SIU Zero-time Adjunct Follow-up
[Update to the update: SIU has posted a statement on the programme here. As it essentially confirms my suspicions that it is designed to steal soft academic labour from new PhDs by trading on their institutional loyalty and need for affiliation without paying them for their services, I provide the …
And so It Has Come to This
Southern Illinois University has finally taken the step that we all knew was coming, whether we openly admitted it to ourselves or not. The progression was too obvious, the market forces in question too powerful, for this result to have been anything but inevitable. The question was never if, but …
Precarious Academic Employment and Material Goods Do Not Mix
This week is Fair Employment Week in Canada. It’s an annual event put on by the Canadian Association of University Teachers and their provincial counterparts to raise awareness of the precarious work conditions of adjunct employees. The week is usually marked by sad stories of the economic difficulties faced by …
Syllabus Adjunct Clause
Hey there, Doubters! As I promised in the last edition of On the Market, here is a sample adjunct clause that can be inserted into any syllabus for courses taught by temporary faculty. Please keep in mind that since situations differ from school to school–and even from department to department–the following …
On the Market VI: Excellence in Teaching and Student Evaluations
This year’s academic job application season is drawing to a close, and, as ever, I find the compilation of the last few packets to be tinged with the kind of grim urgency that accompanies the knowledge that all of the searches I applied to earlier in the year have already …
Anti-vax “prof” ignites scandal at Queen’s U
This week the Principal and Provost of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario publicly acknowledged student complaints that an instructor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies was promoting anti-vaccine materials in a basic health class. The instructor in question, Melody Torcolacci, is reported to have presented her Health 102 class …
Tenure and the Culture of Silence
Pamela Gay, currently an Assistant Research Professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, published a blog post this morning about how she regrets not publicly confronting a famous person who harassed her at a science fiction convention. There is bound to be a lot of discussion of this incident in the …
Charity Work: My Life as an Adjunct Part II
*This is a continuation of my previous post Charity Work: My Life as an Adjunct Part I. I have been commenting on the points that James Hoff has made in his response to being profiled in the New York Times. I have covered a couple of his points in my previous …
Wondering about grades? Us, too. Also: adjuncts in the news, charter school walkouts, computer graded writing. It’s Required Reading 2-6-2014!
What’s in a grade? Does a high GPA from a prestigious university indicate a moral and unthuglike character ? Why bring it up? Speaking of grades, why the leap from D to F? Shouldn’t you lose points for forgetting one of the most popular letters? Well, New Jersey really needs …
Charity Work: My Life as an Adjunct Part I
Every semester I give my students the opportunity to ask one question of me. I tell them they can ask me anything that is not too terribly personal but I welcome questions giving them career advice, off topic subjects that we cannot cover in class, or just general what classes …