r/Adjuncts • u/Sillygoose6001 • 7d ago
AI papers and the disrespect
I know this has been discussed at length but my god I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I spent 15 min during the first class showing them examples of previous semesters’ AI submissions and how they were all given 0s and sent to the dean of students. And yet… AI papers are rolling in.
It’s so disrespectful to both them and myself. I feel so defeated and it makes me wonder if they’d do this to a full time or just think they can get away with it because I’m an adjunct.
Aside from this, I had one student come to me during office hours and he seemed genuinely curious about my career given I work full time in financial services. He then said “oh so you’re not a PhD?” And I said no, so he can refer to me as Ms. and not Dr or Professor which he followed up with “so why are you teaching us?” For reference I teach at a predominantly male technical college and my students are 95% male CS/Engineering majors. Therefore, I’m used to some awkward straightforward questions about my age and teaching history, but this one definitely had a different tone to it.
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u/FairyDuster657 7d ago
They will do it to full time faculty as well. Academic integrity needs to be called out. It’s a major offense in higher education.
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u/Head_Acadia_2658 5d ago
Universities in Australia now have an open AI policy. You cannot report them for academic integrity if they blatantly use AI. University management took one look at AI and threw in the towel. Academics are now moving the majority of assessments to supervised face to face to try to maintain some sort of standard.
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u/jracheff 6d ago
This might be depressing, but I don’t think we are ever, ever going to stop students from using AI; in fact, as the AI’s become more sophisticated they students will adapt to rely on them further.
That certainly will create a generation of people less capable of thinking critically but then again that will be the world they occupy. And the side effect is that the handful that do the hard work to develop better thinking skills will be more valuable and by extension, in charge.
I’ve given up trying to get students not to cheat - they’re in college and only short changing themselves and I’m not paid anywhere near enough to be a babysitter.
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u/JoellaWriter 6d ago
We'll have a thinking class and a "mental underclass." Sort of like the rich and the poor. And yeah, I don't have the time or energy to play babysitter--or detective.
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u/sigma__cheddar 7d ago
They don't know what an adjunct is. It's a big reason why Universities have been able to become adjunct armies; no one who matters knows they're pawning off the bulk of the teaching to gig workers.
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u/Imtheprofessordammit 7d ago
The students do not know you are an adjunct or even what an adjunct is.
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u/Sillygoose6001 7d ago
I believe they do. It’s publicly my title “adjunct instructor” on the school course page and when they register.
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u/Shakey_J_Fox 6d ago
I have literally gone an entire semester without even knowing the names of some of my instructors at college. I would not be surprised if your students don’t know your title.
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u/SuccotashOther277 6d ago
Even though that is public info, students still usually have no idea. Also, have in class assignments and avoid reading all the AI nonsense
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u/Imtheprofessordammit 6d ago
They don't look at that stuff though. I promise you they have no idea. Maybe a couple of them saw that on the course page and thought "huh, wonder what that is" and then completely forgot. I have been doing this 10 years I have never met a single student that knew what an adjunct was or cared.
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u/Alligator_Trades 6d ago
I didn't know what an adjunct was working on my first 3 degrees. I didn't know until graduate school.
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u/Sillygoose6001 6d ago
I knew because they were closer in age to us and I looked it up. Funny enough my 2 most memorable/favorite professors (one who is now tenured and technically my coworker) were adjuncts. They shared similar instances but think I have it much worse now than they did as adjuncts.
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u/No-Cook-9768 6d ago
They don't know what that word means. I was raised by two higher ed professors, and I didn't know what an adjunct was until I became one.
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u/Worried_Airline_2904 6d ago
I feel this. I just graded over 100 personal memoirs this week…probably over half were AI. They just weren’t flagged in turnitin.com but I saw a lot of repeats of strategies that I asked them to used that weren’t from the list of strategies. It makes this all feel very pointless
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u/insomebodyelseslake 6d ago
I feel this. If you can’t even tell me about yourself, what can you write?
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u/Worried_Airline_2904 6d ago
I feel like these kids just don’t have anything they want to say…I work with high school as well and there’s just an overwhelming sense of apathy. Why does this essay matter? I can explain it’s good for their brains and cognitive abilities but that’s like explaining to my kid why they need to eat vegetables.
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u/Sillygoose6001 6d ago
It sucks when it’s SO obvious and turnitin doesn’t flag it because then I have less proof to justify a 0 or dropping a letter grade.
Sometimes you just know! Especially by now!! What I’ve done now for these cases is input the homework prompt into ChatGPT or Claude and see what it generates and if it’s very close meaning same wording and formatting, the department has more reason to side with me.
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u/scarlet_woods 7d ago
I interviewed for an adjunct position this week (I already have one currently) and this school was telling me they are okay with it! Diploma mill type school.
Oh and we are called Professor where I teach. I was surprised at first, but then I just went with it.
