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Herb Childress Told the Story of His Academic Career. Now Share Yours.

March 28, 2019
Herb Childress Response Essay
Matt Roth for The Chronicle

How did we discard the idea of college faculty? Herb Childress asks that provocative question in his Chronicle Review essay “This Is How You Kill a Profession.”

He goes on to describe his tortuous, decades-long relationship with the academy, including several stints as an adjunct. The “peculiar cruelty of higher education is … the vast purgatory of contingent life,” he writes. The experience of adjuncts goes beyond questions of finance and higher-ed policy to the “messy, human elements” of “fear, despair, surrender, shame.”

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Herb Childress Response Essay
Matt Roth for The Chronicle

How did we discard the idea of college faculty? Herb Childress asks that provocative question in his Chronicle Review essay “This Is How You Kill a Profession.”

He goes on to describe his tortuous, decades-long relationship with the academy, including several stints as an adjunct. The “peculiar cruelty of higher education is … the vast purgatory of contingent life,” he writes. The experience of adjuncts goes beyond questions of finance and higher-ed policy to the “messy, human elements” of “fear, despair, surrender, shame.”

What’s the story of your career in academe? We’re collecting readers’ thoughts, and we’d like to hear from you.

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We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
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