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.

After the Deluge

The deluge in question is a long thread that has been running on the Council of Writing Program Administrators' list serve. It started with a simple, practical question and has morphed and morphed again into a discussion of tenure track and non-tenured teaching positions. This is positively a boon for me, as I am speaking at that very group's conference on that very subject on Saturday.

Ironically, if not absurdly, I submitted my proposal in the category of "conversation starter" - not a full paper, but a brief overview of a given topic which is then thrown open to the participants to discuss. It's obvious that this conversation has been started, and is not going to end any time soon.

And it's possible to squeeze out a tiny bit of hope for the future of labor conditions in American higher education. On June 26, adjunct faculty at Point Park University in Pittsburgh voted to join the Adjunct Faculty Association of the USW. Previously, part-time faculty members at Tufts, Leslie, and Northeastern Universities also voted to unionize. There are many more cases of organizing in process, including awaiting the results of Duquesne University's appeal of the union vote to the National Labor Relations Board.

There is currently a petition circulating to urge David Weil, the director of the Wage and Hour Division of the US Department of Labor to investigate working conditions and wages of adjunct faculty. (Read and sign the petition here.)

It may not seem like much, but the movement has gained steam quickly since the September 18 article in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the life and death of spurned adjunct Mary Margaret Vojtko. I've seen more concern from people outside of academia, and more concern from tenured faculty, many of whom had sat above the fray.

All of those are positive things. Something that strikes me as less positive is a growing support for converting adjunct jobs into non-tenured, full-time teaching lines with benefits. On the surface, and certainly for the poor adjunct traveling to three or more schools, teaching an outrageously heavy load, and still walking the tightrope of the poverty line, it seems like a wonderful idea.

Here are my reservations. First, the online division of Southern New Hampshire University (a huge operation that has been called "the Amazon of education") has tested converting adjunct jobs to full-time. The workload, already heavy, increased. The pressure to follow the rules (respond to every assignment within 72 hours, for example) increased. And when the full-time jobs are created, the university has said that "some" of the current adjuncts will be hired in them.

Granted, there may be good reasons not to hire every single adjunct in a full-time position. Some may, for their own reasons, prefer to remain part-time. But every qualified and capable adjunct who has served the university well should be offered a full-time job, until those jobs are all filled. I was warned by a faculty member at one university where I applied to be an adjunct not to do it, as adjuncts were never considered for tenure-track jobs. Thank you for your service; please apply elsewhere.

The second concern is more urgent. Full-time, non-tenured teachers often have no support, no protection, and no job security. I worked one year in such a position,where I was assured that renewal was almost automatic. Sadly, someone with a strong vote and a weak grasp of my field didn't like the way I taught. I was a campus leader in service, scholarship, and teaching - at least to everyone else, but it didn't matter. In a tenure track job, I would have been protected from such pettiness.

So the conversation, once started, will not hush. Here are the questions I intend to raise on Saturday:

How can writing program administrators:

• create an atmosphere inclusive of contingent faculty
• advocate for better conditions, including increased pay, benefits, and working conditions such as office space, parking, and access to university services
• address gender inequality in contingent issues
• participate in activism on behalf of contingent labor beyond our own campuses
• build alliances among administration, tenured and tenure-track faculty, full-time nontenured faculty, and adjunct faculty, staff, students and parents for the improvement of the working conditions of contingent faculty as well as a longer-term goal of increasing the number of full-time, tenure-track positions?

If you have any answers, feel free to post a comment. And if you're going to Normal, Illinois this weekend, you'll be one step ahead of the rest of the participants at my panel.

The Will to Prepare

Tanzanian marathoner and trainer Juma Ikangaa said, "The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare." I've been thinking about these words of wisdom for two reasons.

The first is American runner Meb Keflezighi's win in Monday's Boston Marathon - the first American to win since 1985. I met Meb at the Pittsburgh Marathon Expo several years ago and have his autograph: he signs, "Run to Win" - and then explains that winning is personal, individual. Obviously, he could tell to look at me that I was not going to "win" the Pittsburgh marathon. But in my mid-50s at the time, persevering through a long run was (and still is) a win.


Earlier this month I joined friends in running the inaugural Scranton Half Marathon. I ran it with almost no training. It's not that I didn't have the will to prepare - I just didn't have the health to prepare. I went through two bouts of flu with a broken toe in between.

