The Joys of Being Let Go
by Laura Yeager
I’ve been an adjunct off and on since 1988. I’ve taught part-time English classes in Iowa, Ohio, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. For the most part, I’ve chosen my adjunct lifestyle so that I could have time to do my own freelance writing. I have also taught full-time at two universities.
The most classes I’ve ever taught in one semester as a part-timer is five classes of freshman composition at two different schools. At the time, I was just out of grad school. It was 1989. You should have seen the place I was living. Stray cats loved it. It was run-down, dangerous and unattractive. In short, I was living in poverty. Now, I know that many of you have me beat, and in many ways I’m an adjunct lightweight, but I still have found the adjunct lifestyle difficult for many reasons.
One reason I find being an adjunct hard is that some of the full-time professors look down on you. It’s not really in what they say or do; it’s just an attitude. For the most part, I’ve been able to combat this snooty attitude by reminding myself of some of my credentials: B.A., Oberlin College; M.A., Iowa State University; M.F.A., The Writers’ Workshop at The University of Iowa. They sometimes look at me like “do you know who I am?”
And I reply in my head “do you know who I AM?”
Another reason I find the adjunct lifestyle difficult is that I don’t have my own desk to call home. Currently, I’m sharing an office with about 25 other adjuncts. No joke. I know what a joy it is to have your own desk/office from my short days as a full timer (temporary full-time). You can leave your papers where they are, and can fill up the desk with things like coffee bags, tampons and peanut butter crackers. And you don’t have to worry about any other part-timer taking them. As adjuncts, as you know, you’re portable. You carry what you need in a brief case or a backpack or big bag, while the full-timers get to spread out and conquer.
Finally, a third, and most important, reason I find being an adjunct tough is that there is no true predictability in what you’re doing. For instance, I was scheduled to teach two classes at my university. They were at a perfect time; Tuesday and Thursday morning. I was delighted with my schedule. I could take my two-year-old to daycare in the morning. But, as it turns out, the enrollment at our school was down, and the full-timers needed more classes because theirs had been cancelled. What happened? They took my classes away and gave them to full-time staff.
We’re completely expendable, as you know.
This left me very devastated. I was looking forward to teaching out of a new book; we needed the money, and I needed time away from my trying child. In a word, I felt like crap. After all, I’d taught at this university for six years. Didn’t I have any kind of seniority? As it turns out, several adjuncts had to be let go because their classes were needed by full-timers. Is was just the way it was. I was in good company.
Now, I really wanted to teach that semester. I wanted to take my child to daycare twice a week, during which time I’d teach, make some money and interact with people outside of my house. I was still working as a writer then. It got a little lonely.
Carrying with me my crippled ego, I plodded to a neighboring college and knocked on their door, hoping to find a scrap of something, something I could teach.
Well, lo and behold, I was hired and was promptly given a class that no one else wanted. It was “Effective Speaking” at a satellite branch of the college, at a local high school. Guess what? I’d never taught a speech class before, nor had I ever taken speech. This predicament could have really bothered me. I could have felt unprepared, inadequate, rushed (class started in two weeks), and/or put upon. Not only did I have to drive an extra 10 miles to the satellite campus, I had to hurry. But, you know what? I was very grateful for the class. At least it was something; in fact, it was exactly what I needed. I vowed to make it work.
And it’s working, let me tell you. I’m about halfway through the semester, and I love teaching Effective Speaking. Speech class combines writing class with acting class. It’s a real joy! And I love my students. The majority of them are high school students taking the class for college credit. They’re called secondary students. These students, for the most part, are studious, hard-working, curious and friendly.
I’ve heard speeches on how to re-pot a plant, the death of a grandmother, tempering steel, kinds of drivers, a bike accident, aspects of illustration for newspapers, caring for tattoos…
I’ve watched people scratch their leg, back, arm, nose, head while speaking too softly, loudly, slowly, quickly all the while tapping their note cards on the podium, giggling, saying “wait a minute, I lost my place…”
Now, here’s the point. I would have never taught Effective Speaking, something completely new, if I hadn’t have been let go from my other job as a part-timer. Sometimes, this adjunct lifestyle isn’t so bad. Sometimes, it forces you into places you never would have gone before.
What’s really exciting is that I think I am making a difference in these kids’ lives. In my opinion, you have to be relatively mature to give a good speech. They are growing up before my very eyes.
I feel so gratified as a person to have learned a new skill. I can now say that I can teach public speaking. And I enjoy it. When I learned that my classes were being taken away from me at one university, I would have never guessed that it would turn out to be a good thing.
So what does all this mean? Being an adjunct makes you tough. It makes you be able to turn on a dime, prepare a whole semester of lessons in a week or two, teach God knows how many classes at how many universities or colleges and be ready for anything, even Effective Speaking. It makes you humble, hard working and extra capable. You’re an adjunct, by God, you can do anything!
So the next time you are complaining about the adjunct life, look at what it is doing for you. Good things can come from this less-than-perfect situation.
It happened to me.
