BY NICOLE BRAUN
A few weeks ago, adjuncts at one of the colleges I work for—Any College, USA[1] —were taking back our power through the use of the tool “reply all” to protest an adjunct issue. If you had a chance to read Part One, you would know that the Reply All action emerged from confusion around whether adjuncts would qualify for Catastrophic Leave Funds and was used as an organizing tool. The Reply All responses resulted in some exciting adjunct organizing online through email.
However, the growing adjunct momentum at this college was momentarily hijacked by a couple of events.
First, as a result of the Reply Alls, adjuncts organized into a separate group online and off campus to discuss our next actions and tactics. One adjunct created a survey about working and organizing conditions for adjuncts and started a google document so we could begin compiling evidence regarding our horrendous working conditions. Everything was going fine for a week or so, but then we got news that an adjunct in our organizing group had forwarded all our documents to the administration. Yes, you heard that right. Someone in our own adjunct group betrayed us and forwarded all our organizing materials to the administration.
I suppose it is not that surprising that an adjunct betrayed our group like this. History offers numerous examples of the betrayal and infiltration of groups working for social justice, but it still was disheartening. We do not know who the Judas is at this point, but whoever did it created a dent in the collective adjunct spirit.
Not to be completely deterred, a few of my trustworthy adjunct justice comrades formed a smaller, separate group and decided that our next action would be to speak online at the upcoming Board of Trustees meeting. With hopes of sharing our adjunct truths, a couple of brave adjunct warriors prepared speeches to deliver, while the rest of us logged in with signs on our respective Zoom backgrounds. Our signs read “Equity faculty pay=100% student success.”
Unfortunately, but maybe predictably, we were muted and silenced by whoever was managing the Zoom meeting. The administration made it clear that the only thing that was going to happen at the board meeting was a lot of fake smiling and self-congratulatory BS. The administration had set the audio permissions to prohibit our participation, so all adjuncts were literally rendered voiceless. We tried to contact the faculty union while the meeting was going on, [2] but the union president, a “full-time” faculty member, said that there was a protocol to speak at the board meeting and we were not following it.[3] [4] One of my comrades, who has been working at the college much longer than I, said this was a new protocol, but the union president said it was not.
Between the Judas in our midst and the silencing of our adjunct voices, we were feeling pretty discouraged. One of the adjuncts fell into a horrible depression and became physically ill.
On the heels of that dispiriting meeting, I attended yet another meeting later that week where I was told by another “full-time” faculty member that he “was sad” to inform us that he might have to take some of our classes over, as his classes were not filling up like ours, and according to the collective bargaining agreement, “Full Time Faculty” are to take adjunct classes over if their own classes do not fill. [5] In the meantime, at the same meeting, the Dean explained she was “not trying to be mean” by cancelling our adjunct classes at the last minute as she is bound by the CBA to reassign FTF to take our classes if theirs don’t fill up.[6]
The Dean is just following orders and apparently has no agency of her own.
When I contacted one of my adjunct comrades about this practice of taking our hard-earned adjunct classes, he said,
Yes, full-timers can take any/every class from us without notice or due process. I taught on the campus for two years with all positive evals (excellent ratings from peers and students alike) and was dropped like a sack of laundry when a full-time English faculty member (with nothing but negative evals and a terrible rep on campus) needed “to make his load.” I simply got a callous call from an asshole who no longer works here who got irritated at me for caring. It’s especially bad now that enrollment is shot. [7]
In the meantime, the Dean, while wrapping up the faculty meeting said, perplexed, “A lot of adjuncts are for some reason not coming back this semester, I have no idea why.”
To Be Continued…….
Nicole Braun has been teaching sociology as an exploited adjunct at numerous colleges for over two decades and is pretty tired in a lot of ways but hopeful for a more socially just world in the very near future.
[1] Name of college withheld for obvious reasons.
[2] Significantly, this is a union that prefers to be called an “association.”
[3] Adjuncts are in the same union as “full time” faculty.
[4] As we know, use of the phrase “full time” is problematic, as many adjuncts work full time as well, just at multiple institutions.
[5]As another adjunct comrade wrote to me, “The most despairing part of higher ed labor for me has been this behavior by faculty. We can expect corporatization, financialization, and adjunctification from administrators and boards of trustees and major private donors. But for faculty who study power, society, gender, social movements, etc. to treat adjuncts like cogs in the machine, that is demoralizing. Wake up TT. You are not secure either!!! All faculty and staff are disposable higher ed workers now.”
[6] In the words of one of my friends: “Sad means nothing. Sad does not pay my rent.”
[7] A friend of mine, a former adjunct, asked: “Why is this not an opportunity for FTT to have a lighter load and time for more research, advising, etc.? Oh wait, because there might not be enough students per class to pay all the administrators and service the loan for the new buildings.”
What else did you expect? The Admin (Bosses) exploit those they can and protect those they must (Professoriate). The task is t reverse this, as it’s the adjuncts who bring in the revenue aka profits). Make it cear: no adjuncts, no profits. Strike! Strike! Strike!
