May 9: Being an Adjunct, Saint Pachomius, Instructor Bridesmaid

I'm currently reading a really interesting book about teaching as an adjunct professor in higher education.  In the Basement of the Ivory Tower was written by Professor X.  The man doesn't want to identify himself.  He fears embarrassing his students and the institutions at which he teaches.  But Professor X is exposing the underbelly of colleges and universities.  Discussing full-time, tenure-track professors, he writes, "[a]ccording to a report by the American Federation of Teachers, only 27.9 percent of faculty fit this description in 2007, a decline from 33.1 percent in 1997.  In community colleges, only 17.5 percent are full-time tenured or on the tenure track."  That means that I'm a member of the majority teacher class (72.1 percent) in institutions of higher learning.  That doesn't give adjuncts any more respect, however.  In fact, the Modern Language Association judges the quality of a school by this gauge:  "the fewer the adjuncts on the job, the better."

Buy this book!  Hug your adjunct!

I really shouldn't read this book.  I find it both enlightening and depressing at the same time.  I've known for some time that I'm basically on the lowest rung of the academic ladder.  For the last few years, the adjuncts at my institution have been trying to unionize.  The full-time professors have voted to accept us into their union by a very slim margin.  However, the e-mail debate preceding the vote was heated, nasty, and incredibly self-centered.  I understand where the full-timers are coming from.  They're an endangered species, and they're trying to protect their turf.  I would probably be doing the same thing, if I were in their privileged position.  I am not, however.

One of the things I have learned from Professor X's book is that I probably don't stand a chance of ever being hired full-time by my university.  Because I am basically gum on the soles of professorial shoes, scraping that gum off and giving it a full-time job with benefits, private office, and retirement is not very likely.  I have known this fact for a while in the back of my mind.  I mean, as the old saying goes, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free (or next-to-nothing)?  The only chance I probably have of ever being hired by my department is if I win the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, or the Nobel Prize.  Therefore, I will always be Instructor Bridesmaid, never Professor Bride.

I am not bitter about this fact.  Much.  I think I realized the truth of my situation a long time ago.  I just prefer to live in a state of intellectual denial.

In a lot of ways, my professional situation is a lot like the situation of Pachomius, today's feast saint.  Pachomius was born at the end of the third century in Egypt.  What he did that nobody had done before is "organize hermits into groups and write down a Rule for them."  Pachomius was the founder of Christian monasticism, although the credit is usually given to Saint Anthony (I don't know why).  Even Basil and Benedict, the most famous Christian monastics, based their rules on Pachomius' Rule.  But Pachomius is not a household name.  When you go to kindergartens, there aren't a lot of little Pachomiuses running around.  Basically, Pachomius is an adjunct saint, acknowledged only grudgingly by the full-time, big-name saints.

Professor X is still teaching.  Like most contingent faculty (that's the more politically correct term for adjunct), he needs the money and, also, believes what he does in the classroom actually makes a difference.  Which is also something that sets adjuncts apart from many full-timers.

Professor X, Pachomius, and Saint Marty--adjuncts for life and beyond.