A Moving Read About the Adjunct Underclass
(Inside Higher Ed)
Thoughts on a new book by Herb Childress
By John Warner
Normally the only contingent faculty career that could bring me to tears was my own, but the latter stages of The Adjunct Underclass: How America’s Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission by Herb Childress had my eyes filling sometimes with sadness, sometimes tinged with anger.
In earlier times that anger might’ve been rage, and more plentiful than the sadness, but there is a passage in the latter third of the book that struck me as true and I could not muster the necessary emotional resistance to be angry, rather than sad:
Eventually, I came to realize that tenure was already dead. In fact, for most of us, it had never been alive…. (continue)
(Inside Higher Ed)
Thoughts on a new book by Herb Childress
By John Warner
In earlier times that anger might’ve been rage, and more plentiful than the sadness, but there is a passage in the latter third of the book that struck me as true and I could not muster the necessary emotional resistance to be angry, rather than sad:
“There will always be teachers, sure. But the idea of ‘the faculty’ is as dead as the idea of coal; it’ll carry on for a while because of sunk costs and the gasping demands of those still left in the industry – but really, it’s gone.”Looking back through my posts on this site I see a clear evolution in my own attitudes towards these issues. Early on I see someone eager to fight the trends, attempting to rally opinion around shared values and mutually beneficial goals.
Eventually, I came to realize that tenure was already dead. In fact, for most of us, it had never been alive…. (continue)
