On a Football Sunday

In order for the Pittsburgh Steelers to get into the playoffs, they have to beat the Cleveland Browns this afternoon. But that's the least of their worries. They must depend on the Miami Dolphins, the San Diego Chargers, and the Baltimore Ravens to lose.

Why do I mention this on a blog about academic labor conditions? Steeler Coach Mike Tomlin has repeatedly said he would prefer the team to be in charge of its own destiny.

There's a strongly entrenched belief in American culture that we are all in charge of our own destiny: that if we work hard, get an education, keep a positive attitude and get up every time we are knocked down, we will be successful. We are in control of our own destiny, and if we are unemployed, underemployed, poor, sick, or disabled, it is somehow because we didn't have the right stuff. We didn't work hard, get an education, yaddada yaddada yaddada, blah blah blah.

Now, in the case of the Steelers, they truly did dig themselves into the hole they now occupy. They lost their first four games, and then four more during the season. In today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Gerry Dulac lists 10 mistakes that led to those losses.

But when I look to my friends and colleagues in the academic world, what mistakes might I list? Getting PhDs? Working hard as adjuncts or non-tenure-track instructors? Keeping at it in spite of low wages, no benefits, and often, little or no respect from their tenured colleagues and administration?

But wait: those are all the things that we're encouraged to do; the things that put us in charge of our own destiny.

We've been sold a bill of goods, dear readers. The Steelers did, in fact, blow it early and often. But college and university faculty members, especially those in the contingent labor pool,  are in no way responsible for the Walmartization of higher education in America.

I'm always glad to see the Steelers succeed, especially when it involves the Browns and the Ravens losing, but it's a game. (A game, incidentally, that is one of the largest nonprofit organizations in America - maybe if we taxed the NFL and used that money for education . . .  but I digress . . .)

Higher education is not a game, and highly educated and talented teachers are not rookies to be benched or cut at will.

It's Boxing Day!

No, not the day you put your presents in boxes. No, not a day to go a few rounds in the ring. Boxing Day is the traditional European holiday (although I always associate it with England, where it is still a Bank Holiday) when people give Christmas Boxes (gifts) to servants and tradesmen.

What if we applied that to contingent faculty? How about it, administration - a grudging recognition of the importance of the faculty that, quite frankly, are frequently rated below "servants and tradesmen" - could it happen?

Should it? a question for another day . . .

Christmas Wishes

It's Christmas Eve, and we had a light dusting of snow this morning that may or may not stay long enough to give us a White Christmas.

We're having a quiet holiday - visits with the kids and grandkids, plans to visit the miniature railroad at the Carnegie Science Center and maybe see the baby penguins at the National Aviary.

We know how blessed we are to have two good, full-time jobs with excellent health benefits, to have employed children and two healthy grandsons, with a third to arrive in February.

We'll have a wonderful dinner tonight at my friend Dana's as we have for over 10 years.

My Christmas Wishes for the academic world?

• Full-time, tenure-track positions for those who desire them and are qualified for them.
• Decent pay and benefits for those who want to remain part-time, for whatever reason.
• An academic system that would nurture and encourage talented teachers to stay in the profession.
• Jobs outside the academic system for those who would contribute more there.
• Peace on earth; goodwill towards all humankind (Why not? It's no wilder a dream than the rest of the list!).

Feats of Strength I'd Like to See

On Festivus (see the whole story here),it's tempting to stress the importance of The Airing of the Grievances, but, because I've already done a fair amount of that on this blog, this year I'd like to emphasize the Feats of Strength. Here are some I'd like to see in the academic world, starting tonight under the Festivus Pole and extending into the New Year and beyond.

For Contingent Faculty Members:

• Be strong enough to juggle their many courses, long commutes, and economic insecurity just long enough for the the academic world to wake up and smell the gallons of coffee they're guzzling on the road.
• Be strong enough to continue to organize, protest, speak up, write, and whatever else it will take to get the word out and the world changed.
• Be strong enough to say no to anyone and everyone and catch up on sleep over whatever break they get.

For Full-Time, Tenured or Tenure-Track Faculty Members:

• Be strong enough to be kind to and inclusive of contingent faculty in their departments.
• Be strong enough to join in the organization of, protests for, and any other actions to help change academic labor conditions for those not as fortunate as them (us, that is. Us.).
• Be strong enough to support the needs of contingent faculty to their department chairs and other administrators.

For Campus Administrators:

• Be strong enough to recognize that the current system will eventually (or much sooner) destroy the system of higher education in America.
• Be strong enough to fight for better working conditions on your campus and beyond.
• Be strong enough to stand up for better working conditions to your boards, governors, funders, and whoever else is encouraging you to follow the business model - all the while knowing that the business model of treating you employees badly is bad business, as well as bad education policy.

For Politicians:

• Be strong enough to stand up for the importance of education, and back up that stand up with funding.
• Be strong enough to admit that you don't really care about the future of education if you refuse to provide restored funding.

For All:

• Be strong. It's going to be an interesting year at best.

