The Adjunct

While discussing Stacy Richter’s fabulous short story, “The Cavemen In The Hedges”, one of my students began our discussion by saying:  “At first, when the story told us about these cavemen walking around the streets of a modern day city, I assumed it was a dream or that the narrator was just imagining things. When it became clear that there really were cavemen in this story, I was confused at first, but then I realized this must be science fiction. So I told myself that science fiction has weird things like cavemen or aliens or whatever, but that it does so as a conduit or symbol for something real.  These fantastical things are a way to discuss a social or political issue, or something else of substance.  So I kept that in mind as I continued reading the story, and suddenly it wasn’t so confusing.”

Great stuff.

I finally went in to see the dean about my student who needed a grade change.

It had been one week and still no change of grade. As I said in my previous post, usually this takes an hour to get done.

I assumed the student workers had lost the grade change form.  So I brought a new form into my dean.  He walked over to his desk and retrieved a big book that apparently lists all incoming forms.  He flipped the pages until he found my name.

“Yep,” he says to me. “I got the form last week. No need for another.”

“Oh,” I said. “I wonder why the grade still hasn’t been changed yet.”

“That’s because it needs my signature, and I haven’t signed it yet,” the dean told me.  ”If the student is in a hurry, then you should attach a note explaining that I need to put a rush on it. Otherwise, I’ll get to it when I get to it.”

All he has to do is sign it.  It’s been on his desk for one week.  After bringing all this to his attention, I assumed he’d grab the form and sign it.  Instead, he left for lunch.

I swear to god he didn’t just leave, but left specifically for lunch.

We’re doomed.

Wow, my website actually loads up when I go to it now.

I’m not even sure if anyone is still reading this blog, but if you are someone who has tried to load it up over the years then you probably noticed it was slow as shit.  I always kind of ignored the fact that my site took so long to load up.  I guess I feared I had done something wrong while creating it, and that in order to fix it I would need to learn all kinds of complicated things that I wasn’t willing to study.  So I ignored the problem.

Then the other day I tried to log into the admin of my site, and it took so long to load up that my browser kept timing out.  Furious, I called my web host, GoDaddy, to demand an explanation. Here’s what it turns out the problem was:

My web host, the jackasses at GoDaddy.com, had me on what they call their “legacy” server. This server is slow as mud, and also has the web content it hosts sotred on numerous different devices.  GoDaddy offered to upgrade me to their “4G” server, which would allow my website to load normally.  I assumed this was a sales pitch and asked how much extra they’d need for this.  No extra money.  Just a customer choice.

So what does this mean? It means these assholes at GoDaddy have knowingly been hosting my website on a slow, inferior server all these years.  They did this because I don’t update frequently or get a lot of traffic.  They did it because I never called and complained. They did it because I am a noob with money, and it is easy to take money from a noob.

They have a real server that they use for people who call and complain like I did.  All those times I told people to go check out my blog, and they replied that they couldn’t get it to load…it was all GoDaddy’s fault.

I really should switch to a different host. I’m going to call GoDaddy back today and tell them that I think it is wrong of them to take advantage of a client like they did. if I don’t get some form of apology refund, I’m going with someone else.

On rare occasion, a student is in need of a change of grade due to either human or computer error.  I’ll admit that the gross miscalculation was in fact my fault, and I incorrectly entered a student’s grade as B instead of A.  The error was quickly noticed, and I contacted the student to let them know I’d be submitting a change of grade form as soon as classes started up again.  Luckily, a change of grade is an easy procedure, and the change is in effect within hours of my submitting the standard paperwork.  Or so I thought…

As usual, it was utter pandemonium on campus on the first day of classes.  I have no idea of the actual numbers, but we have an enormous amount of people who are present during the first 2-3 weeks of classes that do not last the rest of the quarter.  In other words, there are a huge number of students who aren’t really students and only think they are students but shouldn’t be there to begin with. They enroll, swarm the campus, and dropout after only a few short weeks.  This is one of the many problems with community colleges: we invite the entire community to come take classes, but not everyone can handle a college class.  As a result of this temporary population spike, parking spaces are gone, supplies spent, classes full and over enrolled, books are gone from the library and the bookstore, and walking around campus is suddenly like being on the overcrowded city streets of Beijing or Calcutta.

I walk into the Teacher Services office, a small closet of a room that is meant to serve as an exclusive access point for faculty needing to deal with Admissions & Records.  Amazingly, it is empty.  Foolishly, I assume this will be easy.  Just fill out the short form, drop it off in the basket, and go on with the rest of my life, right? Ha.

