While I Was Sleeping . . .

No, not the usual Cinderella story (wait, that's Sleeping Beauty, right?). The sad truth is that while the blogosphere never stops, the blogger sometimes does. Right now, many many things are happening in the world of academic labor issues. And I need to get down to business.

First, I promised a second blog when the opening at my college was filled. It has been, so I will be talking to those of you who are job seekers to help you hone your presentations.

In the meantime, however   . . .

Ladies and Gentlemen, Meet My Brother.

That’s my brother the mansplainer (with me at his son's wedding - yes, we are all crazy). He read my last blog and decided, in spite of admitting at the end of his response that he knows nothing about the academic job market, that he had to explain exactly why I, and in fact, the entire academic world, [am, are, is] wrong.




Read his blog here: https://hmstewartjr.wordpress.com/2015/03/

Unfortunately, he is wrong on several points. The first was assuming that the job I talked about, like mine, is in composition. In fact, the situation is exactly the opposite of what he assumed: instead of the department chair wanting to keep the Shakespeare seminar, we are seeking a Shakespearean. And we have no freshman lecture classes to offload – all of our English classes are capped at 26. So the first error in job seeking, or sister critiquing, is not researching the position and the institution.

But that’s not the worst of it. He claims that there are no measurables in teaching composition. It might surprise him to know that I’ve spent a great deal of my career studying writing assessment and developing systems that assess both student learning within the classroom and the effectiveness of composition programs in meeting their objectives and learning outcomes. Can I say I’ve improved writing by 25% a quarter like a sales professional? No, but I can show, both quantitatively and qualitatively, if my classes are working, and if a program is working.

His next error is actually kind of sad: connections just don’t mean that much in academic hiring. Job descriptions are very specific, and if you don’t meet them (for example, if you are not first and foremost a Shakespearean in this case), who you know won’t help you. If you are a Shakespearean with connections, that’s nice, but if the unconnected candidate has better qualifications – more publications, more national presentations, better recommendations – your connection won’t help you. When I was on the market, I felt it was a paradox: I worked hard to network, knowing it would probably never help me get a job. But it has helped me be better at my job, so it’s worth doing. Assuming you get the job.

And actually, we care very much what your research interests are. That’s part of the job: have research interests in the field where you are teaching.

And “hiring authorities goals may not be tied to  . . . outcomes?” And business folks claim that education is too jargony to deal with? The “hiring authorities” are a committee of faculty, and ideally that committee includes staff and students. And yes, we want to hire faculty whose goals are in line with those of our institution, and who care about the learning outcomes.

And, even though we are sad to lose a colleague, our committee is not in pain. We’re excited about finding a new member of a very collegial department.

And ultimately, I have to reject his proposal. A non-academic job seeker group might offer moral support, but if, like my brother, that group is totally focused on business, they have nothing practical to offer an academic candidate. Groups like that have told me things like, limit your resume to two pages (my current CV is now 12 – and that represents how short my academic career has been). I agree that candidates should seek out help from their universities, but God forbid that that help should come from “real business people.” I can’t even write what I think about that, because the businessification of education has become its downfall, but no brother of mine will ever see that.

McKee’s blog was distant and impersonal, but the intent was clear: as a business man, as a man, he knows better. In spite of his limited time in the academy in the worst of circumstances, he has to apply the business model. In this case, his advice would torpedo a good candidate. I’m taking him on personally because it’s more honest, and because it’s time we all admitted: we are good at what we do. We know our fields. I have never suggested I know better how trucking or jewelry companies should be run. He’s good at what he does. But so am I.

So academic candidates: take advice from inside. And don’t let anyone mansplain why that’s wrong.

In other words, don't job-hunt (or drive) like my brother (whom, incidentally, I love dearly).

A New View from the Tenure Track Side

I'm on my second search committee since I started my tenure track job in 2012. The part of me that is still tired from seven years of adjuncting (three institutions, five locations, six to seven courses a term - that's a large part of me that is still tired) wants to cry, Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled adjuncts yearning to breathe free (or just to breathe, for that matter) - we have jobs for all!

