Recently, I discovered a charming website called Rate Your Students (RYS), a place where academics, both the privileged and unprivileged, can come together and bitch about the unfairness of having to put up with college students one level above, say, a peanut butter sandwich and conniving colleagues who would torpedo one's tenure-track career.
This post pretty much sets the tone of RYS.
Boo, hoo!
Personally, I'm having a great semester--though it helps having only one class. My students seem engaged, respectful, and smart, so I look forward to going to class and engaging in our literary discussions. Yesterday, I yanked a few unsuspecting souls from the class, and we did an impromptu (and unrehearsed) reading of Susan Glaspell's Trifles (1916), a proto-feminist play. They were all good sports and did an amazing job. In fact, one young lady did such a fine job of delivering dialogue that I encouraged her to consider trying out for one of our college productions. Last semester, I had a full load (four classes), and I have to admit that even then I had a good semester--not perfect, but when one has 75+ students, one is bound to end up with a few slackers.
I'm just overall happier these days.
How can this be? I'm still on the lowest possible rung on the academic ladder--the next step down is called "out." Thus, my situation is, at best, tenuous. I should be wailing and gnashing my teeth, but I'm not.
For one thing, I don't have time to whine. My domaining enterprise, albeit profits still hooked on life support, takes a long time, and I'm still low on the learning curve.
Also, while jumping into a new profession can be confusing and frustrating, it's enriching to stretch one's mind in a totally different direction; I learn something new every day, and that is satisfying and fun, especially when those AHA! moments come.
I'm no longer defined by a certain standing in academia because I have made my peace with the fact that I am now a "true" adjunct: one who comes to class, does her job (well, I hope), and then leaves and pursues her real job. As a result, I am a better teacher because I have left any residual bitterness behind.
Also, I have finished I, Driven: memoir of a teen's involuntary commitment and am in the process of shopping it around. There, too, I have decided that I will not be defined by what the establishment publishing industry thinks of me, and, thus, my work. These days, there are too many options open to writers, including self publishing and/or blogging it (with adsense plastered on each page). The establishment publishing industry can twitter all they want--see if I care.
Lesson learned: always have plan "B" in mind--and maybe even plan "C."
Now, about Post Foetry. I don't have the resources to turn this into a true investigative site. I'm basically one person with limited energy and funds.
My call for team members has fallen flat. Evidently, writers are very fearful folks who are afraid of rocking the literary boat (even anonymously), so good folks do nothing while contest fraud continues. So be it. Sometimes one learns best in the school of hard knocks...
Of course, for better or for worse, I will continue to post here. I will continue to speak out against literary contest fraud and warn the naive and young, but I'm not going to dabble in investigative work.
I'm just going to post what I think about various topics in the publishing industry, so feel free to view this blog as Bugzita/Jennifer's form of literary masturbation.
Don't worry, be happy.
Jennifer, Bugzita, Ms Domainer, Ms. Siegel
Showing posts with label adjuncts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adjuncts. Show all posts
AAUP: "Where Have All the Members Gone?"
Indeed, where have all the members gone?
An article in the June 8, 2007, Chronicle of Higher Education poses this very question.
Well, it's pretty obvious to me that AAUP is a tired, bloated organization whose members look after their own self interests over the greater good of the profession. This organization had an opportunity to work on the adjunct situation, and, quite frankly, they blew it.
Cary Nelson, president of AAUP, should keep in mind that tenured professors react only when their cushy jobs and benefits are threatened directly; they do not seem to see that their tacit acceptance of exploited adjuncts at their colleges and universities is a major part of the problem.
Until full timers get up off their asses and start advocating for their adjunct workers, then they are no better than the colleges and universities who hire them.
My husband is a tenured, full time professor, and we often engage in lively and often heated discussions regarding this very issue.
\:=(
Oh, and the argument that adjuncts themselves must rise up and organize for themselves does not hold water. If an adjunct even looks like she might open her mouth in protest, she gets slapped down and even fired. (Adjuncts are typically women who are typically supervised by men.)
So much for self-advocacy.
AAUP talks about preserving academic freedom for everybody.
AAUP, you clueless dinosaur of an organization:
THERE IS NO ACADEMIC FREEDOM FOR ADJUNCTS.