A student worker is at the window.  I think it is good to provide part-time employment and financial assistance to students in the form of student work on campus, but this is quickly becoming a replacement for actual trained and competent workers. Stick the students at the help desk in the library, please, or relegate them to grunt work such as making copies, delivering letters, filing forms, etc.  Already, the student looks confused.  “Did you need…?” he begins, trailing off, hoping desperately I will say that I need nothing from him and relieve him of any responsibility.

“I need to submit a change of grade for one of my students,” I tell him.

“Yes, okay. And you are the teacher?” he asks.

Standing there in my suit and tie, and having just identified myself as such, I nod.

“Just a moment…” he says uncertainly, and disappears into the catacombs of cubicles behind him.  I see many vacant desks back in the galleys of Admissions & Records, but I also note many of them are occupied with actual adults.  Several look up at me and I try my best to mentally command them to come see if they can assist me, but alas, I stand in silence for the next ten minutes.

A different student worker returns to the window.

“Can I help you?” he asks.

“I need to submit a change of grade form,” I tell him.

He turns confidently to the shelf behind him.  He pulls forms after form from the shelf and looks at each one with growing depression.  Finally, he turns back to me empty handed.

“We’re out of forms,” he says apologetically.  “You can download one off of your MyPortal account, print it, fill it out, and then drop it off here if you like.”

“I’m an adjunct,” I tell him. “I don’t have an office, or a computer that I can access on campus, and I certainly don’t have a printer.”  There are rows and rows of computers on the desks behind him.  “Can you print it for me?”

“Uh…let me check…”  He disappears.

After about ten minutes the first student worker walks by.  I notice an actual adult employee signal him and overhear her ask him “Has he been helped?”  The two stare at me.

“I’m helping him now,” the original student worker assures her.

“I need to submit a change of grade form,” I shout politely, with a very big smile, across to the adult employee. She nods, assured, and returns to her desk.  The original student worker comes up to me and says that they are all out of forms, but that if I log onto MyPortal, I can print one out.

I relay to him my office-less, computer-less, printer-less status.

Thinking on his feet, the student turns his computer monitor around and passes me his keyboard.  The monitor and keyboard don’t quite reach me, but I lean over the counter and begin to log on.  Each teacher has a unique, unchangeable, random access number.  Since they were randomly generated, cannot be changed, and are ten digits long, I do not have mine memorized.  I begin to log onto my email account, where a keep a copy of my login number stored.  The student attempts to assist me by moving the mouse over to the MyPortal tab and clicking it for me as I log into my email, redirecting me from Gmail and to the school’s login portal.

“There you go!” he says helpfully unhelpful.

“Thanks,” I say, and log back into Gmail in order to get my access code.  Eventually, I retrieve it and log into the faculty portal.  I turn the monitor back to the student and say, “Alright, I’m logged in.  Go ahead and print the form.”

The student looks at the screen confused. “I don’t know where it is,” he confesses, “I just was told it is on your portal. I’ve never actually seen one of these before. I’m a student.”

Groaning, I look through the list and locate the form myself.  He prints it, and I fill it out quickly. The information they need from me is my name, signature, student’s name, student’s ID number, class name and number, and what grade the student is supposed to have received. It takes me thirty second to fill out the form.

As I hand it over, the second student worker returns with a giant stack of papers.  “I ran off more copies of the form!” he says triumphantly.  He hands me one, but I hand it back to him.

“You just need your dean’s signature,” the first student worker tells me.  Sure enough, a new field has been added to the grade change form: dean’s signature.  I don’t know my dean.  He’s not someone I see or interact with.  Now, apparently, I have to.  I take the form back from the student and walk across campus to my dean’s office.

My dean isn’t in his office. His door is locked and there is no note.  The department office itself is empty.  The administrative assistant is gone.  A student worker comes up to me.  She looks all of eighteen and does not speak very much English.

“Can I help you?” she whispers meekly.  I explain I am looking for the dean, or, failing him, the department secretary.  The student worker informs me the dean has already left for the day and that the department secretary has not yet returned from her lunch break. I check my watch: it is 3:00PM.

I return to Admissions & Records. The two student workers are sitting together, playing a crappy-looking game on their computer.

“Got it?” one of them asks me optimistically.  I explain that the dean was absent, the secretary missing. I explain that the student needs her grade changed, and that I’ve never needed the dean’s signature before.  After some thought, the student worker offers to forward the form to my dean via the college’s inter-office mail system.  he assures me that this is standard procedure, and that the dean will get the form, sign it, and send it back to Admissions & Records again via the inter-office campus mail.  I leave the form with them, and hurry off to teach my class.

One week later, the grade has still not changed.  The student has emailed me twice, quite distressed.  I have no means of contact for Admissions & Records. I have emailed my dean, but not received any reply.

