Can someone help me understand this? Why would someone accept a teaching position with no salary??

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There is probably a specific person they are targeting who has money coming in elsewhere and this is just an HR / legal public job posting thing for a public university. Or maybe just an appointment for a spouse to provide access to a range or resources. There is likely much more to this than advertised.
 
Psycycle said:
haha paid by the parents for an A?
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Thats what an “Unfunded ” research position is.

“You get the money. If you find that money, we will hire you, take a cut, take out your jobs expenses, and the pay you with the rest.”

Tell me that’s different than a commission based sales position
 
PsyDr said:
Thats what an “Unfunded ” research position is.

“You get the money. If you find that money, we will hire you, take a cut, take out your jobs expenses, and the pay you with the rest.”

Tell me that’s different than a commission based sales position
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For one of my first year research courses, the professor, who is faculty in our clinical program, showed us the university's process after faculty get grants and it was very disheartening how much the university took. And that was with them being paid TT faculty positions.
 
psych.meout said:
For one of my first year research courses, the professor, who is faculty in our clinical program, showed us the university's process after faculty get grants and it was very disheartening how much the university took. And that was with them being paid TT faculty positions.
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In all fairness, assuming this was NIH its not like they "take a cut" out of the actual research costs and if the professor explained it that way they did you a disservice. Universities negotiate what are called "indirects" and these are automatically paid on top of whatever you request for research expenses when you apply for a grant. We can debate the extent to which these are spent on important things versus administrative bloat, but the idea is that they should help cover critical expenses not directly chargeable to grants (e.g. lab space, shared equipment, salaries for IRB staff, pre and post-award departments to help with grant submissions and financial management, etc.). I do think a lot of that money gets squandered on ever-expanding bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy, but in theory indirects should be a good thing and I'm grateful we have them. Universities essentially take a loss on many non-federal grants because they don't pay indirects (or pay a set - typically very small - percentage) but often require equivalent support.

Don't disagree with PsyDr on the whole commission thing. Like sales though, the money can be pretty darn good when you are successful at it. Virtually every full professor I know in a soft money position is earning above the NIH salary cap (~200k) and that's with a usually quite-nice university benefits package. What it takes to get there and whether its worth the stress is a separate discussion. Most at that level could almost certainly have made more doing something else, but for academia that sure ain't bad.
 
Ollie123 said:
In all fairness, assuming this was NIH its not like they "take a cut" out of the actual research costs and if the professor explained it that way they did you a disservice. Universities negotiate what are called "indirects" and these are automatically paid on top of whatever you request for research expenses when you apply for a grant. We can debate the extent to which these are spent on important things versus administrative bloat, but the idea is that they should help cover critical expenses not directly chargeable to grants (e.g. lab space, shared equipment, salaries for IRB staff, pre and post-award departments to help with grant submissions and financial management, etc.). I do think a lot of that money gets squandered on ever-expanding bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy, but in theory indirects should be a good thing and I'm grateful we have them. Universities essentially take a loss on many non-federal grants because they don't pay indirects (or pay a set - typically very small - percentage) but often require equivalent support.

Don't disagree with PsyDr on the whole commission thing. Like sales though, the money can be pretty darn good when you are successful at it. Virtually every full professor I know in a soft money position is earning above the NIH salary cap (~200k) and that's with a usually quite-nice university benefits package. What it takes to get there and whether its worth the stress is a separate discussion. Most at that level could almost certainly have made more doing something else, but for academia that sure ain't bad.
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No, that was how they talked about indirects, I just phrased that poorly. My point was more about the unnecessary bloat part and how much extra money on top of the actual costs to conduct research there are, especially when my experience trying to utilize the things that those indirects supposedly cover has been lackluster, at best.
 
Ahhh, fair enough then. Yes - the various "admin" departments are often frustrating as heck. Oodles of money going to grant admin departments, many of whom either cannot or will not do their jobs. Have seen applications sunk because some grants person didn't attach the right documents. Have seen grants run over budget because the finance person wasn't properly tracking anything and then the PI was expected to absorb the costs elsewhere versus the finance department having to eat it.
 
