Hiring Adjuncts as if They Matter
Ward Churchill. Have you heard of him? My guess is that you have. Way back in 2001, this tenured professor made some comments about the World Trade Center attacks, and about the people who died. His right to free speech was defended by his institution, the University of Colorado, in the face of calls to fire him. However, administrators subsequently launched an investigation into the quality of his scholarly work, and the committee concluded that Churchill had fabricated research data and plagiarized the work of others. In early July, the University of Colorado’s interim chancellor initiated the process to fire Ward Churchill. His teaching days at U of C are numbered.
Kevin Barrett, John Peter Daly, Deb Frisch, Douglas Giles, and Jeffrey Nielsen: Have you heard of them?
Kevin Barrett is a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin, and he told an interviewer that he thought our government had engineered the attacks of September 11th. New Jersey part-timer John Peter Daly (who wrote an essay about academic freedom for the July/August 2006 Adjunct Advocate) replied from his private email account to a student email inviting him to a rally in support of the war in Iraq. In Arizona, Visiting Professor of Psychology Deb Frisch posted comments to a blog belonging to a conservative commentator. Chicago adjunct professor of religion, Douglas Giles, discussed Zionism and the Palestinian conflict in his class. Lecturer Jeffrey Nielsen, who taught at Brigham Young University, wrote a letter to the editor in support of gay marriage.
With the exception of Kevin Barrett, each of these temporary faculty members was fired from her/his teaching job. Though Wisconsin administrators supported Kevin Barrett’s right to espouse what they dubbed “unconventional” views, most recently, sixty legislators from the state sent a letter to the university demanding Barrett’s ouster. Daly, Frisch, Giles and Nielsen weren’t so fortunate. To be clear, Deb Frisch resigned of her own accord; she was not asked to leave her job by her department chair. Nonetheless, she lost her job.
The difference between these lecturers and Ward Churchill, of course, is that in the case of most of these temporary faculty members, no one convened a committee to examine the charges against them. They were not afforded due process, or one imagines, given a real opportunity to defend their actions. They were summarily sacked (or resigned) as a result of something they either said or wrote. The Right (religious and otherwise) is attacking higher education as a hotbed of liberalism and political indoctrination in the mainstream media. Undergraduates, one might conclude from some of the mainstream newspaper stories about Ward Churchill, Kevin Barrett, John Peter Daly, Deb Frisch, Douglas Giles, and Jeffrey Nielsen, are just not safe in the classroom anymore. The sad part is that thanks to the growth in the numbers of temporary faculty, there are about 650,000 sitting ducks out there.
Though higher education media reporters understand the difference between tenure-line and non-tenured faculty, those who read the mainstream media simply do not. To them, Visiting Professor Deb Frisch’s nomination by a journalist as “Unhinged Academic of the Year” taints academics, not visiting professors, or even women who have Ph.D.s in psychology, but who’ve lost their composure and succumbed to poor decision-making. English adjunct John Peter Daly becomes, in the mainstream media, “Warren County Community College English Professor John Peter Daly.” He is dubbed a “Ward Churchill Clone” by the headline writers of the Rocky Mountain News (November 28, 2005) and “Another Nutty Professor” by conservative political commentator Mike Rosen (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-11_25_05_MR.html).
That higher education and college faculty are under intense scrutiny is clear. Sadly, we are reaping the bitter fruits of seed sown over the past 35 years by college administrators, tenure-line and tenured faculty. Over that period, they have made use of increasing numbers of part-time faculty, and treated them like second-class citizens. College administrators all over this country staff college courses with warm bodies rustled up the day before. These same administrators then wring their hands and gnash their teeth when temporary faculty members rail against the War in Iraq during math lectures, or schmooze the French lit. class about same-sex marriage. And when peccadilloes such as these are picked up by the mainstream press (and written about by conservative commentators), the chickens really come home to roost.
The lack of rigorous, credible, adjunct faculty hiring practices, an employment model that robs temporary faculty of academic freedom, and due process, along with a single-minded reliance on student evaluators, have created virtually unlimited opportunity for those who choose to attack faculty, higher education, and academic free speech.
Let me change gears and talk briefly about the contents of this issue. Brooke Pielli, in her first piece for the magazine, writes about the push for part-time faculty equity pay in Washington State. I also want to direct you to yet another of contributing editor Mark Drozdowski’s superbly-written pieces. In this issue of Adjunct Advocate, he reviews a seemingly incongruous pair of books. However, in typical Drozdowski fashion, he not only shows us how the two books cross paths, but makes it clear why one is worth a trip to the local bookshop.
Finally, let me tell you about cartoonist Matt Hall. During the past three years, we have enjoyed his rapier wit. I’m sure there are people who would say that life as a part-timer is no laughing matter. It is never my intention to make light of anyone’s misfortune, but there’s a lot to lampoon in higher education. Matt walks that fine line with grace. Enjoy his full-page “Super Adjunct” three-part series. Parts one and two appear in this issue. As always, thanks for reading Adjunct Advocate, and I hope you’ll share your copy of the magazine with a colleague. –P.D. Lesko
