per hour, if that.
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RKS89
Guest
I’ve had a few adjunct professors who travelled pretty unreasonable distances to round out their income, on top of part-time work. My dad is a retired elementary teacher and my mom is a retired speech pathologist, both with Masters. They were really fortunate to make what they did, and to retire before things got bad (at least in Michigan). I’ve wanted to be a professor my whole life, but I took a different route because when I started college the economy was in the toilet and the future didn’t look good for teaching. My dad said if I expected to make what he made I might want to think about a different career.
It’s not just adjunct profs struggling, all of my friends who are teachers are in the same boat. Meanwhile there’s a whole group of people who are of the mind that doing what you love should compensate for poor salaries. Often those are the same folks who think teachers have it easy with long breaks throughout the year and “no overtime”. As a child of two teachers I can tell you that wasn’t the case for my parents. My dad used to personally call each of his students’ parents weekly to update them, make sure everything was alright at home and just to get to know the parents and families. He stopped because eventually parents just never called him back or talked to him to begin with. My mom worked to develop a new program for teaching speech to kids that essentially changed how speech has been taught, and she did all that on her own time. I had teachers who probably should have picked a different career path, for various reasons- power trips, summers off, opportunities to coach athletics. But the good teachers I had, whether as a kid or in high school and on into college have left deep impressions on my life, and there’s no salary big enough to compensate someone for that gift. I’d love to see my teacher friends have the opportunity to make what my parents did, but I’m not optimistic. And that, friends and neighbors, is why I’m a boiler operator and not a teacher.
It’s not just adjunct profs struggling, all of my friends who are teachers are in the same boat. Meanwhile there’s a whole group of people who are of the mind that doing what you love should compensate for poor salaries. Often those are the same folks who think teachers have it easy with long breaks throughout the year and “no overtime”. As a child of two teachers I can tell you that wasn’t the case for my parents. My dad used to personally call each of his students’ parents weekly to update them, make sure everything was alright at home and just to get to know the parents and families. He stopped because eventually parents just never called him back or talked to him to begin with. My mom worked to develop a new program for teaching speech to kids that essentially changed how speech has been taught, and she did all that on her own time. I had teachers who probably should have picked a different career path, for various reasons- power trips, summers off, opportunities to coach athletics. But the good teachers I had, whether as a kid or in high school and on into college have left deep impressions on my life, and there’s no salary big enough to compensate someone for that gift. I’d love to see my teacher friends have the opportunity to make what my parents did, but I’m not optimistic. And that, friends and neighbors, is why I’m a boiler operator and not a teacher.
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on_the_hill
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This has been a problem for decades.
Here’s an article that have some info:
On the other hand, my wife’s a part-time adjunct and loves it for the opportunity to teach, the flexibility, and she doesn’t have all the extra responsibilities like regular faculty do.
However, it’s not our primary source of income and she does it by choice.
To play devil’s advocate–maybe if you’ve been toiling in the minor leagues for a long time, it’s time to realize you might never make it to the majors, and find another career path. Just sayin’.
Here’s an article that have some info:
On the other hand, my wife’s a part-time adjunct and loves it for the opportunity to teach, the flexibility, and she doesn’t have all the extra responsibilities like regular faculty do.
However, it’s not our primary source of income and she does it by choice.
To play devil’s advocate–maybe if you’ve been toiling in the minor leagues for a long time, it’s time to realize you might never make it to the majors, and find another career path. Just sayin’.
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SuperLuigi
Guest
The issue with SF isn’t so much salaries as it is cost of living.It’s not just adjunct profs struggling, all of my friends who are teachers are in the same boat. Meanwhile there’s a whole group of people who are of the mind that doing what you love should compensate for poor salaries.
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RKS89
Guest
While I’m aware the CoL in the Bay Area is ridiculous, I think we all have an issue with it. I feel like CoL and salaries are two sides of the same coin.
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