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Educational Technology and "Roads Scholars"
Too often, technology is an abstraction. The new conditions of academic labor play an important role in who does and doesn't benefit from new tools for teaching.
By Anthea Tillyer
The school brought me a computer a couple of years ago and I played with it a little and when I turned it off for Christmas it didn't work anymore. I haven't pressed the issue. The more things are tied into electronics, the more vulnerable we are to getting totally wiped out. When I need to write up a test, I take it to the secretary and she types it. This is what they have secretaries for.
—Full-time history professor at Jacksonville University, quoted in "Profs Who Don't (Won't) E-Mail," New York Times, January 16, 2005
We are now being asked to submit our grades electronically. While we are not opposed in principle, most part-time faculty have no computers, offices, etc. We cannot be asked to perform and comply like tenured faculty to all kinds of work involving the new technologies (electronic grade submissions, course Web pages, submission of course outlines, etc.) and yet not be given the same tools to do our work.
—Maria Peluso, President, Concordia University Part-Time Faculty Association, writing on June 8, 2003, on the Adj-l Adjunct Listerv
If you want to use educational technology, you need to be able to type. But that is not all you need. You need a computer, a place to put your computer, and the knowledge and time to use it. Full-time faculty members have, or are offered, all of these. But what about part-time faculty, who make up 46 percent of all faculty in institutions of higher education in this country?1 They typically have no office on campus and no computer, conditions reflecting the four realities of life for part-time faculty: invisibility, transience, fictional contingency, and insecurity.
Institutions invest large amounts of money in technologies meant to improve students' educational experience and the efficiency with which institutions serve students. But billions are spent on hardware, software, and expertise that cannot be used by almost half of the faculty, the invisible contingent half, preventing global application of the technology.
The most common technology in which colleges invest is student-management (or "housekeeping") technology: the programs that record and adjust registration, grades, and attendance; create schedules; and assign classrooms. Once an institution adopts housekeeping technology for grades and other student records, faculty are typically required to use it. Institutions demand that part-time faculty also do so but without the tools necessary to fulfill this requirement.
Course management programs, such as Blackboard, WebCT, and SAKAI, have also become more common on campuses over the past decade. These programs permit faculty to incorporate technology into their pedagogy and to deliver instruction partly or wholly online. The programs are expensive to buy, license, and maintain. Training faculty to use the technology is a big challenge, especially if many of them are part-time professors with no computers or offices.
Many faculty use technology in their research, including that intended to improve their pedagogy. Text, audio, and images can, for example, be incorporated into instructional materials to create an enriched educational environment. As one faculty member commented, "Web-based lessons tend to keep students awake." Obviously, faculty can use these programs only if they have the necessary know-how and equipment.
Some faculty members use the Internet to store their materials or make them available to students online, cutting down on paper files, dusty file cabinets, and photocopies. The realities of the existence of part-time faculty prevent their full participation in this technology as well. In short, the dependence of institutions of higher learning on part-time faculty creates a real weakness in the crucial area of technology.
Invisibility and Technology
As stated previously, 46 percent of all college faculty nationwide are now part-time teachers. Of course, 46 percent is the overall figure covering both senior and community colleges across the country; at many institutions, particularly community colleges, part-time faculty account for well over 60 percent of all teachers.
Yet among the twenty-five surveys of faculty use of technology listed in the U.S. government's Education Resources Information Center database, not one reported questioning part-time faculty. It is as if almost half of all the people teaching in higher education today don't exist even though they do most of the teaching on campuses across the country.
Unlike part-time faculty, the new technologies on campus are clearly visible; so are the vast budgets for purchasing hardware, software, and expertise. According to a March 26, 2003, article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, U.S. colleges and universities spent more than $5.2 billion on technology in 2002-03. That is serious money. But when institutions decide to adopt new technologies, part-time faculty have no voice. As a result, these decisions do not take into account how or even whether many of the faculty can take advantage of a particular technology.
Most part-time faculty have no access to a campus office with a computer, while at some institutions, they may share a computer. Often, however, ten or twenty part-time faculty members will share one. Without ready access to a computer, they cannot use the new educational technologies, whether for housekeeping, instruction, preparation of materials, research, or online storage of materials. An often-cited advantage of educational technology is that it allows easier communication between faculty members and students, especially through e-mail. But e-mail is neither quick nor efficient for those who have no computer. The students of part-time faculty are deprived not only of this form of communication with their teachers, but also of the enrichment that comes from Internet-based course resources.
To enter their students' grades, many part-time faculty members have to go to student computer labs and wait for an available machine. Their institution requires them to submit grades and other records online but does not supply the means for them to do so, placing them in the impossible position of having to sit in a computer lab—possibly next to their own students—to input grades.
