tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8446351548038522890.post6498749467398479907..comments2024-03-08T13:21:43.158-05:00Comments on Saideman's Semi-Spew: When the IRS is Your Best HopeSteve Saidemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09881915512311951902noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8446351548038522890.post-42477597042119152882013-02-05T20:44:04.533-05:002013-02-05T20:44:04.533-05:00at my college we can hire full time temporary facu...at my college we can hire full time temporary faculty, who do get benefits. But we are only allowed to hire part-time faculty at no more than two courses per semester -- College policy is that more than that qualifies them for health care and other benefits. <br /><br />This was not always so, it was a decision made a few years ago, explicitly as a way to not have to pay benefits. So even as chair I'm not allowed to hire an adjunct to teach more than two courses per semester. They're way ahead of this game unfortunately...Chipnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8446351548038522890.post-28832816550779161572013-01-16T20:03:12.892-05:002013-01-16T20:03:12.892-05:00To be fair, a great many management decisions abou...To be fair, a great many management decisions about how many classes a particular adjunct teaches are made by chairs, who have neither the expertise nor the incentive to engage in game-playing with hours to avoid some kind of benefits trigger. A central university administration could, I suppose, impose a blanket requirement that ALL adjuncts be below a certain level of hours. For departments that have favorite adjuncts (favorite because they're reliable and teach really well and the students love them), this would suck and the faculty would raise a ruckus - so you can't do this quietly. Otherwise, I don't think it's going to be easy for any university to "tinker at the margins" to cut hours below some threshold quietly. And given how decentralized these kinds of things tend to be, especially at larger universities, I doubt that much of it is happening.<br /><br />But I could be wrong. Even with my career travels, I've only taught at a half-dozen places - there are thousands of others.R. William Ayreshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01228717107253041752noreply@blogger.com