Let's Finish This Thing

I started writing this mini-essay project on contingency at the beginning of the year, and thought I would continue for the duration of 2015. But now I think I am done here. I will say, it has often helped. Writing can often help. There are so many issues in the higher ed world, the rise of contingent labor a major cause and consequence of some of them. Writing about this helps lessen my stress. I am a poster child: teaching at multiple institutions, juggling my schedule to get the jobs to get the pay to pay the bills... And on my own time I work hard to negotiate what might be good moves for me professionally: to improve my teaching, to publish creative work, to research and write papers on academic writing and teaching, how to make my CV make me look employable.

I want a full-time job teaching. But this has become a pipe dream. I know the stats, that 75% of college instructors are now part-time or otherwise contingent, even if they are in what are called full-time positions... And there are new articles coming out every day about more travesties in higher ed, like the rise of administrator positions, salaries, benefits. What this looks like from school to school differs. But I have met and talked to so many people suffering from this system. We have to teach at different places because there are course limits and terrible pay-per-class. There is little job security, professional development, resources, collegiality, etc.

I had some optimism this past year. I was involved in a number of professional development workshops and opportunities. I have been able to talk to peers and really spend time thinking about how to better develop myself as a teacher. But it's all been a ruse. I'm still in the same contingent, multiply-employed situation this fall as I have been for some years now. It's possible this is why I can't get a full time job. I've been doing this at too many places, for too long, or something. I don't really know what the problem is.

I've had some interviews that resulted in rejection. And I've seen lots of other people get jobs, teaching and non-teaching jobs because they have experience and they are good at what they do. I feel convinced that having over 15 years of teaching experience has not actually helped me at all. The system is broken, so totally broken, but the circulating narrative informs me that if I just work hard eventually things will go my way. If I want the full time job (because so many people teaching part-time in higher ed don't actually want full-time positions) then I just have to keep working toward that. And if that doesn't happen, then it's because of something I've done wrong or what I could have done better. It's entirely my fault if I am not getting a real job, not getting my work published, and etc. 

Regardless of the systemic challenges I'm now pretty sure that the fault lies within me. I got the wrong degrees. I spend so much time teaching that I am no longer good at teaching. And I'm not good at writing because I don't have time to work on and develop my writing. I am trying to do too many things that I feel like I should be doing to help me be an attractive candidate for real jobs, but I'm failing at that or doing it wrong or I don't know what I really should be doing at all. And if I quit teaching for a job in another industry, I'll likely just fail at that too.

The system is broken, but the narratives it dispels are working. We do this because we can see no other way. And when we do this it seems there is no other way but to fail at it. I want to believe I am good at something, but instead I can only work on building my endurance and resolve in the face of rejections and seeing all of the ways I fall short.

I Am Tired Just Thinking About It

The last day of July. Sometimes when August happens, I panic. But I think I have already been panicking. Lately. Maybe all summer. Let me be clear: I have no reason to panic, about anything. I work. I have money. I pay my bills. I have some cash in the savings and occasionally put some into retirement accounts that I have set up myself. I own a house. I have a loving if high-maintenance dog. I have an excellent and supportive domestic partner. Although I have spent a lot lot of time working this summer (on writing and professional development, mostly unpaid, and some union work), for the most part my schedule is my own and it is flexible. 

I am or will panic because I am not ready to go back to teaching full time in the fall semester. I say full time, but really I will be working more than a full time teaching load at three campuses. I will have five classes as it now seems, though the final details are still working out. Some people freak out about doing four classes at one time, at one place. Last year in the fall semester, I had seven. I am feeling especially grateful that I don’t have to do that again. I’m not even sure I could. I already feel exhausted just thinking about it. I was trying to consider teaching only four at two campuses this fall. It would be financially possible. But the numbers on paper are not the same as when they come in the check, after taxes. The bills that I have to pay don’t give discounts because I lost 30% of my check to taxes. When I say I am making 35k or 40k per year, I really mean it’s only about 20k or 25k or whatever is about a third less. And now, electricity costs more, groceries cost more, and my partner and I are trying to buy a different house and also put money into retirement. But I am made to feel like I should be grateful to earn 30k. That money in a retirement account is a privilege and a luxury. I have to get special permission to teach an extra class even though the full time load for part-time instructors doesn’t actually pay a professional full-time salary. I am supposed to dedicate my full time working hours but the institution won’t actually pay me a proper full time salary. I would like to quit the third job, but the two campuses of the same school won’t allow me to work enough to make enough money. 

