Good Morning Adjunct/iverse

…welcome to a new blog feature modeled (somewhat) on one I just initiated on my main community blog, a still undefined variant on speed blogging (mostly links). To avoid confusion, the hashtag should not be #GMA...suggestions welcomed. 

Purposes (tentative): quick catch up; news; brief announcements; some links; calls for information... and above all hitting cyberspace before noon (MT). So far, I've been cutting that last part close but hope to push compose and send time back to morning for ET readers too.  

The #fakeadvice game is rolling along with comments coming in here and on Con Job. Add yours and tweet/RT/share threads and comments.  

I'm looking for amusing foolery for April 1. "What you want to hear" would fit right into "How can an adjunct tell when an offer is really an April Fool's Day prank?"

Come play the game of #fakeadvice for #adjuncts

…that makes us want to say #thenhireme.  Joe Fruscione initiated this thread at Con Job: Stories of Adjunct and Contingent Faculty, a Facebook adjunct group. 

Entertaining, irresistible and a send-viral must share, it would make a good drinking game too. Just thinking about the lines is enough to drive most of us to drink. Joe opens, 

I'm not sure if this is productive or even appropriate, but I'd like to start a thread about phrases long-time adjuncts are sick of hearing. For me:

"You're a perfect example of what's wrong with the market. You've done so much but still can't get a full-time job. Someone should hire you." 

"With 13 years of teaching, a book, and active research, you should be able to teach anywhere. 

"It's their loss."

Others joined in added theirs

Robert Craig Baum "It's just a question of supply and demand. Americans demand cheap labor." <--- as though the market isn't always undermined and manipulted by crony capitalists and the government Kafka-inspired bureaucrats

Robert Craig Baum: "Why would I hire someone who does not respect himself enough to demand a better salary or benefits?" <--- here's the catch-22 perfectly expressed

Joe Fruscione Also: "Just hang in there. Things will turn around."

Melissa Bruninga-Matteau: Mine is 'well, if you wanted a full time gig, you should have majored in STEM'.

Priya J. Shah: "Just make sure to keep up with your (unsupported) research!"

Margaret Yeoman Hanzimanolis Have you thought about teaching high school?

Vanessa Vaile: "at least you've got a job"

Priya J. Shah: "At least you're doing what you love."

Robert Craig Baum: "It was your decision to not drive [60 miles in a blizzard] to work."

Priya J. Shah: "Well, if only you had been willing to move across the country..."

Priya J. Shah: Clearly I'm pissed. That's not a quotation, that's just me.

Robert Craig Baum: "We're cancelling your three classes because they are underenrolled"   [19 students, not 20] NOT JOKING!

Joe Fruscione: Great so far. How can we get this to more people? Twitter? Etc.? (This is me, not a canned line I hate.)

Now it's your turn: help us get this to more people. Share the #fakeadvice lines you are most fed up with hearing. How? Any and every which way. Add them wherever you see this: here, on our FB page, on the original Con Job thread, as a reply when you see it on Twitter. Reblog, RT and share to closed groups too, 

Joe Fruscione with a PBS adjuncts update

…posted this morning to @NewFacMajority's FB timeline… let's follow this, track it's progress, coordinate an even broader response. You can still leave your 2¢ at the News Hour/Making Sen$e and "how long will you work?" pages. Let them know we're watching <*y*> ... Joe writes,

"Some potential good news from PBS NewsHour:

'We've heard from a number of contingents willing to be interviewed for our upcoming story. Thanks for reposting our query. We're working on a few other stories for our older workers series right now but we plan to turn our attention to this one after that. It may not be until the end of April or so, but I will be in touch with you (and the respondents to our online query) when we're able to focus on the story.'

I'll keep everyone in the loop about what I hear." 

Rob Baum, dba MI @rcbatp and sundry noms de guerre, notes, 

They are slowly emerging our story from within their series. It's a great strategy -- frustrating but very very intelligent. Besides, isn't May when Lee and others are planning the May Day events? By the end of May I hope to have gathered the minions for the ADJUNCT VERSUS first look reading.

(Ed Note: links and further details on the above activities to be posted as they come our way. Do you have or know of a May adjunct event / action to add? Let's coordinate...)

the defense of political science

…most (but not all) adjuncts on our roster teach in the humanities, composition in particular. Humanities are not the only discipline area taking it in the funding neck. Consider the defunding of political science and other social sciences. 

Aleisha Karjala (USAO): Political Science's Contribution to General Education at Liberal Arts Colleges. Carol Geary Schneider on Eric Cantor’s attack on social science research. When someone attacks physics, Neil DeGrasse Tyson is there to defend it — but who comes to the defense of political science? Budget hawks' plans to cut funding for political and social science aren't just short-sighted and simple-minded — they'll actually hurt national security. The American Political Science Association releases a statement on how the Senate delivered a devastating blow to the integrity of the scientific process (and more at the Chronicle of Higher Education and more at Inside Higher Ed). Daniel W. Drezner on why political science can drive political scientists to drink: “We could have the best arguments in the world and still recognize that political science is good and truly fked”.

Reposted from the defense of political science at bookforum's  blog, omnivore, which published daily themed collections of briefly annotated links on an eclectic range topics that frequently covers higher education.

Less "academic" areas tertiary education (as styled in the UK to cover all post-secondary areas) are not without problems. GED testing has been privatized, giving a major prep materials vendor a corner on that market: testing charges will double next year. Other adult education programs across the country are being cut. As Joe Berry points out, those teaching in these program are non contract instructors, in a word - adjuncts. That makes the instructors our colleagues in both teaching and precarity. These other areas and global post-secondary education on our reading lists. Education is part of our mission. Informing the uninformed trumps arguing with them.

Insecure, Insulted, Ignored, Part III

…No Way to Treat a Donor, commentary by Chessie Green

Let’s throw a bone to the university for just a moment and view the adjunct as a willing and generous donor who gives the students and the university a gift. “It’s a privilege” to teach for the university and “the best adjuncts want to give back.” Place a value on it: let’s say a couple of hundred thousand dollars’ worth of expertise, and for the students, a priceless amount of caring and attention.  In return, the university gives them a tip and treats them without respect and as completely dispensable. 

To recap the situation: I, a willing adjunct, someone who is teaching as a sideline, found myself agreeing at the last minute to substitute for a full-time faculty member. I was assigned to an unsecured, empty building at night with no technology in the classroom except for a DVD player in poor working condition.  The white board was filthy; the erasers didn’t work.  On the last night of class, someone had turned off the power.  I received emails from various university departments urging me not to slip on the ice, to beware of tornadoes, and to seek counseling if I had concerns about a shooting at another university in the state. 

And then, I received a personalized letter from the Provost requesting that I make a charitable gift to the university.  “Now is the best time,” he wrote, “because any gift you make will be matched, dollar for dollar.  By giving now, you can double the benefit to our students!”