Negotiating the Paradox: Adjuncts & Writing

• Considering Surveys

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  30 Nov 2009 /  research
  This week I’d like to touch on a two surveys related to adjuncts (and writing).

  The first is a recent survey done by The Chronicle of Higher Education. It’s dated October 18, 2009, and it reviews data gathered from April through July of the same year. Robin Wilson’s article discussing the survey is careful to point out its qualifications and limitations it only focuses on adjuncts in the Chicago area, it makes no claims about those who didn’t reply, and so on.

  I have to say, I was surprised by a number of the results. Given the number of schools in Chicago and adjunct working conditions/the cost of living there, I was surprised to see that two thirds of those surveyed taught for just one school. I figured that more would be scrambling from school to school. I was also surprised by the low percentage (30 percent) who report they are adjuncts because they can’t find full-time positions. Here too I thought the number would be higher. But more central to our purposes are these numbers: 34 percent report that they “almost always” pursue their own research and writing, while 38 percent report that they “sometimes” do. That’s 72 percent overall, which is markedly higher than I expected.

  This is even more striking when combined with the fact that 66 percent report their academic employers never help pay for them to attend conferences. The most amusing figure here is that 16 percent, or 1 in 6, don’t know if their employers provide funds for travel to conferences. Taken together, those numbers speak to a well-defined mindset among adjuncts: these are people who will teach regardless of compensation, write and research independently, and expect so little from their schools that they don’t even know if there is help available. In a very real sense, these faculty blend a calling with a freelance mentality: love meets the market.

  The second is an older and more ambitious survey. Funded by CCCC back in 2004/5 and organized by Gloria McMillan, the National Adjunct Writing Faculty Survey Project set out to document precisely how the working conditions of adjunct writing faculty shaped their teaching. It aimed to collect at least 1000 anonymous responses.

  And I have no clue what the results are. Consider this an update on an inquiry in progress, but the link to take the survey (http://users.dakotacom.net/~glomc/forms/Adj04.html ) is dead. When I search in Google, I see the call for participants several places, but no results. When I search academic databases, I get only one result, for the initial announcement of the survey.

  To date I’ve had no responses from Gloria McMillan or others I’ve tried to contact on this (nor any error messages on my emails to them). I suspect this is because they’re adjuncts—I’m trying another email for Ms. McMillan. I hope to have more to report in the long term, but for now, my temptation is to draw conclusions from these non-responses. I hope to be proven wrong, but my temptation is to conclude that the survey hasn’t reached its goals, or that it has, but was never synthesized into conclusions. I’m also tempted to conclude that this is more indicative of the real conditions of adjunct faculty in regards to writing—that their conditions shape and even trump their research—but we’ll hope I’m wrong on that one.

  Tags: Chronicle of Higher Education, Gloria McMillan, Greg Beatty, National Adjunct Writing Faculty Survey Project, surveys

• How Do You Write Productively (Installment 1)?

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  17 Nov 2009 /  publishing, time management, writing
  This week I thought I’d shift gears a bit. Assuming that the folks who read this blog write, or want to write, I thought I’d share a bit on writing productively…and what it means for an adjunct.

  Assume that you have established a solid mastery of your field, and that you want to contribute to the body of knowledge making up that field. Take these as a given, and further, take as a given that you’re not blocked: ideas are flowing, you see debates you want to enter and questions you want to explore. For a professional scholar, the task then is not just to have these thoughts, or even just to share them with your students, essential though these two steps are. A professional scholar must share them with their field and may wish to make a name for him or herself by doing so regularly. This means writing productively: writing regularly, and bringing works to completion. What do you need to do?

  In her article “Becoming a Productive Academic Writer” Susan Johnson suggests recreating the sort of environment one might find on a plane: minimize distractions, gather tools to you, keep refreshments handy, etc. She also suggests writing regularly, rather than engaging in “binge” writing, tracking your output, and making writing only a moderate priority. This last was striking, given writing’s centrality in academia, but Johnson sketches in her reasoning, which draws on attempts to reach goals in other areas: raising the priority of something too high tends to lead to perfectionism, which in turn leads to people not completing their desired actions.

  Johnson also includes a sidebar summarizing the work of Robert Boice, a psychologist who focuses on how academics work productively. Boice has given special attention to beginning faculty, looking at those who start quickly up the academic ladder vs. those who don’t.

  Boice has found that the few faculty (5=9%) who are “quick starters” share certain characteristics: they write 3+ hours per week, limit course prep time (and link teaching to research), left time in classes for student involvement, and ask peer help on both teaching and research. By contrast, most faculty over prepare for classes, teach “defensively,” and experience academia as isolating. (Those interested in Boice might view this reader’s guideas an introduction.)

  My first conclusions seem obvious: adjuncts are pushed by the structure of the system to share characteristics of the majority, rather than the “quick starters.” We are isolated. We are more vulnerable to student complaints, since we may not get rehired, and that very real increased vulnerability may well lead to defensiveness.

  My next conclusions are somewhat less obvious: 3 hours a week seems like nothing, so it would be relatively easy for a focused adjunct to become a productive academic writer. While there is certainly no guarantee that doing so would help one make the leap to the tenure track, 3 hours equates to 36 minutes, Monday through Friday (or 26 minutes seven days a week). Most of us waste that much time and more.

  What’s more, while the isolation of the adjunct is real (and again, fostered by the system), it does not have to be permanent. Online forums exist, office hours can be shared, labor organizations can be joined, and so on.