So many people have it so much worse. A lot of people would be ecstatic to make 30 or 35k. I shouldn’t complain. But in fact, these are related issues. The service industry is fighting for $15 because the current min. wage is not a living wage. More people with families and mortgages and bills are working min. wage jobs. The educational system is being decimated for so many, a majority, who don’t have access to private schools or who don’t live in the few wealthy neighborhoods with superior public schools. The reduced value on and quality of education has put more people into the service industry instead of into professions. And people in professions like nursing and teaching have been turned into contract employees with lower pay and less job security and benefits.  The service-industry world serves the profits of a few but not of the many. 

And so my point is, I did not expect to still be here come this fall. In many ways, I did not expect otherwise, but a part of me had hope. And I worked that hope into action: I have been trying to write and publish and do as much professional development as I can fit into my schedule. I published a teaching essay. I have failed at publishing other academic essays. I am failing at getting much at all of my creative writing published. At so at this point I am focusing my energy on teaching and academic/prof. development within the teaching context. I wouldn’t say I have given up on my own creative writing, but out of necessity I’ve had to push it to the edges of my time and effort to make space for kinds of writing that will help me to get a full time job. That means thinking and writing about teaching/pedagogy in general, and toward a full time job teaching composition in particular. My degrees are in literature, cultural studies, and creative writing. The composition world is friendlier toward cultural studies and creative writing, but I have a ways to go to “prove” myself as having converted to the field. A prejudice against literary people lingers in the air. And I just don’t have enough energy to keep trying to do all of it. Although to me these things all go together, and all go into my teaching and my dedication to that, teaching experience alone is not enough and apparently one needs to be able to market oneself. I don’t really know what that means. I’m just trying to refocus myself and my disparate experiences into a version of me that will make sense to hiring committees. I’m not faking it, or changing myself; I’m just re-packaging or something.

I have had two interviews for full time jobs at community colleges, which I have been rejected for. I am a weird fit for a community college even though I have taught at a number of them and am totally dedicated to teaching, and have many years of experience to show that. The last interview felt totally rushed and the questions were all questions that were a bit off in some way from the questions I expected, like it was a specialty test of some kind. I must have sounded like a rambling idiot trying to come up with answers I hadn’t expected to think about. I had another interview for a full time, though one year temporary position. The interview I thought was really great, and I would have loved working in that department. But as with most of these things, many people more qualified than me applied, and I didn’t get it. I also later discovered that I had a missed fixing an error on my cover letter. Could this have been the determining factor? I think not, but maybe. Maybe I am not a careful enough person to have a full time job. 

So I feel like I am giving myself one more year to keep doing this. But I feel like I keep saying that. This summer, I didn’t want to give up my summer and so didn’t apply for other, non-teaching jobs that would start before Sept. And now I have a full teaching schedule for Sept. so the need for a different kind of job seems lessened. But how will I feel in Dec.? And I have spent the summer basically working on developing myself further as a teacher and academic/writer, so every time I think about doing something else, I think about how much I have invested in doing this over the past 15 years. And I keep seeing other people land jobs that they love or have been waiting for, some in teaching and others in other fields. Other people apply for jobs and get them. I am trying to be hopeful and work toward some kind of professional success but it is draining, disheartening, like trudging through mud sometimes. It is hard to continue to be motivated when the potential results are so ambiguous, and when faced with so many rejections all of the time. Even though I now feel like I do have some stability in terms of work and making not-entirely-terrible pay, I still feel relegated to the kiddie table. This is not a world in which teachers are given any professional respect. And for part time teachers, the ambivalence is even more apparent.

In the meantime, I have now over committed myself to writing papers to present at a number of conferences this fall, one or two papers to submit as possible book chapters, and since I’ve now been working on pedagogy and teaching through some amazing workshops and online classes/discussions, I now have to spend some time carefully revising some of my syllabi. I am excited for some new approaches to teaching. And I am daunted by the time and energy I’m going to need to get any of it done before the semester actually starts…

To find out more about this mini-essay project see the Introduction:The (Contingent)(Academic)(Teacher) in 2015

Endurance?