Meb might have said that I hobbled to win that day.

It was not the smartest thing I ever did - the chances of getting injured were huge, especially considering that a few miles of the race were on an uneven and rocky trail. I was lucky - and I had enough residual fitness from before the triple health whammy to finish, and to recover quickly.

How, you may be wondering, is any of this relevant to labor conditions in academia?

When I began my PhD program, I had already run seven marathons, and I ran my eighth during my first year there. I don't think I would have had the nerve to go back to school if I hadn't learned about the will to prepare through long-distance running. Both events are more about tenacity than native talent - and tenacity is learned.

And, again, I was lucky. Two years after finishing my degree, I landed a tenure-track job. I had taught as an adjunct for seven years, in a one-year contract job for exactly one year, and in a job with no tenure or rank for four years. I was prepared.

But sadly, preparation isn't always enough. My electronic devices are being flooded with stories about the glut of PhDs on the market and the ever decreasing number of full-time, tenure-track jobs for them. So many of my friends are prepared - prepared for a marathon that was cancelled while they were lacing their shoes for the first training run.

I realize more and more that if he problem of contingent faculty is to be solved, it falls on the shoulders of full-timers, tenured and tenure-track faculty to stand up and say, no more. We must help our unemployed and underemployed colleagues run to win.

Power of the Blog?

Not mine, but that of Becky Tuch I wrote about in my last entry. Suddenly, in its call for proposals for the 2015 conference, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) is not only calling for, but begging for, proposals dealing with faculty labor issues.

Coincidence? You decide.

But thanks to Becky Tuch and her supporters (including me, I hope), AWP is paying attention.

The rest of the world? Join us!

Are the Professional Organizations Supporting Organization?

According to a recent article in Salon, not so much. At least not the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), the organization of programs, professors, and students in creative writing.

In her article entitled "Professors in Homeless Shelters," Becky Tuch calls the organization out:

At this year’s conference in Seattle, the biggest AWP conference yet, you did not have a single panel dedicated to adjunct teaching. Nor were there any panels addressing this shift toward part-time faculty at colleges. Absent also were lectures, discussions or Q&A sessions addressing these changes in the academic climate.

 The involvement of AWP is especially important, I believe, because teachers with creative writing degrees are more likely to become adjuncts than many other faculty. While English departments have an embarrassment of riches in the number of potential teachers with advanced degrees in literature, composition, and creative writing, in many ways the creative writing graduates have the hardest time.

They have earned Masters of Fine Arts (MFAs), degrees considered terminal, and yet they are in competition with people who have earned PhDs. If they do not have a published book as well as a string of smaller publications, they are not considered for positions teaching creative writing in their genre. They fall back into the pool of candidates for jobs in composition, and often feel fortunate to find even part-time positions (as I did).

There is better news, however. The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), whose national conference starts today in Indianapolis has been paying attention. The Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA) conference this summer is dedicated to the nature of work and workplace issues in writing programs (generally composition programs, to differentiate WPA and AWP). But they all - and we all - could do more. Tuch concludes:

But we working writers/teachers/students need to get our act together. We need to start talking about the treatment of adjuncts and graduate students. We need to stop pretending there is no problem. We need to work together to address these issues. You, AWP, are in a unique position to help us do that.

Please, AWP - connect with your fellow organizations as well as your own members, and join the conversation.

Spring Break!

While I've written (more than once, I think) about how I do not get summers off, I will confess: I take spring break off (with the exception of checking email to make sure the school didn't burn down in my absence).

Last year, I spent spring break at a professional conference - but, hey! it was in Las Vegas so I counted it as work and play.

This year, I'm doing what students do: I'm in Florida.

But for four years I taught in a school with a year-round schedule and no spring break.

Before that, for seven years, I taught as an adjunct at three different institutions. On good years, two out of three of them would have the same week off for spring break. Several years, all three had different break weeks. How often did they all have the same week? That would be exactly never.

So at least I got two or three slightly easier weeks, but never a true break.

Friends of mine who are currently working as adjuncts are in the same position (I would have said same boat, but no boat for them). In addition to teaching heavier loads for less pay and no benefits,  part-time faculty members don't enjoy one of the expected perks for students and teachers alike - a break in the middle of the spring term.