As I finish this post, I decide that I should print the form on my computer at home, fill it out, sign it, and attempt to take it to the dean again tomorrow, hopefully get his signature, and then take the complete form back to Admissions & Records.

My final thought: if something as simple as this is this hard to accomplish, imagine what would be involved in attempting to do something truly difficult yet meaningful in today’s academia.  Think of all the meetings, and deans, and chairs, and vice-chancellors, and vice-presidents, and administrators…what the hell are they doing with their time?  Where are we headed with them at the wheel?

My inbox dings.  Another teacher, who like everyone else had a waitlist out the door, asks whether new classes will be created for all these students who could not get in.  The chair of the department quickly replies: no new classes will be added, but we are 4% under our enrollment numbers and should do whatever we can to raise that number for the good of the college.  That, for those who could not translate, means adding above to 30-student maximum, perhaps to level of 35, 40, even 45 students in a small classroom.

They cut our classes, close positions, fire us, and those that remain are told we don’t have enough students enrolled.  Services continue to be cut, positions eliminated. The administrators are at lunch, gone for the day. The student workers do the work for credits.

A final note on grades: I know you are concerned about doing well and earning a good grade in this class. The best way to do that it is to put your full effort into completing all assignments along the way, come to class prepared, actively participate in class discussions, seek help from me in office hours and support from tutors in the writing center if you have confusions or problems.  I will evaluate your writing based on clear criteria that I will give you for each essay, and it will be your responsibility to ask about any requirements you don’t understand.  Come talk to me whenever you have questions about our work or want to discuss ideas for one of your essays, but do not email asking for a better grade for individual essays or for the course as a whole. Grades are earned and are not negotiable.

I swear I am having this exact conversation with about ten students right now:

I’m starting to feel like a broken record, but here we go again!

His class is based on the discussion. He likes student who take part in the class. He is hard on grade the essay. Very strict and high-standard. Don’t expect to get A easily. It is extremely hard!

Things this student admits, whether knowingly or unknowingly:

*An A is possible, it is just extremely hard.

*I have high-standards.

*Students who participate do better than those who don’t.

Again, is a professor who has high-standards really something students need to be warned about? Please contemplate the difference between a professor who is strict and has high-standards, such as myself, and a professor who in unfair in their rules and erratic in their behavior. I had professors like that in college: the sort who were just mean and it was impossible to get an A in their class. That’s not what this student is saying about me, and if it were, I’d take note and change my behavior immediately.

What this student is saying is that I am a real college instructor. Someone who has strict rules and adheres to them. Someone who does not give an A or even a B grade unless a student has worked hard and earned it. Someone who does not allow students to sit and stare during discussion, or be otherwise checked out during class, not without ensuring those students will either not pass or barely pass with a C.

Yet, as I read review after review saying this exact same thing, I feel that I am generating bad will because of my work ethic. I feel that slowly the students are reacting, rebelling against the professor who keeps strict attendance, demands high performance, and isn’t afraid to fail anyone who doesn’t work their ass off in the class.

Should I instead just sit back and enjoy the toboggan ride? Take attendance but not enforce any policy regarding excessive absences? Give everyone who shows up and turns something in a B? Reserve C grades for those that failed? Hand out A grades as though they were gold stars for effort? Show twice as many movies, lecture aimlessly and allow students to put their heads down? Give extra credit to anyone who has an excuse for missing class or for not doing the work?

I just can’t help but feel that my ratemyprofessor.com ranking would be much higher. People would say things like, “He’s really nice and the class is fun! Totally recommend!”

During an in-class free write, a student asked if it was okay for them to just right “I LOLed” instead of “I laughed out loud.”

“No abbreviations, please,” I replied with mild amusement.

Another student groaned. “So what do i write instead of WTF?” she asked.

“Write it out,” I repeated. “No abbreviations.”

“So I can swear?”

I then had the distinct pleasure of announcing to a college classroom, “This is an English class, for God’s sake! Write out What the fuck, not WTF!”

Adjuncts such as myself can sometimes qualify for partial health coverage. This is a very rare thing for adjunct professors, and only occurs in certain districts when the adjunct in question has achieved what is usually known as “preferred rehire” status, or as I like to call it, “tenure for part-timers”. Among a few other things, pref. rehire status grants a partial reimbursement of medical expenses, never in excess of 50%.

One district that I taught at wanted to see copies of my medical bills every six months, and then would reimburse me either half my expenses or $600, whichever was smaller. Guess which one it always was?

Another district allowed me to buy into their HMO plan. They’d put me and my life partner on the HMO plan in exchange for about $375 garnished out of my paycheck each month. This is about what we had to pay privately, but the college’s plan had better co-pays and coverage.