In the past few days, not unusually, some stories about the horrific situation of adjunct labor in higher ed. have come up on Facebook. Secondly, an essay by a career-adjunct, “Treadmill to Oblivion” is a nakedly sad look at the reality of teaching in higher ed. for so many people: one busts one’s ass for students, departments, institutions and gets less than nothing in return (one gets disrespect, cancelled classes, ignored concerns and ideas, zero collegiality, etc.). Certainly some part-time instructors have it worse and some have it much better. The number of classes this person has taught in total, and in each academic year, in person at various schools and online, is staggering. The stories s/he tells about getting and not getting classes, politics and relationships, the often general disregard for this person as a teacher and professional are sometimes confusing, the details falling in on each other, the pain and emotion infusing the language so that we as readers may not know the whole story of each story, but we feel it more intensely because of its being laid so bare on the page. Twenty-five years is a long time to get to the end of and realize you have been screwed and laughed at for so long. Surely this person had many good experiences over the years; most instructors in this position focus on the experience of teaching and working with students. Some have great experiences with those they work with in their departments or those who do the scheduling and logistics. This person had worked with some good people and had good teaching experiences. But there is so much more that s/he had to push aside, for years, one example after another, of professional disregard and abuse, push aside in order to continue to just do the work. The accumulation of these kinds of details, when one faces them square on, can be daunting. I feel the weight of that here, in this essay, the full force of each anecdote compounding one on top of the next. This person has had it, and the exhaustion fills every character, space, word, sentence of the essay. The narrative veers toward the main idea: s/he is cutting back on the teaching load; tired of being continuously treated like super-crapola, s/he is moving in with a friend to save money and focusing on their own writing, for once. I am in fact a little worried about this person, when s/he begins this *easier* teaching schedule in the fall and begins to focus more on theirself[sic]. This may feel like a relief at long last. It may also result in a traumatic reaction to the realization of working these many years and going nowhere. When one begins to see a thing up close, it is harder to un-see it later. 

Last fall I taught seven classes at three schools, and have decided I cannot do that again this fall. At the moment my expenses are manageable and I don’t have any kids, I already own a house and I recently replaced my old car with a less-old car. I feel like maybe I can “afford” one less class come September…though I haven’t decided that definitively. Surely one cannot turn down classes when offered, because who knows what will happen in the next semester? The person who wrote the essay above (who chose to remain anonymous) has kids in or graduated from college and paid or helped pay for that, as well as other normal kinds of expenses that people have in the world. 

Coming back around to another example, the first story on my mind happened to someone I know, who posted and then removed it from Facebook. The person teaches at a school, has been teaching there for four or five years, has been encouraged and respected and sympathized with for the low pay and conditions of *the part-time instructor*… A full-time (maybe temporary, not sure) position was posted for fall, s/he applied and had an interview, s/he didn’t get the job. One could go on at length with more details, and in response to inane questions/responses that rationalize that they must have hired someone better, more qualified, with more publications and experience, and etc. But I would argue that this person is as, or more, qualified than others in all of these ways, surely gets excellent teaching evaluations (however problematic thinking about the use of evals is in relation to quality teaching and etc.), and is a dedicated and enthusiastic teacher. The point is, when faced with the decision, committees sometimes go for the fancier or name-recognition candidate instead of being loyal to those right next to them already doing the work. Or, because s/he is right there doing the work already, it is assumed that s/he will continue to be right there doing the work and so getting someone else, from outside, is just another bonus (why reward the person for doing what s/he is already doing?)… I had a similar experience a few years ago. It’s likely that at that time I was not well-practiced in my interview skills, and for a while I told myself that’s why I didn’t get the job. But I had been teaching in a department for a few years when a low-pay, full-time instructor position became available and I didn’t get it. But in addition to that, two others in the department also applied, and none of us got it. Any of us would have been a good choice for the job: one had been teaching those same classes (that the job called for) in the department for a while, one had a book published, one was almost finished with a Ph.D. Certainly we were all qualified and had good teaching records, credentials, backgrounds, were dedicated teachers. And the committee hired someone with no published book nor Ph.D. but had some other fancy thing on their resume. That person stayed in the job for one year, and then left for another job, and then the department was not allowed to re-hire for the position. At another school, a full-time position (lecturer, not tenure-line, which means less pay for arguably comparable work but less requirements for research or etc., though so many people apply for these jobs now because though they are qualified for tenure-line positions, there are few to none available) became available, I had a first interview, and they gave second interviews to three people who had been teaching in that program for longer than I had. They hired someone well-qualified and already in the department and doing the work. I was glad for that. In theory, one might do the work part-time and eventually be hired into the full-time position. The problem is that the full-time positions don’t come around very often, so in the meantime, one can be part-time for years with no guarantee of a full-time spot.