  My final conclusions for the day are emotional. I want to push back against Johnson’s advice, and maybe shout a little. How the heck can I control my time when I spend too much of it grading? How can I control my space when sharing office cubicles? Hey, there’s a little anger left to snip at Boice. Yeah, I feel isolated—I am isolated.

  Whew. I feel better. No, life isn’t fair, and life as adjunct has special stresses. However, at the risk of sounding all pop psychology-ish, there’s a lot I can do to make things better, and to become more productive.

  And I’ll share more of those tips in weeks ahead. 

  Tags: Greg Beatty, productivity, Robert Boice, Susan Johnson, time management, writing

• A Science Writing Star: Interview With Marcia Bartusiak

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  10 Nov 2009 /  publishing, research, time management, writing
  This week I had the opportunity to talk with one of the stars of science writing, Marcia Bartusiak. When she won the AIP Science Writing Award in 1982, she was the first woman to ever do so. Since that time, she’s won that award again (in 2001, for Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony , and, in 2006, won the Andrew W. Gement Award from the American Institute of Physics

  Ms. Bartusiak is also an adjunct faculty member at MIT (though she was careful to explain how that differs from most adjunct positions, as you’ll see below). She was also kind enough to share her experience with me.

  AA: Why do you write?

  Marcia Bartusiak (hereafter MB):In the classic 1952 movie musicalSingin’ in the Rain, Gene Kelly has a number called “Gotta Dance,” which provides one way to frame it.  I often have that feeling, but in my case responding, “Gotta Write, Gotta Write.”  And, for me, it’s always been linked to a love for science and the mysteries it uncovers. Science (particularly astronomy and physics) was a fascination to me from an early age.  But I was perplexed as a child that few of my friends shared this passion.  I usually found I could get their attention if I explained some fact or idea in an entertaining way.  This desire (obviously) never left me. I find joy in the search, trying for the perfect metaphor or analogy that can make someone at least get the “feel” of a scientific concept.  I want them to realize they don’t have to solve a mathematical equation to be fascinated and intrigued by nature’s laws. 

  AA: How does your academic writing relate to your teaching? How about writing that doesn’t qualify as traditional scholarship?

  MB: Everything I do as a writer is related to my teaching, given the position I have as an adjunct professor in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing.  My very job is to take the expertise I have built up over my thirty years as a science writer and pass it along to my students: how to interview, craft a snappy news note (important when they first start out), extend their writerly skills into longer features, and even start them thinking about tackling book-length topics. 

  AA: How do you find time to write as an adjunct?

  MB: I have been teaching at MIT over the last six years in a half-time position.  (Previous to that I was a fulltime freelance writer.)  So, while I have time to write, my adjustment has been to the reduced schedule.  Where in the past I could devote fulltime to, say, a book project, I now have to squeeze it in and around my classes, along with strategically using the summer months.  I just had a book come out last April, which I spent about two-and-half years researching and writing.  For the first nine months, I conducted my library research when not in class and scheduled two months of travel around the country for archival research during the summer months.  Upon returning, I wrote up my manuscript, again, whenever I had the time outside of classroom responsibilities.  There were lots of weekends lost to the project as well. 

  AA: How have the institutions who employ you responded to your writing? (Do they support it? Ignore it? Even know about it?)

  MB: The Graduate Program in Science Writing is part of MIT’s Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, which by its very nature is very supportive of my writing (and certainly encourages its continuation).  Recently upon being named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for my science-writing contributions over the years, the department paid for my travel to receive the award.

  AA: You’d mentioned that being an adjunct at MIT is different than working as an adjunct elsewhere. Let’s address that issue directly. What does “adjunct” mean at MIT?

  MB: This can be confusing outside of the MIT community, as it is different from what adjunct has come to mean in academic institutions across the nation.  In the mid-1990s, I was an adjunct at Boston University for two years, where I came in to teach one course during the spring semester.  I was paid a flat fee ($3000 at the time) to teach a graduate-level course in science writing.  I had no other benefits or links to the larger university community.  At MIT, on the other hand, adjunct really means “professor part-time.”  In fact, I was vetted in almost the same way as if I were coming up for tenure at a university.  It was a year-long process that involved a complete assessment of my work over the years and letters of recommendation from scientists and writers.  Upon acceptance, I received a five-year contract, which is renewable upon review.  My salary is commensurate with fulltime professors in my department, adjusted for my halftime hours. MIT also includes me in their pension plan, matches my 401K contributions, and provides full health-care benefits.  Here is how MIT’s Policies and Procedures describes it: “Adjunct Professors are equivalent and made only to practitioners who have developed a high level of expertise in fields of particular importance to the MIT academic program and who also demonstrate a deep commitment to teaching and research. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, teaching and conducting and supervising research. Each appointee should teach at least the major part of one subject per academic year, may be the instructor in charge of subjects of instruction, may supervise theses with departmental permission, and may be principal investigator on research projects.”  I am a non-voting member of the Faculty and am encouraged to participate in university matters. 

  AA: Wow. That’s both impressive in itself, and great for the MIT adjuncts. I am officially jealous. One more MIT-related question to close, if I may. What writing-related challenges and/or opportunities do you see MIT offering?

  MB: Having the connection to MIT has already opened many doors for me.  Since I have been on staff, I have had many more invitations to serve on conference panels and give lectures at other universities.

  AA: Thank you!

   

  Tags: Greg Beatty, Marcia Bartusiak, MIT, science 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

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