Negotiating the Paradox: Adjuncts & Writing

• Following Up on the Adjunct Conference

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  03 Nov 2009 /  adjuncts, conferences, professional development
  At the risk of beating a dead one day conference into the ground, I want to touch on some of the results of the one day conference on teaching writing (at one of the schools I teach for as an adjunct, Baker College) that I recently attended.

  There have been four results that I can see, two of which are directly related to the intersection of adjuncts and writing.

  The first result is official: there are follow up emails, acknowledgements, inquiries about expense reports, etc. This is mostly housekeeping, but since one of the mailings was a certificate that goes in our files, it was a little more than that. Baker is tracking which adjuncts take part in these professional development activities (and we’ve been told, informally but repeatedly, doing so will make future employment steadier, and full-time employment more likely).

  The second result is interpersonal: there have been a number of faculty-to-faculty emails sent around, as well as emails from various administrators. Those from administrators might be attributed to formal management speak (”We’d like to thank you for attending our recent…”), but the peer-peer emails are lively, casual, and friendly (more so than before the conference). I count this as a sign of community being built.

  The third result is institutional, or rather, relates to engaging adjuncts with institutional standards. Readers will recall the conference focused on raising and standardizing grading practices through using rubrics to grade papers. A new class session has started since the conference. I can testify that I’m evaluating both my assignments to students and their work in terms of this rubric and the thinking behind it. I’m developing more examples of different levels of writing performance (as in, “Here is are A, B, C, D, and F level examples of thesis statements”), I’m articulating the differences among levels, and I’m trying to align my evaluation with these standards.

  The fourth result is relates to engagement with pedagogy. New freshman composition courses have been implemented since the conference. There is more discussion of what works and what does, and faculty are sharing more, than there was before the conference. I count this as a victory for writing pedagogy, especially since the conference was not about these courses.

  Was the conference expensive? Without a doubt. However, if you really want your adjuncts to a) feel wanted, b) feel like part of a community, and c) change how they are teaching, it worked.

  Tags: Baker College, conference, Greg Beatty, professional development, writing

• Institutional Support, Institutional Change

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  05 Jun 2009 /  adjuncts, conferences, funding
  A few weeks ago I commented on how some of the major academic organizations (Modern Language Association [MLA], National Council of Teachers of English [NCTE]) supported adjunct attendance at their conferences, both financially and rhetorically. I decided to return to that topic and contact some of the institutions involved. Since NCTE posted an email address for information about their Professional Equity Project (PEP) on their website.

  Within 12 hours, Kristen Suchor had gotten back to me. (Let me take a moment here to thank the various respondents to my questions. They have been both generous with their time and strikingly quick with their replies.) She told me that the PEP was starting its eighth year. Grants were first given in 2002, building on a resolution that had been passed at the NCTE’s CCCC Annual Business meeting in 2001. (For more on that resolution, visit http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resolutions/2001.) Kristen noted that this wasn’t the only motion calling for organizational support of adjunct involvement.

  When asked about numbers of faculty attending under this program, Kristen replied, “We typically receive between 100 and 150 applicants each year and we fund between 60 and 94 applicants (there are currently 94 grants available each year but we are not always able to give all of the grants away due to last minute cancellations etc).” Kristen estimated about a third of the grantees receive matching funds.

  NCTE doesn’t track how many institutions match funds for attending adjuncts, or why some administrators do so while others don’t. (Kristen did mention that CCCCs asks program administrators for nominations, contacting many of them directly [especially those who are based near that year's convention site].)

  However, Kristen was able to put me in touch with Susan Miller-Cochran at North Carolina State University. (Needless to say, given the first post for this blog, I was amused by this irony.) Once I contacted Professor Miller-Cochran, she explained that NCSU’s First-Year Writing Program started the current policy of funding attendance at CCCCs two years ago. Funds are available for full-time faculty, part-time faculty, and graduate students—and what’s more, funding is available for attendees even if they aren’t presenting (though at a lower level.)

