One phone call....And my life will now be radically different forever...

[Coventina]

Yesterday at about 5 pm, I received a phone call from the HR department of the college for which I have been an adjunct professor for over 8 years.

It was to inform me that I am their preferred candidate for their open full-time, tenure track position.
If I pass the upcoming background check (I'm pretty sure I will as I have no criminal record) they will make me an official job offer.

Full-time. Benefits. Tenure.

It's the holy grail. Well, maybe that would be an endowed chair, but it's pretty damn close.

After working for nearly a decade at starvation wages with NO benefits, it's kind of hard to wrap my head around it.

And, I'm left with a strange sort of ambivalence.
You see, I've been up for full-time positions before. I've even been a finalist before.

The truth is, there are far, far more qualified teachers than there are openings. The horror stories you read in the press about being an adjunct? They are all true.

Am I qualified? I believe so. I also know virtually all of the others who interviewed for this position are just as equally qualified. I have no idea why I was chosen over them. Basically, I've won the lottery. But, I am very acquainted with losing it, and I hurt for my friends and colleagues who will smile for me through their tears and wonder if their time will ever come.

For most of us, it doesn't. We continue as disposable part-timers with crippling debt and bleak futures, hoping to someday win the lottery that I just won.

Whenever anybody says that the US values education and/or teachers, they are either lying, or vastly mis-informed.

I will spend my career as a full-timer fighting to make things better. I will never forget my years as an adjunct.
Every day, I will remember that they are me.

on edit: new professor make grammatical error!

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Congratulations!

[cleanhippie]

2. Congrats, but if there are other equally qualified candidates looking for the same job...

I hope that you were not required to demonstrate that you understand the difference in usage of there and their.





Just kidding around with you! Congrats.

[Coventina]

3. Hahaha! I know I saw that and was dutifully mortified!!!

[cleanhippie]

5. It happens to us all!

[JDPriestly]

75. There is a difference between a grammar error and a typo.

We type fast on the internet. We make lots of errors. Don't let the pedants get you down.

[central scrutinizer]

7. another grammar cop here

"others that interviewed" should be "others who interviewed" who is preferred over that when referring to people.

[cleanhippie]

9. As I stated above, it happens to us all.

[Coventina]

10. Thanks. I've corrected it.

And, let me reassure you, I take more care in writing professionally than I do on DU.

[TexasProgresive]

14. Well it depends on your field of study

Last edited Fri May 23, 2014, 04:40 PM - Edit history (1)

If you are in Engineering you write quite well even with the odd (or even in this case) faux pas.

Congratulations and never forget who you are and where you came from.

[WoodyD]

73. So true

I work with a programmer who is very good at programming but terrible at spelling. I once asked him, "Don't you have spell your code correctly?" He said it didn't matter if he spelled things wrong, as long as he spelled them wrong the same way every time.

[TexasProgresive]

74. Long ago I worked with EEs that had horrible handwriting

We would make sheets up which were entered into the wire wrap machine. After getting boards back that had numerous antennas, wires connect on 1 pin but not the other we techs made a decision. We changed signal names so there were no 5s or Os. So STOP was a common name became ST0P Os became zeros 5s became Ss. As the coder remarked it didn't matter as long as it was consistent. The names were just addresses that told the machine were to go.

[woo me with science]

4. What a beautiful post.

Congratulations, and thank you for not forgetting, or stopping.

[misterhighwasted]

6. Best of Luck to you. All you have learned & experienced living the many years on

starvation wages have made you wiser & thus far more suited for this position at this point in your life, than perhaps at any time before. Take that accumulation of knowledge & who you have become and carry that Holy Grail up high.

You are now far wiser for your troubles. Now you are a master.
See?
Wish you a positive phone call & a well deserved journey from here on.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. That is wonderful!

I wish you the very best outcome! Please do let us know, whichever way it goes...

This sentence really touched me: Every day, I will remember that they are me.

I know you will...

[riqster]

11. If more people came up through the ranks as you have,

it's likely that those still in the ranks would be treated better. Good on you, and congrats!

