Empathizing with adjuncts

During my final years as a PhD student, when most people in my cohort were applying for academic jobs, I wasn’t on the market. It was hard enough to focus on my dissertation, and I really wanted it done. I wasn’t in love with academia anymore, was doing occasional freelance work, and had savings in my bank account, a result of good scholarships and cheap living. Financially, I could afford to put off job applications. I felt some shame about this, but I didn’t hang out in my department and spent little time on campus, thus managing to avoid job market conversations. I figured that I’d start the hunt for tenure-track employment later.

Well, later never came. I handed in the final draft of my dissertation in the fall of 2011, and the entire finishing process, before and after, was hugely emotionally draining. My supervisors were supportive and my defence went well. But on the whole the process was exhausting and unpleasant (and not anyone’s fault, per se).

My saving grace, in addition to actual savings, was my freelance work. My clients liked me and that was the obvious next step for me. Really, it wasn’t a next step: I was already doing it, and carried on doing it past my defence, final submission, and graduation this past summer.

As I think back on my experiences, I realize that my transition got going in earnest only about the time I started this blog: in mid-December 2012. Even though I’d handed in my dissertation 10 months earlier, my life was little different than it had been in years past. My decision to fire myself (as I put it) from my main freelance client was a significant moment for me, much more important than my dissertation defence and even my graduation, which was a happy day. By quitting I was finally straying from the obvious path. It was a risk but a necessary one if I was to move forward.

These things are on my mind this week because of media coverage of and commentary on the adjuncting crisis in the US, Canada, and elsewhere. I was never an adjunct; I was never in “sessional hell,” to use a common phrase this side of the border. But I can relate, and not just because I have friends who are. I was, like some adjuncts, in a low-pay, low-reward, low-prestige job. I was in it because it was the obvious place for me to be, post-PhD. It seemed the only place for me to be, given my lack of academic credentials—no publications, no instructor experience—and my lack of “real world” experience—I never had a full-time job, having been in school since I was 4 years old. To me, this is why some PhDs opt to adjunct: they need employment and they believe their options are limited.

I got out of my less-than-ideal situation (for me, by then) because I took a leap of faith in myself and, crucially, I could do it without an immediate risk of racking up crippling credit card debt, or worse. Many PhDs and other “indentured servants” working in academia are less lucky. Even if they somehow believed that their skills, talents, and experiences might open many wonderful doors beyond the ivory tower, changing careers is a major undertaking, requiring a significant investment of time, energy, and money. What’s a poor doctor to do?

I have deep empathy for adjuncts and I want to do what I can to help out. If my own optimism about and enthusiasm for our futures rubs off . . . if the Q & A series shows how many options there are for smart, creative, motivated people . . . if my honesty about my own experiences helps people feel less alone . . . I don’t know. This is hard stuff.