For about six months of the year for the past few years, I have a part-time job sending out job applications for full-time teaching positions. It’s not really a *job* because I don’t get paid, but it takes hours of time and energy. Two especially great-looking jobs, near-enough to commute to instead of having to move, were posted recently; I spent extra time preparing materials and thinking optimistically. Both jobs were cancelled due to budget or whatever issues. Most of the other jobs never offer interviews. I am doing the same work that others do for two or three times the pay, they have health insurance all year long instead of only for part of the year, they can plan on other things for the summer instead of worrying over money and summer-teaching possibilities. It’s not the fault of the people who have the real jobs; some of them are also trying to change the system in whatever ways possible. The problem is that teaching in higher ed. has been outsourced just like manufacturing went to China (or wherever) and phone support went to India and all over the world. College instructors are academic migrant workers. Teaching is no longer a job, not a profession, it is a career that has basically disappeared; and this is what is so difficult, constantly, to comprehend. 

In another story this week, a tenure line professor quit her *comfortable* job in protest to her university’s eliminating some of the full-time instructor positions that she had secured for the teachers in her department (http://chronicle.com/article/To-Protest-Colleagues-Lack-of/230057?cid=megamenu). Some see this as a great protest from an ally of contingent labor, and in response to the problems in the system. Others see this as failing; she could have stayed in that position and continued to fight for those instructors instead of leaving for another job that she had already lined up. She didn’t actually lose any security like the instructors did whose jobs were eliminated. It’s not an easy answer. The system is so bad and has infected so many people at every level. At one school where I work we are trying to have a conversation with HR about how instructors are offered and scheduled classes. We have a bargaining agreement with simple language on this. We have had multiple grievances. We have suggested a document,   with accessible language, a proposal for a user-friendly practice that can be implemented across campus so that department heads can offer and assign classes transparently, fairly, and within the requirements of the bargaining agreement. But the HR people insist on their own versions of proposals that convolute the language, make the practice more cumbersome and complicated for everyone, and help the instructors little (and certainly don’t do much to think of instructors as professional teachers and employees of the institution, instead continually treating us as peripheral and not really necessary to the functioning of the institution even thought we are 50% of the teaching faculty of the place). This seems like a combination of incompetence (they don’t know how to use words and sentences to express ideas and create employee-friendly practices and policies even though when the words come out of their mouths, that’s what they say) and vindictiveness (they actually hate us and do these things on purpose). I don’t know the answer. I just hope that I am not still doing this in 25 years. I have set a timer.


To find out more about this mini-essay project see the Introduction:The (Contingent)(Academic)(Teacher) in 2015

In the News

...or headlines that are on the periphery of the news...

A few articles, among the many that are circulating daily...

1. A Review of Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia, Utah State University Press, 2012. Edited by Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, Yolanda Flores Niemann, Carmen G. González, Angela P. Harris. 

This is a collection of essays, on various topics, about issues in academia particularly from the perspective of people of color. I have long had this theory that the increase in contingency (decrease in tenure-line positions) is in direct proportion to women, people of color, those other than economically privileged white males going further to earn higher degrees, Ph.D.s and the like, and entering the academic market. As the traditional academic world started opening to these nontraditional possibilities, it started to shut itself down. Certainly the business model-economic constraints contribute to the reversal of teaching positions (40 years ago 75% of faculty were tenure-line), but the narrative focuses on this economic situation, at least in part, as a deferral from the institutionalized racism and sexism that it protects and reiterates. From the review:

"The 30 essays in Presumed Incompetent expose a nasty truth about Academia: it is not above the realities of everyday American life. It, in fact, reproduces and reinforces society’s inequalities, stereotypes, and hierarchies within its own walls.

