To the Editor:
While reading “Is That Whining Adjunct Someone We Want Teaching Our Young?” (The Chronicle, August 25) it was clear to me before even reaching the point where Ms. Stukel spoke of her 30 years as a full-time instructor that she was not a recently graduated academic like myself and many of the adjuncts currently fighting for better wages, benefits, and job security. She has been out of touch with the job market for three decades, and five years is enough time for the job market to change drastically as a whole or based on different industries. Those of us on the prowl for an academic position are much more in touch with what is going on in that regard. Right now, it is not an employee’s market; it is an employer’s market. A position at a university may only ask for a bachelor’s degree as the minimum education requirement, but the position will most likely go to someone with a much higher degree, meaning we have Ph.D., M.F.A., and M.B.A. holders in academic positions designed for people with master’s degrees, and so on and possibly worse. Almost everyone on the academic job market is overqualified for the positions for which they are being interviewed. Some of these people compromise and take these lower paying jobs, like adjunct positions, because they currently have no other offers or because they’ve been told that the position is a “foot in the door” or an “opportunity.” Then they learn that that opportunity is nothing but to be exploited indefinitely. Others refuse to compromise because they currently have better wages outside the academic sector, such as the temporary pay I currently receive. I was offered an instructional assistant and adjunct position at a university, but the pay loss would have been great; however, had I been offered the job a little over a year ago, I would have undoubtedly taken it as it was better than the zero dollars I had been earning at the time.
Go outside the academic section, she says, as it seems I have? Well, temporary work does not have job security or benefits, two items on adjunct advocacy’s watch list. Nor is it what I want for my life. Like many recently graduated academics, I want to teach because I believe in teaching. But let’s say I and others did compromise that ideal and try to get positions outside of academia. Most of us in the arts do not have traditional full-time, benefited positions open to us with our degrees. For example, my master of arts in English creative writing does not provide many traditional opportunities for employment. Ms. Stukel would say this was poor planning on my part, but I argue that going after what one is passionate about and what is one’s dream is never poor planning. It’s gusty in a world where traditional opportunities are already thin on the ground, so sacrificing one’s dream is wasted martyrdom. I will never deplore a person going after their dream, but I will deplore the person who calls the dreamer stupid. I know many people right now who received degrees in more versatile majors and those even with experience that are perfect for some positions and cannot get them because there are other people with more experience still in the job market. Academia is not the only job market that is flooded with applicants.
But the letter in her box was annoying to her. She accuses adjuncts of whining, but her tone seemed both whining and cruel. The story of Margaret Mary Vojtko has been called into question by those who says that while Daniel M. Kovalik (the original writer of the letter and her lawyer) portrayed her in the best light for sympathy (as is his job), he did not tell us the full story. Ms. Vojtko, who was not a recently graduated academic, wasn’t well liked by everyone, could be stubborn by some accounts, and may even have been mentally ill. Regardless of Ms. Vojtko’s attitude, she and others like her should not be exploited. She was extremely intelligent and gifted by most accounts, and while I may not have agreed with all of her views on education and life, she still deserved a livable wage, health benefits, a pension, and job security. Being a likable person has nothing to do with someone’s value as an employee. Being an effective employee deserves to be rewarded. Near the end Ms. Vojtko may not have been an effective employee, but that was the end of her career. I imagine her previous 20 to 24 years of service for her college were effective as otherwise she would not have been asked back every semester. Those years of good service needed to be rewarded with the basic rights afforded other good employees. This was solid exploitation. I imagine her life would have been much different in those final years had she had health insurance and better wages. Some may argue that her mental-health issues throughout those years should have called into question her effectiveness at her job, but I argue that our nation’s views on mental illness are in serious need of change. We need to treat issues like Ms. Vojko’s hoarding as illnesses, such as we did her cancer, as no one chooses to be mentally ill.
Choice is what Ms. Stukel is arguing for. But not everything that happens in our lives is a choice. Ms. Vojko’s mental illness and cancer were not choices. The degradation of the full-time professorship is not my choice. The increase of adjunct jobs is not my choice. The recession was not my choice. I choose how I react to these things, just as anyone does, and I applaud any adjuncts or faculty who “put on their big-girl panties” and choose to fight the unfair exploitation of adjunct labor. That is a choice; it is not whining. And those who argue that no one is entitled to better wages, benefits, or job security should know that without the protests of previous generations, the U.S. economy would not have been sustainable to this point. But the pendulum swings both ways and currently the employer has the upper hand. That is not sustainable. The adjunctification of our universities will erode the quality of the education those universities produce, not because adjuncts are inadequate at their jobs, but because their job condition are too adverse for quality results, which will, in turn, lead to fewer students, ending university growth. This is a platform all faculty should support; they should not be fighting each other but band together against the cost-cutting measures that “trim the fat” and remove the flavor. All teachers, from all walks of life, should support teachers’ rights on all levels. Anything else is the actions of a traitor to education.
Alex Miceli
Phoenix