Prudentiae Sal.
The Appalled Dinner Guest
Conviva Attonita Prudentiae Sal.
At one point last fall, when I was at dinner with a group of scholars (graduate students and faculty), I was appalled to hear a tenured professor declare that anyone who doesn’t “tough out” the adjuncting and VAP-hopping years until they land a tenure-track position is lazy and doesn’t deserve that tenured position anyway. Such a statement assumes (1) that academic jobs are superior to all other jobs and (2) that there are no life circumstances that could make an academic job (especially a poorly paid academic job that may necessitate several moves) undesirable apart from a candidate’s own lack of drive. It also furthers a mythology that people with tenure-track jobs are the ones who deserve them most. I had no idea how to respond. What would you do or say?
Prudentia Convivae Attonitae Sal.
People like the one you describe are taking the easy way out by perpetuating a myth that others are lazy so that they don’t have to acknowledge the system is broken. Because if the system is broken, they should probably do something about it. (They may also harbor some insecurities about whether they’d have gotten the job they have, if they’d been on the abysmal job market of recent years.) They’re barely worth responding to — except maybe for the sake of the graduate students at the table, who deserve to hear a less biased viewpoint.
The brightest minds in our field know there aren’t enough jobs to go around. They’re very concerned about this situation. Many of them are wondering what they can do to fix this problem without encouraging people to “tough it out” through years of no job security, low wages, and exploitation.
All that His/Her Tenuredness really deserves is a gentle reminder that something like 80% of tenure-track jobs go to people who have received their PhDs in the past three years, so “toughing it out” is no guarantee of eventual success. But we all know some people like the one you encountered. To everyone who doesn’t want to be that terrible person, here’s what you should do.
Tenured professors: the presidential panel at the Society for Classical Studies this past January addressed you directly, outlining the reality of the adjunct problem and giving concrete advice for what individuals could do to mitigate a bad situation. Read their recommendations, put those recommendations into action, and consider what you would want if you were an adjunct in our field. Be an adjunct ally. Work to get them benefits and better working conditions. Help them unionize. Better conditions for adjuncts can only benefit you.
Tenure-track assistant professors: thank the lucky star under which you were born that you got this opportunity to realize your dream. Realize that, although you certainly deserve the job you got and earned it through your hard work and merit, there were probably at least a dozen equally qualified candidates who weren’t as lucky as you were. You happened to be in the right place at the right time and you didn’t screw it up. Good luck getting tenure, and don’t be a jerk to your adjunct collegues. Pay for their coffee.
Adjunct instructors, VAPs, or graduate student about to defend a dissertation: the world is your oyster. You are a very smart person, which is why you managed to get a PhD (or are about to). You can opt to leave the professoriate now, which might lead to greater opportunity to make more money, have a better work/life balance, and pick where you want to live. If you need some inspiration, check out the legionnaires — people with degrees in classics who decided to pursue other careers. You can also stay in the field, but be clever about it. You might get a tenure-track job, but if you don’t, how will you make ends meet and having a fulfilling life and career? Will you tutor? Write on the side? Have a part-time job doing something else and a part-time job teaching at a university or community college? Be creative. Be entrepreneurial. Decide what is right for you and your life.