We don't, of course. And even if we did, we wouldn't hire all applicants.

We're mid-search, so I don't want to say too much. I don't want to discourage those who have already applied, or scare off those who may still intend to apply.

But as of now, we have around 100 applications. 100. For one job with a four-four teaching load in a very rural location that has natural beauty among its charm. (I love it here, but I'm the first to admit it's not for everyone.)

When the search is finished, I'll talk about how the applicants could do a better job of presenting themselves. I know I could have done a much better job - and when I see excellent, professionally presented applications, I learn how I might do better in the future.

But for now, I'd like to address the graduate programs that are sending newly minted PhDs out into the world like lambs to the slaughter.

Please. Offer help to your lambs. Let them toughen into mutton before you let them out into the fragrant meadow that is not the academic job market.

When I see several applications from a prestigious PhD program, either shiny and new or a few years old, and the CVs are so poorly formatted as to be illegible, the cover letters are written to confuse even the most expert of experts in the candidate's specialty, and the font would be charming in a children's picture book, I blame not the candidates so much as the program. And when I see applications that have no relevance to the job description, I blame not the candidates so much as the job market that creates the kind of desperation that causes a zombie-like scatter shot approach to the application process.

Granted, it's not the university's job to spoon feed this information to their graduates, but is a seminar or a writing center workshop too much to ask? We all know the university system is churning out too many PhDs who have little hope of getting good jobs, but couldn't we at least help them? What good is a degree from a top-notch university if they send you out in your sweats and sneakers to seek professional employment?

And, while I'm on the subject, please be thoughtful about the wording of your recommendation letters. Very thoughtful. I read one during the last search in which the committee chair said condescending and sexist things in recommending a female graduate - in total oblivion, I'm sure. Since it was submitted though a confidential portfolio service, the poor woman had no idea she was spreading about a cutesified description of her work and her pedagogy. Our mothers taught us the first rule of writing references - if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

So, Dear Academy, I understand it's a tough world, and there's no reason to believe it's going to get easier in the near future. But please don't add to my disillusionment - help your graduates present the image that your high ratings suggest.

It's That Time of Year

And no, I don't mean Christmas, and no, I will not support the insanity that leads retailers to put out Christmas merchandise before Halloween.

 

I mean the time of year when I get my annual review from my department chair. He observed my teaching last week, he has my student evaluations, and I filled out an eight-page self evaluation, probably giving him even more ammunition to use against me.

 

But I appreciate these reviews, because in the seven years I worked as an adjunct, I never once had a performance evaluation. In one school, I was observed every semester and met with the chair to discuss the results, but there was never any overall evaluation.

 

And why should there be? The purpose of the evaluations is to determine promotion and merit raise issues, and for most adjuncts, there is neither.

 

But they do have the student evaluations to contend with, and that is a serious problem. If it is the only tool administration uses to assess the teaching in the adjuncts' classrooms, they need to consider the reliability of the source.

 

I have always known that students don't take these evaluations seriously. Last year, in the portion asking how the class might be improved, one student wrote, "Have a petting zoo."

 

A recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education's "Vitae" leads with a case of an adjunct losing her job because of course evaluations. The article also quotations from several of my friends because, I suppose, birds with no feathers flock together.

 

You can read the whole article here.

 

Author Max Lewontin writes:  

For most tenure-track and tenured professors, course evaluations are used as guidance or feedback, a way to tweak their courses based on student concerns. At their worst, the evaluations are an annoyance, as students vent their frustrations or lament a poor grade.  

But for adjuncts, student evaluations often carry much more weight. In a way, that makes sense: Most adjuncts are, after all, hired to teach. But in the absence of other metrics or methods, many colleges use evaluations as a key means—or the only means—of determining whether to renew a contingent professor’s contract.

I have frequently gotten good tips from student evaluations. Probably the best one was that I talk too fast.

And I would like a petting zoo.

    

 

Dear "Whining Adjuncts" - Keep Up the Good Work!

