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[Slammer]

To rattus--Your article will be a good opportunity to tell everyone to take responsibility for their own careers (don't do as I did . . .) "I was not told" is sometimes OK for students, but we need to know that the system will not take care of us. We have to take care of ourselves and inform ourselves as much as possible, including reading EVERYTHING on the Web sites of schools where we apply.

To others--This two-tiered system has existed for more than 30 years. It's not new, and it's not going away. In fact, it's expanding. And there's not much of anything we can do about this terrible situation.

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[rattus domesticus]

I will, of course, use this opportunity to tell other adjuncts what to expect and ask for. Many part-timers like me will NOT know about this rule.

I hear that you are disappointed, Slammer, that my colleague and her friends did not read all that was available and find out this very important nugget of information on their own. It's tiny print on page four of the "TENURE" section of the faculty handbook; these were not tenured instructors--how would they know to read this section? Curiosity? Boredom? All they know is what they were told and what was in their contract--you have a three-year contract, which may be renewed each year if both parties agree.

Understand that at NO POINT in their six years there, until they received their "You're fired" notice, were they told that they would not be renewed after their "probationary period." No kind, well-meaning tenured professor, like yourself, leaned over and said,

"Oh, by the way, you know that after you work another semester, they won't renew you, right?"  Or at the point when my friend was thinking of buying a house, NONE of her tenured colleagues said,

"Uh, well, as long as you have another job to fall back on when you are fired next year" or

"Well, that's a fine idea if you have a man to support you when your contract will not be renewed next year."

Not a peep. Why is that? Her actions, though not wise given her contract status, were not done in a vacuum. I think it's clever and self-seeking to purposely keep non-tenured instructors in the dark--after all, I'm sure many tenured professors and administrators ask, "Who will do all the garbage work if we tell them that we're just using them for a short-term contract and will dump them when we are forced to give them de facto tenure?"

I still think that a GOOD university would have stated in the contract or in the interview that I would be renewed every year up to a six-year limit. That would have given me a chance MONTHS ago to make the decision NOT to sign the contract and instead go on six or seven other interviews for tenure-track jobs. I'm sure I would have received a tenure-track position at a community college. In fact, truth be told, I had a competing offer in Chicago for a tenure-track position at a community college. They've now hired someone else.

I've learned from my friend's mistake. Let's hope that when I do get a tenure-track position at a community college that I still look out for my non-tenured and adjunct friends. After all, that's where I came from.

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[Shopper]

Hey, this thread is really interesting. I learn more and more, the more I read. Let me get this straight, if I follow Slammer's logic, then this would be true:

If I am shopping at a department store for a golf club, then I should check the children's clothing area because there may be something there that will affect my choice of golf club. In fact, if I do not check the children's area, I have no one to blame but myself if I find out later that there was a 1/2 off golf club coupon there in between the racks of children's clothes. And I should also know that people in the sporting goods department that know about golf clubs will know about the coupon hiding halfway across the store, but they will NOT tell me about it because I'm an idiot for not knowing where to look.

Okay. Well that's clear. Thanks for your advice because I really, really need a golf club. I'll be in children's clothing if you need me.

[Guilty]

As a person in place to mentor non-tenured instructors, I will admit that adminstrators know about this rule and keep it from applicants. Sad but true.

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[Guilty, too]

I'm an adminstrative assistant at a large university in California. I've been told by the dean that if an applicant asks about the "term of contract" to refer questions back to the chair or dean. They routinely tell me that they go back to the simple statements in the contract which does NOT mention this "six year rule." They do NOT allow them access to the faculty handbook until after they are on campus. We are told to stonewall these new non-tenured instructors because otherwise (as my boss said), "We'd never get any good hires."

I think it's wrong but there's nothing that I can do about it.

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[EC]

To Shopper: I am not as critical about this as Slammer. I understand that sometime new workers in any situation may not fully understand the rules. However, I do not believe your analogy is a good one. To me, a better one is if the department store offers a coupon somewhere in this week's 30-page flyer and the sales knows about it but did not tell you. Who is at facult here or how should the blame be shared? I am not assigning blame just providing what I think is a better example.

[Slammer]

Yeah, they're all out to get you. Senior faculty are lying in wait to exploit and screw you over.

If they could take your first-born children and sell them into slavery, they would.

"Paranoia is just a more exquisite form of awareness"--Charles Manson

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[survivor]

I may be misunderstanding the situation described-- because it seems very straightforward to me.  Am I wrong in thinking that the position was tenure track and it was the lack of PhD that made her ineligible for tenure?  Or was it all along a non-tenure track position with, presumably, some kind of limited term (e.g., annual contracts renewed each year).  If I'm understanding correctly, then in either case where would the surprise be?

As for weird analogies about golf club sales, I can speak only for myself but the place I looked for information was, first, a document that at my college is called a "Faculty Handbook" (I think many colleges have these things, but maybe some don't), and second, conversations with senior colleagues in which I asked exactly the questions I wanted answered, and asked follow up questions when I wasn't satisfied with the answers.  I don't think my having done this makes me particularly smart-- rather, it makes me minimally aware of my responsibility for my own career.  I would have assumed that everyone else who is smart enough to get hired to teach at a college would be equally interested in their conditions of employment.  Or is there really some sort of trickery going on that hasn't been sufficiently explained to this post yet?

That said, I think 3rd year reviews, mentorship programs, etc., are a good idea.  I go out of my way to help junior faculty.  But it never occurred to me that any of my senior colleagues, when I was hired 6 years ago, owed it to me to tell which page in the faculty handbook to read, or to tell me which committees to get on before I asked them point blank, or to tell me to publish my book, etc.  I figured it was up to me.  Do others disagree with this perspective, and if so, then why?

[Slammer]

I agree with everything you say. But I did get dumped on for saying a lot of it.

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