  This policy was started by Nancy Penrose, who preceded Miller-Cochran as Director of the First-Year Writing Program. Miller-Cochran noted, ” She and I both felt that having teachers in our program participate in Cs (either through presenting or just attending) would strengthen the quality of teaching in our program and help our teachers join professional conversations in the field. Since teaching is their sole obligation (as opposed to the research obligation that tenure-track faculty have), I think it’s appropriate to fund them to attend the conference—participation in these conversations enriches teaching and learning in the program.”

  An impressive and enlightened sentiment.

  As far as where the money for this program comes from, several sources come together. Some of it comes from the First-Year Writing Program Trust Fund, which gets its money through donations (including from faculty members who donate textbook royalties!) and sales of an anthology of student writing. Some funds come from NCSU’s Center for Teaching and Learning.

  When asked if what effect this support had on adjunct retention, Miller-Cochran said, “I don’t know that this decision has retained more faculty, although I can say that we’ve had far less turnover in the last two years than we used to have. We’ve also argued for longer contracts, higher salaries, and lower course caps, though—and I think all of these things together help faculty feel more valued.”

  Speaking as an adjunct, I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that yes, this sort of generous treatment is likely related to the lower turnover. I’d also like to note that it is a pleasure to hear of such systematic institutional change. NCSU was always a good place to teach; now it sounds like it might serve as a model for ethical professional action. Bravo!

  Tags: CCCCs, Greg Beatty, Kristen Suchor, MLA, Nancy Penrose, NCTE, North Carolina State University, Professional Equity Project, Susan Miller-Cochran

• Contextual Pressure, Contextual Support

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  07 May 2009 /  adjuncts, conferences, funding, publishing
  Scholars on the tenure-track have contextual support to write and publish. In the best positions, this takes the form of course release time and internal grants to fund sabbaticals, research trips, and reflective writing.

  On the other hand, these positions can also carry considerable pressure, as evidenced by the classic phrase “Publish or perish.” In some institutions, this expectation that faculty members will publish—and not just publish but publish on a prestigious level and promptly—and even that books will be reviewed by the time tenure reviews occur. To be frank, this sounds counterproductive (and likely to produce conservative scholarship), but carrot and the stick do create psychic and temporal contexts for scholarly writing.

  Writing without those, adjunct scholars may find themselves working more like creative writers, fitting in writing when they can, and yoking conference trips to vacations in order to afford them. There are, however, some elements of contextual support in place for adjunct scholars.

  For example, the MLA has set aside travel funds for up to 150 “non-tenure track faculty” to attend their 2009 conference. Granted, these awards of $300 each won’t cover all costs of a presentation/job interview trip to Philadelphia…but it is a start, and it is a sign that the MLA is trying to address some of the realities of academic labor. Actually, they may sadly be being too realistic, since those funds are actually intended for “non-tenure-track faculty members and those without employment.”

  Now, you have to join the MLA member to qualify for these funds, which does lend them political power, but it also makes sense: almost all academic conferences require membership to attend. (For more on this opportunity, visit this section of the MLA’s website: http://www.mla.org/resources/awards/award_finasst/assist_nontenure)

  Other organizations are trying something similarly realistic. For example, CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication) is the major academic conference on composition (a field that has long used a disproportionately high ratio of adjuncts). CCCC funds a “Professional Equity Project” which gives $310 grants to potential attendees with “part-time or adjunct status.” What’s nice about CCCC’s project is that they make a point of spelling out some of the criteria they’ll use for awarding these grants. One of them is that they’re trying to help people with an ongoing interest in teaching writing; they make it clear that they’re trying to both help you develop professionally and make you part of a professional discipline.

  What’s more, CCCC gives the home colleges of grant recipients an open nudge to match funding, noting that several administrators did so last year. This is both politically savvy as well as a nice and practical touch. Schools that do this would make conferences that much more affordable ($600+ travel money for one conference is fairly generous), and would provide their adjuncts acknowledgement of their achievement—this would help with the entire issue of institutional context. (For more on this opportunity, visit this section of the CCCC website: http://www.ncte.org/cccc/awards/pep)

  Tags: CCCC, grants, Greg Beatty, MLA, NCTE, non-tenure track faculty

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