Are you still “Waiting for Change?”
As a preface to this post, I’d like to mention that occasionally a book will come to my attention that could be useful and interesting to the readers of this blog. When that happens, I’ll pass it along. Following is a post from Chris McCale, who has just published such a book about the new 99% and the way this national struggle parallels our plight as adjuncts. I have a copy of it and I like what I’ve read so far. Chris asked me if she could share the book with the AP readers and, based on what I’ve read so far, it seems like a good fit. When I finish it, I’ll discuss it in more detail. Just for the record, I’m happy to review books for any of you and help you determine if they fit the mission of the Adjunct Project.
-Josh
by Chris McCale
I share a lot of the same struggles many of you have written about. I, too, taught as a contingent faculty member for 3 different schools, totalling more classes per year than I could count. I had had great student reviews and had just completed my doctorate (at the encouragement of several business school deans) when the financial crash hit. With hiring freezes, budget cuts, etc., I ended up with no teaching assignments.
I always thought it was just me — that I was alone. To document my experience – and now as I’m discovering the experience of many of you, I wrote a book, Waiting for Change: Impacts on Life, Family, Work, and the New 99% Reality
Check it out – it’s gotten some good reviews. I’d be happy to answer questions, do blog posts, or work to support all of our cause of employment, work environment, pay, etc.
6 thoughts on “Are you still “Waiting for Change?””
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Adjunct Voices
An Adjunct Embraces Plan B
Matt Thompson teaches at Old Dominion U. in Norfolk, Va.
Optimistic Adjunct, Economic Edge
Rob Balla teaches on as many as four campuses in northeastern Ohio
Speaking Out for Those Less Fortunate
Irene Schmidt, Johnson County Community College
A SERVICE OF THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
© Adjunct Project 2012
The book sounds really powerful. Thank you for writing it, Chris. I will check it out.
Oh thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I hope the multiple messages it carries can add value to the movement of change we are all working toward. Let me know your thoughts.
cm
Sounds like a very timely book, indeed. I’ll want to read it. For now I’d just like to highlight your comment that “I always thought it was just me — that I was alone.” In the last three years as I have been thinking about this system, and about how to change it, and listening to people inside the two-tier higher education world, I have heard similar things many, many times, and it’s just a wonderful, liberating thing when folks get that new insight: nope, it’s not just me. It’s really the fundamental platform for any kind of social change.
Hi Alan – that does make me feel better.
My hope is that the book will reach an audience like so many of us who have worked hard, gotten our educations, and given back in the classroom — and are being negatively impacted by the Great Recession. There are so many issues that are interconnected: Housing/foreclosures, Food Stamps, social support, higher ed, debt, emotional/mental health… I hope it can contribute to the greater discussion, connect the dots, and hopefully just add a bit more to help move change forward.
Happy to discuss or help in any way I can.
cm
“negatively impacted by the Great Recession”
FWIW, the collapse in middle-class college teaching jobs started long, long before the current Great Recession. “Adjunctification” has been going on for decades, and has steadily accelerated since the 1980s. At least a few analysts concluded that higher education’s “adjunctification” has acted as a role model for the US private sector in fragmenting jobs.
Hi Townsend – good point – I’m just relating it to my own personal experience – when I was impacted. I do understand the trend was long before though. Thank you though for clarifying it.