A lecturer at my undergrad would have been as you described, but not at my grad school, which (fun fact) had positions titled "Adjunct lecturer". I think my second post makes it clear that I meant the same kind of job you (apparently?) do. bsky.app/profile/john... - ThreadSky

johnbrownstan.bsky.social • 210 days ago

A lecturer at my undergrad would have been as you described, but not at my grad school, which (fun fact) had positions titled "Adjunct lecturer".

I think my second post makes it clear that I meant the same kind of job you (apparently?) do.
https://bsky.app/profile/johnbrownstan.bsky.social/post/3l3v6dfmhuf2l

Reposted from John Brown stan account

It should really be a whole other career path. High school teacher, but for more advanced topics in a looser setting.

Like high school teachers, they should be unionized and well-paid (obviously not all high school teachers are well paid, but they should be).

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stanleyqbert.bsky.social•210 days ago

Yes, "adjunct" describes the employment relationship, "lecturer" is a position. What I meant to point out is that, if 70% of [whatever you want to call university teachers] are adjunct, that means only 30% of professors have any sort of job security beyond the next few months.

stanleyqbert.bsky.social•210 days ago

Which is a separate thing entirely from "most [whatever you want to call university teachers] don't need PhDs to teach undergrads," a statement I would broadly agree with (with a couple caveats).

johnbrownstan.bsky.social•210 days ago

Okay. I'm telling you that in my experience that definition of lecturer is not universal, so I used adjunct as shorthand for "teaching only", even though the "no permanent employment relationship" is also obviously part of the equation there.

johnbrownstan.bsky.social•210 days ago

Now that you can quibble that adjunct necessarily means no tenure or consistent work, but the broader point I was making is that it's fine to have a separate role in a university for people who only teach. Not every position has to be an assistant prof., which is a wish I often see from academics.

carnivorecrunch.bsky.social•210 days ago

Interesting, I’ve considered adjunct like a part timer. They can be pushed to the line of a full timer but the organization doesn’t have to give nor promise them anything more than a paycheck.

johnbrownstan.bsky.social•210 days ago

There's two pieces to adjunct. That's one of them. The other is "you're just here to teach, we're not interested in any of your research". In some institutions (like my undergrad), there are full-time, tenure-eligible positions like that as well, and they're called lecturer.

johnbrownstan.bsky.social•210 days ago

But that's not universal, and I've seen lecturer used with different meanings quite a lot. I believe at British universities it just means assistant professor.

So I'm saying "adjunct", but really only referencing the second part of that -- you're here to teach.

rpmastronomy.com•209 days ago

Sure, but then they would have to actually get paid a salary commensurate with their education and experience and not be contract workers, which universities are loathe to do. That's why they hire contingent faculty, even at liberal arts colleges.

jakewertz.bsky.social•210 days ago

College teachers should organize themselves so that they have, at minimum, the same qualifications, job security protections, and pay as high school teachers.

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