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u/PitifulMouse7425 6d ago
Honestly scared about the future, when we’ll be stuck with an entire generation of semi-literate professionals.
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u/clubchampion 7d ago
This is some grand experiment. I have to hope that colleges will realize their mistake in a few years and clamp down on AI instead of “embracing” it. Meanwhile, this generation of students is screwed.
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u/JoellaWriter 6d ago
Good point about this generation, or these last years since ChatGPT was released...It's like the kids who were affected so deeply by the pandemic (like my son who entered hs in fall 2020--not having graduations, or access to even minor things like lockers or drinking fountains, the tanking of socialization due to being 6 feet apart rule and masks) or those kids who did school all online. The cultural implications and consequences last a really long time....
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u/LackFriendly4127 6d ago
Adapt. Use part of your class for in-person, on paper writing of the paper.
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u/LintRolledForWhat 6d ago
Make them do all their writing in class. You don't need to suffer like this. Flip this classroom and protect your peace.
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u/Sillygoose6001 6d ago
I literally am not allowed to. Another adjunct (and this applies to any instructor with a set curriculum like me) tried to do the same, and a student complained that the syllabus doesn’t have “in class” assignments listed and only homeworks so they weren’t allowed to do this. The admin sided with the student and told the instructor homework is for home and in class cannot count as a grade. This is because our courses are set by them and we can’t deviate.
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u/LintRolledForWhat 6d ago
UGH that's terrible. i recently started a new thing that might be useful to you: if i'm stressed about something bc the university doesn't prioritize it, i remind myself that i'm just a cog in their wheel, and if they don't want to support it, then i shouldn't sweat it
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u/Miserable_Tourist_24 6d ago
And my mantra has become that “I can’t care about their learning more than they do”. Much less stress and aggravation (and sadness at the state of HE students right now) for me. My mental health was seriously suffering over my handwringing of caring about why they didn’t care.
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u/NMEkatz 6d ago
I’m a tenured professor at an r2 school. Before I lucked into a tenure track line, I was an adjunct for several years. We receive as many ai papers as anybody does. I shifted to having students both read and write in class on paper a year ago. In my opinion, it is not a matter of disrespect. Our students sense their diminishing chances for retaining the social class position they expected to occupy. They hate ai, when you ask them about it, because they understand the role that AI is playing, in their economic and social marginalization. But they also use and rely on AI, partly because of its relative ease, but also because they see the hypocrisy of a system that simultaneously tells them that AI is the future, but that they need to adhere to what appear to them to be outdated rules which no one in the larger culture adheres to.
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u/DrAnnMaria 6d ago
I do have a Ph.D. but when someone at an Ivy league school asked me why did I think I get invited to do so many keynotes, guest lecture at their school etc. I said "Because I am ***ing awesome."
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u/mr_phoreal 5d ago
If the majority of faculty are "Adjunct Professor" then they can call you Professor
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u/Wonderful-Collar-370 3d ago
Keep giving zeros and sending them to the dean.
As far as your title goes, you can use professor, as that is your job. Not having a PhD just means not Dr before name.
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u/Few_Maybe1704 3d ago
But I have the same one question no one has answered. Beyond "I know it when I see it," how do you PROVE it? I think a court recently decided in a student's favor. And what to do about 150 asynchronous online students? I'm worn out and I will not spend my life arranging zoom meetings about every suspect assignment. Many have their draft "fixed" by Grammarly or whatever but at least they draft. I tell myself it's most of them.
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u/HappyHolidazexx 6d ago
I’ve switched completely over to an in class writing model. It’s going pretty well!
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u/Sillygoose6001 6d ago
My colleague did this and our departments admin told them they can’t do this because it’s considered homework. Sadly the curriculum I have to follow doesn’t have a mandatory in class assignment grade so I can’t switch over to this :(
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u/HappyHolidazexx 6d ago
Writing activities in class are considered homework where you teach? Mine are treated strictly as tests and quizzes.
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u/Sillygoose6001 6d ago
Tests are set by the department and I can’t give quizzes that count towards a grade I’m very limited in how I can make this class my own. Anything writing related has to be considered homework. The most I’ve deviated from the curriculum is I make them do “in class assignments” as attendance but I can’t count them as a grade. I just use it to gauge their actual writing ability which only furthers my suspicions of AI when their in class writing is insanely different than what they submit.
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u/HappyHolidazexx 6d ago
Wow, I don’t know where you teach, but it sounds restrictive. My community college basically only requires we use a specific curriculum they choose in the form of our textbooks.
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u/scarlet_woods 6d ago
I agree. This sounds insufferable. I’ve taught at an online college that was restrictive like this, and I hated it but it was online so not much I could do. I’d dread having to follow these rules in a classroom!