[Le Taz Hot]

12. Congratulations to you!

[WillyT]

13. Huge K & R !!!

[Snotcicles]

15. I hope your sense of luck doesn't bitter this just reward. nt

[adirondacker]

16. Congratulations!!! Great to see someone with insight and foresight get this position.

Teach em good!

[Helen Borg]

17. Congrats!

When will you be up for tenure? That would be the last step to job security.

[Coventina]

31. I believe it is a three year process, but I'm not sure.

Plus, there are forces trying to eliminate it, so who knows if I will ever get it?

I never studied the benefits too closely, as I never wanted to get my hopes up too high.

[Helen Borg]

46. You need to find out the exact rules for tenure

At your place. Criteria etc. talk to people who got tenure recently there as well. It won't just "happen", you need a deliberate strategy. My 2 c.

[central scrutinizer]

45. rule of thumb for gaining tenure

Stack up your published articles - when that stack is as high as you are tall, tenure is awarded. (I heard this from a professor friend, who has tenure)

[LibDemAlways]

18. Congratulations on a hard won, long overdue

achievement!

I am a substitute teacher (K-12) and know all about low pay, lack of benefits, and the lack of respect that comes with being a part-timer at any level of the education establishment. So sorry you had to endure years of stress over this, and genuinely happy for you that better days are ahead.

Best of luck as you move forward!

[FreepFryer]

19. Marvelous! Just remember where you came from! You didn't win the lottery, you persevered...

'winning the lottery' implies it had nothing to do with you - and it had everything to do with you!

Glad you had the tenacity and self-esteem to stick to it.

[malaise]

20. Congrats

Remember now you will still have to publish or perish

[Coventina]

34. Community college, my friend!

While there will be expectations of professional development (which only makes sense), the emphasis will be on teaching.

Although, I was offered a publishing contract for my thesis. Now that I have a "real" job, I might finally take the publisher up on it.
Before, I was just too busy trying to make ends meet.
(The publishing contract would have cost me more in time to prepare the manuscript than it would have paid me.)

[malaise]

35. Now that's cool

Enjoy!

[Demeter]

21. Have faith in yourself

and keep a gimlet eye on the System.

[freshwest]

22. The threads of the trials of higher education workers was brought up to me the other day at a store.

Last edited Fri May 23, 2014, 01:25 PM - Edit history (1)

A customer was loading their vehicle outside the front doors with grocery and other purchases with the back door of their SUV open. The radio station was blaring at full volume. It was as if it was public event, I wasn't quite sure what was going on for a minute there.

It was a local call-in show, and the RW demagogue was doing the folksy Rush or Beck routine. His target that morning was our biggest state university where most of our state's brain trust issues forth to do engineering, medicine, law and research.

He claimed that the group you were in were making $100,000 a year. That they were not full professors. And that there were three hundred or more (costing $30M a year) and the callers came on the line talking about the struggles of paying tuition and housing for their kids and going into debt to be at that university. That tone in his voice as he led them to his conclusions with no opposition, just shock at dismay at this unsourced report of what they were being robbed, was utterly sickening.

It went on and on as I listened (as I said, there was no way not to hear it) while loading my own vehicle with my purchases. Not much to load, but I am in constant pain and things take time. So I got an earful.

It's part of the push since the 1980's to destroy ALL public education, from pre-school to post-graduate institutions. The CTers say higher learning places are being employed to train technocrats to harm them, that the doctors can't be trusted, etc. Libertarians don't want to pay for that 'enlightened' society they claim to be advocating. The fundamentalists say all public education is the elite's way to convert kids into gay socialist atheists.

I hope you are rewarded along with your peers with the respect and dignity your years of applying yourself to your profession deserve. We need more good educators, not more of the Idiocrats.

[Coventina]

36. The ignorance is astounding.

Faculty positions (unless you are a REALLY top name at a top university) virtually NEVER pay anywhere NEAR $100,000 a year.

I will be starting at or around $44,000 with only very small raises, and that's if I'm lucky. Of course, that's more than double what adjuncts make, plus benefits.

People who think teaching is such a lucrative field need to come and join us, before shooting their mouths off.