One day, in the future, when people wonder why all the biochemists work for big pharma or other industry and there is no one to teach the next generation, I hope they find this thread and the associated links.
 
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(partly) circling back to the main discussion...on the one hand, adjunct life sucks already and this is an unfortunate indicator of that. On the other hand, I can absolutely see how this could happen and I agree this is likely targeting someone compensated from other sources.

I think a big part of the "mess" of academia comes from the bizarre funding structure. Hell, they may a candidate in mind for this "free adjunct" role who has a bajillion grants and makes more than any of us. However, because of university structure they are likely required to teach to earn tenure (see earlier thread on someone denied tenure seemingly because of a weak non-research records). Depending on their department and exact situation, they might also not be "allowed" to teach because of weird effort-reporting rules, but also might not be allowed to be hired in a distinct compensated role at their own university (i.e. be paid as an adjunct while also working as a postdoc). So I feel torn. On the one hand, teaching/mentoring is undervalued despite the stated mission of universities and its hard to find a better symbol of that than this. On the other hand, UCLA could be going out of their way to accommodate (for example) a post-doc who really wants teaching experience to help their job applications and this was the only way they could structure things to arrange it because lawyers. Then because lawyers they're required to "advertise" an uncompensated position their own employee volunteered to do and get this response. Then because lawyers/marketing/administration a rule is made that "Post-docs aren't allowed to teach" and a bunch of future post-docs get pissed because of weird seemingly-arbitrary rules that keep them from building their CV.

I'm sort of in a similar boat right now, so I get it. 100% covered on research in a clinical department. Being told I need more teaching to get promoted. Trying to find ways to get that locally. At least here I can get paid as an adjunct if I teach in another school within the same university (e.g. public health vs medicine), but it would seem teaching within my own school would be "better" from a T&P perspective. Of course....is it then fraud because supposedly all my effort should be on research activities? Yet that's just the name of the game - I defy you to find me a single research academic in a medical school whose actual effort aligns with how it is distributed on grants. I literally don't know a single one.

While there are multiple factors at play here, I would not be surprised if administrative complexity was a big source of the problem here.
 
PsyDr said:
Research positions are basically paid on commission. Why not this?
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One thing that seriously surprised me about Canada is that the big grant agencies here do not do "soft money". So basically the PI and other senior authors that collaborate on the project cannot be paid from that grant at all. The university has to cover the salary. They can pay staff (RAs), fund grad students and in some cases postdocs, but that's about it. Canada does have the "Research Chair" endowment that funds the salary of high-achieving researchers for several years through a national program, but those are quite competitive. Universities do pay their profs well, but considering this, I don't really see an incentive to get more and more grants unless you're intrinsically motivated by that or the department pushes you in that direction. Or I might be wrong in my reasoning and trying to justify to myself not going in a purely academic direction after the PhD 😀
 
Ollie123 said:
(partly) circling back to the main discussion...on the one hand, adjunct life sucks already and this is an unfortunate indicator of that. On the other hand, I can absolutely see how this could happen and I agree this is likely targeting someone compensated from other sources.

I think a big part of the "mess" of academia comes from the bizarre funding structure. Hell, they may a candidate in mind for this "free adjunct" role who has a bajillion grants and makes more than any of us. However, because of university structure they are likely required to teach to earn tenure (see earlier thread on someone denied tenure seemingly because of a weak non-research records). Depending on their department and exact situation, they might also not be "allowed" to teach because of weird effort-reporting rules, but also might not be allowed to be hired in a distinct compensated role at their own university (i.e. be paid as an adjunct while also working as a postdoc). So I feel torn. On the one hand, teaching/mentoring is undervalued despite the stated mission of universities and its hard to find a better symbol of that than this. On the other hand, UCLA could be going out of their way to accommodate (for example) a post-doc who really wants teaching experience to help their job applications and this was the only way they could structure things to arrange it because lawyers. Then because lawyers they're required to "advertise" an uncompensated position their own employee volunteered to do and get this response. Then because lawyers/marketing/administration a rule is made that "Post-docs aren't allowed to teach" and a bunch of future post-docs get pissed because of weird seemingly-arbitrary rules that keep them from building their CV.

