This article adds another pertinent layer to understanding the adjunct condition. I would be willing to bet that women and other minorities in general comprise a disproportionate share of college adjuncts as well. More marginalization for the most marginalized.
This essay, from the Catholic Higher Education Advocate, relates the exploitation of a currently unemployed Texas adjunct who draws clear parallels between her situation and Edward R. Murrow’s famous 1960 Teledocumentary “Harvest of Shame”. Harvest of Shame indeed.
P.S.: Please sign the Moveon.org petition Dr. Tamayo links to at the end of her essay.
http://cheausa.org/social-justice-plight-adjuncts-time-act-3/
While this article does rehash some of the events concerning the death of Mary Vojtko, its references to the Ehrenreich’s discussion of the creeping decline of the professional class and Gary Standings’ observation of the rise of the “Precariat”, or precarious workers is apt, and not only applicable to adjuncts, but to everyone who lives outside the capitalist class.
Reblogged from the Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-quick/professor-working-poor_b_4645217.html
Dear “Good” Adjuncts:
Things actually got worse. Apparently management had decided that “one” class means any class under 2.4 credits. Being that 95% of classes at my unnamed institution are between three and five units, it effectively means that break-in-service or no, there are, if the arbitration mediator so allows for management’s interpretation of the contract, no rehire rights.
To add insult to injury here, when previous union execs members were called in to meet with the mediator under oath and testify as to what was actually meant when the rehire/vesting language was written, they stated they did in fact mean classes under 2.5 credits. WTF?
This means that these members (all full-timers) intended to establish a rehire policy that was never realistically going to actually give adjuncts rehire rights.
I feel like a cheap date in a dark room. I don’t know who’s going to screw me.
Geoff Johnson
The “good” adjunct
Happy New Year my “good” adjuncts! I trust that as many of you were enjoying your unemployment, er…I mean end-of-term break, you had a good time grading 300+ tests and essays before the grading deadline so that you could celebrate your utter exhaustion, er…I mean good cheer, as you sat and reflected on how you were going to make your last paycheck stretch, er…I mean the tremendous bounty that you have to be thankful for…
Who am I kidding?
One of the schools at which I am teaching, which shall go nameless, is after some two years of negotiation, going into arbitration with the local teacher’s union after more or less a year of stalling and outright obstinacy. The “greedy” teachers, including the full-time faculty, have not only not seen a pay raise in seven years, but in the last contract were cajoled into taking a 5% pay cut. Adjuncts, who tipped the scales in approving the previous contract, did so under the fear that if they didn’t do it, then class sections would be drastically cut. In reward for their sacrifice, the school cut 30% of its class sections anyway, all taught by adjuncts, then turned around and gave its three vice presidents a 25,000 dollar-a-year increase each.
But being a vice president is hard work…
Anyway, one of the present sticking points in the present contract has to do with what we call here vesting. The idea of it is simply this: After a period of two years, if an adjunct’s evaluations have been good (and not once or twice, but always), he or she will be given consideration for the assigning of “one” class over another adjunct who has taught at the school less than two years. After two years, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve taught for two years or 25, you have no priority over another adjunct who has also taught for more than two years, and the scheduler, usually a department chair, can assign you whatever he or she wishes at wherever and wherever they wish without any reason or justification. This vesting policy is supposedly a great benefit to adjuncts, and a shining example of how they are valued.
The union, to its credit is trying to change the language of the policy, not so much to establish anything that would even remotely resemble a true seniority hiring policy for good adjuncts, but to allow them a one-semester break in service in the event that they get ill, must take care of an ill or aged loved one, etc. In one recent case brought to the union, one adjunct with 14 years of outstanding evaluations lost all rehire rights when she had to take off one semester due to illness.
School management has responded by emphatically saying “no”, with the rationale that it will make it “inconvenient” to schedule classes. What exactly does “inconvenience” mean? Well, one can suppose it means that administrators would have to spend a little more of their relatively well-paid time working on the schedule, that they may have to recognize that individual adjunct instructors have certain talents and skills and are an indispensable part of the institution. It may also force them to see over time, that a continuity of instruction might aid in student retention and completion rates, but I digress…
By making things “convenient” for administrators, what does this mean for adjuncts? Well, it means hoping to hell one of your other family members, if you have one, will take care of your elderly mother or father who can’t take care of themselves if the need arises. The same applies if an adjunct has a sick child or spouse. It also means that you’d better not get seriously ill yourself, or if that if you do so, that you had better “gut it out” until the end of the term, and hopefully recover over the break. Of course, you could just die, which might bum out yourself and your family, but at least an administrator won’t have to worry.