Now, I'm off to put up my pole and cook the spaghetti dinner. I still got a lot of problems with (some of) you people, but I've decided to hope for the best. That is my Festivus Feat of Strength.

College is Expensive Because . . .

. . . professor's salaries are outrageously high, right?

Well, my faithful readers (thanks, you two!) know better. Here's information that suggests a bigger problem. With bigger salaries. The Chronicle of Higher Education compiled compensation data for "550 chief executives at 500 private nonprofit colleges in the United States during the 2011 calendar year." The total compensation for the top earner, the president of the University of Chicago, would pay the salary for 67 faculty members, assuming you pay them a little more than I currently make (which would be nice).

How about if we just cut has package in half - the University of Chicago could put 30 adjuncts on full time. Then, let's cut back on administrative staff - both number of positions and compensation for those positions. Let's get rid of senior assistants, junior assistants, and assistant assistants.

Woot! Woot! another 30 full-time teaching jobs!

More full-time teachers means better teaching, in spite of one very flawed study to the contrary. More full-time teachers means more research, more creative works, more interaction with students.

More full-time teachers means less abuse of the academic work force and better morale on campus.

And frankly, I always wonder how much difference your salary makes after, say, one million dollars. With such a demanding job as being a university president, you probably don't have the time to spend much more than that.

When your only tool is a spreadsheet . . .

 . . . every problem becomes a number. And this is exactly why expecting education to be run like a business and to treat students like customers is disastrous.

It might be remotely possible that not everything is quantifiable. Turning non-numeric things into statistics is forever pounding the square peg into the round hole. And we know what Mark Twain said about statistics.

School districts, colleges, and universities cut the things that don't make money: art, music, foreign languages . . .  But they ignore the (quantifiable) studies that say things like, students with a good background in music do better in math (take those numbers, you bean counters!).

We want our students to learn how to think critically, express themselves clearly in writing and speech, and reason scientifically and mathematically. And yet, we let core curriculum be eroded because the customer - the student - doesn't think that will matter in the real world.

And yet the student? The student came to us for an education. How is it possible that the student (the 18-year-old student) knows what will matter? That is the same student who orders a super-sized meal at the local fast food place because metabolism change is so far in the future.

This week, I discovered that half my students had never heard of Nelson Mandela. Just like not knowing that in ten years that unhappy meal will suddenly appear in their midsection, it's not their fault. They were never taught history - especially the ancient history of the 1970s and 80s - way before they were born.

When I ask them if they've seen Gone With the Wind, they say, No. It was made before we were born (So, weird that I've seen it, right? How old do they think I am?). But they have seen The Wizard of Oz and are amazed that those movies were made the same year. Before they were born. How can it matter?

These are the same students (and I love and respect them - they are so smart in ways I never was in college) whom we expect to choose the right things from the menu of the university. Colleges make more money offering courses, programs, and majors that purport to offer the fast track to a big money job. Who needs music, art, literature . . .  Let's just pack in all the calories we can at the lowest cost.

And this is exactly why the teaching profession is under attack. Just as the health insurance companies decided they knew more than doctors, bean counters have decided they know more about education than professors. Teaching is the new prostitution - a career to mock, to sneer at, to destroy.

Is it too late for me to become a stripper? Because at least in that profession, your pay is based on your performance. In teaching, your pay is based on your dedication and love and blah blah blah. Stuff that this culture has no tolerance for . . . Stuff that hasn't proven its worth in numbers - at least not in numbers that the bean counters are willing to look at.

Long Time No Blog

It's that magical time of year - finals! So my blog has been strangely silent, in spite of the many interesting developments in the faculty labor world.

Probably the most interesting is the delivery of a petition to Duquesne University supporting unionization of adjuncts there. As you may remember, it was the death of an adjunct at Duquesne that set off the national discussion - I'd like to call it national outrage, but as a nation, we reserve that for sleazy awards show performances and bad NFL calls.

Pittsburgh CityPaper posted this on its blog (blogh - the h is silent - clever!) Check this out.

Meanwhile, here is their picture, featuring front and center a friend and colleague with whom I served as an adjunct at a Pittsburgh university:

Love the language (after all, we do teach writing): Tenuous Track. 

Frankly, adjunct, contingent, tenure track or tenured - at this point all faculty jobs are tenuous. It is time for national outrage. Students, parents, faculty, staff, strangers on the street - we all need to step up and address the importance of higher education (ok, all education). If we don't, more great teachers will give up and move on. And then who will teach my grandsons when it's their turn for college?

Giving Thanks for Thanksgiving Break

I am truly fortunate to teach at a school that has the whole week off for Thanksgiving. Well, technically, it's not just for Thanksgiving - deer season starts today in West Virginia, and the administration is smart enough to know that the halls would be empty and the classrooms would echo if they tried to open.

And so, I am housecleaning. The good old fashioned kind, where you move all the furniture, and wash the bathroom rugs and shower curtains. I've been doing the kind that my mother called "a lick and a promise," but rarely get back to the promise part.