I'm sort of in a similar boat right now, so I get it. 100% covered on research in a clinical department. Being told I need more teaching to get promoted. Trying to find ways to get that locally. At least here I can get paid as an adjunct if I teach in another school within the same university (e.g. public health vs medicine), but it would seem teaching within my own school would be "better" from a T&P perspective. Of course....is it then fraud because supposedly all my effort should be on research activities? Yet that's just the name of the game - I defy you to find me a single research academic in a medical school whose actual effort aligns with how it is distributed on grants. I literally don't know a single one.

While there are multiple factors at play here, I would not be surprised if administrative complexity was a big source of the problem here.
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Who cares if the person has a bajillion grants and makes bank. They should be paid for their efforts just the same. Professional athletes earn a salary even if Nike gives them a multi-million dollar shoe deal and they don't need it. You can't change the law, but you can change university structure to not require free teaching. The issue is that they simply will not do that. If no post-docs have teaching experience, they will have to hire without experience. Being paid for teaching work can be done. It is just unpalatable to the universities to change their existing structure.
 
Sanman said:
Who cares if the person has a bajillion grants and makes bank. They should be paid for their efforts just the same. Professional athletes earn a salary even if Nike gives them a multi-million dollar shoe deal and they don't need it. You can't change the law, but you can change university structure to not require free teaching. The issue is that they simply will not do that. If no post-docs have teaching experience, they will have to hire without experience. Being paid for teaching work can be done. It is just unpalatable to the universities to change their existing structure.
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I do take your general point. However, I also understand how something like this might come about. "If no post-docs have teaching experience" - well obviously some will and if someone is in a position that doesn't "allow" them to teach for pay they are disadvantaged because of that. Were I in that situation, I'd push hard to teach even if it was unpaid because you are still in the trainee role. Like I said above, the university may not pay above because some lawyer somewhere decided you can't issue "bonus" payments to people in this way as it opens a 1 in 10,000 chance of a lawsuit. I think our reliance on our legal system over common sense is responsible for ~95% of the frustrations in modern society, but I get why something like this might happen.

The professional athlete analogy is interesting. I think of this slightly differently, but its certainly biased by my own experiences and role in the system. Some of this is also due to the complexities of effort reporting. I'll use myself as an example. Right now I'm effectively 100% research (mostly my own grants, some on an institutional grant, all backstopped by state dollars for a research faculty line). Since my goals are abstract (essentially "do as much good science as humanly possible"), if I take on a teaching role than realistically that time is coming out of my research.

The idea behind your framework seems to rest on the assumption someone is doing X from 9-5 and then adjuncts on their own time in the evening (maybe not literally RE: hours, but as an example). That's just not really how the research world works in my experience and the fact that research effort is inherently nebulous is what makes this so different. If I do 10% less research and 10% more teaching...is my teaching unpaid? Not exactly. I would probably say it is being subsidized by federal grants. Of course, that's also probably not OK but if we ever reach a point where anyone takes effort certification seriously the entire biomedical research world is going to implode. Its really just lawyers making people check boxes to offload liability from the institution onto individuals and we all just play along. Anyways, I digress.

Long story short - complicated issue. I see it from multiple sides. Perhaps a moot point after the last post. The fact that UCLA is now saying "it contained errors" irritates me more than anything as it is a blatant lie and that was very, very obviously not an error in the posting.
 
Ollie123 said:
I do take your general point. However, I also understand how something like this might come about. "If no post-docs have teaching experience" - well obviously some will and if someone is in a position that doesn't "allow" them to teach for pay they are disadvantaged because of that. Were I in that situation, I'd push hard to teach even if it was unpaid because you are still in the trainee role. Like I said above, the university may not pay above because some lawyer somewhere decided you can't issue "bonus" payments to people in this way as it opens a 1 in 10,000 chance of a lawsuit. I think our reliance on our legal system over common sense is responsible for ~95% of the frustrations in modern society, but I get why something like this might happen.

