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!