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[adjunctslave]

Oh well, I confess to being a tad disturbed that so many academics aren't bothered by the blatant abuse of a senior colleague boffing a first-year tt hire.  I admit, it's not in the same category as if he were boffing a student, but it's a question of degree...the offense is the same.  The chair noted to me with eye-rolling that no matter what the issue in department meetings, he can be certain they will vote as a block.

[bacardiandlime]

'blatant abuse'?

That's very strong. Has this woman given any indication that she feels victimised or trapped? Your descriptions of them - attending events together, having dinner at a local restaurant - all sound pretty damn normal to me.

adjunctslave, your denial of any agency to this female prof is offensive and disturbing. He is a few years ahead of her on the tenure track, but she is not directly his 'underling' (in a sense that an administrative assistant might be).

As for 'voting as a block' - as other posters have pointed out, this does not mean that he is exerting some kind of malign influence upon her. So they vote alike, this may be because they actually have common opinions. It may also be that they discuss workplace issues together, and come to decisions or views based on these private conversations. Regardless, this is hardly any of your business.

If I were the female prof depicted here, being gossiped about ('walk of shame') as if I were some bimbo f***buddy, I'd be seriously annoyed. Since you are a FEMALE COLLEAGUE doing the gossiping, well, goes to show that we can't beat sexist attitudes when it is women promoting them.

[scheherazade]

If I were the female prof depicted here, being gossiped about ('walk of shame') as if I were some bimbo f***buddy, I'd be seriously annoyed.

I'm sure she is, too.  Given what the OP has said, I'm sure word of the gossip instigated by adjunctslave has filtered back to the TT folk.  Somehow, I don't think that makes for a collegial atmosphere, either.  Nor will it encourage the TT professors to look kindly on their adjunct brethren.

Face it, OP.  Very likely you are part of the problem here.

[larryc]

Oh well, I confess to being a tad disturbed that so many academics aren't bothered by the blatant abuse of a senior colleague boffing a first-year tt hire. 

It is not abuse of any kind, it is two consenting adults and coworkers getting involved with each other. Geez.

[euro_trash]

I need to ask - what business is it of yours if two colleagues have an intimate relationship?  Are they shagging each other in the custodian's closet?  Are they groping each other in front of students?  Are they French kissing in faculty meetings, or coming back all sweaty after lunch?  If not then you should consider just dropping the matter.

I thought you were worried about getting fired.  In the situation you describe, one way to surely get canned is to play the Victorian prude.  Maybe you should put your energy into something more useful - really.

[marlborough]

Your "friend" the chair isn't doing you any favors with the eye-rolling and the encouragement to act this way.

Unless the two new TT people fell out of a tree or hatched from eggs in the basement, your chair and your administration hired them, rather than people from the adjunct pool in the last two searches, and then made arrangements for at least one of them to have an accelerated tenure clock.  They have the support of the admin, even if your chair is trying to play both sides in order to be "nice" or duck the hard feelings from this change of course.

You need to smarten up fast.  The admin may very well see their blossoming relationship as a big positive--keeping single faculty is a challenge in a lot of little SLAC towns, so if they've found each other, it might cause them to stay to avoid two-body problem elsewhere.

These two new people have the power, with the passive support of the other two tenured members of your department--if you want to hang on until retirement, your behavior needs to come to a screeching halt with some deliberate repair thrown in.  Having a room full of vicious, gossiping, s***-stirring adjuncts is an awfully good reason to trade them in for a tt-person or shuffle them for some part-time people who aren't poisonous snakes, so you may well be accelerating your own demise with obvious behavior like this--and if you've made it this clear to students, it is big trouble.

[neutralname]

The senior colleague will need to recuse himself from tenure and promotion decisions regarding the new TT faculty member, if they are in a relationsip, and it might make other departmental decisions more tricky if they are involved -- allocation of research funds, offices, etc..  If the relationship ends badly, it might be bad for the junior faculty member.  But none of this is any concern for an adjunct.

[zarathustra]

OP, regardless of what is going on your department--and I am sorry to read of your pain--I have to say I find your sexism troubling.

... Miss I'm Sleeping with Mr. Arrogance decided she needed a better office than the one she was going to be in and she displaced an adjunct who's been here 15 years (not me). 

That's Professor I'm Sleeping, to you.

The relationship is inappropriate because a 1st yr. person, tt or not, has been, in effect, manipulated by a senior colleague.  Whatever dept. position he holds, she parrots. 

Actually, she's telling him how to vote, at least half the time. Maybe more.

... Mr. Arrogance or his bedmate minion....

Minion? They have minions IRL? I thought that was only a CHE foragame.

Two people have destroyed the department.  Or, rather, one person and a naive woman who's been deluded enough into siding with him (probably because she's been seduced into an inappropriate relationship with an improper power balance).

I know I can quit or go elsewhere, but frankly I'm close enough to retirement age that I'd really like to finish my career here.  I'd just rather do it without being persecuted by these two.

Ah, so she's not actually a person, but just a naive, deluded, seduced woman?