"That academic women, especially academic women of color, are often presumed incompetent, is probably not surprising to most. The virtue of this book is that it enables the reader to see that these experiences are not individual experiences nor are they the result of individual flaws. Keeping this insight in mind, these essays become more than just “stories” or anecdotes. They point to the larger structural and cultural forces within Academia that make the experience of being presumed incompetent for women of color far too common.
...

"Lugo-Lugo also touches upon a second, though sometimes less explicit, theme of this book: the corporatization of higher education.  There are several layers to this phenomenon that affect women of color disproportionately. For one, contingent labor now makes up the vast majority of faculty positions in this country.  White women and women of color are disproportionately represented in these contingent ranks. Women of color only make up 7.5% of all full-time faculty positions in Academia (pg. 449). Given this reality, the presumption of incompetence gets reinforced and magnified for women of color. But there is another aspect of corporatization that is considered in the essays in this book. These are the essays that discuss student evaluations of teaching.  Because students increasingly come to the classroom with a consumerist mentality, they feel entitled to a certain experience, a certain grade, a certain “kind” of teacher. Lazos’ chapter, in particular, is a must-read for anybody who wishes to understand the factors that impact students’ evaluations of their professors. Departments chairs and members of committees on tenure and promotion will also find this chapter useful since they are responsible for evaluating a faculty member’s teaching effectiveness and student evaluations are a primary source of that information.


2. "Love in a Time of Contingency" (titled slantedly after one of my favorite novels by Marquez)
http://thefeministwire.com/2014/07/womens-and-gender-studies/

This is from a year ago, but so relevant and important. In fields especially like Women's and Gender Studies (as well as other humanities, social sciences, etc) our academic politics don't match the fight against real world sexism, racism, economic oppression... Scholars exhort feminist political arguments in research and teaching, but ignore the perpetuation of marginalization and violence within the very institutions they are working. 

From the article:

"As Jennifer Ruth poignantly showed recently (though not speaking in the WGS context), we are all complicit in perpetuating these dynamics, including those working in “middle management.” While not making sweeping higher ed policy decisions, these “middle managers” are the actors, Ruth argues, who make the everyday decisions that continue to perpetuate this system: department chairs who accept non-TT positions to “grow” their programs, TT faculty who ask for adjunct coverage so they can finish that book. Those working in WGS should be held accountable when their actions uncritically perpetuate a racist, classist, and ableist system whose increasing corporatization is leading to a “winner-take-all” market for a tiny minority of faculty and increasing contingency for the rest. Significantly, 76% of faculty are contingent—with women and people of color making up a large percent."

3. This article from a journal out of Louisville (http://louisville.edu/journal/workplace/issue7/schell.html/) is from 2001 or just thereafter. It analyzes the rise of contingent labor, especially among first-year writing teachers, and points to political movement happening across social sectors (protests against the WTO, rise of union interest among contingent workers, etc), and it calls out to those teaching in areas in which we "profess" politics or critically engaged pedagogy to also act these in our real, academic, institutional lives. This article disturbs me because I wonder, like the environmental apocalypse that is  upon us, how long does it take for the sounding alarms to turn to real change?

From the article:

"The revitalization of academic unions and growing regional, state-wide, national, and international coalition building efforts among various groups concerned with contingent labor coupled with localized legislative action can effect change. In this essay, I will report on and analyze campus, municipal, state-wide, and national organizing campaigns to address the working conditions of part-time and non-tenure-track faculty, many of them first-year writing teachers. After that, I will discuss a proposed international week of action, Campus Equity Week, that is forthcoming, and will conclude with a discussion of the rhetorical strategies that literacy workers and others agitating for change can best adopt to achieve coalition building and organizing toward improved working conditions. "

"With a rhetoric that opposes binaries and encourages agency and coalition-building, we are in a good position to articulate a broad educational agenda that acknowledges worker rights and the fundamental need for a democratic, accessible, and diverse system of higher education."

