I'm NOT your Thought-Exercise

Recently, some libertarian legend in his own mind decided that attacking adjuncts from the safety of his tenure-track, but not yet tenured job would be a good idea.  Obviously this is all the fault of adjuncts for their poor life choices, he wrote as if no one had said this before.  There is no need for me to excoriate that post further because former adjunct and always witty writer Gordon Haber gave it the satirical treatment in "Adjuncts! It's Your Own Damn Fault! That Arrogant Libertarian Troll is Absolutely Right!" and Kevin Carson, contributor at C4SS went directly after it in "Brennan to Adjuncts:  F*** You, Jack! I'm Doing All Right!" If you want to see all the hubbub, check out those two writers, for I won't be linking the original piece.

from When a Stranger Calls (2006)

Some time late yesterday, while I was busy working at my new job, those fun libertarian fellows decided that they should google me and proceed to drag my entire life.  Or at least, as much of my life as they can learn from a simple internet search.  It seems that I definitely should have known better than to try to get into the academic world.  (Spoiler alert, suckers:  I'm already here.  The calls are coming from inside the house.)   They couldn't find any of my published research.  I do have a publication and I have four that I need to revise and resubmit.  My book needs a more suitable publisher.  I have an essay also under consideration for a collection.  Sorry that my timeline isn't moving fast enough for the white dude crowd at the elite academic levels.

Here's the thing, though.  It's pretty easy to reduce me or any other person to a set of data points extracted by the most basic of browsers.  Myself, I generally run three or four if I'm in search of anything.  What none of these searches can turn up are the circumstances of my life because those things are not available.  I'm assuming that these adept researchers must have found my Rate My Professor scores because they decided that I 've put too much time into teaching and I must be a horrible teacher.

Enter this fallacy, which I heard espoused by a graduate professor once who was a terrible teacher himself:  If the faculty member has high evaluations then they aren't asking the students to do anything and are just making friends.

It could not possibly be because the faculty member is, wait for it,

ACTUALLY EXCELLENT AT THEIR JOB.

Things that are true about me that their paltry search likely did not turn up:

1.  I attended an undergraduate school renowned for its education programs at the time.  Schools that needed teachers called the education department directly to staff their classes when I was there--big, fancy new schools out of state wanted their education graduates.  I also won several awards for my teaching even as a student teacher.

2.  My on-paper evaluations by both peers and students are exemplary.  Are there negative ones?  Yes.  Do some folks think my class is easy?  Sure.  Do people fail?  Yes.  People also usually color in the bubble that my class is more work than most of their classes, but they still like it anyway.  My first teaching mentor told me that my Comp I syllabus was too difficult for the student population.  I used a permutation of that syllabus from that day on because it worked well and continues to do so.  I change the readings and assignments as needed, but it is built on a solid pedagogical framework.  My goal is not to fail half of each class but to teach them to write better no matter where they start.  I teach the workhorse courses of higher education.  I'm not there to berate upperclassmen who like Foucault more than Žižek.

3. My past chair called me "the best teacher she knows." Coming from her, that is no small compliment.  That woman ripped my writing to shreds.  She doesn't hand out idle pretty words.

4.  I have not presented much lately or yet gotten my writing published.  Most of this is due to my workload and my family responsibilities.  Other writers have handled the academic mom subject matter recently here, here, and here. It can be difficult to travel on an adjunct salary or write while grading five to six sections of writing composition.  It is also difficult when one's partner is a Veteran with PTSD whom the government turned down for disability.  But hey:  do more research!

5.  Both my Masters degree and my Doctoral one were covered by tuition waivers.  So why then did I take out loans, which libertarians think I should not have done?  I had a son.  Had I been alone I could've lived in squalor and eaten junk every other day.  When a child is factored in, the parent must provide a safe home, food, clothing, and care.  Graduate stipends do not pay for any of that.  Where was that child's father? Oh, he went away, drained the bank account and disappeared without paying child support.

6.  Since I was a first generation graduate school student, I had no idea what I was doing.  The faculty when I enrolled in my program were older and nearing retirement.  That's where the "Good people get good jobs" line came from.  Additionally, no one encouraged publication.  No one offered to co-author or proofread submissions.  Should I have known?  I guess I could've googled it.

7.  According to my stalkers, I searched in too geographically a narrow area.  I'm not sure how they figured this out, especially when it isn't true.  Perhaps I should post my Interfolio receipts.  For several years, I did remain at one school that paid a living wage and gave me benefits. This allowed me to live a good life.  What happened to that situation is chronicled by this blog.


