I am an adjunct whore.

From semester-to-semester, I do tricks, my adjunct legs spread wide, willing to settle for a pittance for my services.

I am cheap. I am expendable. I am powerless.

Should I make waves, I will be dismissed, for the next adjunct whore is standing in line, waiting for my crumbs. I will do whatever academic tricks my administration wants me to do, no matter how repugnant.

I am also a forever-adjunct. My university/college/tech school has decided, “Why buy the full package when classes can be serviced for practically nothing?”

I do not expect sympathy—I have made my own academic bed, my adjunct whoredom sealed. You see, I actually believed my chair when years ago he/she “hinted” that I would likely be promoted to a real job. Good intentions, change of administration, a too-familiar story.

Remember this, adjunct whores:

You are in this alone.

Your full-time colleagues and fellow adjunct whores, who are too busy sucking up, will not help you. We are all too busy looking after Number One.

Love academe, but trust no one, especially administrators.

Until I retire, I shall remain an adjunct whore.


* * *
Calling All Adjunct Whores: Your Horror Story

Details here

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Calling All Adjunct Whores: Your "Fuzzy" and "Warm" Story

Details here

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Saturday, May 15, 2010

Definition of an Adjunct Whore

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An adjunct whore (aka AW)...

1. Is female or male,
but it is no accident that most AW’s are women.

2. Holds no power whatsoever, especially in the classroom.
Once the little nippers figure out an AW’s place in the food chain, the AW is toast and will be eaten alive and forced to sink even lower in the AW abyss. Sooner or later, an AW will lose her/his job because of a student complaint, unless AW “entertains” (instead of educating) and awards unearned A's.

It is called “survival of the nimblest,” favoring the ones forced to sell out their educational ethics.

3. Usually receives low pay,
Although some AW’s are more high-priced than others.

4. Depends on her/his meager paycheck to survive,
Even if it’s a supplemental income to her/his spouse’s.

5. Has no voice in university governance,
Even if the AW belongs to the governing body and has a ½ or ¾ vote, a public vote that is often taken by a raise of hands .

University governance is set up to protect the perks of the elite, not the human rights of the disenfranchised.

6. Can be fired for any reason and at any time,
Even in the middle of a semester.

AW’s are a dime a dozen and, thus, expendable.

7. Has no support from tenured or tenured track faculty,
Who are too invested in their own raises and fringe benefits.

8. Has no support from other AW’s,
Who are too invested in hanging onto their meager means of survival to care about anyone else’s troubles.

Remember:
You are in this alone.

9. Has no other employment,
And has little or no prospects for a full-time gig elsewhere.

10. Is over-educated and under-employed.
Colleges and universities that employ armies of adjunct whores are RESPONSIBLE for the dumbing down of American higher education.

In case you didn’t get that, let me repeat: Colleges and universities that employ armies of adjunct whores are RESPONSIBLE for the dumbing down of American higher education.

How can our higher educational system enforce high standards when oppressed AW’s are the supposed gatekeepers of the classroom? When the real rulers of the roost are students themselves and their parents’ tuition $$,$$$?

IRONY: The moguls of higher education have decided to skimp on the production of the product they are trying to sell.

How is that working out for higher education?

Hint: Think Toyota, think BP. Think Enron.

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