To find out more about this mini-essay project see the Introduction:The (Contingent)(Academic)(Teacher) in 2015

with or without a profession

The system works because so many people have internalized the larger structure of power and exploitation. The institution creates a set of bad working conditions, and individuals implement those conditions by doing the work of maintaining the workforce. The institution says that teachers are peripheral, temporary, inconsequential, exploitable, replaceable, interchangeable, and the etc. Some individuals rise above these messages to bring care and thought into their work maintaining the workforce in their particular areas or departments. Some individuals on the other hand--either through overt interest in exerting power or seemingly less culpable thoughtlessness--create and perpetuate working conditions that are not sustainable for contingent workers. And by their contingency, the workers may not last long under such conditions unless they internalize their own inadequacy and believe they don’t deserve to be treated any better, not like valued workers or people at all. Certainly, any idea of professional respect becomes irrelevant because if these contingent workers were seen as professionals, the system and the individuals who perpetuate it would have to treat them entirely differently. And when one or more contingent, non-professional, expendable teachers starts to ask for more or to be treated better, the system and the individuals who perpetuate it crack down. Individuals are afraid to have their own power and control threatened. Or individuals who don’ t have power but are in better positions than the contingent, exploitable teachers are afraid to lose ground, or are too busy worrying about their own state of affairs in the world to be of support for the expendables. But they don’t realize their ignorance and thoughtlessness have consequences. One cannot choose when to be or not to be responsible to the welfare of others. If one is in a position to advocate for others, to support workers as deserving of respect, to promote their being treated as professionals, than she has a responsibility to do that. Instead, there is a lot of denial and choosing not to be responsible when that seems more convenient than taking any kind of stand. More disheartening is when an individual who believes that she has a personal philosophy or politics of advocacy for those mistreated in society, that she or he is on the side of those with little voice to advocate for themselves, insists on remaining ignorant about the situations of those immediately around her. It becomes easy to convince oneself that the part-time, expendable teachers are lucky to be given the opportunity to do the teaching, to participate in the things that go along with the teaching. One can even believe she is doing great favors for the contingent by being a kind of person who is better than one who would exploit others. But often this situation can easily and quickly come to resemble the example of the ignorant white women in the south, sending money and gifts to people in Africa while exploiting and abusing the African Americans immediately around them (I just watched the movie The Help, and although there are so many complicated things to say about this film (even while the movie often oversimplifies instead of complicates), it does a good job of showing stupidity and ignorance… though, unfortunately, the kind of ignorance that is less obnoxious is just as dangerous). One has to choose to be more responsible to one’s politics and to the concerns of others instead of deciding not to pay attention.

I have recently been working in two jobs in which I am treated with respect and as a professional teacher and thinker. I am also involved with the union which advocates that workers be treated with respect and fairness, and stands up for those who are being exploited. But the union can only make progress a little at a time when the challenge of mistreatment is so systemic and pervasive. The union works on behalf of the workers and toward the long future of better conditions. In the meantime, individuals continue, and sometimes ramp up, their anti-worker practices. Because I have begun to experience better working conditions, supported by the union and perpetuated by individuals who are more thoughtful and genuinely care about the conditions of the workers around them, I have come to see my larger situation is a different light. I enjoy being treated as a professional, which in fact I am, and this makes being invisible, and even mistreated, in the other job, more difficult to deal with on a regular basis. The problem is that the two jobs with better working conditions don’t pay enough and don’t have enough consistent work for me to stop doing the job that is beating me down. The institution, the system, still wins. This is a common problem among so many workers in our new world order. In fact, I know that I have it so much better than many people who really are limited by choices (few or none of them) and circumstances. In this job of poor working conditions, in which so many people beside me are being mistreated and disrespected, I can’t do enough to help them all, and this makes me feel even more defeated. In reality, if I didn’t have that job, I would survive by doing something else. But I also feel like the injustices should be addressed (again, at this moment, I hear the individuals who have the power within themselves to do better exclaiming, “injustices?” “You are lucky to have this job at all, you should be grateful and not cause trouble!” or some fake version of what an administrator told me straight to my face, “But you have to believe that we do respect and value our lecturers” and then immediately turned down the grievance about an unquestionable part of the bargaining agreement). I have been in a position, though without any actual power, to advocate for others. And I have come to question if it has yet done any good. More disrespect is being handed down. I have to choose to fight or jump ship. Weary of the fight with Fox News, even Jon Stewart is stepping to the side. By sweeping individuals who could and should do better into its wake, the system of exploitation is winning. That is, except in places where the individuals have decided to do better than the system expects of them.


