#adjunct labor

“‘We want dignified working conditions, dignified living wages, so that academia can be more equitable and accessible to workers from all walks of life,’ Jaime says. ‘This is really a fight for the future of public education.’”

“The department for whom I work has never, in the 8 years I have worked there, given a part–time employee a full-time position. It is not done.”

“My most recent tax returns at age 55, after solid consistent and award-winning college teaching since 1991, show $37,243. I have no health insurance, tuition remission, retirement, reimbursements for materials/transportation/parking or any other incidental costs, professional development, sick leave, parental leave, or assurance of re-hire beyond the 3 month contract of each semester at any of my colleges. In other words, I subsidize my colleges by providing my own computer, paper, ink, telecommunications, etc. without any renumeration…”

“I made as much money delivering pizzas in high school as I make right now teaching college students, many of whom plan themselves to go on to be educators.”

#AdjunctUnderclass series: #Academics Who Are Treated as "Less Than Janitors" | @HamiltonNolon @Gawker 

America’s well-manicured universities are supported by an entire academic underclass of very smart and very poorly paid people: the adjunct professors. They would like to tell you about the “insanely bleak” job that keeps academia chugging along.

We are publishing true stories from adjunct professors about the realities of their jobs and the inherent inequality of the higher learning industry. This is worth considering before you take out all those student loans.

Also in the The Academic Underclass series:

The Misery of Adjunct Professors Keeps Higher Education Booming

Your Broke Adjunct Professors Would Like a Little Solidarity, Please

My Podcast Tour–Rationally Speaking, Life After God, Secular Sexuality, Naked Diner, and The Phil Ferguson Show

I hope (as always) to get in the blogging groove again here soon. I have only had one day off from what’s recently been a 7-day-a-week teaching and philosophically advising schedule. I am shuffling things around right now though so that I will teach more on particular days and have some more days I can devote to my research and writing so that I can return to blogging soon. In the meantime, I…

It’s only upsetting because, originally, I went to grad school so I would be more qualified to teach. Then I realized that I was only becoming qualified to teach university part-time with no benefits or job security. Adjunct labor is terrible and exploitative, and I feel guilty for saying that I wish less members of my cohort were choosing that life. 

So now I’m accepting an office job at a local college within the Student Affairs department. It’s very entry level, yet--I’ll be receiving better pay and benefits than the adjunct teachers at that college who work for $2000 a class. 

…from 12:26pm EST but there to listen or download anytime. Please comment!

❝On our Jan. 30 program, Elena Silva of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Western Washington University's Johann Neem join Inside Higher Ed's Scott Jaschik and This Week moderator Casey Green to discuss the foundation's new report on the continued viability of the credit hour in higher education. 

…and in the second segment, 

Academics inhabit a world in which the difference between having an article published or not can mean the difference between landing a tenure track job or not. Later in an academic’s career, the difference between one or two articles and a few might mean the difference in earning tenure or not. Peer reviewers are often in the position to make decisions that can change people’s lives. So why does…