So far, I've done the living room, dining room, and den. Still to go: kitchen and baths, bedrooms. Make the guest bed for my sister, who will arrive this evening. Clean up after the sick dog (ok, that has to be next.)

And: go in to the office to follow up on a few details for the publication my creative nonfiction class is putting out. Do work on dissertation research I'm participating in. Annotate an entry for a famous publisher of annotated bibliographies in the field.

And maybe, just maybe, get back to my own research project.

So if you don't hear from me in the meantime (and even if you do), have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone.

Activism to Apathy to . . .

In 1970, Duquesne University was in the midst of a financial disaster and felt forced to decide between closing the doors and raising tuition significantly. Then president Father McAnulty* met with student leaders and another solution was found: The Third Alternative to Save Duquesne.

Students put together an amazing fund raising program, including door-to-door solicitation, which raised almost $600,000.

When I was a high school junior searching for a college in 1971, I knew the story well and put Duquesne on my list. I was accepted and offered a generous financial aid package.

By the time I arrived on campus in August of 1972, there were no lingering signs of student involvement, or even concern. Although the program was still in progress to some degree, I never heard a word of it on campus, and the students I met knew nothing of it - and cared even less. Duquesne had become a party school - at least one mixer on campus every weekend: all the beer you could drink for a dollar. No carding.

Saturday nights, students crawled up the hill from the bar of choice, Frank and Wally's (famous for gravy-covered fries), to go to 2 a.m. mass at the university chapel.

So I was interested to read this article about student support for adjuncts from USA Today. So far, no word from the Duquesne students, but I will say this.

In my seven years as an adjunct, I always told my students exactly what that meant. It was the reason I had to meet them for conferences in the cafeteria; it was the reason I was only on that campus one day a week; it was the reason I sometimes returned papers late. Seven courses, three schools, five locations. I'm running as fast as I can.

I had a student at one college who had five courses - and five adjuncts. And this a private university with a hefty tuition rate.

So, yes, students: get involved. Save the professoriate the way you saved Duquesne.

And now - who will save Duquesne?

*I want to point out that Father McAnulty was a great leader. He knew my name and the names of most of my classmates. He regularly visited all the offices on campus and knew his staff. I was not happy at Duquesne, and that is partly because it was too big for me - I graduated in a class of 241, still the largest class to ever graduate from my high school. Even so, it was not the school that The Third Alternative had led me to expect.

Another Great Teacher the Field Could Lose . . .

Today I got an email from a wonderful friend who is an adjunct at a small Catholic university - not Duquesne, for those of you who have been following . . .

She had received an email from her dean asking all the faculty to consider how the addition of more adjunct faculty could benefit the university.

Ha. Why send that to the adjuncts?

So she explained her work load to me (and plans to explain it to the dean . . .) this way:

"One example is what I experienced Fall 2012. I asked for, and taught, 3 sections of College Composition. I had over 75 students, with some sections overenrolled. I taught 9 hours a week for 14 weeks, prepared for each class, spent hours answering student emails, and held office hours. Then on top of that, I graded hundreds of pages of written homework, 375 papers, and 75 portfolios. All for about $7500, a fraction of what the university pays full timers. I get no benefits, no health insurance, and no pension. I must walk sometimes four blocks in all kinds of weather hauling textbooks and papers to avoid paying parking fees."

I warned her about sending the letter. She could end up as a greeter at Walmart. And yet - she's my friend. She's like me: strong, outspoken, with a great sense of reckless abandon (thanks to another friend who paid me that compliment today!). She will speak truth to power.

If we all did - if all levels of faculty from fully tenured to barely hanging on - told the truth to the people who control our destinies, what would happen? Classes for one, or two, or ten adjuncts might disappear; tenure decisions could be delayed or go wrong; early retirement might be encouraged. But ultimately, administration will need someone to teach (I hope!).  If we stick together to demand decent working conditions, shouldn't that do something?

I'm a left-over hippie, and I remember the slogan of the 1960s: Suppose they gave a war and nobody came. Well. Suppose they had a university and nobody taught.

And that will be the outcome no matter what. Already people who are outspoken about the state of academic labor are being criticized for pursuing advanced degrees in the first place - if we're so smart, we should have known there would be no jobs.

Soon, young people will listen. They will be smart. They will not become teachers.

Then what?

Dog Bites Man

This week, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) published its "Annual Report on the Academic Job Market"for creative writers. It reported just over 100 full-time, tenure-track jobs in creative writing. Yet over 4000 MFAs in creative writing are awarded every year. This is neither news nor new: the gap between creative writing degrees and creative writing jobs has been growing steadily, as my dissertation research showed.

In the report, Dinty Moore said, “I don’t think becoming an adjunct is the ladder you climb if you want a fulltime job with proper compensation.” Again, neither news nor new. Sadly, however, many of us got sucked into that path because we discovered that we love teaching. I am very much aware of how fortunate I am to have a tenure-track job teaching both composition and creative writing.

That said, I did not get my MFA planning to teach. I wanted to write. I wanted to write the Great American Novel. When that didn't happen I sought other options. Eventually I had the opportunity to teach - as an adjunct. Which led to my seven years teaching part-time for three institutions.