To find out more about this mini-essay project see the Introduction:The (Contingent)(Academic)(Teacher) in 2015

of what benefit

When I found out that my health insurance would continue, and not get cancelled like it does every year in January, I was not only happy, but lightheaded, maybe even a little silly, and relieved. In fact it made me feel like maybe I am a real person. A person in the world with a job, and benefits, and a profession. That was short-lived. It turns out that the benefits were cancelled. The health insurance, the dental, the contribution that the institution puts toward retirement. I am trying to argue to have it reinstated, but with the institution there is little logic nor concern for real individuals’ issues. And in the end it is my fault, apparently. I should have known about the language in the bargaining agreement that said my coverage would continue if I averaged a 50% workload appointment over the academic year. I had originally thought I had to maintain a minimum of 50% each semester, but instead it is possible to have a continuation of benefits approved if one works 75% or more in the fall, and 25% in the winter. In the fall I had a total of 133% workload appointments across the institution, in three departments. Still, that one employer sends me one check via one human resources office every month. So I would argue I worked more than enough to average (leverage) benefits.

In fact, the system is set up to be impossible. I could have worked more hours in the fall semester (in addition to the 133%, I also had two more appointments at another institution and could maybe have had more). But in December, I didn’t know if I would have enough work come January to pay my bills and keep money in the bank to pay for the summer of reduced or no work at all. And so at this moment I have no health insurance. Again. And if it isn’t reinstated, I will become depressed. Again. Depression has become a cycle of abuse in my psyche for so long, only recently have I been able to forcefully target and overcome it when it takes over. This system of abuse that I have put myself into, this life of contingent academic employment takes a toll on my mental and physical health.

Last fall, I had a job interview for a full-time teaching position. I screwed it up. I didn’t get the job. Apparently I didn’t even get a second interview. I don’t think they believed that I am dedicated to teaching. They thought I was being utopic in my philosophy of getting to know students (“how many students do you think we have in our classes here?” one of them asked, like I am some privileged person teaching three classes of 12 students so I can get to know them all, when in fact I teach multiple classes of 25 students and do in fact get to know most of them, every semester). I talked about what I enjoyed about working with the students at that college, where I had worked previously, but I didn’t spend any time explaining in detail why I wanted that job, why I wanted to work at that place, why I want to continue teaching instead of quitting to go to work doing something else. Maybe they think, delusionally, the way that people seem to keep thinking, that I won’t want that job when I get a fancy teaching job somewhere else. But there are few to no jobs, not teaching college English classes full-time, not any more. I will have to quit teaching before I ever get a full time job, fancy or otherwise. Failing to land that job sent me into a chronic fit of cranky and depressed, probably for a few months.

A few years ago I also failed at getting the full-time job I interviewed for, teaching at a place where I now still teach part-time, the sting of which lingers just under my skin, and occasionally bubbles to the surface. In many ways that was a crappy job, with low pay and high teaching load. It would have been tons better than what I am doing now. Last year I worked my butt off at that (part-time) job with students, for students, and have gotten nothing in return. Of course I have gained the personal learning and enlightenment that comes with every class that I teach. I also had some of the same students in successive classes over that year, and got to work with some students later in their college careers who were, and are, amazing students and people. I have also learned a lot, and met a lot of people, through my experiences teaching at so many different schools. I enjoy learning new things and thinking about possibility. But the tradeoff is the stress, low pay, and lack of professional respect (mostly from institutions, sometimes from individuals). The stress of the tradeoff in trying to continuously maintain three jobs with no security and the fluctuating promise benefits may be too much greater than the possibilities for learning and experience. This is the conversation I have with myself regularly. And I play every role in the dialogue.


To find out more about this mini-essay project see the Introduction:The (Contingent)(Academic)(Teacher) in 2015