Volume 67, Issue 8

Adjuncts or Add-“Junks”?

by Eli Isak

Most students aren’t aware of it, but their professors’ standing in the university’s academic hierarchy has a good deal of significance, beyond wielding influence with the higher-ups.  Specifically, knowledge of a professor’s position can act as an indicator of that professor’s likeliness to return in the upcoming semester, and, unfortunately at Yeshiva, the treatment afforded them.

Adjunct professors – those teachers whose contracts expire semesterly and are hired to fill holes in a variety of departments – have long complained of sub-standard treatment and perpetually low wages behind closed doors.  There voices, however, may soon begin to rise.         

“Yeshiva crams a number of adjuncts into small offices, pays them little and expends them as they see fit,” said one Yeshiva insider.  “Eventually, you have to expect backlash.

In addition to having their offices typically situated far away from classrooms, making it harder to integrate into the academic program, adjuncts have to share their undersized offices with a number of colleagues.  When asked about salaries for comporable course loads, one adjunct responded that professors make substantially more, so much so that it was an “injustice.”

All universities have to balance a quality education with their financial restrictions.  Dean of Yeshiva College, Dr. Norman Adler, stressed that although education has and always will always be the primary focus of Yeshiva, on occasion, financial limitations are imposed.  It is speculated that certain seasoned professors have been denied tenure because of finanacial complications despite adamant support of the administation and student body

  Doubtlessly, granting tenure to a professor is a monumental commitment, approximated by one administrator to be a $3 million obligation over 30 years.  Yet, in the same vein, hiring so many adjuncts instead of full time professors “may be making a poor economical decision at the cost of a quality education,” a professor said.

Adjuncts, however, are by no means fly by night unqualified instructors.  In fact, some of the most educated and qualified professors throughout the country are adjuncts.  Former Vice President Al Gore taught in Columbia University as an adjunct in 2001.  The New York School of Visual Arts’ staff consists entirely of adjuncts.  Utilizing adjuncts allows for greater flexibility and adaptation to new developing fields of study.

Similarly, this past semester an adjunct was hired in Yeshiva to teach a class in quantum computing, an entirely theoretical field involving mathematical calculation done by molecular particles.  Likewise, Dr. Gideon Doron, an Israeli political theoretician taught a course in Israeli Politics this past semester.  Courses in Ladino, Yiddish and the Holocaust are also usually taught by adjuncts.

Moreover, adjuncts serve another important purpose.  Because course demands fluctuate with enrollment and faculty often find themselves short-handed or overstaffed, hiring adjuncts solves the problem.  Although larger universities fill such holes with graduate students looking for teaching exposure, Adler explained that Yeshiva focuses on student education by maintaining a well experienced faculty nearly absent of any graduate students.

Most faculty members aspire to attain full-time positions or even tenure during their career, and full time faculty do come with their advantages.  Full time professors are available for consultation in the Academic Advisement Center and have relatively longer office hours.  Their multi-year and even lifetime contracts allow for sturdier relationships with the student body.

Thus, utilizing adjuncts does come at a price.  While adjuncts often fill gaping holes, they are bandaids. According to one administrator, adjuncts leave their positions only to be replaced by another – although qualified – strange face who has little opportunity to form any relationship with the students before leaving.

Whenever a full-time opening arises, Yeshiva has a competitive nationwide search.  Although an adjunct may enjoy a slight advantage by already being a part of the Yeshiva faculty, Adler said that the outside recruiting firms Yeshiva regularly employs show little favoritism to adjuncts already on staff.

According to one Yeshiva administrator, there is little chance though of any adjunct without a doctorate to advance to full time or tenured status.  Such a policy, he explains, promotes increased research and publication on campus.

YC was founded with the dream of developing into a research institution.  Belfer Hall mainly consists of laboratories built for that very purpose.  However, as one professor pointed out, this vision is currently far from being realized; little or no research ever goes on in Yeshiva with the exception of Albert Einstein College for Medicine.

Currently, the Yeshiva chemistry faculty conducts computer research but little or no “wet” research – the kind of research that generates publicity and furthers the University’s scientific recognition – which is also the type of research that the labs were originally constructed for.

According to Adler, although the level of research on the Wilf Campus has declined, research is making a comeback at Yeshiva.  Adler feels that maintaining a highly qualified full-time and tenured staff will cultivate a return to serious research.  This zeroes adjuncts out of the equation.

Criticism notwithstanding, the use of adjuncts in the university is, as Adler put it mostly “economical.”  Although adjuncts do make academic contributions to the university, because they are generally disregarded and restricted they fall short of contributing their full potential.  “If only the adjuncts in Yeshiva were made to feel as useful and valuable as their job descriptions,” commented one knowledgeable student leader, “then the arrangement may become more profitable for all those involved.♦

Many courses offered at Yeshiva are taught by faculty members known as adjuncts.  These adjuncts are hired on a semester to semester basis and teach a varied selection of courses ranging from political science to quantum computing.  Often these adjuncts hold full time jobs related to their field during the day, spending their evenings teaching at Yeshiva.

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