Alt-Ac, Two-Tiered Faculties, and Tenured-Adjunct Relations

Alt-Ac:

"The dire reality of the jobs crisis demands a new approach" https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-AHA-s-Mission-Needs-to/246243

A focus on career diversity, alternative careers, or alt-ac jobs (whatever term one wishes to use) distracts from what should become the AHA’s central mission: advocating and organizing to ensure that history departments remain robust and enduring intellectual spaces within our universities and colleges.

"A Moral Stain on the Profession"

https://www.chronicle.com/article/A-Moral-Stain-on-the/246197

 misguided emphasis on “alt-ac,” the AHA reinforces a stratified and unequal system of academic labor and obfuscates the structural problems inherent in the job market.

“‘Alt-academia’ isn't a solution — it's surrender” https://www.vox.com/2015/9/8/9261531/professor-quitting-job

"The Uncounted" https://andrewgoldstone.com/blog/job-market2017/

MLA and Mellon seem to be too busy fantasizing that “mission-driven organizations” have an untapped desire for English and modern languages PhDs, or that new PhDs will find good “alt-ac” jobs in abundance if graduate faculty can be browbeaten into abandoning the belief that the primary purpose of the doctorate in English literature is to train professional scholars and teachers.

Two-Tiered Faculties:

Interesting takes on the two-tier academy are in the comments of this article: "Our Job was to Fix It" https://www.aaup.org/article/our-job-was-fix-it

based on maintaining a 2-tier faculty system which is the root cause of the dysfunction in higher ed. In some cases, contingent faculty are stronger instructors, researchers, and contributors to our social fabric than tenure-line faculty. The "mess" is that the 2-tier system is supposedly based on merit, which is both highly subjective and clearly untrue. 

Those who write defenses of Two-Tiered academy believe: 

• God has chosen scholars who graduated from elite univerities to have research privileges.
• The division into separate and equal classes is natural.
• The teaching class should not rebel or oppose their position as inferior: it is natural. (The hiring process told you so already. Listen to the hiring competition. You, lowly teacher, are just unworthy of research support.)
• The teaching class should be loyal to their patrons.

Tenured-Adjunct Relations:

“Academic Freedom and Extramural Speech” https://mediahub.unl.edu/media/10900 (useful transcript at bottom of page)

In this video-lecture, I agree with Michael Bérubé when he says that someone making insensitive comments toward NTT of color is grounds for dismissal. But he also says tenured full professors can make insults toward women of color without consequence, provided that the comment references the wizard of oz.

Well put. I remember when the "Wizard of Oz" situation went down. The response to him was a memorable moment for NTT voices. His attempt to explain it away has some unintentional humor in it.

“What I actually said” he begins, “my Wikipedia page [was] attacked by a band of flying monkeys." He makes his hovel worse, saying “I kind of assumed that people had seen the wizard of oz.”

As a woman of color who has seen the Wizard of Oz - as he intended, the remarks offended me. But the effects always matter more than intent. He knows exactly who was editing the wikipedia page and he said so. (Let’s imagine he didn’t know. OK, he’s calling random people this epithet – an OK excuse when you’re a tenured professor, I guess, just mention an old movie that used those images?) The comment was offensive and people were offended. So the ruse worked. His otiose explanation in the lecture is coy and strange. You’re right about NTT. Their voices have made treatment like this from tenured an issue.

-----was this before or after the incident he had with the pregnant woman?

It was after.

---I see a pattern. . . 

Michael Bérubé’s aggressive behavior toward people off the tenure track does have an “aha!” quality to it, and may make people say or think: “I knew it and this proves it!” - but in reality he’s not a good example of the problem.

He just “says the quiet parts out loud” about his feelings toward NTT. Meanwhile, most of the time tenured don’t call people who critique them monkeys (while their actions may amount to as much, or worse, it’s just not verbal). Instead they may slight them behind their back, hack them on peer review, or use the all powerful “they aren’t a good fit” card to oust them during hiring. You see, the tenured are usually passive aggressive toward NTT, using their privilege to demean NTT without name calling and other things Bérubé does. The difference is, basically, that Bérubé is aggressive-aggressive ("saying the quiet parts out loud"), not passive aggressive (demean not with words but actions). His conduct may be typical of tenured, endowed faculty, but it’s not really characteristic of the way the problem usually manifests itself.

Interesting lecture. So people defaced this guy's Wikipedia page, and when he remarked on it, they pretended to be women of color and called him a racist. Hokay. And this is on the academic jobs wiki why exactly?

"Confronting Biases Against Adjunct Faculty" https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2019/02/14/how-bias-toward-adjuncts-plays-out-among-students-other-faculty-and-administrators

Here are some of the worst things I've heard or read in my winding careers. In an article I read: "complicit in their own exploitation." In person: "Are you still here?" In person: "Your husband has work, so you're okay." In person: "Adjunct? Oh that's terrible." Upon being moved to a small office: "Now you are in your place." I think this article is written with eloquence and with grace.​​​​​​​ https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2019/02/14/how-bias-toward-adjuncts-plays-out-among-students-other-faculty-and-administrators#comment-4337314899

Search committees demonstrate EXACTLY the same attitude, penalizing adjuncts for being adjuncts.
Meanwhile supposedly “progressive” professors in the Humanities do not attack the system of spousal hires, legacy admittance, or the reality that search committees do not appoint PhDs from outside the top 20 universities to tenure-track positions. Instead, former MLA president professor Michael Berube and professor Jennifer Ruth for example argue for "teaching" tenure lines that mean less money and no research support. Kind of like a "woman's position" or "diversity-hire" tenure track that tacitly penalizes faculty for conducting research – despite the fact that all PhDs are trained to be researchers.
Relatedly, similar neoliberal tenured faculty believe multiple Humanities PhDs should emerge: alt-ac and regular faculty. But in reality this means three PhDs. 1. Regular faculty. 2. Teaching faculty. 3. Alt-ac. Tenured in English love things like this. It means they don't teaching writing composition, ever.
Recommendation: tenured faculty in humanities should destroy the search committee norm that rewards affiliation with prestigious universities and start appointing people who are ABSENT from faculties now. Those are, if you hadn’t noticed, people of color who did NOT study at top-ranked universities, many of whom are female and now adjuncting. Maybe they even (gasp) had a child and attended community college. https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2019/02/14/how-bias-toward-adjuncts-plays-out-among-students-other-faculty-and-administrators#comment-4338002577​​​​​​