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[americanist]

Thank you, Americanist, for helping me make my point.

I would never allow someone to choose the textbook I use for a course. I would never allow myself to be exploited to that extent. I know how to index books for book publishers, and I know how to grill sandwiches, and I would rather do either of those than surrender my integrity when I teach students.

So if that's what adjunct means to you, and to other people, then that's exactly why I will not permit myself to be so called.

Fine. I'll start calling adjuncts "Great Gods of the Classroom." Still doesn't change the fact that they don't choose their own textbook.

I'll say this one last time: It doesn't matter what we call adjuncts if the position itself is demeaning. The fact that adjuncts in my department don't choose their texts is (perhaps) demeaning; the fact that they are called adjuncts is not.

If, in another department (such as the last one in which I held a title with the word "adjunct" in it), the adjunct is allowed complete freedom, gets paid a fair wage, and has the same benefits as faculty (including retirement, health care, leave time, and full voting rights in faculty meetings), then is still "demeaning" to be called an adjunct?

Clearly I chose the wrong venue to address this. Not one of the replies I've received has even faintly considered that I might be correct. So be it.

Oh, I considered it, but you just aren't. I guess I fail to understand why you would refuse to even faintly consider that you're wrong.

[jonesey]

snarls gets to choose his textbook as an adjunct, er, instructor, er, Great God of the Classroom?

I'm full time and I don't get to choose my own textbook.  WTF is up with that?  Stupid university.

Oh, wait, it's because freshman and sophomore English have a standardized textbook used by all professors throughout the school.  That way, the administration can ensure that all first and second year students are receiving the same instruction. 

What ever could they be thinking?

Snarls, in my area we have a word for adjuncts that demand their own textbooks:

Unemployed.

If you get to choose, that's great.  Stick with it. 

I think the confusion (at least for me) lies in why you wouldn't want a TT position?  More money, more permanence, benefits, a retirement plan, more money, etc.  You get the idea. 

Regardless, if you're choosing to remain in 2nd class status (and, like it or not, being an adjunct is precisely that) then the university gets to call you whatever they want. 

[scienceprof]

Clearly I chose the wrong venue to address this. Not one of the replies I've received has even faintly considered that I might be correct. So be it.

snarls, maybe the fact that NONE of the respondents think you are correct could lead to the conclusion that you are incorrect... is that too great a leap of logic?

[larryc]

"Snarls" is such a great user name.

[spork]

I think your first mistake was getting a Ph.D. in "history of science."

[yellowtractor]

Clearly I chose the wrong venue to address this. Not one of the replies I've received has even faintly considered that I might be correct. So be it.

Of course we considered it.  You are essentially offended because a word standard in idiomatic usage across the profession was applied, correctly, to your writing and your career.  You take issue with (a) the application, (b) the currency and usage of the word, and (c) the array of demeaning practices it is often used to describe.

The problem is that (a), (b), and (c) are distinct issues.  Your insistence on conflating them seems mulish at best and blockheaded at worst.

I'm sorry that adjuncting exists (in its current form), sorry that it's demeaning, and sorry that the word (which in other contexts is downright fetching) has become associated with this particular practice.  But to ground your critique in an opposition to the prevailing and professionally accepted usage of the term trivializes all your other arguments.  The petulance doesn't help, either.

Spork, my popcorn does not have enough butter on it.  And this is that synthetic garbage.  I want real butter.  The good stuff.

[scheherazade]

Thank you, Americanist, for helping me make my point.

I would never allow someone to choose the textbook I use for a course. I would never allow myself to be exploited to that extent. I know how to index books for book publishers, and I know how to grill sandwiches, and I would rather do either of those than surrender my integrity when I teach students.

So if that's what adjunct means to you, and to other people, then that's exactly why I will not permit myself to be so called.

Wouldn't it be great fun if we could get the mods to change his name to "adjunct"?

Heh heh heh...

[englitprof]

Spork, my popcorn does not have enough butter on it.  And this is that synthetic garbage.  I want real butter.  The good stuff.

Yes, over here--and where are my Milkduds?

BTW, Thanks, ccalan, for posting this on the Hall of Fame

[acrimone]

Snarls sort of has a point.

But really, at the end of the day, he's exactly the same kind of person who wants to rename South Central as "South Los Angeles".

He's the same kind of person who pushes for Black, then Colored, then African American.

He's the same sort of person who puts frosting on sh!t and tries to call it a cake.

The complaint isn't really with the terminology -- but with the treatment.  Fix that.  Let "adjunct" (which surely -- and appropriately -- does carry with it connotations of contingency and secondariness) stand for excellence, hard work, and future prospects.

But you ain't gonna get to that point by changing the name.

[contemporary_]

Um, that would be colored, Black, then African American. 

