May 14, 2012, 11:46 am
By Eliana Osborn
Do you ever have students who don’t fit in?
My community-college classes are both more homogenous and more diverse than I experienced in my undergraduate career; a slim majority of students are Spanish speakers and about two-thirds are Hispanic. But unlike my university life where we were almost all the same age, I teach classes with students from 16 to 60. That’s not even mentioning the vast disparity in terms of socioeconomic status.
Older students sometimes have a hard time blending. They may be shy in a classroom after many years away; they may take things more seriously than kids just out of high school; maybe they are uncomfortable with technological demands. I’m sure there are other reasons as well. Whatever the case, helping these older students work well in groups is a challenge I face each semester.
The other group of students who seem to need special care in the…
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May 1, 2012, 1:53 pm
By Eliana Osborn
Maybe the classroom is too hot. Maybe you aren’t feeling your best. Maybe there’s just something in the air. Whatever the reason, your well-planned and executed lesson just falls flat. I can usually tell about 10 minutes into class when things just aren’t jibing–rather than blank stares of confusion, I see only glassy eyes of apathy.
I try to do a lot of things to prevent classes from being boring, especially since I teach at night and we only meet once a week. We do a variety of activities, I try to get people out of their chairs and learning in multiple ways. But sometimes it isn’t enough.
How do you resuscitate a floundering class? I find that a quick break, acknowledging that we’re all struggling with interest, can do wonders. Sometimes I change the order of activities — e.g., instead of writing at the end of class, I’ll shake things up a bit and do that earlier. Other times …
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April 16, 2012, 1:37 pm
By Eliana Osborn
Recently, my three-year-old son went a full eight days without having a seizure–the first time we’ve made it so long since he was diagnosed with epilepsy seven months ago. I had hoped that around the six-month mark I would have found a new normal, with treatment plans and stability and whatnot. That has not proven to be the case with my son; we are still working with his doctors to get things under control.
I find that my brain has fragmented a bit since dealing with my son’s chronic illness. There’s a segment of my mind always worrying instead of focusing on the task at hand. In terms of my career, teaching hasn’t been a problem. I love teaching and don’t think my classes have suffered from my distraction. Preparing and presenting have been ways to get outside myself.
The other half of my professional life is writing though. Here I haven’t been so lucky. I’m really struggling…
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April 4, 2012, 1:03 pm
By Eliana Osborn
My friend Jim is a federal attorney by day, adjunct professor in the paralegal department by night. His students are tremendously lucky to have him. He brings real-life experience about what their on-the-job demands will be, is up-to-date on happenings in the legal system, and knows what he wants from a paralegal he hires. This is the best-case scenario of adjunct faculty.
We write and talk a lot here on The Chronicle blogs about the exploitation of adjuncts. In no way is this column meant to discount that. When I worry about adjuncts teaching, I’m not worried about their quality. Adjuncts bring a lot to the table–perhaps too much, hence the problem with them working for too little compensation.
As an adjunct who only works part time, I know that I put a lot of time and energy into my classes. I’d be happy to compare my classes to those of any other faculty member, full or part…
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March 8, 2012, 2:04 pm
By Eliana Osborn
I told a student that she should go to the writing center for extra help before turning in a final draft of her compare/contrast essay. I thought I handled the situation well, pulling her aside privately at the end of class to discuss her significant needs. The student, however, did not take it well and was put off by the suggestion that she needed help. When I handed back grades, she specifically told me what a waste of time the extra tutoring was.
In this circumstance, I was clearly doing my job. A student didn’t like it, but I wasn’t too put off. She needs help. Buck up, sweetheart. But sometimes I know that I can cause offense unintentionally, in my personal and professional life. We’ve all been there; George David Clark recently wrote about a heckler during the interview process who was offended by a single word in a published work.
Have you successfully navigated apologies…
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February 8, 2012, 2:16 pm
By Eliana Osborn
As we talk about higher education in the 21st century, there are big-picture questions to address: What is the purpose of our varying institutions? What are our teaching goals — to give students a broad liberal-arts education or job preparation? How can we best meet those goals and use our dollars?
Since I attended the New Faculty Majority summit, however, I’ve been thinking about something equally important: education as a matter of civil rights and social justice.
Anne Wiegard, president of the NFM Foundation, shared remarks with a pre-summit group that were based on Martin Luther King Jr.’s words: “We can never be satisfied as long as our colleagues are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating ‘For Tenure Track Only.’” She talked about inequality in the academic world — in terms of academic freedom, job security, and more.
There are two…
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January 30, 2012, 11:43 am
By Eliana Osborn
We’ve found a forum here and elsewhere online to finally open some conversations about contingent faculty issues. On individual campuses it is hard to find time or opportunity to talk through these things in any meaningful way. At the New Faculty Majority Summit this weekend we’ve tried to shy away from the airing of grievances, no matter how valid, and focus on ways to move forward. That’s where I’ve been stuck–knowing the problems is just the beginning and I haven’t known how to do more.
A theme for the NFM is the title of this post and something that I think we need to emphasize in any discussion with the broader public about why they should care about our problems; after all, jobs are tough to find all over. Why does contingent faculty even matter? It matters not just to me and you and the other 800,000 non-tenure-track faculty across America. It matters to everyone who will take…
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January 13, 2012, 1:03 pm
By Eliana Osborn
I’ll be attending the first meeting of the New Faculty Majority Foundation at the end of the month. Adjunct or part-timers are the majority of those teaching college courses around the country, and we have very little control over our lives and careers. The NFMF is an attempt at organization and finding common goals to advance the status of we adjuncts.
I know what I think and what my experience has been over the decade I have worked as an adjunct English professor at one institution, but I’d like to hear from you about what issues you think need to be addressed first and foremost. The more I engage in the Chronicle community, the more I realize that I am not alone in my challenges as a non-tenure-track employee. I’d like to bring to the table at the NFMF gathering some of what I’ve learned from you readers.
So what is most important to you in terms of better adjunct treatment?…
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December 12, 2011, 3:31 pm
By Eliana Osborn
This semester, I decided to shake things up a little. I tried two experiments with my basic writing classes. As the semester wraps up, I can safely report one failure and one success. That would be good odds for baseball but I’m not thrilled.
I’ll talk about the second experiment next week. But here was the first one: Traditionally I have stated in the syllabus that after missing two class periods (for a course that meets only once a week), a student’s grade will be lowered one letter grade by each additional absence. It is rarely an issue because if you are missing class often, your grade is usually poor already. So this year I decided to take out the specific consequence and only give the institutional statement that attendance is mandatory.
I have several students who aren’t showing up very frequently. They were getting large assignments done with the help of the online…
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November 10, 2011, 3:52 pm
By Eliana Osborn
I wrote recently about missing class for a medical emergency. Several commenters replied that they build an extra day into their semester just in case such a thing happens. Great idea to make sure all the content is covered.
If you’ll remember, on the night I missed class, I put coursework up on Blackboard for my students to do without me. I did not need a substitute instructor in the classroom. But just this week I got a notice in the mail letting me know that my pay would be docked for the night I missed class.
As an adjunct faculty member, I do not have health insurance or sick leave. If I am not in class, I don’t get paid. Even though I had a contingency plan and my students had a night of coursework, albeit self-directed, I don’t get paid. Yet if I’d sat in the back of the classroom doing nothing while students did the activities I’d assigned, I would have been paid.
I’m a …
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