[Enthusiast]

48. Shooting their mouths off is the job.

Anything to contribute to the mountain of misinformation.

Congratulations, Coventina! I wish you the best.

[tomg]

23. Congratulation with all my heart.

I was also a part-timer who finally made it to tenure ( in my case after 15 years and only because the actual choice had bogus credentials). Twenty five years later, I am getting ready to retire. After your wonderful news, this is the most heartening thing to here:

"I will spend my career as a full-timer fighting to make things better. I will never forget my years as an adjunct.
Every day, I will remember that they are me."

Always fight the good fight. Too many of your new colleagues will have never known what you have experienced or what your brothers and sisters in the contingent ranks go through every day. Good luck.

[Octafish]

24. Good luck!

Keep up the good fight, Coventina!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

25. big hugs and congratulations to you!!!

[CK_John]

26. Tenure and pensions are target 1 for the next GOP state and national groups. Keep your own

retirement saving and your resume updated. Security is the enemy of the 1%.

[Coventina]

39. Don't I know it!!

Our local "newspaper" and Republican party has waged constant war against public employees benefits and pensions.
And, tenure is also in their cross-hairs.

[tofuandbeer]

27. Woo hoo!

[Jack Rabbit]

28. Congratulation, Ma'am

[Gidney N Cloyd]

29. Good luck and just beware the creeping affliction of 'Faculty-itis.'

I've seen too many normal people go from adjunct or staff to a full-time faculty gig and, especially once tenure kicks in, forget their humbler beginnings. Thankfully some are more firmly grounded.

[Coventina]

42. I was raised in pretty extreme poverty, and have never forgotten a moment of it.

I think that does really profoundly mold a person.
Even though my siblings and I are all in better places now, we share many traits from our upbringing.

As I told my sister once, "You can take the girl out of poverty, but you can't take the poverty out of the girl."

And, I don't really think that's such a bad thing.

No, I've been incredibly fortunate, and I've never, ever forgotten that.
And, having a social safety net was a big part of it.

I will always, ALWAYS advocate more and better social support systems.
I'm living proof that they can work.

[Mz Pip]

30. Wish you the best!

You've earned it!

[Hoppy]

32. I wish you a fulfilling career

[n2doc]

33. Good Luck- And watch out for those Tenure requirements

Be really on top of what they expect, what people have done to get Tenure and also to be rejected, and be prepared to keep on the good side of those above you, even if it pisses you off. Tenure decisions are really subjective at most places.

[Coventina]

43. Thanks! Very much appreciated!

I will look for a mentor to advise me.

I do not want to screw this up!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

37. ***SHE GOT THE JOB!***

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018620164

[daleanime]

41. Sweet!

[aikoaiko]

38. Welcome to the tenure-track ranks.

Now go earn tenure.

I look forward to your OP about becoming a tenured, associate professor.

Wait until then to be an outspoken advocate for adjuncts.

[KamaAina]

40. What school is this? What do you teach?

I've been thinking about going back to grad school.

[Coventina]

44. The best advice I ever heard on the subject

came from a newly minted tenure-track professor when I was in grad school.

He said, with the greatest emphasis, to NEVER EVER go to grad school for either an MA or Ph.D unless you were 100% sure that getting the degree was the only way to do what you absolutely HAD to do.

Well, I knew that I absolutely HAD to teach art history at the college level, so a Master of Arts was the bare minimum. I had been mulling the Ph.D. but decided that the MA would be sufficient, as I felt I would be happier at the Community College level.

It was the right choice for me, although I spent MANY YEARS wondering if getting the degree had not just been a waste of time, money, and effort.

But, every time I stepped into the classroom, those doubts disappeared. They would quickly reappear every time a bill came in the mail, though.

It's a big decision, and only you know the truth of your heart.

[1StrongBlackMan]

49. I recently had a similar conversation with a college buddy ...

his son graduated under-grad with a 4.0 and Summa. He has worked the last 4 years in Business (banking) and is now, considering grad school. He's flipping between pursuing a MBA or a PhD.

My advance was simple: Get the PhD, only if he plans to teach at the college/university level; otherwise, get the MBA.

