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Dealing With My Own Insecurities

November 21, 2011, 12:55 pm

By Isaac Sweeney

I’m disappointed with myself. At a recent faculty meeting, we were discussing the creation of a new group to discuss faculty concerns on our small, two-year campus. In the draft proposal, adjunct faculty members were to be a part of this new group. At the meeting, from the back of the room, someone said, “I don’t think we should include adjuncts in this group. We’re the ones who have to bear all the responsibility, not them.”

With my history as an advocate for adjunct inclusion, I should have spoken up. It pains me to write this now, but I said nothing. One reason I remained silent is because I knew we wouldn’t make any final decisions about the proposal, so I had some time to get my thoughts together. Also, this comment from the back was a bit out of sync with the unsettled conversation at hand, so I knew we wouldn’t stay on the subject long. If I’m honest with readers here, and with myself, I have to admit that I also didn’t say anything because of my own insecurities.

I’m new here and I’m new as a full-time faculty member. I’ve never met the person who suggested leaving out adjuncts and I don’t want to step on too many toes right off the bat. I also don’t want my colleagues to see me as a difficult person to get along with. As I’m writing this, I realize those aren’t very good reasons, hence my disappointment with myself.

I should have said that tenure-track faculty members aren’t the only ones who bear responsibility if we hold adjunct faculty members responsible for what happens in their classrooms. Adjunct faculty members need to be part of decision-making groups if we want to have a knowledgeable group of faculty members to teach our students. As long as we put adjuncts in front of students and say, “teach,” then we need to include them in the decisions of the departments they work in.

I didn’t say any of that. I just sat there. I’ve never thought of myself as a sheep. From now on, I need to speak up when the situation demands it.

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  • walkingtree

    Yes, you need to speak up. As a two-time adjunct, I find tt-faculty’s condescension and exclusivism increasingly irritating. We all have PhDs from top universities and publications, 
    it’s just that we hit a terrible job market and never recovered. But that makes us lepers. 
    What’s worse is that some of these tt-faculties are self-professed marxists and/or liberals,
    but can’t seem to put their theory into praxis. They can only talk about social inequality
    in their books or whenever a camera rolls on at Wall Street. Look at your own basement,
    where adjunct share offices in crammed spaces: social inequality there. 

  • http://twitter.com/DanConnell Dan Connell

    It’s good that you came out and said this, but as you state, these are your insecurities. Stick up for what you believe in – you didn’t have to go overboard in a defense of your ideas, merely posit your alternative idea. This is what academia is about; the sharing of ideas in search of a greater truth. That member of faculty has gone home not considering the flipside, because you’re the one there to represent it to them. Make it your priority next time: find your voice and make yourself known.

  • pterodactyl123

    I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself here. It sounds like you observed what was going on and responded effectively at the time. It’s better to get your thoughts together than to say something impulsive that you might regret. And it’s wise to acknowledge your own position as a newcomer. You will have other opportunities to revisit this conversation, and to speak up for adjunct involvement. Maybe you could talk to some adjuncts and full-time faculty before the next meeting, and test the waters? Do adjuncts in your department want to be involved on such committees? Do they have time? Do they expect to be paid? How do other full-timers feel? What is to be gained from the intergration, and what, if anything, might be lost from having two distinct groups of instructors interacting to discuss “faculty concerns?” 

  • punkassninja

    Good suggestions.  I know our adjuncts are overworked and underpaid so when I suggest they aren’t on a committee, it’s because I know most of them just don’t have the time and I’m trying to save them from further burden.  I truly worry that if they are expected to be on one committee soon the admins will expect them to do more and more.  It’s a slippery slope.  Perhaps Mr. Sweeney can gather data from the adjuncts and be their champion. There is no better advocate than one who has been there.

  • cisotgc

    I don’t fault you for this particular episode, for reasons you state.  In the future, when it’s more on point, you should speak out, and I’m sure you will.  We all know about the two levels in the academic power structure, and that those who have rarely speak up for those who have not – certainly not publicly, and only rarely in private. 

    At the “top tier” research university where I teach, I’ve never felt the same (and never will) since I found out that at a meeting of tenured and tenure-track faculty in my department, those present had unanimously voted that they did not want to take any small cut in their salary whatsoever so that lecturers could keep their jobs.  It was such a clear statement.  The line was drawn, and my contributions were of no consequence to them.  My employment was of no consequence to them – any of them.  I’ve felt quite alienated ever since.

  • http://twitter.com/IsaacSweeney IsaacSweeney

    Thanks for sharing this. Stories like this make me feel worse for not saying anything, but they inspire me to speak up in the future.

  • dank48

    As science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon pointed out, defending science fiction from the charge that it was “crud” (gentler times, the fifties, at least in terms of printed words), “Ninety percent of everything is crud.”

    Sandy Thatcher makes a very good point; that excuse rings hollow until you see what astronomical sums some copyright owners demand for permission to reprint.

    Oh, well, to quote a poet condemned for his sentimentality, “Nor for philosophy does this rose give a damn.” (But I fail to discern the emotional wallowing in “There is some shit I will not eat.” Just a poor reader, I suppose.)

  • http://www.facebook.com/marly.youmans Marly Youmans

    I find some of the comments here and elsewhere rather sad, and so would like to point out that many American poets devoted to beauty and shapeliness and craft are working in the shadows, away from storm, away from limelight. 

  • penast

    The best judges of 20th Century poetry are yet to come.

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