The professional athlete analogy is interesting. I think of this slightly differently, but its certainly biased by my own experiences and role in the system. Some of this is also due to the complexities of effort reporting. I'll use myself as an example. Right now I'm effectively 100% research (mostly my own grants, some on an institutional grant, all backstopped by state dollars for a research faculty line). Since my goals are abstract (essentially "do as much good science as humanly possible"), if I take on a teaching role than realistically that time is coming out of my research.

The idea behind your framework seems to rest on the assumption someone is doing X from 9-5 and then adjuncts on their own time in the evening (maybe not literally RE: hours, but as an example). That's just not really how the research world works in my experience and the fact that research effort is inherently nebulous is what makes this so different. If I do 10% less research and 10% more teaching...is my teaching unpaid? Not exactly. I would probably say it is being subsidized by federal grants. Of course, that's also probably not OK but if we ever reach a point where anyone takes effort certification seriously the entire biomedical research world is going to implode. Its really just lawyers making people check boxes to offload liability from the institution onto individuals and we all just play along. Anyways, I digress.

Long story short - complicated issue. I see it from multiple sides. Perhaps a moot point after the last post. The fact that UCLA is now saying "it contained errors" irritates me more than anything as it is a blatant lie and that was very, very obviously not an error in the posting.
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To your point about post-docs, it may be true. However, we disadvantaging those post-docs that simply cannot afford to teach on the side for free due to their finances, other obligations, etc. We then get into the moral game of who we will advantage/disadvantage.

On the legal front, I was offered graduate school admission where I was allowed to adjunct for set pay as part of my graduate school funding and this was at a public institution. So it can be done, legalities are based on case law and I am guessing legal opinions on this are not consistent. So again, it is a choice not to offer pay for this.

It does not have to be a 9-5 assumption. Demands are nebulous, but can be measured on work product rather than strictly in hours. If you 10% less research, but the research is still completed it should have no bearing on teaching payment. Who is to say that you are doing 90% research effort and 10% teaching effort and not 100% research effort and 10% teaching effort? Put another way, if I slack slightly at my day job and teach as an adjunct later on, I still get paid for both jobs. Why shouldn't you be entitled to the same benefit? Surely the university can come up with $3k/course to add to your grant funding for doing extra work? You say it is the lawyers. I think it the power structure. They do it because they can get away with it. This UCLA debacle shows you what happens when the court of public opinion (and potential customers) weighs in.
 
Sanman said:
Put another way, if I slack slightly at my day job and teach as an adjunct later on, I still get paid for both jobs.
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If two separate jobs, sure. On the other hand, if your boss came to you and said "I know project X is your priority right now but Y opportunity just arose and we really need someone to take it on - I think you would be a great fit and we would like you to pull back a little from Project X and take on Y" you would never expect to be paid extra for that. I view this as falling somewhere between those two cases.

Anyways, not really trying to defend UCLA in this. That was obviously a crummy thing to do. I'll be the first to agree power structure players a role too (and is why lawyers can get away with overly-conservative interpretations of anything they want and people tolerate it). Really my main point is just that the system is a big ole mess and I think we need to be careful not to blame the trainees or even individual people/departments involved.
 
Ollie123 said:
If two separate jobs, sure. On the other hand, if your boss came to you and said "I know project X is your priority right now but Y opportunity just arose and we really need someone to take it on - I think you would be a great fit and we would like you to pull back a little from Project X and take on Y" you would never expect to be paid extra for that. I view this as falling somewhere between those two cases.

Anyways, not really trying to defend UCLA in this. That was obviously a crummy thing to do. I'll be the first to agree power structure players a role too (and is why lawyers can get away with overly-conservative interpretations of anything they want and people tolerate it). Really my main point is just that the system is a big ole mess and I think we need to be careful not to blame the trainees or even individual people/departments involved.
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We can agree the system is a mess. While I fully understand your example project X and Y, I was burned during the pandemic with exactly that mentality. I had more free time with reduced travel and a shut down of face to face clinical visits. I used the time to prep and teach additional seminars in 2020 and 2021, took some additional roles in the dept, etc. All of this with the blessing of my dept chief. New hospital leadership comes in and all of a sudden I am being told I have new clinical workload expectations and I am underperforming. The extra work I took on does not count for anything because I already had met the required minimum teaching and departmental committee contributions before. Turns out, I could have skipped all of the extra work. So now forget all the extra stuff, increase clinical productivity for 2021-22. Point is, it makes for unclear and everchanging expectations.
 
