The Adjunct

I’ve never been asked to explain the proper use of a semicolon, or how to fix a comma splice, but I teach grammar courses. I teach college level classes on rhetorical analysis, but never once during an interview have I been asked to define rhetoric, nor ethos, pathos, and logos. No one has ever asked to see my writing, and they have also never asked to see how I would mark and score another person’s writing. The biggest question has always been one of availability: “What days and times can you teach?” The next question is for me to explain my teaching philosophy: an abstract concept, full of superflous ideals, and zero demonstration of anything other than one’s bullshitting skills. I believe no student should be left behind. I prefer to be the guide on the side, rather than the sage on the stage. No, I never fantasize about beating them with their textbooks.

Cold calls are the best way to get an interview for an adjunct teaching position. You can make a list of desirable schools, get the chair’s phone number and email from the department website, and then start asking if they need any adjuncts. Sometimes, all you’ll get get is an indifferent no, but I have found myself in brief but polite conversations with chairs who are telling me there’s currently nothing available. Keep in mind many of these people once were like you, young and poor and starving for academic table scraps. It is less often that I get an irate, or otherwise rude chair who is upset at being disturbed with such a mundane inquiry. Most of the time, regardless of immediate need, I am told to email my CV so that they can keep it on file. I have gotten the majority of my teaching assignment through this method.

The other method, which is becoming more and more mandatory these days, is to submit an application to the department’s adjunct pool. Many departments now have a pool of resumes which they sift through whenever they have classes which need staffing. So far, I have landed a total of one job from having my CV in an adjunct pool. I am not a fan of this method, because I feel that it removes us from the process and leaves us adrift. You fill out the district application, attach your CV, mail it in and wait, possibly forever. We adjuncts need these jobs to pay our rent and buy food. We live hand to mouth. To simply expect us to send out applications and only hear back from someone if there’s an interview for us, often waiting as long as a year, is asking too much. We need to know if a job is immediately available, and if we can get an interview. I can see why many schools prefer this method, but from my position it is far from desirable.

If you do land an interview, then you’ve probably got the job. That’s a very bold statement, I know, but I have found it to be true. As I said above, during an interview, you are never tested on your knowledge, skills, or ability to teach. If they have called you in for an interview, then they have looked over your CV, verified that your degrees qualify you for the job, and already determined ahead of time that they have a class for you. At this point, all you need to do is go in and not appear to be a complete freak, and the class is yours. I am sure that department chairs everywhere have all begun swearing at their computer screens as they read this, but in all my years of teaching I have never yet gone into an interview and not gotten at least one class. Oh, and spare me your mumblings of logical fallacies. I’m painting in broad strokes for the purposes of humor, and maybe educating a few saplings, still green in their youth. I know not every teaching interview ends in success; I’m just hot that way.

In a lot of ways, the first term at a new college is your real interview. Most schools will send someone in to watch you teach, evaluate you, and possibly not invite you back even if there’s an unstaffed class. All joking aside, there’s been several colleges that have not asked me back for a second term, and even one that I absolutely refused to return to. Sometimes, they genuinely don’t have another class for you, but more often than not, if you’re not invited back it is because something went wrong.

I’ve twice now had colleges decline to offer me additional classes. In both instances, I never was told that they would not be hiring me again, or why. The phone just didn’t ring. Deep down I knew why they didn’t want me back, and the reasons were ones that would have caused the union leader’s heads to explode, and that’s why no formal reasons were ever given. At one school, I had filed a complaint about another instructor who had held his class thirty minutes late, refused to allow my class to enter, and then became hostile towards me when he finally did surrender the classroom. The chair of my department was furious that I had gone through formal channels to file a complaint, and he irrationally demanded that, in the future, I should keep my mouth shut. I never heard him again again. At another school, a developmentally disabled student had been placed in my English 1A class, and she freaked out over the adult themes (and language used in the class). She complained to her counselor, who complained on her behalf to my chair, who called me to tell me that twice-removed hearsay originating from a student with a developmental disorder was all the testimony she needed. Don’t bring strong material into class, and don’t bother calling us next term, we’ll call you (not). The story that had been the tipping point for this student, by the way, was Margaret Atwood‘s “Death By Landscape.”

If things do go otherwise smoothly, then about halfway through your current term you should let your chair know that you want to return. In other words, you need to reapply for your job every 3-4 months. Sometimes they just don’t have any classes available. More often than not, you are absolute last on their list, and they need to wait until the very last minute to see which classes will be left unclaimed by everyone else in the department. Again, this can be very stressful when your rent check depends on your getting rehired. Also, it is very frustrating to juggle 3 districts or so, because you need to be sure that the classes you accept do not conflict with one another.

In the end, I’d be happy to trade them a more intense interview in exchange for better seniority rights, and a faster planning of the schedule. I don’t see anything unreasonable about a prospective professor being grilled on the subject she or he is applying to profess. Why not hand them a sample essay, and ask to see what marks they would make on it, and how they would grade it? Quiz each instructor on the basics of their prospective class. What is an antecedent? How does a semicolon work? In exchange for this intense interview process, the department makes sure to be on top of scheduling. They acknowledge that most adjuncts can’t comfortably wait until the last minute to find out whether or not they’ll be able to pay next month’s rent, and act both accordingly, and compassionately.

The worst thing about being an adjunct is having those at the college, be it your chair, the human resources department, or even the departmental secretary, treat you as if you were not a person with bills to pay and a very insecure occupation. Not knowing in March whether or not you have a job in April is a hell of a stress. So is being told that, oops!, we underpaid you this month, but don’t worry because the computer will get that missing pay to you next month. That’s fine, because Safeway takes I.O.U.’s.

It should always be remembered that we are just trying to do our jobs, and live our lives as best we can. We all hold advanced degrees, something that requires considerable effort, commitment, and sacrifice. We have chosen to contribute to academia despite the lack of full-time work, despite the terrible pay, despite the intensive requirements of the job. Regardless of the situation, we should be seen as human beings, struggling human beings, and treated always with the utmost respect.