As the Arts & Sciences budget crunch continues, several of the largest social sciences departments have had to scale back their adjunct professor appointments and course offerings--all in the hope that they will be able to hire more full-time faculty with the money saved.
William Chafe, dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences, said the reduction in replacement teaching budgets should help stabilize the budget for regular rank faculty.
"We are seeking a reduction in replacement budgets as a means of providing additional dollars for the salary pool for regular rank faculty," Chafe said. "The number of regular rank faculty have increased significantly--by 60--over the past nine years. This means that we should have less need for replacement instructors."
Michael Munger, chair of the political science department, said he is nixing some "meat and potatoes" courses intended primarily for majors along with a number of specialty courses taught by adjuncts.
"Ideally, you'd want a full-time visiting professor who teaches four courses a year and is available to students," Munger said. "Recently what we've done is pay [adjuncts] just to teach one course and pay them far less. But when we pay four people to teach one course [each], they don't have offices--they're academic gypsies. They're not available to students. But on the other hand, we're not cutting full-time faculty."
As a result of the cuts, there are five fewer political science courses scheduled for the Spring 2004 semester than there were for the Spring 2003 semester. In total, the department will offer 10 fewer courses this year than last year--but four more will be taught by full-time faculty. Munger speculated that full-time faculty will teach an additional four courses by next year.
Increasing undergraduate class enrollments in political science classes, especially due to a post-Sept. 11 sense of patriotism, has escalated the problem, Munger said. But even though slots for hiring full-time faculty are few, Munger defended the elimination of adjunct professor jobs at the moment.
"It's a defensible position," Munger said. "[The administration is] trying to find full-time faculty and doing it by finding the money by cutting full-time visitors.... Running a program on visitors is kind of sketchy. You want to have faculty that you've heard of. Students would rather take courses with professors they're familiar with. But what we've gone to is even more sketchy--one course at a time. Maybe I'd hire a [University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill] grad student--he teaches one course and never teaches again."
The economics department sings a similar tune.
Lori Leachman, director of undergraduate studies and professor of the practice, said the 10 adjunct economics professors teaching this semester reflect a cut of at least 30 percent from last year and that the number should continue to fall. But having hired four full-time faculty over the summer--professors Stephanie Schmidt-Grohé and Martín Uribe, associate research professor Pat Bajari and associate professor Han Hong--the department has already begun to replace the lost adjuncts.
"I'm not saying the adjuncts aren't committed, because they do a great job, but they know they're not here long," Leachman said. "They know they're not going up for tenure. [With full-time professors] we have a better handle on what's being taught. We're better able to integrate our courses; we've got a better sense of quality control."
Leachman said one job search is underway, and several faculty on leave will soon return, easing up the personnel shortage.
In sociology, chair and professor Philip Morgan speculated the number of adjuncts will drop from five this year to three next year. Last year, the department's request for one full-time faculty search was turned down.
"The budget crunch is one reason why the request for the search was turned down, but money is never unlimited," he said. "We have successfully competed for scarce resources in the past... We're still optimistic about the future."
Morgan said adjunct professors in his department earn between $6,000 and $8,000 per course, substantially less than what a full-time professor would make. But like other departments, sociology's ability to hire part-time faculty has fallen since last year, a trend he expects to continue.
"We don't have any choice," Morgan said. "This is a school-wide policy.... The part-time replacement funds we got in the past are much more scarce, so we're going to have to make some tough choices about the courses we can offer."
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