What I feel may be at the center--I was going to say heart, but there isn't one--of these trolls' argument is that they feel we adjuncts don't deserve their highly paid, cushy two-course load positions.  What they are completely missing is that most of the adjuncts who are speaking up and fighting back against these wage theft, un-student centered processes simply want fair compensation for their work.  I would not care to teach six writing courses were I paid the money that amount of work is worth.  For the record, my time on those is not spent in prep but in grading and providing feedback.  However, this requires a person to understand that teaching is a valuable profession and that students are worth more focus than some esoteric article every couple of years that five people will read.

Dudley finds himself on the wrong side of the glass

I do not aspire to be a resident of the ivory tower such as my attackers are.  That is not representative of me or where I am from.  It is also not related to the lives of my students, for the most part.  To continually denigrate the profession of teaching as less than researching is to give the powers that be even more excuse to cut faculty lines, overload courses, and pay all faculty less.  If teaching is mundane then no training is needed and no extra time consideration matters.  Those folks sitting on their haunches throwing slime at adjuncts and teachers from behind the perceived safety glass of tenure may soon find that their situations have changed for the worse.

After all of this, I realize that I would not trade my family, friends, comrades in activism, students, or life as it is for that of one of my hecklers.  I'll still be here fighting for fair treatment of adjuncts and all teachers, as well as a better future version of education for students when these silly ghosts fade into the internet ether to harass someone else for a few laughs.

 Sincerely,

The Unarmed Education Mercenary

  

Academic Parent: Some of Both, Not Winning at Either

Recently, I was hired full time.  In the past, I have worked full time and then some as an instructor at one school and then at two.  I know what it's like to run myself ragged.  However, in the past I always had at least one day off during the week.  Even the semester that I had six classes, I had Fridays off.  It made far more of a difference than I knew.  This is my first full term back with three children and I work all five days a week.  To say that I am exhausted would be a massive understatement.

Then the worst happened:  the child whose illness is mentioned in "No Rest for the Wicked, or an Academic Parent" got much sicker.  Very. Much.  Ever since we moved this child was unwell in some way.  Conjunctivitis, unhealed surgical wound, a cold, horrifically chapped lips.  It worsened:  low-grade fever, mild diarrhea, no eating.  Then, whatever was wrong doubled down frighteningly fast with high fevers that popped right back up as soon as the medication wore off, worsening diarrhea, and increased sleeping.

During this time we went to one ER twice, another once, had a follow-up procedure about the unhealed surgery wound from October, and he was cared for as much as possible by a mother who had raised another child to his late teens without killing him.  I wailed to my own mother, five hours away,  "I don't know what to do now. I don't know!" I was falling apart but surely she would know.

She had no answer.  That was the night of the second local ER visit.  I could feel that something was deeply awry with this child, already small, who was wasting away before me eyes.  He refused to sleep alone. I would pull clean pajamas on his bone-thin legs and arms.  I would rock him and snuggle him in the night hoping to pour my own strength into this small person who no one seemed to be able to fix.  He didn't even smell right.

It's at this point I should mention that my new place of employment chose to not give me health care though I am currently full time.  They like people to be full-time for two terms before giving that prize.  For this job we moved to a different county and though I'd made a million calls and spent at least 24 hours on hold, I still did not have everything transferred.  I kept trying to enroll the children in CHIP but something was blocking it.  I was tired.  I was worried.  And I was the mercy of the broke-ass American healthcare system.  With the assurance, finally, that this child was covered by the state, I found a pediatrician.  That man likely saved my three-year old's life.  He actually listened to what I said and he helped us.

The Children's Hospital Fountain at night

In less than five hours we were en route to a different major hospital than we had been working with to this point.  There, after five very frightening days of testing, waiting, and watching that little person lie listlessly in a bed with IVs, monitors, and a feeding tube all hooked to him, we finally had an answer:  at the age of three, my child was diagnosed with Crohn's disease.  All of his life, unless a cure is found, he will deal with this.  As horrible as the diagnosis was, I felt relief.  I had a name for all these things that were wrecking him and it could be lived with.  When words like cancer are being quietly put out there as possibilities, Crohn's doesn't seem so terrible.  My father died of cancer and it is an ugly way to go.

Have you forgotten that I'm in a new job yet? For two of the long hospital trips previously, my Dean did approve leave for me.  However, for this visit we were in the hospital for more than a week.  Holy of holies, it was Spring Break.  What if it hadn't been? What then?

I can't answer that.  I don't want to.

We are settling into our new lives as a family of a child with a chronic illness.  I read about it.  I think about where all the bathrooms are if needed when we go out.  I know about medicine logs and keeping track of doses of things.  I think harder about what foods I will put on the table at the end of my day.  But then my life as an academic tugs at me:  What about those conferences? What about committee meetings that run late? What about research and publishing?