Which led me to pursue a PhD - also a risky move. When I had completed my course work, I got my first full-time job. It wasn't tenure track and there was no protection from non-renewal of the contract. When it wasn't renewed, I found another full-time job at an institution with no tenure. It quickly became apparent that there was no job security there - in my last two years there were so many layoffs that the empty hallways echoed.

And tenure is no protection from the massive layoffs happening in public education. Both Pennsylvania and West Virginia (my two home states) have cut funding so severely I believe we should cut the states' names from the public colleges and universities that are suffering.

For me, becoming an adjunct did allow me to get the full-time job (although I'm not so sure about the "proper compensation" part). I did not have a teaching assistantship in my master's program, so it gave me experience. It inspired me to pursue a teaching career. And, again, I got lucky. Very lucky.

I have friends being "retrenched" from the Pennsylvania state university system.  I hope they have even better luck. Because education, experience, and ability are no longer enough.

Ah, the Irony . . .

Real irony, not the Alanis Morissette kind.

Here it is, Campus Equity Week, an event that could have been created for the sole purpose of giving me material to write about, and I've been too busy to write!

Although - the reason I'm too busy is the very heart of this blog. As a new faculty member in the second year of the tenure track, I have to be busy. As I mentioned before, I serve on three committees, and I'm directing the student theater group in a play I wrote. (Reminds me of a tee shirt I saw once:  "I can't . . .  I have a rehearsal") I leave after classes today for a conference, at which I present a paper at 7:45 tonight. The paper is not yet finished.

So I'll leave you with this graphic, and hope to be back a little more regularly next week. Thanks for sticking with me - there have been 1100 views, which absolutely blows me away!

(Get the rest of the story at the AAUP site.)

Campus Equity Week? Let's Have Campus Equity Year . . .

Or century - how about that?

This week - October 28-November 2 is designated Campus Equity Week. The organizations behind this event ask us to wear red or scarlet on Wednesday, October 30. The Clarion University Faces of Retrenchment and other groups within the PASSHE system are asking us to wear black all week to mourn the loss of faculty and programs.

I can do those things. I can also wear pink and buy yogurt with a pink ribbon, but it doesn't stop breast cancer. In fact, I'm so tired of being urged to greater awareness of breast cancer I want to scream.

But the cancer eating academia is not as famous. There are no Races for the Cure of adjunctivitis. So wearing black all week - black with scarlet accents or vice versa on Wednesday - isn't nearly as annoying. But while the awareness of breast cancer is so pervasive that everyone immediately knows why even NFL players are wearing pink in October, I doubt very much that anyone will understand the symbolism of my wardrobe this week - even on my campus.

I will say that the life and death of Margaret Mary Vojtko has increased awareness phenomenally. But phenomenally is not nearly enough.

And awareness is not nearly enough. Let us Race for the Cure for Adjunctivitis and Other Academic Cancers.

Who's Got the Adjunct Blues?

According to a great song (and thanks to Matthew Ussia), we all do - professors, teachers, parents . . .  the only stakeholders (don't you just love how I've learned educational jargon?) not mentioned in the song are the administrators.

And that's because they're not blue at all. They're laughing all the way to the bank.

For now. But when we claim to be following the business model for education, it's a very specific business model based on short-term profit. So dedicating the budget to Taj Mahal*-style dorms makes sense - it brings in more customers, and they pay more for the privilege of living in the lap of luxury. Dedicating the budget to top-heavy administration makes sense, because, duh, it's the heavy administrators at the top who are setting the budget.

But dedicating the budget to education? To teachers, updated classrooms, better libraries? How would that appeal to the customer - the customer who is, by the way, an 18 year old. And, as every business person knows, the customer - at any age - is always right.

Here's a library story for any doubters out there: At a public university near and dear to my heart, the library steps were crumbling. Seems there was a spring or other source of water under them determined to bring them down. Did the university replace the sensible steps with new sensible steps, after solving the water problem? They did not. They constructed an elaborate marble staircase with the library name engraved on the wall.

Inside, the librarians were thinking, Really? When we keep asking for more books and data bases?

So when the full-time professors are gone; when the contents of the library are gone, what's left? Nothing. Colleges and universities will be just one more set of boarded up big box stores.



*And, yes, I know the Taj Mahal is a mausoleum. Wonder how many of the college students living in those dorms knows that.

Broken Computer Charger Changes Everything

Two weeks ago, I wrote about my actual, real, true workload - the work I and other faculty do outside of the classroom. This week, a music professor from Allegheny College wrote a similar story in response to the great state of Pennsylvania's attack on the state university system. He also debunks the myth of the overpaid, underworked teacher - you can read it here.

Yesterday morning, the absolute truth of both of our essays hit home. When I woke up, I discovered that my laptop computer had not charged. It would not charge. It would not come on when it was plugged in.

I called Apple and they are sending me a new adapter, which should come tomorrow or Friday.

When I went home for dinner (before returning to school for rehearsal of the play I'm directing), I thought I'd do a little work, as I often do over dinner.

