Skewered and Roasted. Finally.
by P.D. Lesko
THEY SAY THAT a business either changes or it withers and dies. So, for the past two years, I have been casting about for a way to expand the Adjunct Advocate, Inc. Should we publish a Canadian edition? What about a Spanish edition? After all, almost 70 percent of college faculty in Mexico and South America are part-time and/or temporary faculty. And then, out of the blue, Don Greive sent me a short e-mail. He was planning to sell his book publishing business, and could he put an advertisement in the Adjunct Advocate?
For the past decade, Dr. Greive has been writing, publishing and selling a splendid line of books for adjunct faculty, as well as those who supervise adjunct faculty. During the past five years, we have sold (and given away) hundreds of copies of A Handbook For Adjunct and Part-Time Faculty and Teachers of Adults, as well as a Handbook II, Teaching Strategies and Techniques (again, for adjunct faculty) and Managing Adjunct Faculty. Don also published a quarterly journal for managers of adjunct faculty along with various other teaching-related books and products.
I’d admired his books and business smarts for quite some time. So, needless to say, his e-mail came as a surprise. To make a long story short, in July the Adjunct Advocate, Inc. purchased the copyrights to five of Don Greive’s books and launched the Part-Time Press. I can’t begin to tell you how delighted I am to be able to offer Dr. Greive’s wonderful books to those in the academic community. His insights and advice in A Handbook and A Handbook II make both required reading for all faculty who have a interest in improving the quality of their teaching.
We will, of course, continue to publish the Adjunct Advocate magazine, and are making plans to launch a Canadian edition. Plans for that will have to be put on hold for a while as we settle into our new book publishing responsibilities. Thanks to Dr. Greive’s loyal customers and the onset of the school year, we have been busy filling orders, scheduling promotional mailings and integrating customer data into our system. Thanks to the incredible generosity of both Dr. Greive and his colleague Dr. Catherine Worden, we have been able to simply take over without missing a beat.
As always, none of this would have been possible without the loyalty and generosity of the readers of the Adjunct Advocate. While the subscriber bases of other higher education publications have dipped over the past 2-3 years, ours has grown by leaps and bounds. Readers routinely volunteer to distribute sample copies to colleagues, and thanks to word of mouth the reach of our publication has grown substantially.
Along with launching a book division, we moved staff writer Chris Cumo into the Assistant Editor chair. Chris has been writing for the magazine for several years, and during the past two years he has been our go-to guy when we needed tough topics covered with finesse. In his new position, Chris has come up with ideas for some very exciting content. In July/August 2004 for example, Chris, along with regular contributor Evelyn Beck, are going to put together another issue which focuses on distance education. We’ll have other theme issues, as well, and I am sure readers will appreciate Chris’s editorial contributions as much as his journalistic ones.
Finally, it would appear that the Adjunct Advocate has become a fixture within higher education. The publication is beginning to be reviewed regularly. There those who feel we are a “corporate front,” or just always “get it wrong.” We don’t do a good enough job advocating on behalf of adjuncts. The magazine is too “slick.” And then there are those who write that our publication is “just wonderful,” that our AdjunctNation.com Web page is the best resource for contingent faculty out there, and that we do a “great job” advocating on behalf of adjuncts.
Give the people what they want, reasoned P.T. Barnum, and you’ll be sure to succeed. Of course, Mr. Barnum never published a magazine. Nonetheless, we’ll keep doing the best job we can advocating on behalf of temporary college faculty. We won’t please everyone, but we’ll continue to be grateful for having had the opportunity to try.