The web is alive with the sound of outrage. In a remarkably tone-deaf letter to the editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Catherine Stukel suggests - no, she flat-out states, that adjuncts may not be getting hired in full-time, tenure-track jobs because they are annoying, they are unlikable, they are mediocre, or they don't fully engage their students. You can read her letter here.

The most outrageous thing she does is attack Margaret MaryVojtko, referring to an article about a "dying, broken-hearted 83-year-old adjunct professor." Stukel is disgusted. She suggests that Professor Vojtko should "put on [her] big girl panties."

Apparently she didn't read the article, because Professor Vojtko was already dead.

She also suggests that, in placing the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article in her mailbox, the adjunct-teacher's union at her institution was whining. She never acknowledges that her so-called colleagues were taking action, as she later suggests they do (although unionizing and fighting the Walmartization of higher education is not what she has in mind for them).

And while the story of Professor Vojtko was simplified (in part, I suspect, because of the very limited word count of op-ed pieces)in the Post-Gazette article, and more fully formed stories of her life have been published, Stukel has no interest in finding the facts. Instead, she launches into one of the most appalling versions of blame the victim I have ever seen.

Stukel may be right on some points - if you are desperately unhappy, perhaps you should find another career - or at least, another job. I know of at least one adjunct who was inspired to quit by this article. I suspect that if more adjuncts walked away, and at the very last minute, when full-time schedules had been finalized, things might change. Might.

But Stukel's total oblivion to the system that created legions of "whiners" and the many benefits she receives from it that she would deny the adjuncts on her campus, is something that cannot continue in the ranks of the tenured faculty.

As a tenure-track faculty member who spent seven years in the trenches with the freeway flyers, I have made it my mission to keep the issue in front of both the academic community and its stakeholders: parents, students, fellow citizens desiring a system of higher education that focuses on teaching and learning rather than fancy dorms, athletic facilities, and the over-population of  over-paid administrative suites.

I hope tenured professors such as Stukel will wake up and understand that the very system they benefit from is destroying itself from within. If Professor Stukel hopes for higher education for her children, grandchildren, or great grandchildren, she had better acknowledge that the continued reliance on part-time workers will remove that opportunity within the next generations.

(Note: Cartoon courtesy of  Hugh MacLeod at gapevoid.com)

The Locusts are Singing

My mother used to tell me that the droning of the locusts was a song. The lyrics? Summer's over, summer's over.

So as I'm digging out my pencil box, my plaid skirt, and my lunch bag, getting ready to return to the classroom, I'm reflecting on my summer's work. All to the tuneless song of the locusts.

I will say, it was pretty lazy by my usual standards. I attended a conference, where I presented a paper; I team-taught a week-long workshop for high school teachers; I went to a writers' conference in creative nonfiction, for which I had to write an essay; I developed a survey for a major research project I'm beginning with a colleague; and I proposed a chapter for an edited book which was accepted - all I have to do now is to write it.

I haven't begun the syllabus writing yet, but since I'm usually the last one in the department to send mine to the print shop, that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone - not even the print shop.

I also squeezed in a fabulous trip to Rome, Florence, and Paris with a colleague, and visited my new great niece in Akron.

I know that I have an unusually good life for someone with a PhD in English. I remember the years when I had to beg for summer courses to teach, just to keep a roof over my head. I remember when I had no research agenda or professional development funding or time to do anything but read student essays and sleep.

As I look ahead to the fall 2014 semester, I am excited: I have a new plan for my basic writing courses, I'm teaching a media theory course for the first time, and, as a third year teacher, I feel comfortable at my institution.

I also anticipate teaching an overload, for which I will be paid, but, of course, not enough. I will be in my office 10 hours a week, hoping students will come and talk to me. I will be on at least three committees, a team, and a task force.

And . . .   there's the usual three days of meetings and trainings and orientation events. I used to complain about these days - when I did, my husband said, well, why don't you quit? Why don't you go into another profession? As many professors have done - and then there's this:

I'm being positive right now, so it's he students, I say. I'm in it for the students. 

There's no other reason on earth for anyone to do this job.

And I'm very thankful for every day I spend with them.