I'd like to draw reader's attention to this piece in the Weekly Standard. Everything about it is absolutely, metaphysically true. Everything, from the bloated admin, to the adjuncts being treated like Home Depot day laborers. I have colleagues that teach at several colleges, who walk into the adjunct lounge carrying big trunks full of papers, who indeed conduct business out of their cars and are in their 40s single, and living in a one room apartment carved out of an old Victorian in Easton, Pa.
Let us now draw the reader's attention to this article about professors and dress codes.
They're a disheveled lot, these middle aged adjuncts. Let's be honest, their clothes are in tatters. The middle aged women wear a lot of long, flowing skirts, or blue jeans. There a few older men, math teachers in fact, in crisp jeans and button-downed shirts. Nice guys, actually. Most of the male adjuncts, though, are dressed in grey trousers or blue, they alternate, and a just barely appropriate shirt, we call it the 'I'm middle-aged and I need to be comfortable look.' We'll get into the younger ones in a few paragraphs. Bottom line, none of these people would know how to dress appropriately for a business meeting.
Time for another article. Why are there so few conservatives on campus?
I've been an adjunct for six years now. Before we get to the crux of the question, a bit, a we bit I promise, bio is in order. The author is a dyslexic college drop out who in 2001 went back to school (online, mind you) because he'd been out of work for 8 months. One of his profs suggested that a paper he wrote was really good and should be submitted to a magazine. And away we went, one hundred magazine articles 6 (almost 7) novels, a blog and meeting last week with an agent about his new history of Pershing and the AEF later, he's a author, he's a writer. That's what he does. Ironically, the above mentioned paper (about Masinissa in the 2nd Punic War) has still never been published.God its been a hard slog, every rung of the later has been greased and at the top of the ramparts there are mailed-knights dropping hot sand and pitch. On a whim in 2009 he sent his CV to the community college around the corner, Raritan Valley. A year later, while he was holding his second new born daughter in his arms, the phone rang and the caller ID read,'RVCC'.
Let us now go back to the first piece in the Weekly Standard about the plight of the adjunct. We'll pull a quote:
Adjuncting wasn’t designed to be this way. Until relatively recently adjunct professors were typically ultra-educated people who didn’t need the paltry pay because they had other sources of income: retired professors on pensions who wanted to teach a class or two to keep their hand in, high-earning professionals who might teach “clinical” classes in which they shared their real-world experiences with students, and married women with family responsibilities who chose not to teach full-time. The adjuncts of yore essentially taught for love, or to pay for a nice vacation with their spouses.That's me, folks.
Now, the author of the piece is right about the 'plight of the adjuncts'. On FB my colleagues bombard me with graphs about pay disparity and work loads. Most of them blame 'corporatization'. They're incapable of seeing the real culprit, the administrative bloat. The dean for this, the assistant dean for that, etc. Honestly, I have no idea what these deans do all day.
We're at war with the full time tenure track profs, but the adjuncts don't even know it. Remember your humble writer's medieval climb up the later?
A year ago he got a phone call from an official (Official-1) informing him that a full time prof was taking one of his classes. Official-1 was a leftist radical who understood the author's politics and didn't care one bit, the official offered another class as compensation. A few months later the new official (Official-2) called and informed your author that the same prof was now taking the new class as well. Your author was were pissed, of course, and even went to the full time prof's office looking for him. He wasn't there. Official-2 said he'd 'Take care of me' in the spring. Spring rolled around and your writer received no new classes. Official-2 made excuses and criticized your author's syllabus.
We used the only leverage we had and went nuclear, resigning with two weeks left in the semester. To your writer's amazement the chair caved. The author wouldn't have. Furious meetings with Official-2 and another individual (Official-3) followed in which your author agreed to include more none western civ stuff (not a big deal, really it isn't) and include more class activities (they love that crap). All was resolved or so we thought.
Last spring, after inquiring about the class list, your author was sent this email by Official-3:
When we meet next week, we will review your plans for the summer semester and look at the changes you have made this semester. Please bring your exams, syllabi, and collect some sample student work at different points in the grade spectrum. We will make future assignments on a semester-by-semester basis reflecting your progress toward effective teaching of World History.
A month before the above email, I had to severe all contacts with a magazine that had refused to pay me for designing a Meuse-Argonne war game, and the above email is still the most insulting thing that's happened in my professional career. Let me tell you something, sweatie, I was already an effective teacher of World History.
Official-2 claims its all worked out and your author will be teaching in the spring. We'll see what happens.
So adjuncts are treated horribly. We (by which I mean 'I') knew that going in, and always had an advantage my colleagues didn't. We could always walk away. And did. Most other adjuncts don't have that option. They do have one option though, but they would never do it.
They could get a real job. These people would never do that. Nooooooooo, they have a right to living as a prof. They studied, they worked hard, as grad students they schtupped the prof, and its owed to them. Get their hands dirty? Please. The coffee shop where this piece was written is hiring. Don't worry folks, its not a trendy soy-latte-grande coffee shop, but the kind of joint people stop into on their way to work to pick up a coffee and a bagel.
And don't think there's hope for the younger ones coming in. These are the folks in their mid-20s with 150K in debt. Maybe I'm just middle aged [you are -ed] but these kids today. The women are dressed like the students, and I don't even want to think about how the young men are attired. Last semester the guy I shared a classroom with wore paint stained pants, a sweatshirt and a baseball cap. Yesterday I saw a guy in the adjunct office in blue pants, a grey button down shirt he didn't tuck in 45 days of growth on his face and an unruly haircut. He looked like he should be trolling for drag-queens down at the Port Authority.
So, those are my colleagues.
Getting back now to the question of why there are so few conservatives on campus, there is one matter that we've never heard anyone mention. To walk onto a campus in the 21st century is to be bombarded by leftist kant. Walking through the humanities department one gets bombard by = stickers, 'justice for Mike Brown' placards, 'social justice' posters and the like. Just going through the cafeteria one see's posters saying America is practicing 'apartheid' in Puerto Rico, 'Black Lives Matter' rallies, and the latest feminist play being performed on campus. A few days ago, this showed up in my in box:
The Social Action Collective.
Join us for a Teach-In challenging fear and prejudice against people of other cultures. What is Islamophobia, and how does it affect our community? How and why is anti-immigrant rhetoric on the rise? What is a "real" American?
Come to listen, learn, and add your voice to the discussion.
Albert Finney said 'don't let the bastards grind you down' in Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, but it's hard not too.
Honestly, we are wondering if its worth it anymore.
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