The Sad Side of Being "Contingent"

Part 2 of 2 (1 is here)

I've taught myself not to cringe too much when I use the word contingent to refer to my employment situation, but deep down it gets to me all of the time. For all purposes, I am 100% replaceable, I'm here now, but I could be sent away tomorrow, just a small cog in a big machine. Leaving all thoughts on my passion for research aside, that's the worst problem with the tenure-track, non-tenure track discussion: when you're "contingent" and not tenure-track you automatically feel like you don't really have much value for the institution. All they need is your weekly teaching, not you, really, and all you can contribute to your job as a person and a scholar.* 

Ha! The Roller-Coaster that's my life has started to move fast again and now... hold on to your seats, my friends, 'cause we're going down! Yeah... this is an old, tired, cliched metaphor (Why can't I write clichéd with the accent, spell-check?), but I keep using it because it works for me & my unpredictable life.

So, yeah... I'll try to be quick (so I can go to sleep, it's almost 2 am on Friday, but I scheduled this to be published tomorrow so more people can see it).

As you may or may not remember, I'm very lucky  as far as being contingent faculty is concerned because I happen to have a full-time job with benefits. It doesn't pay much, but as far as adjuncting goes, it's heaven! And on top of that, I teach a couple other classes at another university (U#1, where my husband is a tt professor and where I worked on a "class by class" basis every semester before the full-time gig suddenly, and unexpectedly appeared back in 2012). These other classes provide some more needed income for our family.

I wasn't supposed to have had a second year of full-time teaching at U#2, however, because they hired a new tenure track faculty last Fall (a search I applied to and that I never was even one of the MLA finalists for). I managed to maneuver myself into another yearly contract before the new faculty arrived and then, unsurprisingly, double offerings of same classes led to low enrollment.

So today [Friday] I had a meeting with the chair and s/he informed me** that the dean has reduced my teaching load for the next semester and that s/he will do all s/he can to help me have a 3/3 (full-time) load, but that it depends on enrollment. I had to control myself not to despair too much before leaving the chair's office. Because...

(ha, ha, ha) ... if the schedule continues as it is for the fall, enrollment will be the end of me because two sections of the same class are scheduled for me and the new hire (NH).

That means that my full-time status is completely at the mercy of NH (who is fully in charge of our program). If NH decides the schedule can be changed for the Fall and one of us can teach another class, I'm DONE.

I've already commiserated with two of my dear friends who are also lecturers, but who have three year contracts right now (and much higher pay), and we've brainstormed various suggestions that I can give to NH and that will hopefully work out so I can continue full-time. I have decided to email NH tomorrow night and not wait until we can possibly meet on Monday. This situation is much too urgent and I will be way less nervous writing an email than talking to NH. I'll keep you updated as the situation develops. (and I hope I can get some sleep now, sigh...)

Your thoughts, comments, prayers, etc. are appreciated!

* That's one of the big reasons why, among other things, academia completely sucks most of the time.
** I've been trying to schedule a meeting with the chair for weeks now. I'm just asking myself WHEN I would have been informed of this scheduling decision by the dean if I hadn't met with the chair this Friday! Maybe it would have been to late to try to re-mediate the situation. I shudder just thinking about that!