Adjunct Power
by Lee Shainen
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM DICTATES that adjuncts have no power;
their voices are not heard, except in the classroom. The voice
of unconventional wisdom says, au contraire.
Watch out now; I’m going to display a small bit of adjunct
power right before your eyes. Sunglasses and sunscreen are
highly recommended. Ready? Okay, imagine this: you can single-handedly
(in your spare time, no less) transform your college.
Step One: forget your career. Really. Doesn’t that feel better
already? See, you can’t play the transformation game if all
you really want is your own piece of the pie. You just can’t
hide your true motives. People somehow always know. I think
it’s a pheromone thing. Our scent gives us away, especially
when we’re hungry. So, even if you are starving, you have
to convince yourself that you’re on a diet. Got it? You are
not after a better job. You have chosen the work you are doing.
If you do nothing else, Step One will bring you greater freedom
and increased contentment.
Step Two: tell the truth in a spirit of cooperation. If you
haven’t completed Step One, you will most likely be too loud
and bitter to be heard when you attempt this step. However,
those who have abandoned all aspirations except to be civil
can practice kind observations of how things appear. For those
still struggling with their own hopes and dreams, I suggest
beginning by quietly, privately and gently championing other
people’s causes. Include full-timers, administrators, board
members, and legislators on your list of potential recipients.
Step Two will lower your blood pressure and enhance your reputation.
Step Three: develop an electronic forum that connects your
entire institution. What? Did I lose you there? Okay, so I
skipped a few steps, but there is a word limit to this column.
The point is to encourage and engage the college community
in this cooperative, kind “truth telling.”
I participated in such a creation process at my school. Campus
Computer Coordinator Sean Mendoza and I dreamed up this thing,
gathered key support from the chancellor and his senior assistant,
and had it up and running within a few months. Being an adjunct
made it easier … I came in under the radar. Since I wasn’t
a part of the endless committee and reporting process, I was
free to approach this in a more common-sense way.
The premise is simple: the college benefits from having an
electronic bulletin board that goes to all employees (just
the reduction in paper use makes this worthwhile), and the
employees benefit from having an opportunity to voice their
concerns and ask questions regarding policies and procedures.
What I learned from following Step Two is that there are
conscientious, dedicated and visionary people at all levels
in the college, but they aren’t connected. In fact, they are
often separated by a variety of black holes. A black hole
is a place where a question would go and no answer would return–or
worse, where an enlightened policy would be bent into something
more self-serving.
Much good is lost in such places. Information from the top,
as well as from the bottom, often disappears somewhere in
the middle. An electronic forum allows information to be absorbed
at all levels simultaneously. This information, in effect,
bypasses the black hole.
When a question is asked and heard by everyone, there is
no passing the buck, hemming or hawing or long delay. The
person responsible for knowing steps forward and clarifies
policy and the correct response. In such an environment, adjuncts
are on equal footing with every other member of the college
community.
It has been almost a year since we started PCConnects at
Pima Community College. Often it seems that it is more of
a bulletin board than a forum. Questions are asked and answered,
but still there is a reluctance for many to engage in the
discussions. Human nature? Perhaps. I’m grateful that the
opportunity to connect is there. Maybe knowing such dialogue
is possible is enough for some. Maybe one has to go back to
Step One (forget your career) before taking this step.