Oops. No computer.

This morning, over breakfast, I checked my school email on my phone.

I'm writing this during my office hours and realizing I'll probably have to stay in my office over the dinner hour because, again, no computer at home.

And out of my six-figure income (ha! not quite half that . . .), I pay for my computer, my internet service, my phone, and my phone service. And I could not do my job without those things.

Or without working over meals at home.

I Must Have Done Something Right!

Apparently this blog has stepped on some overly sensitive toes. So I’ll just say this: if I am making you angry about the labor conditions in higher education, good. Keep reading. If I am making you angry because I am exposing labor conditions that you would rather have hidden, feel free to never read it again. Or better yet – examine your own conscience.

My goal is to bring the conditions for contingent faculty to light in the larger world outside the academy. If it raises questions and tempers within the academy, that’s fine by me.

Many of my friends in contingent positions have told me they are afraid to share my blog or comment on it because they teach at the will of their administrations. I am proud that my department chair is supporting my work on their behalf.

And as a side note – I've never burned any bridges. I have good friends everywhere I have ever taught. Friends who keep in touch with me . . . This has turned out to be a very good policy.

The Complicated Lives of Students in 2013

I received my undergraduate degree - a BA in English literature - in May of 1976. I was not a brilliant student. Duquesne University was too big and overwhelming for me. I was probably a student who would have benefitted from a year off between high school and college. I just wasn't ready.

I came from a low-income family. My father, a college graduate, had died when I was 15, and my experiences were more like those of first-generation college students. I had a horrible bout of depression my junior year, which caused me to get fired from my work study job - ironically, in the campus office that provided counseling.

But in spite of all that, I had a much simpler and easier time in college than my students do.

Because I encourage personal writing in my composition courses and I teach memoir writing, I probably know more about my students than most of my colleagues. I know which one was raped at 12, which one was beaten and locked in a closet by her father, which one's father came out as gay and left his family of six children and a bewildered wife.

My students are mostly first-generation college students. They are either very rural West Virginians or very urban inner-city athletes. The are from low socio-economic families and come unprepared from underperforming K-12 systems.

They are frequently from one parent homes, or raised by their grandparents. There is alcoholism, drug addiction, and jail in their backgrounds.

These are the students who deserve the best teachers, the most dedicated and knowledgable. They need programs like music and foreign language and ancient philosophies - the courses most frequently cut by public colleges and universities but remain a source of pride in elite universities.

Our approach to education at all levels is just wrong. Like corporations and individuals, for colleges, the rich get rich and the poor get poorer. And there's nothing surer than this: The current system will increase the ever-increasing divide between rich and poor and head us for destruction or revolution.

Or both.

Once Upon a Time in Adjunctland

When I was an adjunct, I was desperately seeking full-time employment. One job I applied for required a reference from a current employer. I had three to pick from, and I thought I had chosen the one who would be most supportive.

And, in a way, I had. He wrote a wildly enthusiastic recommendation letter.

And then he took away the two classes he had scheduled for me to teach in the fall.

In his defense, he wasn't being vindictive. He sincerely believed, as he explained to me, that I would get the job since he couldn't imagine anyone better qualified.

What he was suffering from was insufficient imagination. I didn't even get an interview.

This is why full-time, tenured and tenure-track faculty need to be aware of the plight of the adjunct. Because there had not been an opening in his department for years (hello, we have adjuncts. Who needs an opening?), he didn't have any idea about the intense competition for every job out there. He didn't know how tenuous my grasp on my mortgage was. He probably didn't know I didn't have health insurance.

I was able to scrounge other courses at other colleges - fortunately, he had cut me from the schedule early. If I hadn't, I would have gone back to retail . . .

If I had, maybe you'd be reading a fashion blog right now instead of this one . . .

Summers Off and Other Myths

It happened again. Yesterday a student said something about how lucky teachers are to get summers off. Also, he noted, I don't have a class on Friday afternoon.

Teachers everywhere are tired of hearing about how little they work. Six hour school days, summers off, a few weeks at Christmas . . .  And, yes, thank you, I do presume to speak for teachers everywhere.

College professors are rumored to have it even easier. They have fewer students, fewer classes, and the Christmas break is longer.

Here's my reality - and I have a much lighter teaching load than I did back in my for-profit education days. And certainly much lighter than the average adjunct.

This semester, I'm teaching five courses, although our typical load is four courses per semester. Of those five courses, only two are separate sections of the same course, which means I prepare for four different classes every week.

I serve on three committees (all of which are meeting this week). I am the secretary for one of them.

I am required to hold office hours 10 hours per week.

Because I teach writing, I read and comment on a lot of papers. A lot. I usually take them home over the weekend.

I'm directing the student play - six hours in auditions this week, and weeks of rehearsal coming up.

I'm going to emcee the open mike poetry reading next Wednesday.

I'm required to perform community service. Last summer, I spent 20 hours reading with elementary school children.

I wrote two conference proposals this week, and am working on an article to submit for publication. I still struggle to find time for my own personal research and creative writing - which, technically, is what we're supposed to be doing over the summer.

