The Adjunct Underclass

The Adjunct Underclass

Adult (sadly) nonfiction
"How did we discard the idea of college faculty? That is, how
did we decide to systematically eliminate an entire class of
professionals whom we once entrusted to conduct the final distillation
of our children into capable, confident adults? How did we cone to
decide that college teachers didn't deserve job security, didn't
deserve health insurance, didn't deserve to make more than convenience
store clerks?"
At this point you're probably wondering just how much beer I'm
allowing myself and whether I'm waiting til just before bed. You may
be in or just graduated from college. You may have a child who
arrived home early due to the pandemic and finished spring semester
online. Maybe you just know that colleges and universities hire
professors who have lifetime security due to tenure and certainly earn
a lot more than the crew at the local convenience store.
In The Adjunct Underclass, quoted at the top of this review,
Herb Childress shows us all that the reality is a lot more complex.
Tenure track faculty aren't extinct. Yet. But they're quickly
becoming a minority. They're not just sharing space with the time-
honored teachers of intro classes: the PhD level graduate students.
"There are innumerable terms in use for the vast army of temp
labor within higher ed--adjunct faculty, part-time lecturer, visiting
scholar, postdoctoral fellow, professor of the practice, artist in
residence. They all mask the united underlying condition: working
course-by-course or year-by-year, with no guarantee of permanence,
often for embarassingly small stipends, and often for no benefits.
The polite language makes facts harder to see, so let's state it
simply: college teaching has become primarily a pickup job, like
driving for Uber or running chores for TaskRabbit."
Basically you have college faculty members qualifying for public
assistance programs, living in cars because they can't afford rent,
and even dying for lack of medical care.
As Childress shows us, the increasing tenuousness of college
teaching adversely effects a lot more people than adjuncts. It's
really bad for the most tenuousness of students. The Ivy League
schools and other elite institutions are bastions of tenure track
faculty. The institutions most likely to be adjunct heavy are
community colleges that tend to attract more nontraditional (first
generation, working class, or racially, ethnically or culturally
diverse) students. These are the students who are more likely to lack
not only fiscal, but cultural capital--the knowledge of how higher
education works. They're the ones most likely to enter institutions
terrified of failure and feeling like imposters.
Laura Rendon came up with a way of building nontraditional
students' confidence, sense of belonging, and, ultimately, success.
Validation theory is very straightforward. Giving these students
support and encouragement, particularly early in their educations,
inside and outside of class leads to impressive gains in all three
areas. This is so not going to happen for students who are being
taught by undercompensated adjuncts who may be commuting between three
different schools and not knowing if they'll have income next semester.
Although the current outlook is bleak, Childress hasn't entirely
given up on the Academy. His four principals, listed in the last
chapter, have the potential to powerfully and positively impact the
ability of colleges and universities to live up to their potentials
and empower their students to do the same.
I highly recommend The Adjunct Underclass to everyone involved
in higher education in one way or another.
On a purrrsonal note, I do not like this unseasonably hot, humid
weather one bit--especially at night when it makes it so hard to sleep.
But I have some really exciting news. A church friend, Emily, is
happy to bring me books from Bangor Public Library which has a huge
collection!!! Now I have access to three libraries from which to
choose books to review for this blog! How cool is that? (Jules)
I do not like this weather either. And I have a fur coat.
But I have a wonderful story to pass on. Our friend Anna has been
feeding an outside cat she named Squirrel. They have become good
friends. And now Squirrel has an adorable baby who Anna named Acorn.
(Tobago)
Great big shout outs go out to Emily, Anna, Squirrel, and Acorn.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway



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