[Coventina]

50. I would concur.

The Ph.D. is a very big commitment (there's a reason why it's called a "terminal degree" har, har).
If it's not absolutely necessary, getting one is a waste of time, money, and sweat.

[1StrongBlackMan]

55. I have considered going back for my PhD ...

In fact, I think about it on the 15th of every month.

I work for a University and could attend for almost nothing (but time and tears). But after 10 minutes of thought, I realize I'd be doing it for the wrong reason ... to put my $50k in MPA student loans on hold!

[Number23]

80. That is excellent advice. When I was in grad school, I was simply astounded by the number of 22 & 24

year olds that were there in other programs or the same as mine.

I'd ask all of them the same question, "why aren't you working?" and the answer was always the same, "well, I went to Stanford/Brown/other elite school undergad and I'm not sure what I want to do so I thought I'd go to this elite school too and then doors will open for me." I don't know how many I almost brought to tears by telling them that if I had to choose between somebody with all this education vs. somebody with five or even three years of experience, I'd probably go with experience every day of the week.

But even the ones that were the most furious with me, by the time it was graduation time, all came to find me and tell me that I was absolutely right and that even with all of their education, they were being passed over by people with experience.

This is an amazing thread you've posted. I wish you the best of luck and I hope that you are able to enjoy your success, and understand that you deserve it while still feeling compassion for those who are still in need.

[shanti]

47. Congrats on your promotion!

I know what it's like to get a promotion that feels like it was dropped in your lap after waiting so long. Give thanks every day!

[Dustlawyer]

51. Happy for you and I know you truly deserve it because

you still care about others. Too many say, I got mine, you get yours!"

[catbyte]

52. CONGRATULATIONS! I work at a university, so I know just how difficult that leap

from adjunct to tenure track is. It's almost impossible to accomplish that here in Michigan these days, what with Rick "The Dictator" Snyder & the bagger legislature slashing education & social programs in order to give $$$$$ to their corporate buddies.

I'm so happy for you!

[benld74]

53. Good Luck

[snooper2]

54. So now you get paid for all the work you did the last 8 years

and get to sit back and watch the flowers grow outside


That's what I have read here, the adjuncts do all the real work then the tenured guys get to hang out

[Arugula Latte]

56. Happy happy!

[YoungDemCA]

57. Congratulations!

nt

[mstinamotorcity2]

58. Congrats!!

We love Teachers!!! Its those who want to control what we learn that hates teachers. they want a dumb down America!! In my book Teachers

[Overseas]

59. Congratulations! K&R!

[Sancho]

60. That's great news!

I've been there, so I can empathize. You must have done a good job as an adjunct!

[Stuart G]

61. k and r. no text

[closeupready]

62. I'm happy for you, congratulations!

K&R

[Botany]

63. From now on we expect smart and good righting from ya.

BTW what do you teach?

[Coventina]

65. Art history!

[Generic Other]

64. It is your turn to be recognized

It is hard not to feel as you do about all the others you competed against for the position. But you are no doubt selling yourself short. Your prior service and value to the institution must have been weighed. No guilt! Just remember to help your adjunct colleagues where you can. Congrats!

[LongTomH]

66. Congratulations and Good Luck in your new position.

And keep up the good fight!

[indepat]

67. Kudos!

May my daughter be as fortunate.

[JimDandy]

68. So glad for you. n/t

[Chan790]

69. Congrats! This brings me to a question though, one I've pondered before.

Why don't more adjunct professors seek and take positions in non-college education?

I went to prep school as I've mentioned before...my mother served first on our board of trustees and later on the Archdiocesan school board. That's the source of this question...I know factually that in assessing new hires, the QP (qualitative points¹) bonus given to Ph.D-holders is just about insurmountable unless they are disqualified for non-qualitative reasons²--basically they have a direct path to a salaried job with benefits if they apply to teach in many preparatory and private schools. You'd think we'd have many such applicants and yet we get almost none...and we pay better than many associate professorships. Never understood why; can you shed light on that--is there a reason they don't apply or are they unaware of the opportunity?