How do you get pref. rehire? Again, different from district to district, but usually you need about three years working as a part timer at a college, positive student evaluations, positive classroom observation reports, and a hell of a lot of paperwork signed in triplicate by the dean. Once you have it, going just one semester without being assigned a class can lose it for you, and require you to start at square one. Please keep in mind this is for part timers, not tenure for full time instructors.

Once you have it, you have to sign a lot of paperwork, including a yearly affidavit, to get your partial health insurance reimbursement. The reason for all the paperwork and the affidavit (which you pay to have notarized out of your own pocket) is to confirm that you are really married to who you say you are married to, and to be sure that no other college is giving you partial reimbursement.

What really frustrates me is that you have to fill all these forms out once each year. There’s a lot of them, too! They want every single piece of information about the person you are married to, and you both have to sign that affidavit. You have about a two week window, or you lose the insurance for the year. They are quite firm that no exceptions shall be made.

I also love that it is forbidden for us to get additional reimbursement from the other colleges we work at. I can see wanting to ensure you don’t get over 100%, but what’s wrong with someone working a full load between two different colleges getting 50% from each? Why can’t I have full health insurance? I’m certainly working full time, just between two (often three) different colleges. My training and credentials are identical to the other full time faculty. My hours are the same, if not worse. Screw it, they are worse.

Recently, my district cut their reimbursement for part-time faculty. Yay. Here’s a post to our faculty listserv, reprinted with permission, from an ajunct colleague who would like to be known as Professor Rant:

I also assume that there will be no way to offset the cost of 
insurance for those of us who work elsewhere. Next summer, part-timers 
will receive an affidavit from Human Resources WITH WORDING IN CAPITAL 
LETTERS threatening what will happen if we don’t comply, which we will 
have to have notarized at our own expense, stating that we are not 
receiving insurance elsewhere. We can’t pay half at two schools, for 
example, to get full benefits.



We will also not be able to count summer classes towards our health 
insurance. If we only have three during the school year, for example, 
picking up a summer class will not change anything and we will lose 
insurance entirely. I pursued this issue in several places and was 
told change was impossible.



An across the board pay cut, say 10%, if that is indeed coming, will 
not be fair either to part-timers for the same reason the sales tax is 
not fair but is called regressive. We exist at a lower income level, 
so any reduction will cut into our ability to meet basic needs, as 
opposed to cutting into what I think economics calls wealth, available 
money to buy luxury items, invest, etc. California offsets this 
disparity by not charging income tax on food.



We still are paid less, but the 75 or whatever percent doesn’t tell 
the whole story. We still have significantly fewer step increases for 
our years of experience. We have no other benefits, nor the advantages 
of a sabbatical. There are hidden losses as well. Some of us have to 
rent instead of put equity in a home, and we have less money to invest 
and watch grow. Nor do we get help with computer costs for school 
tasks that now are mandatory. There is more. . . .



The school is sitting on a mammoth debt it has never fully recognized 
or adequately sought to address. How many millions (tens of millions, 
hundreds?) has the school saved since its inception by relying on part- 
time work? If there weren’t a large and flexible pool of willing part- 
timers all these years, the school would have had to hire full-timers 
and made drastic changes in everything — salary, benefits, programs, 
class sizes, and anything else that comes under this allotment.



I do want to make a show of respect to FA and our representatives 
there, whose motives and integrity I do not question in the least. I 
have followed events from the sidelines for over twenty years, 
especially through a former member, and do have a sense — but only a 
sense — of how demanding and tedious and frustrating their work is, 
this largely because of the inflexibility and blindness of the 
district. I also realize that without the work of some, things would 
be much worse.



The listserve, I realize, is not the right place to make these 
comments. But it is a place where I can speak. Also I need a place to 
exercise the critical demands of my profession. The changes may be 
inevitable, but only that. Please, let’s not call them necessary or 
fair or right in any other way. Let us call a pile of manure for what 
it is: a pile of manure.



But let us see if we can make the pile smaller.



And please, let’s not remain silent, allowing someone else the chance 
to think all is right and good. Please rant where ranting is in order. 
Also, bottling our frustration up is unhealthy.



In my state 75% of all college instructors are adjunct. What do you think this sort of treatment does to our morale, our work effort, our happiness and productivity?

Today in class, a student said that I remind them of the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. I would have liked to have told her what fictional character she reminded me of, but they don’t make films about idiots who work at McDonald’s.

The chair of my department is paralyzed from the waist down. She told me that the other day a student angrily told her that she was “a hard ass” in fron of her entire class. I asked her how she responded. “That’s what happens when you spend your life in a wheelchair,” she replied. Ha! Right on.