Now that the union and management are at impasse, there are several full-time faculty that have had the nerve to say, since vesting is the real sticking point here, that the union should just drop it from the contract language. One could confer that that this push for a minor improvement in the vesting language is “inconvenient” to them to.
I’m not willing to simply be “convenient” in this way, and I hope, my fellow “good” adjuncts, you won’t be either.
Geoff Johnson
The Good and Inconvenient Adjunct
Inequality, MOOCs and The Predator Elite
The specter of Moocs truly does loom large for adjuncts. I also recommend “How the American University Was Killed in Five Easy Steps” on the same site.
Several Years ago, as a union rep, I had to seek emergency funding for one of my fellow colleagues, (a Ph.D. holder) who had three kids aged from 8 to 17 and was living out of a station wagon. I have had serious discussions with adjuncts on several occasions about buying professional-looking clothing at thrift stores like Amvets and the Salvation Army, and had the pleasure of waiting for an hour in front of a free clinic holding my then sick and crying four-year old waiting to get him checked because I didn’t have insurance covering him. This may be old news, but it’s a current and growing problem.
Over the past few years of attending numerous union, academic department, and adjunct advocacy group meetings I have listened to debate and put forth ideas as to what, we, the members of the Adjunctiverse or Adjunct Nation should be called.
I have in fact seen some strong debates over the issue of what we should be called, at the same time overshadowing the fact that during the past few years, some schools have cut adjunct teaching sections by over 40 percent. I presently teach at one school where not only have I not received a raise in the last seven years, but was asked to take a five percent pay cut on the last contract, only to watch the class sections the cuts were supposedly going to preserve cut like the prices on Halloween candy in November.
I come from the time when adjunct instructors were called part-timers—No. Wait. We still are called part-timers, aren’t we? Hmmm…
I don’t know when the term “adjunct” first started getting used, nor do I really care. When people stopped calling me a part-timer, I actually felt like adjunct kind of prettied things up a bit too much. After all, I only receive part of the wage of a contract/full-timer, I only get to participate in part of the activities of a full-time instructor, and although I am lucky to have full health insurance for myself and my family, most “adjunct” instructors only have part of the health benefits of a full-timer, along with only part of the respect, part of the same union representation, hence part of the bargaining power.
Now I’ve heard that people feel the term “adjunct” is demeaning, in that it simply means “A thing added to something else in a sort a supplementary way,” kind of like the guy who puts the French tickler on his…well, I guess it could be said that we adjuncts are that tickler in the world of higher ed. (except that we’re the ones being screwed). The new term for us that’s in vogue now is “contingent” meaning, among other things “chance”, “accidental”, “haphazard”.
My God! That’s so much fu**ing better! I’m on the road to feeling better! I ain’t gonna cry no more no more, I ain’t gonna cry no more…
Let’s be a little real here, shall we? Being called an adjunct, or part-timer, or contingent is bad because first and foremost, we are being treated like we are “adjuncts,” “part-timers”, or “contingent” faculty. Sanitation Engineers and Administrative Assistants are still trash collectors and secretaries the last time I checked.
Just call me “exploited”, then let’s get on with addressing the real source of our injury.
However, since we’re talking terms and definitions, my fellow “good”adjuncts, I now bequeath to you and the world the “The ‘Good’ Adjunct List of Professional Terms: Part I”
Part-Time Instructor: Refers to a person who worked very hard in school and got good grades so he or she could go to school and work harder and get more good grades for many more years. May have accrued more than 100,000 dollars in debt, but is certain upon graduation that he or she will be rewarded with a good job. Is later surprised to learn that isn’t the case but then takes a job teaching one or two classes for much less than half of what a full-time employee makes, except with little or no benefits, job security, or perks beyond a key to the staff restroom (if he or she asks for it nicely). To supplement his/her meager income he/she will find other institutions to teach multiple classes, often more than what a regular full-timer teaches, at just a fraction of the salary. He or she does this initially thinking it will get him or her a full-time job, which it rarely does. He or she will then, with no small amount of irony, exhort his or her students to work hard as it will bring them success.
Adjunct Instructor: See Above
Contingent Instructor: See Above
Uncontracted Facilitator: See Above
Unsecured Educator: See Above
Educated Grade Slave: See Above
Geoff Johnson–A “Good” Adjunct
The Adjunct Crisis 