Those are the times that I want to scream and never stop.  I want to break all the things and set stuff on fire.  I can't be the best me there and the best me at home.  I can neither stop working nor count on help regularly at the needed levels at home. I know why so many women leave academia now.  No matter what we do and are capable of doing at our jobs, everyone expects us to also do the very best at home and with our children.  Well, it's too much.  I'm doing the best I can do.  Everyone is still alive and for now, I still have a job.  When that's my mantra to keep going, I worry about myself and all the others out there under conditions I can't even imagine.

It shouldn't be like this. It should not.

National Adjunct Walkout Day

lthough tomorrow, Wednesday, February 25th is officially National Adjunct Walkout Day, many folks are using this entire week to get the message across:  Without Adjuncts, Your Schools Cannot Function. Ideally, this day would shut most of higher education down, making clear the 75% reliance on contract workers that keeps the system lurching along.

I know that many adjunct and contract workers out there support this idea wholeheartedly but they cannot walk out.  Some of them have planned teach-ins, alternate activities that include viewing documentaries or hearing speakers on the adjunct issue, some will wear badges, maybe some will wear red.  There will be many who will outwardly do nothing at all.

Do not judge those adjuncts.  Every action, every word we speak against this crisis is taking a risk and some cannot afford to do that.  As the sole breadwinner for my family, I know what that feeling is like.  Speaking up and also fighting an abuse of contract has cost me work.  Activism is not without penalty.  That person who appears to be avoiding any contact with Walkout Activities may be deeply grateful for what is being done but they're too scared to say so.  I have received anonymous messages of similar content thanking me for what I do and say.  Some of these people have even said that they wish they could help.  That's okay.  I'm fighting for them as much as for myself and the rest of us.

Tomorrow many adjuncts will take a risk.  If you can, join them.  Look for events in your area.  An on-line search should produce results.

A better system for adjuncts is a better system for students.

Part-time work should be a choice, but it should not be the default position for academic jobs.

Together we can make something different.  Something better.

Join the adjuncts and work for the students.

Here's your A.  Wear it proudly.

A

When Everyone is Contingent, Then What?

I find myself in the strangest situations.  Recently, I was hired through a national search for a grant funded full-time position.  "Hurray!" say the readers of the blog.  Well, that's what I said, too, even though I knew that I would have to reapply for my position every year.  This situation was not unlike another full time temporary gig I held for many years.  Reapplying is nothing more than an another added annoyance to many adjuncts.  We do it so much that we're really good at it.  I'm not going to say that I never worry that I won't get rehired because that would be lying, but I'm reasonably assured that I do a great job and will likely be back.  At least, that was the case at my old, really well-paying gig before I became The Unarmed Education Mercenary and complained about what they did to us.

After signing and mailing my contract back, I found a place for my family to live, began forwarding mail and changing addresses on important things like car registrations and my driver's license, I got A Very Disturbing Email from my new boss.  This person was letting me know that the Dean-who-is-not-my-Dean (not the Dean who interviewed me and offered me this job) only wanted to allot 50% for my position in the new iteration of the grant.

Well then.

What did I want to do? Cancel the move.  Throw a giant, apocalyptic fit.  Burn things.

My friends said not to go.  Some of them were more colorful in their choices of words to reject the position they had just got done congratulating me for getting. On the whole, it was Not A Good Day.  My eldest child, whose life I just upended by announcing this move to another county said, "Well, we might as well go because I am NOT unpacking those boxes unless we take them to another house.  There's too much tape on them.  Besides, everyone already feels sorry for me for moving and it would be kind of weird if I didn't go."  Then there's the matter of my employment.  If we stayed I would have only one class at the lower paying school furthest away.  That wasn't enough to live on.  We could, I suppose, have gone on all the assistance programs because I'm sure we would've qualified.  At least at the new place, the income would be good for a semester.  Son the Eldest was correct:  it was time to jump.

So jump we did and in the middle of a winter storm.  It has snowed at least three times a week since then.  I work in a department with some of the best people who care deeply about the students they serve and guess what?  None of us are permanent.  Each one of us has to reapply for our jobs.  We are still expected to do service and scholarly work, and we do.  What we do not have is any kind of security in our lives.  Will our grants be refunded? Will we be the ones rehired? Can I find 50% more work to do on this campus now that I've dragged everyone here?  I would be lying if I said this is good for my morale.  I love it here.  I would gladly spend my career here serving the students of this school.  I can do good things here, and yet, every single day I worry about next fall.  And next spring.  And the semester after that.  This is what it is like when everyone is contingent and everyone is worried:  it is a major distraction.  Will we say or do something that will keep us from being renewed? Will someone more qualified than us apply and take away our jobs?

Is this any way to run an education system?

No.  No it isn't.  If anyone out there making decisions about education would first please ask the question "Is this best for the students and the students' learning conditions?" I wonder how that would change things.  What are we here to do in higher education? Do we even know anymore?

As for me, I'm here to serve the students and thereby make a living to provide for my family.

What about you?