Book Review: “Gypsy Scholars, Migrant Teachers and the Global Academic Proletariat: Adjunct Labour in Higher Education”
Gypsy Scholars, Migrant Teachers and the Global Academic Proletariat: Adjunct Labour in Higher Education. Edited by Rudolphus Teeuwen and Steffen Hantke. At The Interface series. Ropodi Publishing. Paperback, 221 pages.
by Deborah Straw
Some adjuncts actually don’t have such a bad gig, compared to other truly untenable situations. Some make $20,000 a year with no benefits and no chance to be upwardly mobile; some make $40,000 a year, serve on committees, have at least partial health benefits, and have a union to back up their requests. They garner a bit of respect from their tenured colleagues and from their supervisors.
What do adjuncts, part-timers, lecturers, migrant teachers and gypsy scholars have in common? Lower pay per course than their full-time cohorts, often much less. Less opportunity to teach the challenging courses, even if they have a Ph.D. Generally no office space for themselves. Little chance of tenure, especially the longer they remain part time. Less access to college computers and printers. And often low self-esteem, based on their treatment by tenured faculty and administration as second class, less worthy, less experienced.
Many part-timers write books, speak at scholarly conferences (while being told it must be solely for personal gratification, certainly not to help them achieve higher academic status), organize scholarly conferences, submit papers to peer-reviewed journals, and more. They write dozens of recommendation letters each semester. But, then, some of their “superiors” make students feel as if a letter from an adjunct is not especially useful. Back to low self-esteem.
Gypsy Scholars, Migrant Teachers and the Global Academic Proletariat: Adjunct Labour in Higher Education, a collection of fourteen essays by male and female adjuncts in the U.S. and in other countries, is extremely diverse in subject matter. The essays are written primarily in an academic tone, with many citations and notes. These writers might rather be writing and publishing in their chosen discipline, English, history, or math, but they ply their academic writing skills when writing about their work, too.
Most of the adjuncts are not thrilled by their status, but some are considerably better off than others are. Apparently, the University of New York at Albany treats adjuncts somewhat fairly, better than most, according to writer/adjunct Kathleen K. Thornton’s essay. Compared to my experience in northern New England, $40,000 a year is pretty fair treatment, even today.
One of the more provocative, original essays is that by Kenneth H. Ryesky, a lawyer and an adjunct at CUNY City College. In his piece, “Bringing Adjunct Faculty into the Fold of Information and Instructional Technology,” he writes, “…in 1998, the percentage of undergraduate courses taught by adjunct faculty was 48% at the senior colleges and 49% at the community colleges” (from CUNY’s Master Plan 2000). Those numbers have risen. On March 2, 2018, I downloaded a page from CUNY, which stated this: “60.0% of the teaching staff at CUNY City College are part-time non-faculty or non-tenure track faculty.”
Ryesky’s main complaint is about part-timers’ lack of access to technology. Certainly, no one buys adjuncts computers or printers, as is sometime done for tenure track or tenured professors. Many computer labs are open solely to students, although that situation seems to have changed at CUNY. Labs are often closed during hours when adjuncts might want to prep or grade papers at the college. Of course, working in the same lab as students might compromise activities, if a student is sitting next to the adjunct and can see her screen (or spontaneously ask for help, interrupting concentration). Also, because more and more administrators are recommending, even requiring, use of technology, adjuncts need to be up to speed on the equipment.
As is true for me, one’s private computer may not be compatible with the university’s equipment. As I am an author, I work on a Mac, but the colleges I have taught at primarily use Windows environments.
I do want to disagree with a statement about becoming adjuncts found in “The Discussion Group Posting” in Ryesky’s piece: “You become one [adjunct] because you were unsuccessful in the competition and you have no other choice.” A few of us actually chose to be adjunct, not that we were completely aware of what the life would entail. Although my self-esteem did suffer, most of the time, I knew I was doing an immensely useful and rewarding job.
If you have always wanted to teach overseas, or have a fascination with Asian culture, another illuminating essay is geographically placed in Japan. “In and Out of a Japanese Doctoral Programme,” is amazing, funny and sad. I have taught many Japanese students and find them to be hard workers and respectful students. In this essay, Terry Caesar writes of becoming a professor of literature written in English at a new Ph.D. program at Mukogawa Women’s University. He happily signs a four-year contract. While at this university in Japan, he is not required to attend departmental meetings; most of his colleagues speak little English; he often has only one or two students per course, some of whose spoken English is marginal; and students are only willing to read 40 pages a week, even in the Ph.D. program. “Forty pages made them groan.” He learns not to bother to read memos (they’re in Japanese anyway), of which there are many. However, he does learn to tell which ones are significant to have translated.
For Caesar, one of the greatest benefits is “I had my own budget for books! (As well as for supplies and travel. The first is a most generous category, justifying the order of refrigerators or televisions for the office.” But, overall, his role remains not entirely clear. “Nobody told me anything. Everybody expected me to know everything…”
As was true of Academic Apartheid: Waging the Adjunct War, a recently reviewed anthology of adjunct experiences and grievances, few solutions to adjunct status and treatment are proposed in this volume. Rather, through learning of the headway being made at various colleges, particularly in English departments, readers may be able to gain ammunition to follow a course of action to improve the role of adjuncts in their own departments and colleges. Apparently, responsibilities, pay, and benefits are slightly improving in several places, good news for some of us.
