Another truth-telling story from the Adjunct Project about the fact of the adjunctification of higher education:
Realizations About My Life as an Adjunct by Sile Mor
CONTRIBUTE TO STAND WITH MARY-FAITH
How to Fix Academic Labor (Pt. 372): Make Better Use of the Scarlet ‘A’
Path to student loan debt relief for adjuncts just got a little easier–but still a long way to go
From the CPFA blog by San Diego adjunct Krista Eliot:
Path to student loan debt relief for adjuncts just got a little easier–but still a long way to go
#AdjunctChat Topic June 3 ~ Adjuncts on the Dole (with @whowewilltobe)
In California, unemployment wages are guaranteed to adjunct, but we still have to fight for them. The application is changed every year; one wrong answer triggers an interview, which postpones the payment sometimes for weeks. However, for adjuncts, claiming unemployment wages is claiming a small portion of wages you have already earned. It is no more shameful than collecting a paycheck, but it is absurd. An adjunct moment I once had reveals a flashpoint: a tenured once remarked to me that she also was unemployed during the summer break, but could not draw unemployment wages. Was she envious? Was she angry? Did she feel left out? She certainly was clueless.
The topic for the #AdjunctChat on Tuesday, June 3 at 4:00pm EDT is:
Adjuncts on the Dole: Eliminating the Shame of Applying for Public Assistance
The chat will be facilitated by Bri O’Blivion @whowewilltobe.
Many adjunct and part-time higher education instructors struggle earning a living through teaching multiple courses, often at multiple universities, frequently barely making enough income to survive. Moreover, it is increasingly a situation where some are seeking public assistance just to survive. Does this resonate with your experiences? Want to challenge the stigma associated with all this? Want to chat?
Our discussion will focus on these questions:
Q1: When do you most need state support? #AdjunctChat
Q2: Tell us about your experiences during application. #AdjunctChat
Q3: How do you rationalize your emotional response? #AdjunctChat
Q4: How can we help dissolve the humiliation that we feel? #AdjunctChat
All adjunct, contingent, part-time, visiting, and non-tenure track instructors, along…
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The first rule of adjuncting…
For many years, I didn’t even tell myself I was an adjunct. Even though my financial status was a pale shadow of what a full-timer’s was, I acted like I was the same. Adjunct are the same as far as qualifications go, but quite different when quality of life is compared. One day, when I didn’t win the full-time positions lottery, I suddenly saw myself for what I was: an adjunct.
The Day After
The Day After
First, coffee. Then, file for unemployment, the absurd moment, dreaded…a vision of the dead end. How many times have I applied? 40? 50? Who’s counting? It’s just part of the “job.” Once the tentative agreement expires, and I have no reasonable assurance of being rehired, I am unemployed. The shame. It is absurd…I must embrace the absurdity, stifle the nausea and…collect the pittance I am due, which I have earned already. Seemingly, in some meager attempt to compensate for the inequity of my pay (to make it ok?), a California court awarded me and my adjuncts across the state in 1988 the right to file for and receive unemployment wages, once the semester ends and the tentative agreement expires.
Breakfast.
Then what? Oh, to work. Final compositions of introductory and advanced students, lengthy, researched tomes, about 5 dozen to evaluate. And calculate and assign a grade for each student. One sent me a paper on Google docs. Some requested that I make comments on their papers. Shall I take odds on how many will return next fall for their comments? How closely should I mark them? What wisdom might I impart to my erstwhile students, at this moment, after the tentative agreement has expired?
Ah, the absurdity. I must embrace it, and take the pittance, for the lean times ahead.
And now, to work.
A Whimper
A sad day for students and for higher education; hopefully, a new day for Rebecca Schuman:
Last year, I “ended” my college teaching career with a bang–a banging headache, that is, from the copious amounts of sugar I packed down at the surprise party my students threw me on my last day of class at OSU. It was an emotionally-charged day amidst an emotionally-charged time that I will never forget. In the year that followed, because my professional future was so unstable, I vowed to take every opportunity given to me, even if that meant working multiple jobs.
I did, and it did–by the time Fall 2013 rolled around, I was taking on a larger client roster for my coaching practice, I was writing weekly for Slate, and I’d signed on to teach three classes back at the UMSL honors college, where I had had an overwhelmingly positive experience right out of grad school. It turned out to be quite a full…
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One Student’s Awakening to the Adjunct Crisis
One student’s awakening to the sad fact of adjunctification .
A True Oligarchy
An inspired graphic from Adjunct Noise on Facebbook:
The Adjunct Crisis 