Seriously... I was ready to continue to have a relatively stable, uneventful life, but I guess it's not meant to be.
After the past six months of relative calm (I only stressed out a bit about that pesky job application & dead laptop), but I thought it was over.
Nah! Not just yet! :(
This morning I was shocked when the chair of the search committee asked me for my syllabus so that the interviewees could teach my class. What took me completely by surprise was that they are going to be teaching the language class, not the literature one (not to mention that next week we have an exam and I'm going to have to change the schedule in order to accommodate these visits*). Blah...
* Have any of you experienced this type of hassle, probably not, right? Good for you, she says, dripping sarcasm and a tad of envy and anger... (I'm sorry, I'm going to become a bitter blogger again until this is all resolved, please bear with me, OK?).
You know where I'm going next now, don't you?
Well... this made me start stressing out BIG TIME regarding whether they will keep me or let me go (we aren't called CONTINGENT faculty for nothing, right?).
In any case, there's something else going on (I'll write the post today and schedule it for tomorrow morning or the glut of posts tonight will overwhelm my non-existent readers) and this afternoon I saw that the department chair was in her office and decided to go share my news with her after I had an interesting conference call.
She didn't seem very impressed, but then, again, this is who she is. Very matter-of-fact, few words kind of person. I did tell her that I needed to know whether I'd be rehired because I need to plan alternatives (going back to teaching all my classes at former university where I now teach only ond class) and she said there was no way to know until the search was over.
THE SEARCH, again!
That made me even more upset than finding out the candidates would be teaching my class. I began to feel frantic with worry about not having this job I've loved so much anymore come fall.
I could go on and on about my thoughts, but I won't keep going. I will just say that I was very angry and bitter when I called K on my long drive back home. Thankfully our conversation helped me a lot. I am ready to fight for my rights at both universities. Particularly trying to pitch one against the other for my advantage.
I know I have no real leverage and that as an "adjunct person" I'm basically a doormat, BUT... I will try. I need to value myself and to make my case for either school. History and the academy itself are against me, but I'm ready to become an activist. I seriously am. Students love me at current university and my work "tele-teaching" at former U. is being recognized in unexpected ways (subject of the next post)...
Most importantly, I have nothing to lose because I don't have anything to begin with!
(I mean, I do earn a modest amount of money, but my plan is to find a way in which I can still make that money and feel less trampled upon).
I don't know whether I will continue to have the stamina and the strength to go on, but right now, I am ready to fight!
P.S. I write all this, but when I think of my friend Articulate Dad & his long painful journey until he left academia I feel a little discouraged. I wish I read more "adjunct" blogs because I feel very lonely right now since most of my blogging friends are either tenured or getting tenured which always makes me feel like a HUGE failure. And now that I know it's almost certain that I'll never have a tt job I feel helplessness and bitterness taking hold of me. BLAH! If it would all just go away!
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2 comments:
Ugh. I am so so so sorry.
I want to emphasize this: YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE, and they are lucky to have you.
I remember Articulate Dad's posts, too. I used to talk with him about how I feel as if the problem lies in over production of PhDs for fields in which there are not enough jobs. I don't think that so many universities should grant PhDs unless they know that the job market can bear fruit for the candidates.
I work in a field in which there are not enough (qualified) candidates and plenty of jobs. It's a very different dynamic. So, you cannot judge who has jobs and who does not based on merit alone. A lot of this is circumstantial.
I know that this doesn't take the difficulty out of your exact situation, but please... I hope that you can avoid locating the problem with yourself and not blame yourself.
I'm sorry about all of this. It sounds very hard.
I agree with all of the above! You're definitely not a failure at all!
But sometimes when I have feelings of discouragement over my work, I try to remember why I chose the field I did, why I went for a bit of higher education, why I love what I do when I'm in the fun part of teaching.
You went through a lot of hard work to get your PhD, and succeeded. That alone should remind you you're not failing.
I hope you get to keep your job, but I hope that even if you don't, you still value what you have become as a person through the process of qualifying yourself for such a highly specialized and valuable position. (Because you ARE qualified, I'm certain.)
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