Just one more overlooked disadvantage of the two-tiered faculty system - and a sign of just how far those tiers are from each other.

Why I Didn't Quit

As the new essay genre "Why I Quit Academia" continues to be populated with stories of poverty, lack of respect, anger and frustration, I thought I would respond with why I didn't quit - and why "Why don't you quit?" is not the best thing to say to contingent faculty expressing their concerns about their situations.

I didn't quit because finally, in my 40s, I found my calling. I had bounced around in a variety of jobs from journalism to make-up artist, hoping that eventually I would write the Great American Novel. Instead, I got an MFA in fiction writing, wrote the Not So Bad American Novella (yet to be published), and managed a high-end women's shoe store.

The opportunity to teach composition as an adjunct came through a connection - it certainly wasn't what I knew, because I had never taught. It was who I knew, and that was good enough for me.

My first job wasn't just teaching composition. It was teaching a section of basic writing (a course for students not prepared for college-level composition courses) and a section of students who had just that moment arrived in the United States from Africa.

I was in heaven. I fell for basic writing, and I fell hard. I still consider it the most important part of my career. I also consider it a calling, even a gift. I understand students who struggle academically, who don't know how to navigate the unknown territory of academia. And I loved working with the African students, who were new to both academia and America (and I'm not sure which culture was stranger to them).

And so, as I have reported here before, I spent seven years cobbling together teaching jobs at three colleges, freelance editing, and part-time make-up artist work until, after finishing my coursework for my PhD, I found my first full-time teaching job.

I know I've been lucky. I have a husband with a good job, so those semesters when I was down a course, we didn't have to struggle as single teachers do. I got that first full-time job. And the second. And, finally, the tenure-track dream job (note: slight irony intended).

But I know many adjuncts will not find the path I stumbled upon (in both senses). And yet, they don't quit. They are dedicated teachers who dream -futilely, far too often- of a real career. They believed the Great American Lie: Get an education, and you will live the Great American Dream.

Friends who told me I should quit were often the same friends who were unhappy in their jobs - in or out of academia. Why didn't they quit? And what would I have done if I did quit? Return to the shoe trade? I had already reimagined myself too often.

So if contingent faculty choose to labor on, in spite of the conditions, in spite of the odds against ever finding full-time employment, I hope it is for the same reason I did: the love of teaching.

This, however, does not justify the continued abuse of contingent faculty. And, yes, if adjuncts all quit, the academy might have to rethink its labor policies.

But more likely it would just churn out thousands more MAs to take their places.

So instead of suggesting that your adjunct friends just quit, take to the streets. Write to your local college administration, your newspaper, whoever might listen. Don't send your kids to colleges that abuse faculty labor pools. Help your friends in ways that might help the academic world.

Adjunct Earns $62.50 per Hour! Film at 11!

Apparently, no matter how often we talk about it, many people still believe that teachers are actually working only during their classroom hours.

In an email that went through a real university email system, it was suggested that adjuncts earning $2818 for a three-credit course were earning $62.50 per hour: 15 weeks, 3 hours per week equals 45 hours - divide that into 2818 and voila! $62.50! (I get $62.62 - perhaps the writer was no better at math than at having a clue what teachers do.)

There are two egregious errors in logic being made here. The first is that even if you are earning $62.50 per hour, if your entire income is $2818, you are not exactly rolling in cash. And  many contingent faculty members are assigned only one or two courses per semester - at the institution paying $2818/course, that would be an annual high income of $11,272. You would earn more in 40 hours a week at a minimum wage job* (assuming you could find a full-time minimum wage job).

The more serious problem is the assumption that face-to-face time with students in the classroom is the sum of the work of a teacher.

Why, as a profession, do we need to continue explaining this? No one believes that a surgeon only works when he is in the operating room, or that a lawyer only works when she is in the courtroom. And yet, here I go again: Prep time! Grading time! Individual conferences with students! Committee work! Advising! Scholarship! We do it all!

Hello? Hello? Anybody out there?



*I will address the question of Why not? Why not go for the minimum wage job! in a later post.

More of This, Please!

Point Park University students have formed a Student Solidarity Organization to demand fair labor practices. Point Park was one of the three colleges that I taught part-time for, and while I had a great relationship with my department chair (I still count him as a friend), I received the lowest pay there - and since it was downtown Pittsburgh, I often had to pay outrageous parking rates, adding insult to injury.