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Ollie123 said:
If two separate jobs, sure. On the other hand, if your boss came to you and said "I know project X is your priority right now but Y opportunity just arose and we really need someone to take it on - I think you would be a great fit and we would like you to pull back a little from Project X and take on Y" you would never expect to be paid extra for that. I view this as falling somewhere between those two cases.

Anyways, not really trying to defend UCLA in this. That was obviously a crummy thing to do. I'll be the first to agree power structure players a role too (and is why lawyers can get away with overly-conservative interpretations of anything they want and people tolerate it). Really my main point is just that the system is a big ole mess and I think we need to be careful not to blame the trainees or even individual people/departments involved.
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I agree with your first paragraph in theory, but in my experience, it's usually "Add project Y and continue your same effort on project X." Slippery slope into doing more and more unpaid work.
 
cara susanna said:
The title "Assistant Adjunct"... I'm dying. 🤣

Also, yeah, can't people in this field make a ton of money in the private sector?
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I saw an adjunct request renewal once and they requested to be 'promoted' as part of the renewal to a "Full Adjunct Professor"

Not kidding.
 
Justanothergrad said:
I saw an adjunct request renewal once and they requested to be 'promoted' as part of the renewal to a "Full Adjunct Professor"

Not kidding.
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I mean if you are going to be given pointless titles, you might as well get the best pointless title.
 
Justanothergrad said:
Dreaming too big can be dangerous.
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People need dreams. They need dream that one day, if they work several decades for near minimum wage teaching college students, they too may rise to the level of Adjunct Emeritus, and receive not only that lofty title, but maybe also a Costco sheetcake, with "congrats" hastily scrawled onits surface during a regular faculty meeting. And, in that 10 seconds of acknowledgements at the end of the meeting, they can look back on their storied career and think wistfully of what else they could have done with their lives.
 
WisNeuro said:
People need dreams. They need dream that one day, if they work several decades for near minimum wage teaching college students, they too may rise to the level of Adjunct Emeritus, and receive not only that lofty title, but maybe also a Costco sheetcake, with "congrats" hastily scrawled onits surface during a regular faculty meeting. And, in that 10 seconds of acknowledgements at the end of the meeting, they can look back on their storied career and think wistfully of what else they could have done with their lives.
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Half sheet cake, dept budgets are not what they used to be.
 
Sanman said:
Half sheet cake, dept budgets are not what they used to be.
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In my dream, Mary, who is really the emotional glue holding the department together, collects some money from faculty to get that whole sheetcake. And, in this dream, there's even enough left over to buy a coffee mug that reads "#1 Adjunct." Peter, our adjunct emeritus, uses that coffee mug every morning, it's insides now permanently stained brown from countless cups, and sometimes, he tears up ever so slightly over Mary's thoughtfulness. And, he also wishes that his adjunct salary afforded him the opportunity to buy a Keurig, instead of settling for the coffee made from the bulk 40# bags the admins buy at Costco and powdered creamer.
 
WisNeuro said:
In my dream, Mary, who is really the emotional glue holding the department together, collects some money from faculty to get that whole sheetcake. And, in this dream, there's even enough left over to buy a coffee mug that reads "#1 Adjunct." Peter, our adjunct emeritus, uses that coffee mug every morning, it's insides now permanently stained brown from countless cups, and sometimes, he tears up ever so slightly over Mary's thoughtfulness. And, he also wishes that his adjunct salary afforded him the opportunity to buy a Keurig, instead of settling for the coffee made from the bulk 40# bags the admins buy at Costco and powdered creamer.
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Ah, the new 401k
 
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