A Review of Moving a Mountain
by Diane Calabrese
Moving a Mountain Transforming the Role of Contingent
Faculty in Composition Studies and Higher Education Edited
by Eileen E. Schell and Patricia Lambert Stock 2001–National
Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, Illinois
A CONCORDANCE FOR this volume would be a bit dreary. Words
such as exploit, fight and complain would rank among those
used most frequently. True, the variants of collaborate, meet
and organize would earn high scores too. But the preponderant
hard blows of the first trio are not softened much by the
collegial (and abundant) sounds of the second. There was probably
no way to avoid the outcome. The role of contingent faculty
does not lend itself to a lyrical treatment.
The contributing authors are, or have been, administrators
and faculty connected with writing and composition programs.
Some of the authors hold regular, tenure-line appointments–most
do not. Editors Eileen E. Schell and Patricia Lambert Stock
hope the collection of 14 essays demonstrates a “shift in
emphasis” (page 39) from the last three decades and illustrates
that contingent faculty members take responsibility for their
work and working conditions.
Indeed, many contributing authors detail the ways in which
they have advocated for better pay, health care, fringe benefits
and working conditions for contingent faculty. A few of them
succeed in bringing some fresh perspective to the quest.
For example, Walter Jacobsohn (“The Real Scandal in Higher
Education”) implores part-time faculty “to acknowledge their
status.” If they do not, “they are enacting an ideology that
degrades them and their students” (page 171). Danielle DeVoss
et al. (“Distance Education: Political and Professional Agency
for Adjunct and Part-time Faculty, and GTAs”) use a close
analysis of distance education–its promise and its perils
(lack of eye contact, higher drop rates)–to illustrate a
mode of pedagogical inquiry that embraces a diverse group
of stakeholders.
Yet if this collection of essays establishes a particular
tone, it is a somber one. Naive assertions, such as “academic
hiring practices have become increasingly undemocratic,” (Schell
and Stock, “Introduction: Working Contingent Faculty in[to]
Higher Education,” page 5) and “To my surprise, I was almost
hired…,” (Richard Jewell, in Chris M. Anson and Richard Jewell,
“Shadows of the Mountain,” page 51) will confound many readers.
When was academic hiring ever democratic? In addition, one
is hired or one is not. “Almost” does not count.
So, too, will readers be frustrated by the parade of epiphanies
like the one Karen Thompson (“Faculty at the Crossroads: Making
the Part-time Problem a Full-time Focus”) had. Thompson echoes
other contributors when she expresses shock over the complacency
and complicity of tenured faculty who fail to take notice
of the deployment of contingent faculty.
Thompson’s argument that United Parcel Service (UPS) shows
one success for part-timers within an organization is only
correct to a point. After the settlement, UPS laid off workers
to balance the pay increases it had delivered to end the strike.
Any way one views it, this is a capitalist society where
supply and demand are the forces that control everything,
including who gets hired and for how long. At least Nicholas
Tingle and Judy Kirscht understand the parameters that circumscribe
the realm of contingent faculty. In “A Place to Stand: The
Role of Unions in the Development of Writing Programs,” they
write, “the iron law governing the employment of lecturers,
and all ‘temps’ for that matter, has been and always will
be economics [italics mine],” (page 220).
Tingle and Kirscht describe how lecturers and librarians
at the University of California, Santa Barbara, unionized,
and just as important, how they retain the vigor of the union
chapter. One must hope Helen O’Grady (“Trafficking in Freeway
Flyers: (Re)Viewing Literacy, Working Conditions, and Quality
Instruction”) reads their account.
O’Grady believes the “economic necessity” argument used to
explain the huge pool of contingent faculty is a myth (page
150). Her indignation over the inequities that accrue to “freeway
flyers,” or those who piece together a financial existence
by travelling from institution to institution, motivates her
to consider not attending an uncompensated meeting. In the
end, she frets she will not be rehired if she misses it, and
goes.
The data O’Grady compiles on students taught by her and some
of her colleagues make the reader hunger for another sort
of analysis. What does it cost O’Grady to travel from place
to place, and is she actually earning any net income? With
average car operation expenses at close to 60 cents per mile,
she could spend $60 per week to travel 100 miles, or $900
during a 15-week semester.
Two subtexts creep into several essays. The first one, the
rift between faculty who teach literature and faculty who
teach composition, makes some noise. For the record, the fissure
shows no evidence of closing.
The second, quieter thread involves teachers of composition
who grapple simultaneously with two manifestations of inequity,
the one they confront in the workplace and the one embodied
in their students who arrive from less than glorious K-12
programs. What does it mean to evaluate essays written by
students with very diverse educational backgrounds? Which
is more important: the content or the rhetoric? The questions
are difficult for faculty who naturally empathize with students
who have not been able to realize their potential because
of inferior opportunities.
As in any collection of essays, there is a mix of the substantive
with the silly. Excessive self-disclosure fuels much of the
silliness, and it distracts the reader in some sections. It’s
difficult to imagine an adult who thinks departmental intrigue
is a rare commodity, inside or outside academe.
Moreover, psychic capital is not gender specific. (Sociologists
have documented what it means to aging men to be buoyed by
the attention of female students.) And the rationale author
Anson gives to explain his reluctance to hire contingents–one
man’s fight against inequities, as he sees it–reads as disingenuous.
The collection probably serves best as ethnography. Most
of the essayists are striving to be recognized by a capitalist
society that will probably never value what they do. The act
of writing about their experiences might help them–and others–acknowledge
the sobering reality.
Anson and Jewell begin their essay with a retelling of a
Chinese tale as recounted in a children’s book by Arnold Lobel.
Desperate for relief from the effects of living in the shadow
of a mountain, a couple seeks sage advice, follows it and
finds relief. In the metaphor Anson and Jewell envision, the
looming peak is the “working conditions for many teachers
of writing” (page 47).
A problem, of course, is that the story of the mountain is
also allegorical. In order to escape the gloom, sometimes
a person simply must move on.