Do you get that concept?
Back in April 2006, we engaged in an interesting discussion about the whimpering, dying AAUP on Foetry. Below, I have reposted part of what I said back then:
I do think that the full time faculty, both old and young, have a responsibility to clean up the adjunct situation that their administrations have put into motion.
But I'm going to let you in on a dirty little secret: the full-time faculty will NEVER stand up for adjunct rights, simply because it's not in their best financial interests to do so.
The ugly truth? Adjunct rights will boil up from the bottom, and, quite frankly, adjuncts simply aren't pissed off enough yet. But it will happen, and it will get ugly.
When that happens, I WILL be in my rocking chair, or pushing up illegal flora at Whispering Glades.
AAUP has been moaning and singing a sad song about the "adjunct problem" for years, but nothing gets accomplished because this organization is just window dressing, nothing more. To be censured by the AAUP is a JOKE; some thriving universities have spent decades on the censured list, but that doesn't stop students from enrolling there, professors from teaching in these places, or donors from giving fat endowments to these institutions.
You think the poetry world is corrupt?
Nothing compared to the bloated self-serving, corruption of the ivory tower. These people understand the concept of "foetry" all too well, long before the word itself hit the lexicon pile.
Now if some REAL firebrand can come along and give AAUP REAL BIG BALLS, then I'm willing to listen. Until then, they can rot in hell.
My opinions regarding AAUP and academe haven't changed significantly.
AAUP, get your head out of the sand and become a real and relevant organization, and your membership will swell.
Bugzita
An article in the June 8, 2007, Chronicle of Higher Education poses this very question.
Well, it's pretty obvious to me that AAUP is a tired, bloated organization whose members look after their own self interests over the greater good of the profession. This organization had an opportunity to work on the adjunct situation, and, quite frankly, they blew it.
Cary Nelson, president of AAUP, should keep in mind that tenured professors react only when their cushy jobs and benefits are threatened directly; they do not seem to see that their tacit acceptance of exploited adjuncts at their colleges and universities is a major part of the problem.
Until full timers get up off their asses and start advocating for their adjunct workers, then they are no better than the colleges and universities who hire them.
My husband is a tenured, full time professor, and we often engage in lively and often heated discussions regarding this very issue.
\:=(
Oh, and the argument that adjuncts themselves must rise up and organize for themselves does not hold water. If an adjunct even looks like she might open her mouth in protest, she gets slapped down and even fired. (Adjuncts are typically women who are typically supervised by men.)
So much for self-advocacy.
AAUP talks about preserving academic freedom for everybody.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!
AAUP, you clueless dinosaur of an organization:
THERE IS NO ACADEMIC FREEDOM FOR ADJUNCTS.
Do you get that concept?
Back in April 2006, we engaged in an interesting discussion about the whimpering, dying AAUP on Foetry. Below, I have reposted part of what I said back then:
I do think that the full time faculty, both old and young, have a responsibility to clean up the adjunct situation that their administrations have put into motion.
But I'm going to let you in on a dirty little secret: the full-time faculty will NEVER stand up for adjunct rights, simply because it's not in their best financial interests to do so.
The ugly truth? Adjunct rights will boil up from the bottom, and, quite frankly, adjuncts simply aren't pissed off enough yet. But it will happen, and it will get ugly.
When that happens, I WILL be in my rocking chair, or pushing up illegal flora at Whispering Glades.
AAUP has been moaning and singing a sad song about the "adjunct problem" for years, but nothing gets accomplished because this organization is just window dressing, nothing more. To be censured by the AAUP is a JOKE; some thriving universities have spent decades on the censured list, but that doesn't stop students from enrolling there, professors from teaching in these places, or donors from giving fat endowments to these institutions.
You think the poetry world is corrupt?
Nothing compared to the bloated self-serving, corruption of the ivory tower. These people understand the concept of "foetry" all too well, long before the word itself hit the lexicon pile.
Now if some REAL firebrand can come along and give AAUP REAL BIG BALLS, then I'm willing to listen. Until then, they can rot in hell.
My opinions regarding AAUP and academe haven't changed significantly.
AAUP, get your head out of the sand and become a real and relevant organization, and your membership will swell.
Bugzita
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