Thanks for your feedback and thoughts, Geoffrey! You don’t have to convince me, I agree with you—I think a national strike is necessary. What do you think can be done to move adjuncts into this consciousness—seems that many still hope for that “lone FTT position…if they just play the game…” (and years later…here we are. Again). I was thinking earlier today about how naive I was when I first went to college and graduate school—as someone who did not come from an academic/“educated” family—in fact my parents were against going to college and told me if I wanted to go, I was on my own—I was more than a little idealistic about what getting my education meant and would mean. However, I don’t feel naive any longer. It has been clear to me that the university is indeed a corporation, and operates as such for a long time. I appreciate your comments!
Your board is like ours; cruel, smug, and utterly disinterested in teaching and teachers. Equity and inclusion are decorative, gaslighting terms in the Colorado Community College System. Admins set policy now to mute the faculty majority., similar to what is happening to yours. The CCCS has set up a decorative, pointless, disorganized Adjunct Council which we cannot attend, cannot observe, and which is dominated by rural colleges where there are a few dozen adjuncts as opposed to the thousands at our metro colleges. Without oversight and rigorous discussion, public colleges are being corporatized, students commodified, and taxpayers bamboozled. Without any faculty focus in pending federal legislation, we can expect an acceleration of these policies and practices, alas, by higher ed’s 1%.
Completely agree. They hire university heads who run the campuses like small businesses, which is who makes up boards of governance: car dealers and the like. Teaching brings in the money, because the state systems have been privatized. Of course each system is slightly different, but the overall pattern is clear. Such people only understand force. There is no reasoning with the, and appeals to values only translate to the value of the buck. They are no different from mine and factory owners in the 19th century. No teaching; no tuition, and they’ll get nothing from state governments.The work i or solidarity among the workers coupled with solidarity with students and their parents, the last of whom have been sold a bill of goods by smooth talking administrators. I am not optimistic.
Geoffrey,
I am not optimistic, either. It is only getting worse. The only piece that I remain hopeful about is that adjuncts are organizing more frequently–and talking about the issues as a social problem rather than suffering in silence. (although there is still a lot of that, too) I appreciate your observations about what is happening and thank you for your contributions. I look forward to hearing more from you.
On the last point the teachers can’t even forge effective alliances with tenure track faculty who continue to operate as exclusive clubs. The AAUP is an example
Geoffrey,
I hear you–and I am not optimistic, either. I seem to be having some trouble responding on this system this morning, I responded to Caprice, and to you already and do not see my responses, so I guess I will wait to see if they show up! Thank you for your thoughts.
Thanks for this, Caprice. Yes, it sounds very familiar; the disrespect, the silencing, the exclusion, the invisibility; the cruelty. And this is not unique to Colorado, as we know. The college I teach for is in CA, and that system is entirely problematic as well. In short, this: “Without oversight and rigorous discussion, public colleges are being corporatized, students commodified, and taxpayers bamboozled. Without any faculty focus in pending federal legislation, we can expect an acceleration of these policies and practices, alas, by higher ed’s 1%.” Exactly.
It started in 1971 with the Powell Memo. It’s been a plan. The great lights in universities didn’t notice. George Carlin has the most succinct take on it. It operates everywhere and all the time. I retired from one state system and now occasionally teach as an adjunct in another. My partner is a retired department secretary. She knows everything about how it works. The best thing to do now is agitprop. We have to get organized.
Geoffrey–I love your idea of agitprop. Let’s do it! I imagine your partner knows everything about how it works—-;)
Will do always. I think Che had something to say ABOUT THIS this. .
Thanks for this, Caprice. Yes, it sounds very familiar; the disrespect, the silencing, the exclusion, the invisibility; the cruelty. And this is not unique to Colorado, as we know. The college I teach for is in CA, and that system is entirely problematic as well. In short, this: “Without oversight and rigorous discussion, public colleges are being corporatized, students commodified, and taxpayers bamboozled. Without any faculty focus in pending federal legislation, we can expect an acceleration of these policies and practices, alas, by higher ed’s 1%.” Exactly.
Hang in there. As a suggestion, you might want to hold your Board & Administration accountable for all of their nefarious deeds. Here is an example from, & a link to, our campaign @ the University of Cincinnati..
….
The Adjunct Faculty Association @ UC supports the design improvement of these bike lanes to DAAP standards. We further state for the record that the current UC Administration & Board of Trustees is a criminal enterprise of Human Rights violators & as such have no credibility managing a public institution of higher education.
We call for the resignation of the President & the resignation of every member of the UC Board of Trustees for continued violations of the Public Trust.
And we further call on Law Enforcement to arrest these human right violators for the violent criminal conduct of their 17 year + campaign against teachers working to improve the quality of working conditions for Adjunct Faculty, the teaching faculty, @ the University of Cincinnati.
Sincerely,,
Professor Howard M. Konicov
MSES/MPA
Director; Adjunct Faculty Association
…..
https://www.facebook.com/Adjunct-Faculty-Association-141385152525/
Howard, I am going to go to your Facebook page now. Thank you for telling me about this. Really important actions/work you are doing.