On Being a Freeway Flyer
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After a summer of not knowing what the fall would look like, I was fortunate to find full time university teaching work. The catch? It’s across three universities!
I am officially a “freeway flyer”. Many of you have heard of this term. It is used in the Adjunct Faculty community to denote someone who drives between at least two campuses in their efforts to patch together a livable wage. Fortunately for me, all three of my teaching positions are no more than 30 minutes from my home and I am central to all three. Whew! When I say I’m fortunate, I really am.
I am also fortunate that at all three campuses, I experience incredible collegiality and am treated with respect. The full-time and other part time faculty are supportive. The program coordinators keep me in the loop on campus information that I need to know to do my job well. I am even included in research activities and collaboration opportunities.
The students are also wonderful. They abide by campus COVID guidelines without complaint, they are engaged, and they are doing their best to stay on top of their work. I am fortunate that I have such great students and supportive departments. That isn’t every adjunct’s experience, I know.
Despite the good fortune, my on-the-road experience still makes this challenging. That is also the norm for most adjuncts. This makes the work incredibly difficult. Let’s delve a little deeper into why that is.
According to a 2018 TIAA Institute Adjunct Faculty Survey, approximately 47% of faculty teaching in US higher educational institutions are part-time nontenure track. This number includes adjunct faculty (66%), retired tenured faculty (11%) and professors of practice (23%). About 26% teach at two or more campuses. So, this means that a quarter of us are Freeway Flyers!
When asked about career satisfaction, 66% of adjuncts are satisfied or very satisfied. About 16% are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. There was about 20% that was neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. This is what I mean by my experience being the norm for many adjuncts.
Satisfaction percentages mirror preferred position numbers. Nearly 66% would prefer to have a full-time tenure track or non-tenure track position. The operative term is FULL TIME.
So, there are some questions I ask myself:
Do I like being an adjunct? Not really…
Would I prefer a full-time permanent teaching position? Yes!
Do I care if it is tenure or non-tenure? No.
I’ve had folks tell me that I am lucky to have the flexibility to do what you want in the academic space. It is true that I have been invited to be on two research centers, offered a Scholar in Residence position, and included in a campus-wide faculty research consortium.
Yes, accepting these opportunities would have been more difficult if I was teaching full time at one campus. That said, I would not need these opportunities to hobble together a stable place for me to conduct the research I want to do IF I had a full-time position at one campus. So, there’s that…
The big takeaway is that stability is something that makes anyone’s life easier. Adjuncts are no exception. Being a Freeway Flyer is fine – especially like in my case I’m not driving hours and hours – but we also want and deserve full time stable work at one institution. Academia must do better by its adjuncts who teach nearly half of its courses.