It was the only school where I frequently had students who had no full-time faculty members teaching them in any given semester. There was no office space, not even the usual tiny room with one computer to serve a dozen adjuncts. And this is a private university with full-time tuition ranging from about $25,00 - $32,000 per year. Just tuition - not room and board, not any of the dozen fees that colleges add.

On the plus side, the students were bright and interesting - with majors ranging from musical theater to mortuary science/business, and it was the only school that offered undergraudate tuition benefits for adjuncts and their dependents. Sadly, I could not avail myself of that.

Student activism is crucial to changing the system. If administrations are going to insist on considering students customers, they will have to give the customers the product that they claim to be selling them: a quality education. And students, parents, and other key players are going to have to step up and demand that they do. Congratulations, Point Park students - this is a great start!

Awareness? Raised. Action? Not So Much.

Since I last wrote, at least half a dozen new adjunct blogs have begun. Several "I Quit Academe" essays have surfaced, and one "Academe Quit Me" essay roused some interest.

It's beginning to feel a lot like October.

Not the weather. It's a seasonal 32 degrees and lightly snowy here in Central West Virginia.

But in the conflict between awareness and action.

I know I've mentioned this before. October, as we all know, is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Pink ribbons appear on products. NFL players wear fuschia shoes and gloves. The City of Pittsburgh dyes the water in the fountains pink.

But seriously. You'd have to have been raised by wolves, born in a barn, AND living in a remote cave not to be aware of breast cancer. Awareness is no longer the issue. Why can't we put all the money that goes into pinkness into research for prevention and cures? (And, yes, I know - some of the profits from these programs does go into those things, as well as providing mammograms for uninsured women. But still.)

Besides, I don't like pink much. When my sister and I were young, our mother often bought us almost-matching outfits - hers was blue; mine was pink. I've had enough.

The public conversation about working conditions for college and university faculty is feeling very pink to me now. There is no one with a pulse over 20 in academia who is not now aware of the problem. The road we are on - the road to all part-time faculty with low wages and no benefits - will destroy higher education in America sooner rather than later.

So what now? Do those of us actively working to improve working conditions in academia need to adopt a color and campaign for a month? I think blue would be appropriate . . .and how about February - we don't want people to be aware for too long.

Or is it time for those who have been lying low - administrators who believe that by hiring several adjuncts they're actually increasing the number of available jobs; tenured faculty near enough to retirement that they don't care; parents who believe that part-time faculty somehow means lower tuition*; students who don't know if their faculty members are full-time or not, simply because most adjuncts show the same dedication to their learning as tenured or tenure-track faculty members do; politicians; voters - is it time for them to add their voices and demand that some action be taken?

Yes.

*For the record, there is a definite correlation between increasing tuitions and increasing pat-time and contingent faculty. Not a causation perhaps, but definitely a correlation. Hmmmm . . ..

No Room on the Back Burner

Happy New Year, everyone, and Happy Epiphany.

Epiphany is the celebration of the arrival of the Wise Men at Jesus' home - historically figured to be about three years beyond the manger scene where their figures are so often placed.

The word is used by fiction writers - their main characters must have an epiphany! And by self-help gurus - you realize that if you eat a bag of chips every day, you will continue to gain weight and feel crummy? Epiphany!

My Epiphany epiphany is that I will never, ever finish the work I have to do.

I return to school Friday. I have not written my syllabi. I have not written a book review - and, in fact, I have not even finished reading the book, which seems to be some sort of requirement. I have not completed - or even worked on - three other projects.

Part of this is because I came down with a miserable fluish thing right after Christmas that I am still fighting. Part of it is because I taught an overage, directed a play, and otherwise overworked myself in the fall semester, and somehow thought I deserved a rest.

And part of it is because I've always had faith in an infinite back burner, where projects would happily simmer until I had the time to pull them forward and finish cooking them (to extend the metaphor to an annoying degree). Sadly, my projects will soon be falling off the back of the range as I push more and more tasks to those overburdened back burners.

My epiphanic* wishes for my readers, both real and imagined, are health, energy, and a much bigger stove in 2014.

*Yes, epiphanic. I looked it up.

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.