I go to college events - football games, art gallery openings, concerts.

I am not complaining about any of this. It's my job. It's my career. I chose it, and I came in with my eyes wide open. I love every minute. Well, almost every minute. Sometimes on the 53rd paper out of 60 on a Sunday afternoon I get a little bit cranky (Students: that might explain some of my comments.)

But the idea that teachers only work when they're in the class is absurd. No one believes that lawyers only work when they're in court or surgeons only work when they're in the operating room.

So, please - let us stop attacking the profession of teaching. In fact, let us begin to honor and respect it once again.

Please?

Brian O'Neill Nails It - As Usual . . .

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Brian O'Neill has weighed in on the case of Duquesne University adjunct, Professor Margaret Mary Vojtko. And, yes, I am calling her Professor (not adjunct, not visiting, not instructor) on purpose, because that is the title she deserved.

In it, O'Neill does some disturbing math. Read his column (brilliant as always) here.

In case you don't want to go to the link, O'Neill writes this: "Money charged to students covers 108 percent of instructional costs. The overflow goes to university research, public service and overhead. That would be where dwindling state budget money devoted to universities goes, too -- not to instruction. Thus college costs have soared even as more instruction comes from part-time professors who squeeze in classes with their real jobs. Public universities have done this largely because state appropriations have shrunk. In Pennsylvania, state appropriations cover only 18 percent of university core revenue. Only Colorado and Vermont offer a lower percentage."

So thank you, Brian. This is exactly where I was planning to go next. Duquesne University, a private school where undergraduate tuition ranges from $29,000 to $34,000 a year, chooses to exploit its workers, it's wrong. It's evil. But it's the free market economy - they do because they can. (I'm not excusing them from the Catholic commitment to labor issues. Apparently they have done that themselves.)

But when public education does the same, it's unspeakable. I was blessed to get my PhD from Indiana University of Pennsylvania paying in-state tuition - a fraction of what my out-of-state classmates paid. But I spent my whole life paying Pennsylvania state taxes. I finally got something for it (other than the occasionally paved pot hole). I pay my state taxes, in part, hoping to allow others get the education they need to succeed in the world.

When O'Neill says "overhead," a lot of that money is administrative salaries. The teachers in the trenches are suffering while presidents and football coaches are getting rich. This is what the defunding of public colleges and universities is truly defunding: teaching. The heart and soul of the university. There is no move to cut administrative salaries. And, strangely, no move to cut governors' salaries.

One of O'Neill's sources refers to "educational consumers." As problematic as that term is, if you are, in fact, an "educational consumer" - a student or parent of a student - step up. Demand teachers who are treated with respect, health insurance, and a living wage.

And the Bigger Problem

The use and abuse of contingent labor in academia didn't just happen; it is, perhaps, a symptom rather than the disease itself. Higher education is under attack from all sides, including from within. While Duquesne University is a private school, the labor conditions in public education are often worse. Steven Ward writes that this is no accident. While to an outsider, his words may sound paranoid, as someone who has worked in the field for 14 years, I have seen all of these things in play.

And don't get me started on the idea of free markets and college-as-business. Anyone who knows me knows how I suffered working in the for-profit education world. I watched from within as Goldman Sachs destroyed a formerly prestigious 90-year-old institution. The day its parent company took the stock public and Goldman Sachs bought the controlling interest, it was as if the lights had been suddenly turned off. Layoffs started and eventually included the librarians, the advisors, department chairs, faculty . . .  Even worse, we were constantly pressured to dumb down the curriculum and to pass failing students, while support services for our most needy students were being cut. After all, offering counseling services doesn't bring in profits, does it?

None of this is happening in a vacuum. There is an atmosphere of anti-intellectualism, a fear of elitism, and a glorification of the average in our culture today. George W. Bush is proud of his C+ average at Yale. Highly educated and highly intelligent people have been stereotyped as helpless geeks who can't manage their own lives. In television, think about Ross from "Friends," the Crane brothers of "Frazier," and everyone but Penny in "The Big Bang Theory."

The next group to be glorified? Wildly successful dropouts, including Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (who suddenly knows how to fix education - but that's a story for another day). Early in President Obama's first term, he visited a school and gave a fairly routine "stay in school" speech, and leaders in the Republican party demanded rebuttal time. To say what? Drop out? And that is exactly the message the conservative media landed on: no need to go to school! Certainly Glenn Beck is doing just fine with just a high school degree!

What this ignores, of course, is that in order to succeed without education beyond high school, you need to be incredibly driven or a genius. It helps to be both.

My students who are receiving that message are neither. They are first generation college students in a state that has slashed funding to higher education. Their fathers and grandfathers were farmers or coal miners. Now they believe that there is a future in oil and gas that doesn't require education. And the governor is just fine with that.

In the formerly great state of Pennsylvania, the governor has made no secret of his agenda to destroy public education, starting with preschool and not stopping until the PhD programs are gone.