I use colored to describe myself these days because octoroon sounds like a monkey, mulatta sounds like a coffee drink and fancy girl denotes sex work.  I am not so fond "people of color" either. 

Colored, I'm telling you, it's great.  Get on the bus.

Snarls does not have a point.  Snarls needs to embrace marginalization.

[tgies001]

When I was an adjunct at a community college, the only thing I didn't get to choose was my textbook (well, besides class meeting times, who the students were, etc.). I developed my own learning objectives, assignments, assessments, syllabus, and that sort of thing.

I don't remember the exact words of the program director who hired me, but they were something along the lines of "In your classroom you are God." (Out of modesty, I must say that I was actually only godlike.)

Seriously, though, I really enjoyed my time as an adjunct. The pay was good and the respect I got from the full-timers was decent. I'll acknowledge that this is only anecdotal, and that some (maybe most?) adjuncts are required to walk to school uphill, in waist-deep snow, while carrying books for the professors for a nickel a day. Nevertheless, I don't believe that it is always impossible for adjuncts to earn the respect of their institutions and the students who attend them.

I recently moved out of state, so I had to give up my position as an adjunct. I look forward to finding another adjunct position in the near future.

[amlithist]

Just to further complicate things:  the ABD/PhD thing doesn't always work, either, especially in a CC setting.  For a lot of reasons of no relevance or interest here, I'm going to be ABD til I die, but I sure as hell can make full prof here (and at some SLACs, too), though I personally have no interest in doing so; similarly, there are any number of PhD adjuncts on my staff.  The same is true of tenure:  I'm ABD, but I got tenure this summer, and it's transferrable (at least to the three large universities that've tried to hire me since I got it).   

Personally, I always found the term "instructor" or "lecturer" much more insulting, if I ever cared to waste the time to get pissed off over such things:  so all I did was "instruct"? (I didn't advise, grade, evaluate?) or "lecture" (would 'twere so--I love the sound of my own voice, and if all I had to do was go in and tallk for 50 minutes three times a week, hell, I'd still be there!)

See, I think we get hung up way too much on superficialities in a whole lot of areas .  (Maybe I've been rereading Thoreau for too many years.)  Are there people who personify the worst aspects of adjuncts, as in, "Oh, give the lousy class to an adjunct" or "She's just an adjunct" or "These loser adjuncts are more trouble than they're worth"?  Sure--we've all known them (and maybe even been one of them at some point).  But believe me, I've worked with just as many full-time and/or tenured a**holes as adjuncts; there's nothing inherent to the terminology.

And, um, yeah--I'm our department's adjunct faculty coordinator, and I like each and every one of them.  If I didn't, they wouldn't be working here, simple as that.  (Now if I only had similar powers over the "real" faculty....!)  As for me, I worked my ass off as an adjunct for years, and there was never a time I felt degraded by the term; I was always just happy to have the work.  If I felt disrespected or downtrodden, then I didn't take the job--whose fault is it if you let yourself be treated badly?  Wasn't it Lincoln who said, "Most people are about as happy as they decide to be"?

[sibyl]

'Adjunct' is not just applied to the downtrodden, but also to fancy people who get paid quite a lot of money to teach sometimes without joining the regular, full-time, tenured faculty.  Poet laureate Billy Collins is an adjunct professor at Columbia, to name one.  He doesn't seem to mind the label.  Then again, he has to endure the label 'poet laureate'; maybe he's used to that kind of marginalization.


There!  And I brought butter for the popcorn, too.

[conjugate]

I would never allow someone to choose the textbook I use for a course. I would never allow myself to be exploited to that extent.

Very odd.  See, when I teach College Algebra, Calculus, or lower-level courses, I of course use the department's book.  I often have no voice in text selection, especially when I am newly-arrived or have not previously taught the course.  I am currently using two books that I had no part in choosing, and one that was not my first choice although I was on the committee that chose it.

I was unaware that this constituted exploitation, Should I rebel against the powers that, just because they know more about the institution, the students and the course than I possibly could, use that knowledge to make an informed decision to my benefit?

Wasn't it Lincoln who said, "Most people are about as happy as they decide to be"?

Thought it was Will Rogers.

JG

[daniel_von_flanagan]

Very odd.  See, when I teach College Algebra, Calculus, or lower-level courses, I of course use the department's book.
[...]
I was unaware that this constituted exploitation,

There is arguably a potential academic freedom issue, even in mathematical subjects, for example if a Bayesian is teaching intro statistics out of a strongly frequentist text, and it is required that the content of the lectures adhere strongly to the text.

Of course, for very good reasons common textbooks for freshman courses are almost universal for tech fields, and so I do agree with your reaction that the indignation in this thread by this adjunct is a bit of an overreaction. - DvF