The digital age has arrived in departments, too, and many forward-looking department heads save paper and time by distributing departmental news and memos electronically. The part-time faculty in those departments, however, cannot get that news without computers. Digitized information is not the only departmental technology from which part-time faculty are cut off: many have no access to telephones, either. Invisibility thus becomes both cause and effect: lacking a computer or phone, part-time faculty are alienated from department life; alienated from department life, part-time faculty feel less enthusiastic about demanding computers and phones.
Most part-time faculty are also invisible in listings of university courses, which can have serious consequences. Course bulletins often record them as TBA, or "to be announced," even after they have taught the same course for decades. Newer versions of course-management programs such as Blackboard, WebCT, and SAKAI automatically set up course sites for every faculty member, based on the course bulletin. But the programs do not recognize "TBA" and thus do not set up sites for courses that seem not to have a teacher. The students of the TBAs therefore cannot participate in online learning; at schools where part-time faculty are in the majority, most students will be deprived of the chance to learn with technology. Listing part-time faculty as TBA when the section has already been assigned to a particular instructor does not save the institution money or serve it in any way at all. It is simply a symptom of the invisibility and marginalization of part-time faculty.
Transience and Technology
Part-time faculty are known as "roads scholars" or "freeway flyers" because they are constantly on the move from one campus to another. Many work at three, or even four, different schools to cobble together a living. Most institutions put a cap on the number of hours part-time faculty can teach on any one campus, which is the main reason they are always on the move.
The roads scholar thus spends several hours daily traveling. The car, bus, or train becomes the "office" where most papers are graded and classes prepared. But the mobile office does not accommodate technology. Laptop computers are much too bulky and heavy to transport to several schools daily along with books, papers, and a bagged meal or two. Besides, faculty on the fly cannot use a computer while in transit—another reason that part-time faculty cannot take advantage of the technologies in which their schools have invested so heavily.
Maintaining a mobile office not only prohibits the use of educational technology, it also uses up time that could be spent getting trained in it. Although some institutions make training available to part-time faculty, most are on the road or in class during sessions. And while full-time faculty go to these training sessions during their salaried hours, part-time faculty are rarely paid for training. Because of the extra hours they spend traveling between campuses every day, they have little time to donate to their professional development, anyway.
Moreover, even institutions that supply their part-time faculty members with offices and computers routinely give them old and slow machines with inadequate capacity for today's programs. Thus, even if part-time faculty get a chance to train on the new technologies, they can't apply them because the machines they must use are inadequate.
Because of their heavy travel schedules, even part-time faculty members who have access to computers at school or at home hesitate to adopt technologies that will make them accessible to their students for more hours a day by e-mail or "digital drop box." Students benefit greatly from being able to stay in touch with faculty between classes. But part-time faculty are typically paid only by the contact hour; all additional time spent online with students is unpaid.
The irony of being on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and still being called a "part-time" worker does not bring a smile to the faces of part-time faculty. Institutions have not found a way, or perhaps have not been willing, to compensate faculty paid hourly for the unpaid hours they spend in contact with students outside of class. Many dedicated part-time faculty members report simply giving up on teaching with technology because they cannot keep up with the round-the-clock barrage of e-mails and digital files from students.
Fictional Temporariness
The greatest myth behind the part-time faculty syndrome, cherished by administrators and faculty alike, is that each part-time faculty member is a temporary employee. As such, he or she does not require any of the "perks" that "permanent" faculty need, such as an office, a computer, and access to training and support (not to mention a pension, health insurance, and paid sick days). Sadly, many part-time faculty members also delude themselves, insisting that they will soon get a full-time position. This unrealistic view flies in the face of the steady expansion of part-time positions over the past decade.
In her 1996 PhD dissertation, "Part-Time Faculty: Old Myths and New Realities," Christine Maitland, higher education coordinator for the National Education Association, reported that the average part-time faculty member had been employed at the same institution for 5.4 years and had taught an average of 1.8 classes in each enrollment period. Maitland added that more than a quarter of part-time faculty members had taught for eight or more years at the same institution. Clearly, part-time faculty are not temporary. They have a commitment to the institutions where they teach, even if they wish that conditions were better. But the schools feel no such obligation to their part-time faculty—which translates into a lack of commitment to the students of those faculty members.
Institutions often justify their failure to offer faculty development to part-time professors by claiming that funds spent on training "temporary workers" would be a waste. This disingenuous claim deprives the school and its students of the full use of available technology. At the very least, colleges could offer long-term part-time faculty members the same access to training that full-time professors receive. A faculty member who has taught at a school for five—or even two—consecutive years has made a commitment to teaching there, and the students deserve a teacher trained in technology. Granted, it is hard to arrange faculty development seminars and courses at times when part-time faculty can attend. Still, a commitment to education demands a commitment to professional development for all faculty who teach students.