Combine these state efforts with the high interest on student loans and dwindling resources such as Pell Grants. Tuition goes up, financial aid sources dry up, and students fear (and rightly so) living the rest of their lives under crushing student loan debt. What happens then? Higher education, once considered a great equalizer, the gateway to opportunity for all Americans, will revert to its roots: a place for rich white guys to revel in their privilege.

Sad.

The Big Picture

My high school driver's ed teacher, Mr. Raso, was known for his sayings. One of my favorites was "Always get the big picture."

So as the public outrage over the conditions of Professor Margaret Mary Vojtko's life and death fades and focusses on other issues (like the government shutdown - and rightly so), I hope we can allow her to rest in peace while still moving forward on the important work of improving working conditions in academia.

Many years ago, during my seven years as an adjunct, I was railing at my sister about the injustice of it all - the long hours in the car, the low pay, the lack of benefits, the lack of respect - she calmly said, Well, when you get a full-time job, you can work to help other adjuncts.

And here I am.

As I wrote before, my current institution uses few adjuncts. This may be a matter of convenience, as there are very few people with advanced degrees in rural central West Virginia who aren't already affiliated with the college. So the issue did not come to mind in the midst of settling into a new job and a new home.

But I'm ba-a-a-a-a-ck.

This blog is a start, but it is just that. What next? Post advice, support, comments please . . .

It's All About the Union - Or Is It?

Today's entry includes a great cartoon from Rob Rogers in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Unfortunately, I think too many people are making this an issue of unionization, and the anti-union climate today is perhaps obscuring the bigger issue. Union or no, contingent faculty should not be abused. If a union is the only way to get fair treatment, a union it must be. 

Ken Gormley claims that Duquesne University pays its adjuncts more than many other Pittsburgh area colleges and universities, and from my experience, that is true. But the argument that some colleges treat their adjuncts well sounds vaguely like the claim that some slave owners didn't beat their slaves. Nice to know, but it doesn't make owning slaves all right. Paying more than other universities is nice, but it still resulted in abject poverty for Professor Vojtko.

A Great Day for the Great Race

Don't say I didn't warn you - there will be occasional blogs about running. And, since it's Sunday, I decided to lighten up a bit . . .

Today was the thirty-sixth running of the Richard S. Caliguiri City of Pittsburgh Great Race. I have run the 10K event almost every year since I started running in 1999. I couldn't be there this year - I'm living about three hours south in Glenville, West Virginia, and I couldn't get a dog sitter (long story for another time, perhaps).

The Great Race is known for its long uphill climb from mile four to mile five - it goes up the Boulevard of the Allies out of Oakland to Mercy Hospital (Pittsburghers will get this immediately). The elevation chart doesn't do it justice. There is no shade and the road is concrete. Although the second, third, and fourth miles are rolling hills and the overall elevation of the course is downhill, it's a tough mile. Often, it's hot.

I'm a slow runner, so it's almost always hot by the time i get there. My favorite part of the course is where the hill crests right behind Duquesne University. There are always cheerleaders and band members and other students cheering the runners on, and there's a water stop. From that point, it truly is downhill all the way to the finish line at Point State Park.

Interesting that the expression "downhill all the way" can be used to describe a happy circumstance, at least for runners, or an unhappy circumstance, something like "down the tubes."

I ran over four miles in my tee shirt from last year's Great Race today. Don't know how I would have felt about running past my alma mater.

In other news, as the world's worst transition puts it, "Death of an Adjunct" letters earned The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's "Issue One" position today.

And the Beat Goes On

Yesterday I mentioned that the furor over Professor Margaret Mary Vojtko's life and death seemed to have died down. Not so: there were several more letters to the editor of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. You can find them here.

Tobias Wolff wrote, "A true piece of writing is a dangerous thing. It can change your life." I believe that all of the writing on this subject, starting with Daniel Kovalik's original essay, can change lives. Please keep sharing the articles that you find, and spread them as far as you can - to students and their parents, to administration, to politicians (not that you expect anything to come of that). The wonderful thing about Mr. Kovalik's story is that it brought an issue that has long been festering within academia out of the ivory tower and into the world. Let's keep it there.

In the Interest of Full Disclosure

I should have mentioned this earlier: I am a graduate of Duquesne University. I earned a bachelor's degree in English in 1976 (ok, I can here you all doing the math in your heads). Back in those dark ages when we chiseled our research papers on stone tablets, guess what? All my professors were full-time, tenure-track or tenured teacher/scholars. Graduate students led discussion groups for the large introductory lecture courses, but that was the only experience I had with contingent faculty.

The system seemed so secure that my professors encouraged me to go to graduate school and become a college teacher. Perhaps if I had taken their advice at the time, I would have entered the profession before the glut of English post-graduates hit the market. Perhaps I would have avoided the seven years of insecurity. Perhaps I would be able to anticipate retirement.

But my field - English composition - was in its infancy. I would have been directed into some subfield within literature. And it turns out I really don't like teaching literature. I love helping students - especially underprepared students - discover that they can write.

