Today is the First Day of the Rest of My Adjunct Whore Life

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Hello.

My first post.

I don't have a lot to say, really. In my intro, I have said just about all there is to say about being an adjunct whore.

It's an all too familiar story.

I settled for scraps. I made a choice when, years ago, I signed that first adjunct contract. I didn't realize what I know now: my institution would never hire me full-time. I was naive and idealistic.

My bad.

Institutions of higher learning that hire adjunct whores are pimps. Sometimes the pimps are benevolent, most often not. In every case, the pimp holds all the Aces.

Even benevolent pimps can turn on you--fair-haired boy or girl one day, and with one change in chair or director, trash the next.

Truths:

--Adjunct Whores do not enjoy academic freedom. Not one iota. I don't give a shit what the AAUP says about adjunct academic freedom; unless a union is involved, there is no adjunct academic freedom. Period. It's a fiction that tenured professors like to tell at conferences.

--You have little or no recourse when someone with power over you decides he/she doesn't like you. Performance in the classroom has nothing to do with it. It's all about personality and politics.

--Students can torpedo your job with one complaint.

--The tenured faculty doesn't give a shit about you, although they may pretend to be sympathetic.

--Working hard is no guarantee you'll keep your job.

You are always overhead, the students profit. Overhead is expendable and replaceable, students are pure gold nuggets, no matter how they behave or perform in your classroom. If you are too hard, you'll lose your job; if you're too easy, you'll lose your job. And you're expected to know how to hit that middle ground, although the middle ground is forever shifting.

If you settle for adjuncting, no matter how much you love academe, you're a fool--I guarantee that you will come to hate the hypocrisy of "higher learning" within a few years, if not sooner.

I recommend that you flip burgers for a living. At least, when you go home, you're done for the day, and you might even get promoted.

But once an adjunct, always an adjunct whore.

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