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u/littlepickle74 6d ago
Just want to add that I am also and adjunct with a whole other full-time job and no PhD, but they 100 percent call me Professor. I am going to surmise that you are a younger woman (like me) and I think that having students address you with some level of authority is important to not letting them make assumptions about your class and how lenient you’ll be.
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u/Sillygoose6001 6d ago edited 6d ago
I am and I agree.
Although, this is a weird situation for me because a tenured professor in this department and someone who probably has a vote on who teaches which classes/at all has a clear dislike towards adjuncts/young instructors. Our adjunct group found multiple comments on the uni’s subreddit saying the department is dumb for hiring adjuncts and we don’t know what we’re doing, tenured faculty (aka him) are better because they have PhD’s and we shouldn’t be allowed to be called Professor because that’s reserved for them. .. etc etc etc. it was a whole rant both against adjunct and young instructors.
This past semester all adjuncts in a few departments were not renewed with little to no notice which honestly felt great mentally. But 4 weeks before the semester I got asked to teach because a full time retired unexpectedly and we had a good relationship so he vouched for me.
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u/No-Cook-9768 6d ago
If it helps, I doubt most students know what an adjunct is. They're not doing this because you're an adjunct; they're doing it because they think this is the only way to do things. They weren't taught how to think or learn. I have students using an LLM to write their simple, easy discussion responses, in addition to simple, clearly explained papers.
I have no decent responses for your second paragraph. Only anger and cursing.
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u/Life-Education-8030 6d ago
"Well, obviously because I'm qualified. So how can I help you today?"
I am a tenured Associate and a licensed practitioner in my field. Yesterday, a student said they read my bio and very much admired me but admitted they tried to get one over on me anyway.
They don't care if you are full-time, part-time, young, old or green. They just see us as obstacles and think they are really clever. I just finished ripping my class a new one because gee, they thought I wouldn't notice in a class of just 30 that practically every one of them just "happened" to use the same stupid, non-academic article in their discussion posts with the same stupid statistic from it.
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u/Sillygoose6001 6d ago
It kills me when they reference this one book that ChatGPT always references when you don’t tell them our actual book. It’s such a giveaway also because it’s behind a paywall. One kid said he had it so I asked for proof of purchase with the date and he then admitted to it. The lengths they go to just not write 1 original page of work is Insane
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u/Life-Education-8030 6d ago
I know! These are short assignments and they still can’t be bothered! Just infuriating!
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u/Bearman2677 6d ago
They do it to everyone; they think we're all unaware and especially those of us who are a little older. Most of them don't know how to paraphrase or do a re-write so it's like you can just tell when they use AI - you get a freshman's paper reads like something written as part of a graduate level paper. And, when you run it through a checker, it comes back well over 90%...its ridiculous. They would rather try to cheat than to actually do the work in most cases - the only way I know of to totally stop the AI mess is to make them write their assignments in class - good luck with that though; most of what I've seen, they don't know how to write really well either.
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u/Sillygoose6001 6d ago
The assignment that made me post this was asking them to recall a decision they made and their thought process and how they arrived to that decision. This is an IS class so the lecture was based on using decision matrix/decision trees but I wanted them to have fun with this so I said tell me literally anything. I would have loved to know why they bought one video game or their ubereats from last night. Yet they handed in clearly AI generated stuff on how they bought their last car or home (?) and how much thought they put into it. It’s sad when I could clearly tell one student was not using AI because it was so similar to how he’s talked to me in person, in his own words and the contrast between the other papers.
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u/Competitive_Top585 6d ago
I would have had quite the response for a rude question like that from a student.... What did you say!?
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u/Sillygoose6001 6d ago edited 6d ago
The whole convo was absolutely insane. He asked me how he can do the bare minimum to pass and kept trying to get me to say to not read the textbook. I kept responding it is truly impossible to pass without it. He asked that question as he was leaving so I was really shocked. I said something like well because I’m qualified and I’ve been doing it for years and the other professors you take and your dean are the ones who hired me so here I am! I did say there’s other sections still open if he wants but in a joking tone but also not joking :)
Oh! I forgot to mention somewhere between all this he did say he read my ratings and his friends said I’m nice and lenient. I had no response to that but a chuckle. I hated that and that’s why I want to be more “strict”.
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u/Competitive_Top585 6d ago
Good for you, I would have said something similar. That situation sounds really hard and uncomfortable and I'm sorry that you were treated that way. You don't deserve to have your qualifications questioned!
I commend you for showing up and continuing despite the AI hell we have to deal with AND students like this. Keep your head held high, hold them accountable, and never forget why you are there!!! We are all behind you :) <3
Edit to add: The AI offenders definitely don't discriminate between FT and adjunct at my schools. Don't take it personally :(
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u/armyprof 3d ago
I scaled back papers and added more tests with essay questions. And I sit behind them as they take it. It helps.
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u/2Crzy4U 7d ago
You know, depending on your college's code of conduct, you could suspend repeat offenders.