Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Bad, bad adjunct

You know, I looked. There is no policy. Of course not, why would there be any reasonable policies regarding the invisible 55% of the faculty. Yeah, you read right! 55% of the faculty at Lemon are part-timers, with no benefits, no job security, and low wages.

But, you see, there's no policy on sick leave or faculty absences from class (for adjuncts). I even called to ask. They don't know. So, my department secretary agreed to put a sign on the door. I've been grading away, and prepping. But I just really don't feel up to going today. Yesterday I nearly lost my voice in class. I've been feeling lousy for a while. Is it really a crime to take a day to recuperate?

I thought of finishing grading the tests, then driving the two hour Wednesday late-afternoon commute, handing them back, collecting their projects due before Thanksgiving (this is the last class meeting before then), then begging off from the lecture, and driving the 1 1/2 hours back. That is, I considered expending the next six hours or so to keep up appearances. But how silly that would be. The students would gain so little from my showing up, then leaving without a class session. I'm really not up to giving a lecture. So, what's the point? They can email me for their grades. They can send electronic version of their projects, or drop off hard copies at the department before next Wednesday.

You know, most people wouldn't ever feel guilty about legitimately calling in sick one day. Why do teachers?

1 comment:

Gregory said...

Hello!

My name is Gregory Zobel and I am an adjunct at College of the Redwoods in Humboldt County California. While many tenured and part-timers understand the problems of adjuncts, most people outside of academia don't know that we even exist—much less what we look like. This is why I started the Adjunct Faces: The Faces of Contingent Academic Labor (AF:FOCAL) documentary project

Please participate in this project! It will literally take only a few minutes, it will create new content for your blog, and you are in complete control of your own content! On top of that, you can help bring attention to adjunct issues!

Please follow this link: http://adjunctfaces.blogspot.com/

Thanks for your time & consideration!

Gregory Zobel



Ps there are even step by step suggestions on various ways you can help and participate!