Not quite the absolute low for part-time faculty, but close - Adjunct Instructor Ivy Tech Community College Employee Review

First, the pay is very, very low. Ivy Tech measures it by hours in the classroom, but of course there is a significant amount of time spent grading and doing mandatory administrative work, so the actual hourly rate can be around minimum wage, depending on how much time it takes for you to grade assignments and how many degrees you have (fewer degrees = lower pay). I gauge my own pay as ranging between $12.50-$20 hour. To give you another sense of how low the pay is for adjuncts, if I taught 8 classes per year (full-time at other institutions), I would earn around $16,000. There is an irony here in that Ivy Tech likes to talk about how its goal is to lift people out of poverty. Also, a high percentage of time spent commuting to class (I can spend more time driving to/from a class than time teaching it) cuts down on the effective net salary you can get. Don't expect a promotion to full-time faculty status, either. Ivy Tech keeps the number of full-time faculty to the bare minimum for accreditation. Second, the administration can be quite peculiar, if not offensive, in communication with its adjunct faculty. We have had a series of emails about how we should not worry because our president is doing everything he can to prevent having to give us health insurance. WTF? I am supposed to be horrified at the idea of being insured? Apparently. The pain of hearing this is worse because I know at least two adjuncts who got cancer in the past when they were uninsured. Currently, Ivy Tech is avoiding giving its adjuncts health insurance by not allowing them to teach more than three classes except when it can't find enough faculty to teach all its courses. Then (I hear) it gives the adjuncts four classes or more, but it pays the federal fine rather than provide health insurance for them. As for other benefits for which adjuncts are eligible, there are two free classes per semester after you've taught two semesters, and you're allowed to put your own money into a TIAA-CREF plan (but no employer contribution). Third, teaching students is a constant challenge which doesn't get much respect from the administration. There is a fair amount of racial/ethnic tension, and though students seldom make offensive remarks during class, they do make some appallingly paranoid and hateful remarks before and after class. The rate of absences and/or lateness is huge -- I regularly start class with two or three students out of a nominal thirty. Some of the students are smart, ambitious types who are concurrently enrolled in a four-year institution and are just coming to Ivy Tech for a cheap and easy way to get their general ed requirements out of the way. Some are barely literate and are coming to Ivy Tech for the sole purpose of collecting a Pell Grant. There are quite a few students who are either learning-disabled or immigrants with limited English, both of which groups have unique needs. It's difficult to create assignments that challenge everyone without leaving some people utterly incapable of doing the work. The administration is not in favor of flunking out a large percentage of students, so you either must give easy assignments, or find some other way to pass people whose work really merits an F. Multiple-choice, open-book exams occur quite often. Finally, the allocation of money is always a constant source of minor tension. I teach in a wonderful, beautiful building -- probably the most beautiful building I've ever taught in. But the college can't find funding to provide markers and an eraser for the whiteboard, and it has suggested that the faculty buy their own (the expensive sort only, at further inflated prices from the campus bookstore). Students who are so poor they can barely feed and house themselves are charged high prices for textbooks -- the prices are actually marked up above list price at the college bookstore, and students are told to shop there instead of online. At the same time, the college does not put much effort that I can see in helping students find jobs after graduation. The number of "success stories" that are promulgated usually involve students who managed to get into a four-year institution after graduating from Ivy Tech, not students who succeeded in finding good jobs. I get the sense that while the "official" cost of attending Ivy Tech is very low (tuition really is dirt cheap), the college is trying to make up for it by forcing students to buy overpriced textbooks and unnecessary "study aids." Weirdly, my impression is that Ivy Tech administration is not really interested in education. There's very little attention paid to what you do as an adjunct. Instead, the focus seems to be on meeting federal requirements to continue getting money, adding new buildings to campus, being visible, and getting the local businesses to donate money or supplies. I think I've heard more about how important it is for faculty to counsel students and to encourage them to re-enroll than how important it is for faculty to teach them anything. Emails flow copiously about the hiring of new staff members or staff departures, but there are few emails about new faculty or faculty departures, or anything at all academic-related. It's really important whether you've contributed to the college's annual charity drive for the United Way, but there's zero discussion about the best textbook for a course.