Would a student who had taken a class with a temporary or “special” faculty member 4+ years earlier be able to track down that adjunct for a letter? Would she remember him well enough to write an effective letter on his behalf? Would he care enough to keep her posted about his professional progress? I don’t know for sure, but I’m glad for this student’s sake (and many others) that I’m not an adjunct.

Perpetua–I see what you’re saying, and I didn’t like Bob Smith’s punative approach either. However, I think it’s more than a little ethically dodgy for tenured or tenure-track folks to moonlight at another institution. But, “special” and other non-tenure track faculty–all’s fair in love and war, right? (Another reason why it’s professionally and ethically dubious to try to run a uni on non-tenure track labor.)

This is not to diminish the underlying truth of Historiann’s statement: industry “best practice” would dictate that only those faculty compensated for these “extras” can be expected to do them. Reality dictates that everyone in the boat has to bail, particularly if one is an at will employee with one’s job perpetually on the line. More importantly, being non-ttt does not deplete goodwill or compassion. If worthy students come to ask for a rec or advising, good faculty members (ttt or no) tend not to turn them away. Universities then capitalize on this goodwill to extract more labor with lower capital outlays.

I completely agree with your points about transparency and faculty, Historiann. I don’t mean to derail the aspect of this issue you want to talk about. I was just so struck by the POV of administrators that “We need transparency so we can punish our full time faculty for needing extra work.” There’s this bizarre, unintended subtext to it about how miserable it is to be a t-t faculty in some places. And the invocation of the taxpayer’s rights and expectations! Oy ve!

But apparently, university administrators aren’t always thinking with 5 or 10 years’ foresight. To be fair, many of them have to solve budget crises NOW NOW NOW so maybe they don’t have that luxury all of the time. But still–someone needs to remind them that universities are more than just places where the middle-class earns credentials. The whole thing relies on a great deal of institutional memory and the goodwill of faculty who have been offered the privilege of tenure.

Hey, how’s that going to work in the brave new world of online classes?