____________________________________________________________

1: How hiring-candidates are rated by many prep-schools in order to produce a clear numerical score for comparison of applicants, basically a way to mitigate subjective differences (such as different interviewers for the same opening) out of the process: usually something like 1 point for baccalaureate education, 4 pts. for masters, 8 pts. for doctorate, 1 pt for every 5 years of previous classroom experience, several more criteria including publication and awards. The full QP scoresheet runs two pages.

2: arrest record, espoused views anathema to those of the school, previous misconduct, suspicion of pedophilia, exceptionally poor interview, resume lies, poor references, etc.

[Coventina]

70. The answer probably varies for different people.

For me, I knew that I wanted to teach adults.

I am not good with children nor teenagers.
Well, I can handle mature teenagers, but 13 or 14 year olds? Not so much.
As Dirty Harry said, "A man's gotta know his limitations."
(Or in this case, a woman).

Also, I do not have a Ph.D., just an M.A. I don't know what difference that makes to an institution such as you describe.

Finally, also for me, I want the freedom that comes with teaching at the college level. I don't want to have to deal with angry parents coming in and badgering me about what I teach and how I choose to teach it.

As far as others in my situation, I don't know. I cannot speak for them.

[Chan790]

71. Thanks.

It's just one of those things that never made sense to me.

I couldn't see me teaching kids either, I could barely stand me in high school.

[Beacool]

72. Congratulations!!!!

It's good to hear these kind of stories in tough times. It gives people hope.


Good luck!!!!

[Starry Messenger]

76. Congrats!

I've been an adjunct for eight years, working in a high school, best of both worlds, I always say. I salute your arrival to the outside of this particular struggle.

[Ilsa]

77. Awesome! !! I hope they offer it!

I bet your life will be a lot easier for you with so many financial issues finally covered.

A friend told me she is moving from middle school teaching to high school. She wants that age experience so she and her retired-military husband can move back to Europe where she'll teach. She said anywhere in Europe. She can't wait to be an expat.

[DFW]

78. Wait until it's confirmed, and then

Go out and celebrate like hell!!!!

(Says the guy who has worked for the same outfit for 39 years straight, and has never once signed, or been asked to sign, a work contract).

[eridani]

79. Typical of DU--you push for better conditions for all adjuncts while--

--celebrating your own success. Good for you, and congratulations.

[malthaussen]

81. Oh, fantastic!

I know so many adjuncts, it's great to have one of them finally get tenure. Big congratulations!

-- Mal

[DeSwiss]

82. K&R!

[center]

CONGRATULATIONS!!![/center]

[IronLionZion]

83. Congrats!

[SammyWinstonJack]

84. rec!

[QED]

85. Congratulations!

Best wishes in your new role, Professor Coventina!

[Hekate]

86. Congrats!!! Stay involved in the union after you get your new title....

...so you can advocate for those left behind. At the community college my husband retired from there are full-timers who bitch about how the union is becoming bent around the adjuncts because they can vote and they DO. Hubby and I agree that the adjuncts need to do whatever they can to try to gain security and justice, and it's a damn shame that some people simply can't see that because they've got theirs it's not a sign of divine displeasure that others don't.

All the very best to you -- May you make it to the prez's office and receive the divine handshake or whatever ASAP -- I say this knowing you have trodden this path before.

[DesertDiamond]

87. Congratulations, Coventina!!! I am so happy for you! And sending my prayers for better times ahead

for your coworkers as well!!

[DesertDiamond]

88. I also want to commend your beautiful heart! Naturally your first thought was your own good fortune

but your very next thought was clearly the wish for your coworkers to have the same fortune. Me too!

[raccoon]

89. Congratulations! I had a similar experience.

Worked at a state agency about 10 years, part-time, no benes.

Finally got full-time employment.

[greatlaurel]

90. Congratulations!

This is wonderful news.

[PotatoChip]

91. This is wonderful news!

I am truly happy for you. 8 years of struggle has definitely paid off. You deserve this break, and hopefully someday your colleagues will get their breakthrough too.

Congratulations!

[spanone]

92. k&r...

[msanthrope]

93. Congratulations!! nt