<rolls eyes>

Thank you, Verbena.  I was about to post something similar.

[goldstein]

The plight of adjuncts and their exploitation is deplorable. But that is not an excuse for deluding yourself.

It is pure economics that runs, in part, like this.  Apart from all other considerations hiring an adjunct is very inexpensive both in terms of the immediate costs of a full search, and the out year costs of continuance.  Bluntly, we hire adjuncts because we don't want you to stay past the initial cost of hiring you.  Any adjunct is a depreciating asset whose primary value is based on the negligible cost of replacement.

After two, perhaps three, years a college has recaptured the cost of hiring an adjunct.  At years four, five and beyond an adjunct is actually an expense, hidden as that expense may be.

OP, you exemplify that hidden expense in your resistance to change.  If an institution valued your long term contribution, it would have made you a long term employee.

I recognize that what I am telling you sounds horrible, but that is the fact.  An adjunct's value is directly related to their transience.

Now here is the dirty little secret.  As administrators we don't fear adjunct unionization anymore than we fear a mega-tsunami.  Both are possible, but neither is likely in our range of planning cycles.  We are concerned about what would happen if it became routine that major numbers of adjuncts routinely resigned after year one in mid August.

[king_ghidorah]

After two, perhaps three, years a college has recaptured the cost of hiring an adjunct.  At years four, five and beyond an adjunct is actually an expense, hidden as that expense may be.

OP, you exemplify that hidden expense in your resistance to change. 

This is very interesting, my friend.  Could you perhaps explain a little more?

[tenured_cat]

"boffing" ???? Now there's one I hadn't heard yet. Since we're using strange words, may I suggest that the term "meddlesome biddy" might be useful as well? The private relationship between your colleagues is none of your business; unless, of course you were married to one of them. The same ground rules apply as for married/partnered couples, as Neutralname already pointed out. Gossiping about people is really not the most honorable thing to do, don't you think? I mean, it can be fun, but only if it's not done so utterly viciously.

As for the pushed-to-the-side adjunct part, I was a VAP for a long time, had administrative responsibilities, was on PhD committees and other university-wide committees, and participated in hiring interviews for tt-colleagues. The SECOND these colleagues were hired, they outranked me. Immediately. Some were nice about it and accorded me some seniority, others were perfect little b!tches as soon as they hit campus. And they had the rank to do it. And I still worked with everybody; I accorded them collegial respect and they left me alone.

Either learn to be diplomatic, stop gossiping about peoples' personal lives, and be collegial, or get out. 

[johnr]

Oh well, I confess to being a tad disturbed that so many academics aren't bothered by the blatant abuse of a senior colleague boffing a first-year tt hire.  I admit, it's not in the same category as if he were boffing a student, but it's a question of degree...the offense is the same.  The chair noted to me with eye-rolling that no matter what the issue in department meetings, he can be certain they will vote as a block.

Here's what you could do that would be very helpful to everyone involved.  In the form of a memo that your could distribute to the department and perhaps even the entire university,  create a rubric that explains which pairings are allowed to boff.  For example:

Professor + Student:
Male Student + Female Student:
Male Student + Male Student:
Female Student + Female Student:
Senior Professor (male) + First Year Hire (female)
Senior Professor (female) + First Year Hire (male):
and on and on...

Really, without your moral guidance, how are we supposed to know what's appropriate and what's not?

[goldstein]

king_ghidorah,

Aside from all other considerations, a TT hire process costs many thousands of dollars in advertising, administration, and interviewing.  An adjunct position costs a tiny fraction of that.

After a minimalized search, an adjunct costs some modest money to train in terms of our school's administrative function.  The same is true of a tt, but the adjunct has no further carrying costs.

Unlike a tt, an adjunct is a piece of office equipment, with an acknowledged cost that can be depreciated against an expected service life.  In our case that is five semesters.  At five semesters it is cheaper to replace the adjunct than it is to explain any changes in textbooks, department policies or new technologies.

It becomes, in other words, cheaper to buy new than to retrofit.  That is, after all, why we hire adjuncts.  It's not just about enrollment flexibility.  We know what the enrollment is going to be within a very narrow range.  We want adjuncts to go away after their hiring cost has been absorbed because it is easier to train than retrain.

I should say that this was the unspoken reality at my previous university and it became a subtext during a dinner meeting/interview for my current position a year ago.

I have said it is deplorable, but I can not care more about adjuncts than they seem to care about themselves. Adjuncts accept it, and we use it.

[king_ghidorah]

Very interesting and illuminating (and disturbing), goldstein, thanks for responding.

Adjunct, are you still reading?

[goldstein]

Very interesting and illuminating (and disturbing), goldstein, thanks for responding.

Adjunct, are you still reading?

No problem. We love the bright and vivacious as much as the seasoned and balanced.  But we tend to view anyone who spends more than, at the outside, six semesters as clogging the system.  We don't want to fire you, we just wish you would go. 

An adjunct is like a guest at a party.  Wonderful to have, but you don't live here you know.  That would be a marriage, I didn't offer that in the invitation.  I am not really interested in how you would like the furniture.