BY DARREN JOHNSON

Originally published October 16, 2021; reprinted with permission of Campus News.

“Kindergarten children eating lunch. Lake Dick Project, Arkansas,” 1938. Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, New York Public Library Digital Collections.

It’s holiday time, and for those unfamiliar with large American family gatherings this time of year, let me tell you about the kiddie table.

Most people who host big dinners in their homes have a big dining room table, usually something decent and sturdy. However, it’s hardly enough for everyone—and, frankly, some adults are annoyed by children—so another table is set up, often in a completely different room, for the children.

That table may just be a folding table. Maybe a card table. Its legs and joints may be rusty. Maybe it was last used to present items for a garage sale. It may have tears in its vinyl top, but, no worries—just throw a plastic covering over it, a so-called table “cloth” from the dollar store. It might be imprinted with pumpkins and Indian corn cobs.

And what can the kids do about this less-than table? It’s the only thing they’re offered. Maybe one of the hosts will bring them a few bowls of kid-friendly food. Plain potatoes and yellow corn, some scraps of turkey. Pepsi instead of wine. No cranberry sauce, of course.

I’ve adjunct-taught very consistently since the mid-1990s, at a host of schools, in Upstate and Downstate New York. In case you don’t know, adjuncts are the freelancers of higher education. We are brought in to just teach a course or two, and nothing else, and get paid a general stipend and receive little if any benefits. We’re pure mercenaries, compared to full-time faculty—who are full-fledged white-collar employees, (deservedly) enjoying the perks any full-time white-collar employee would get at any decent organization.

For me, nothing symbolizes my less-than adjunct status more than the Adjunct Area of whatever department I am in. At the ten or so campuses I’ve adjunct-taught for, the Adjunct Area is always pathetic. It’s the kiddie table of academia.

Colleges didn’t always have Adjunct Areas—adjuncts started to unionize about two decades ago and, while that unionization hasn’t amounted to much, most local unions did negotiate adjuncts have a place to do work.

Why would we need an Adjunct Area? Many instructors have day jobs—they get to the campus after working there and need a place to prep for class, maybe do some online grading. Nowadays, many of us have to do COVID wellness checks online. I often have taught multiple classes, so I would use the Adjunct Area in between these classes. I’ve uploaded the PDF of my newspaper to my printing plant via the Adjunct Area.

But the Adjunct Area sucks, no doubt about it. At one college I worked for, it pretty much was a former closet—and there were various boxes of files all over the place. Partially torn posters taped on the wall from events that happened on campus many semesters ago: ArtFest ‘99, Poetry Jam ‘02, etc. It was dark, half of the fluorescent light bulbs were burned out, the ceiling panels had brown stains.

There are usually a couple of computers in an Adjunct Area. At the aforementioned college, one was white with a floppy drive and CRT monitor. The other was black and more up-to-date, but both were slow, making loud whirring noises when tasked with anything.

In my most recent Adjunct Area, there are two Macs. Neither is ancient and they work well enough, but the area is not private. There are two full-time professor offices adjacent to it, and faculty keep their doors open—when they are actually on campus (since COVID, this is hardly a given)—so I have to hear their mundane conversations with students who want to “break into the biz.”

The Adjunct Area also sports a huge garbage can with three compartments for the various types of trash. I asked the janitor once if he actually separated the trash, and he laughed and laughed. It’s all the same to him.

The Adjunct Area also has become the departmental Goodwill—the whole window sill is lined with items and a foldover card tent that reads “Free” in magic marker. There are VHS tapes related to the discipline—for example, journalism majors who happen to have a VCR can watch a hokey multipart series with assuredly bad actors on how to interview, with ridiculous fictional scenarios the viewer is asked to interpret through a journalistic lens. “What would YOU do?”

And this little oasis is not clearly marked for adjuncts—students often jump on the computer next to me. One was practically coughing up both lungs last week.

Thankful for our COVID masks and online wellness checks. I feel so much safer.

And I’m thankful for this kiddie table, this holiday season, while every other employee of the college has an office—though many are now working from home.

Because, hey, the bounty is for the grownups, and I still have this childhood dream of being a real professor. You know, at that big table, made of polished wood. It looks so elegant, from afar.

Will someone please pass me that Snoopy plate with that marshmallow crap on it?!!

Darren Johnson is the owner of Campus News, a newspaper that serves dozens of commuter colleges in New York, as well as an historic community paper in Upstate New York, the Greenwich Journal & Salem Press. He started adjuncting in 1997 after answering a help-wanted ad in a local newspaper.