So instead of going directly to graduate school, I worked in journalism, public relations, fund development, and retail. I got an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Pittsburgh 20 years after my graduation from Duquesne. I had not intended to teach - I was going to write the best-selling, critically-acclaimed Great American Novel.

Back to retail.

I started teaching through a series of fortuitous connections. It was love at first sight. I was a part-time make-up artist in a downtown department store and taught two classes a semester.

It took a while before I felt used, abused, and exploited.

Back to school - I began doctoral studies almost 10 years after my master's program.

And everyone warned me: you still might not get a job. It took two years on the market and well over 100 applications before I landed my current tenure-track job.

Many of my friends and classmates have not been as fortunate. While Professor Vojtko's story makes the rounds of social media, some very good friends and very good teachers have posted their intent to leave teaching because they need health care, or steady income, or some sense of job security.

We will continue to lose good teachers. We will lose good teachers who never became teachers.

And, eventually, we will lose higher education.

Adjunctivitis: The Heartbreak Continues

Although it's hard to imagine anything worse than the sad story of Margaret Mary Vojtko, the Duquesne University adjunct professor who died in abject poverty, there is something worse: the official responses of the university to that story.

The first came in a letter to the editor of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from the Reverend Daniel Walsh, the university chaplain. He is appalled - not by the treatment of Professor Vojtko, but by the idea that the story was told at all. After all, when she was living in squalor and dying of cancer, they offered her charity! They visited her! That should make it all better, right? Read his letter here.

Then we have this gem from Ken Gormley, dean of the law school, who could not be more clueless. He claims that part-time faculty bring real-world experience into the classroom. This is true in many fields - a working lawyer teaching a course in law school would be an asset to the classroom. But Professor Vojtko's field was French - there is no "real world" job to bring to the classroom. My own field, English composition, is one in which there are no "real world" jobs - the field is the classroom. And yet it is probably the biggest user and abuser of contingent faculty in the academy.

Gormley also points a finger at "individuals who seek to build full-time careers by combining multiple part-time contracts, often at several institutions." In his rosy world view, where all adjuncts are merely supplementing their income and sharing their real world experience, it is the adjuncts themselves who want full-time careers who are the problem.

Let me say this right now: I know many many contingent faculty members. Not one of them seeks the life of a freeway flyer. They have been seeking full-time employment. And yet the academy continues to churn out qualified teachers with master's degrees and doctorates, creating a labor pool so large it is easily exploited.

Next, we have a letter from a staff member. This is probably not an official university response, but it does lead me to believe that the school is serving Kool-aid. The article, she claims, is "unfair to the university." Her letter contains at least one factual error (Professor Vojtko never slept in a classroom. She did sleep in her office sometimes.). She blames Professor Vojtko's family for not rescuing her from the poverty that a combination of university policy and cancer created. I wonder if she has any idea of what "family" that might be. She also claims that Professor Vojtko was receiving Social Security and Medicare. I wonder how she knows this. If Professor Vojtko's wages were as low as reported - and the university has not disputed that - her payment into Social Security would not have been very much - therefore her payments from Social Security wouldn't have been very much either.

But none of this matters. Neither charity nor defensiveness nor mansplaining justifies the exploitation of a woman who, from all reports, was both a good teacher and a good Catholic, by an institution that prides itself on instilling Catholic values in its students.

Adjunctivitis: The Search for the Cure

That's the title of a paper I wrote in my doctoral program about six years ago. It told the stories of my woes as a "freeway flyer" - a part-time faculty member working for several institutions of higher education at the same time to fool myself into believing I had a full-time job.

My worst semester (out of seven years) I taught six courses for three colleges in five different locations. I had a Monday/Wednesday/Friday book bag, a Tuesday/Thursday book bag, and a Wednesday night book bag. God help me if I ever grabbed the wrong bag or pointed the car the wrong direction.

I also edited newsletters for two local government bodies.

My best year I earned almost $30,000. I had no health insurance most of the time - I finally caved in and bought an individual plan that cost about $200 a month.

But I was living in the lap of luxury compared to Margaret Mary Vojtko, whose sad story, written by Daniel Kovalik, appeared in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on September 18 - read the story here if you haven't already.

The story has, as they say, gone viral. But its fifteen minutes of fame seem to be fading, after just a week. Groups that were already focused on the exploitation of part-time faculty are still spreading the story and the many and varied reactions to it, but the general public seems to have moved on. No more letters to the editor in the P-G. No more outrage from Catholic publications. Hey! There's a new iPhone! and did you read about the 40-foot rubber ducky coming to Pittsburgh?

I talked to my students about the story. They were shocked. We are fortunate to be in a remote, rural area of West Virginia where there is no labor pool to exploit. Pittsburgh is very different - with such a rich collection of colleges and universities, there are many many people with masters' degrees and even doctorates who are eager to teach. So - supply and demand, right? Why even pretend to pay them a living wage?

Of course, there are many good reasons to, apart from the obvious ethical issues. Or are they obvious?

This blog will continue to share the writing on this subject as well as my own experience. Professor Vojtko's nephew's wish is that the story is so powerful that there will be no more Margaret Marys. From his lips to God's ear . . .