Part-time faculty can be let go at any time. This "flexibility" is one of the reasons that the use of part-time faculty has ballooned (money is another). Part-time faculty have no job security, even on campuses where they are represented by a union. Often, no reason need be given for the nonreappointment of a part-time professor. Consequently, part-timers have to be circumspect and keep the right people satisfied.
Keeping people satisfied requires flying under the radar most of the time, not complaining about anything, and not giving cause for complaint. Most part-time faculty members therefore hesitate to request an office, a phone, a computer, or training, and they hesitate even more to complain about not having them. Remaining out of the spotlight means not bringing anything to the attention of the administration, not even to department chairs.
Institutions need informal feedback from part-time faculty members on issues such as the success (or lack of success) of a particular computer lab configuration, a new program, or a course management system. If asked, however, most part-time teachers will frame their assessment in a neutral or "safe" way, because those who speak out about the ineffectiveness of a particular program or technology risk losing their jobs, regardless of the validity of their claims. So the institution gets no valid feedback from almost half of its faculty about the technology that has cost it so much.
It is not surprising that many tenured full-time faculty are unaware of the lengths to which their part-time colleagues will go to avoid rocking the boat. It is safer, for example, to stick with a tried-and-true pedagogy than to risk "failure" by experimenting with a new software program or computer lab, especially if departmental colleagues are suspicious of technology. Such unwillingness among half the faculty to take risks or try anything "dangerous" cannot contribute to vibrant teaching or reflective pedagogy. Once again, the students are the ones who lose the chance to participate in innovative experimentation.
Ultimately, institutions have to come to terms with the reality of part-time faculty. Otherwise, much of the money they spend on technology will be wasted, and much of the technology underused. Students deserve faculty who are familiar with current technologies and have access to them. The cases of two strong supporters of educational technology, one part time and the other full time, highlight how students benefit when their institutions help faculty use technology properly.
Different Worlds
Maria Spelleri is an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Language and Literature at Manatee Community College in Florida. She is fortunate in that her college provides her with a computer in an office. She says she shares the computer with one fellow adjunct and a printer with twenty others. Spelleri's computer, like those of many other part-time faculty members, is old and slow and has only outdated versions of software. The version of PowerPoint on her computer, for example, does not match the one on computers in the classrooms in which she teaches, making it almost impossible for her and her adjunct colleagues to prepare PowerPoint slides for class use.
Adjuncts at Manatee Community College are luckier than many other part-time faculty, because they have access to faculty development and training in technology. The computers and software on which they are trained, however, are more modern than the equipment in their offices, so they have trouble applying their training.
Spelleri reports that using technology in the classroom, particularly the Internet, accommodates many different learning styles and helps students stay engaged. She says that technology also makes it easy for students to commit "cut-and-paste plagiarism," however. Many other faculty members have found the same thing, but part-time faculty who have less access to computers have less ability to prove a case of plagiarism.
Now consider the case of Margaret Sokolik, assistant director of a teaching and resource center at the University of California, Berkeley, and a full-time faculty member in the university's College Writing Programs. Another early adopter of educational technology, Sokolik says that students of faculty who incorporate technology into their teaching "have improved access to instructors and to course materials. They can make more informed decisions about class choices by viewing online syllabi in advance and by asking questions via e-mail prior to a class's beginning."
Sokolik, who researches student responses to technology, says students report "feeling more confident about their own communication in class by putting ideas out on e-mail or class bulletin boards first." The ability to do so is great for students, of course. But only instructors who have access to technology and the knowledge and time to use it can provide such an option. As a full-time faculty member, Sokolik has two offices on campus (one administrative and one faculty office), both equipped with computers and printers. Berkeley also provides her with a laptop for travel and in-class use.
Institutions support full-time faculty members' use of educational technology, while part-time faculty get less support, and sometimes none at all. One is left to wonder how institutions of higher learning can justify giving students widely disparate experiences of educational technology based simply on the employment status of their instructors.
Note
1. In this article, "part time" has been used to describe faculty members who are paid hourly and are hired or rehired by the semester. It does not refer to the number of hours taught. "Part-time" faculty typically teach twenty hours a week. Back to text.
Anthea Tillyer did her doctoral studies at the University of London. An early adopter of educational technology, she has written extensively on it and conducted in-service training for teachers in Austria, Brazil, Poland, Spain, Thailand, and Tunisia. She teaches technical writing at the City College of New York and has conducted online writing classes for the U.S. State Department since 1995.
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