November 1: Echolalia, Contingent Faculty, Why I Teach

It was difficult for Rumfoord to take Billy seriously, since Rumfoord had so long considered Billy a repulsive non-person who would be much better off dead.  Now, with Billy speaking clearly and to the point, Rumfoord's ears wanted to treat the words as a foreign language that was not worth learning.  "What did he say?" said Rumfoord.

Lily had to serve as an interpreter.  "He said he was there," she explained.

"He was where?"

"I don't know," said Lily.  "Where were you?" she asked Billy.

"Dresden," said Billy.

"Dresden," Lily told Rumfoord.  

"He's simply echoing things we say," said Rumfoord.

"Oh," said Lily.

"He's got echolalia now."

"Oh."

Rumfoord continues to dismiss Billy, even though Billy is speaking clearly and answering questions correctly.  Rumfoord, again, doesn't want to be proven wrong, about Billy or Dresden.  Therefore, in his mind, Rumfoord turns Billy into a human tape recorder--repeating words and phrases that are said to him.  And Billy becomes non-human again.

I know a thing or two about being dismissed.  Having worked as an adjunct and contingent professor in an English Department at a university for over two decades, I have gotten quite used to being a non-entity.  I'm viewed by a lot of my colleagues as "part-time" and "temporary."  That is a commonly held belief among tenured faculty and department heads.  Of course, the fact that I have been teaching in the English Department now longer than most of the tenured professors sort of negates that assertion.

Another commonly held belief by tenured faculty is that contingents have no investment in the future of the university or the community, as a whole.  My counterargument:  I chose to stay in this area and raise my family.  I choose every semester to teach classes for less than half the salary of a full-time professor because I love being in the classroom and firmly believe in the mission of higher education.  I think that I'm making the world a better place, one student at a time.  That is why I teach.

Even graduate students seem to prescribe to the same attitudes as full-timers when it comes to contingent faculty.  I have encountered grad students who think they are smarter, more talented, and more entitled than contingents.  However, grad students are suffering from echolalia, parroting back the words, ideas, and actions of their tenured teachers.

So, you see, I am sort of like Billy Pilgrim in my position at the university.  And many of my colleagues come off as Rumfoord--dismissive and demeaning.

Tonight, Saint Marty is grateful for his students.