Yes, there are risks and challenges to tenure-track teaching. I wonder, however, how a rational and credentialed academic can conclude that *all* tenure-track people are miserable from the examples of a few scholars.
If the rewards do not outweigh the challenges of tenure-track life, and these musings are more than just sour grapes, then perhaps adjunct teaching is the place to be rather than the slave-pen of a full-time, steady job with consistent pay, health benefits, retirement support, and the possibility of life-time job security.
Untenured
I guess my point is that people seem to make these assumptions about adjuncts all the time. Just putting the shoe on the other foot. There seem to be a number of people on this forum that seem to have concluded that *all* adjuncts are exploited, trapped, and doomed to a miserable existence. I wonder how rational and credentialed academics can assume that...
I agree. All adjuncts are not exploited and trapped. Adjuncting can lead to a trapped existence if one is not careful, but that does not mean that misery pervades all aspects of adjuncting life.
Why do academics assume that? I can't say for sure, but there's a feeling that teaching a class has a certain inherent financial 'value'. Salaries below that amount are inherently 'unfair' and exploitative.
IMHO, labor of any kind is worth whatever the free market will pay for it. Britney Spears and sports stars make gazillions. Cancer researchers, hospice nurses, social workers get a pittance. Who deserves more 'value'? The market, meaning all of us, have spoken.
Untenured
