The Plight of the Adjunct

I love my job.  I LOVE my job.  I'm an adjunct instructor for two different schools.  I also have a third job of substitute teaching.  I have three jobs because being an adjunct instructor means that you are only allowed to teach 2-3 classes per semester.  Full-time faculty teaches 5 classes per semester (4 for grad professors.)


I would love to teach full-time at either of the schools I work for- moreso the community college in my current city.  However, as any employed adjunct would tell you, getting a full-time gig is almost as likely as winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning.  In 2011, I got my first adjunct job at a very small community college and the dean that hired me specifically told me that the job didn't pay well and I wasn't likely to get full-time.

Why is full-time such an out-of-reach option: because the schools don't want to pay benefits.  Most states have laws about teaching and even specifically at the post-secondary level.  Adjuncts are not allowed to teach more than 5 classes in an academic year and that can only be 2 fall, 3 spring, or 3 fall and 2 spring.  (Summer doesn't count for some reason, but those classes are always snagged by full-timers.)  If the school wants an adjunct to work more than that, they have to hire them full-time... and pay benefits.  So if you understand economics, it is more lucrative to have 80 adjuncts and 5 full-time than 20 full-time.  And those numbers are pretty accurate.  At the college I work for, full-time openings only happen when someone retires.  No one gets fired, no matter how much students complain or how poor their performance is.  When that person retires, an internal transfer notice is posted.  If no one takes it, the opening goes public.  That's when the school gets inundated with applications from all those people with PhDs and Masters in subjects other than business.  People whose "fall back" option is to teach because the jobs they want don't exist. 

I have worked with my current community college for five years.  In that time, there's been one opening for full-time in the subject I teach.  I applied (and nailed that application IMO) and received an email a month later saying that they had "more qualified" applicants.  Wait, what?  What makes them more qualified?  I already teach for you!  My friend, a fellow adjunct with the same plights, made this analogy:  telling you that you're good enough to teach for them, just not full-time is like telling someone they're good enough to sleep with, but not marry.  It stings just the same!  Both scenarios equate us to cows giving away our milk for free.

Another friend of mine went to City College in San Francisco.  She said that one of her favorite professors was an adjunct.  The professor had a PhD that was bankrolled by NASA.  She couldn't get hired on full-time and because she needed benefits, she eventually had to leave the school and find work elsewhere.  How is THAT woman not qualified enough for full-time??  It seems like she'd be someone that the school could highlight as a selling point.  I ain't got no fancy NASA edumacation, but I have great rapport with students, love what I do, have enthusiasm in the subjects I teach, and get like 99% positive feedback from students (you can't please everyone all the time)!  I actually went to school with the intention of being a community college instructor!  It's not a fall back career. 

Now I want to address the "plight" aspect of being an adjunct.  Based solely on being an adjunct for one school, a single person qualifies for government assistance.   In order to make a living, we have to teach at multiple schools at the same time or have another part-time job or two on the side.  There have been a couple excellent articles written about this same topic for decades.  One such was written in the NY Times in 2007.  I'd like to quote a response/opinion that someone wrote in for this article.  She said:

"In my experience, teaching college in New York City, 70 to 80 percent of professors teach on an adjunct basis — with no health care, retirement benefits or job security. I have taught six courses at three colleges in one semester. I have been scheduled to teach courses that were taken from me the night before a class was to begin, because a tenured faculty member’s class failed to fill. I have developed courses, only to see a tenured person teach my course" (Goldin 2007).

I absolutely feel her pain.  I have had classes taken away from me a week before the semester starts.  Last year I was offered my first summer class.  I have four kids, so had made arrangements for the younger two for those 8 weeks.  It was a lot of stress, but I wanted the income and to show my flexibility.  The WEEK before class started, they gave it to a full-time instructor because her class didn't meet minimum enrollment.  This has happened to me about four times in the past five years, but this was particularly frustrating because I had made childcare arrangements and was counting on the income during the summer months.

Lastly, I would like to mention something that I'm sure is less common amongst adjuncts and is very personal in nature (thankfully this blog is hip hop anonymous).  Two years ago I was sexually harassed by a student in one of my classes.  There were only three weeks left of the semester.  Without getting into details, he sent me a series of text messages over two days that made me extremely uncomfortable and were highly inappropriate.  I only shared these with my husband and a fellow adjunct (mentioned above).  They both thought I should turn the student in to SOMEONE.  I knew that it was completely unacceptable student conduct and that he deserved some type of consequence... but then reality sunk in.  I'm just an adjunct.  I'm replaceable by anyone with a pulse and the right diploma.  I don't even know my boss.  No one there has any personal connection to me.  What if the student is always right?  His tuition is probably worth more to them than someone that can be easily replaced by 100 other people.  So I didn't tell anyone.  I made it clear he wasn't allowed to speak to me about anything other than classwork.  I avoided being near him.  Since that class ended, I never stay in the classroom if there is only one person left.  I have seen that student in the hall once since and I jumped into the nearest bathroom and froze.  Thankfully, since most students are only there for two years, he won't be there this fall.  I shouldn't have to have "let it slide."  I shouldn't have to feel like I'm the bad person in this scenario... but that's how I feel.  As an adjunct, NO ONE CARES.

I LOVE my job.  I deserve to be treated better, but because I love my job, I have to suck it up and continue on the same path.  I am more fortunate than many of my coworkers because I'm married to someone that can put me on his health insurance- otherwise, I would have to give up on a job I love or spend half my income on my monthly doctor visits and prescriptions.  I am also fortunate that my kids are now old enough not to need childcare because they are all in school all day.  So who picks up the slack for adjuncts that want to teach for a living?  If you're single, the government can/will pick up the slack.  If you're not, hopefully you're lucky enough that your significant other can throw you a bone.  But hey, maybe one day I'll win the lottery and being a lowly adjunct won't be so hard.

If you'd like to read more on this topic, I've got two articles to share that are fantastic!
‘It keeps you nice and disposable’: The plight of adjunct professors
Decline of the Tenure Track Raises Concerns

The Lifetime Movie Formula

If you don't watch Lifetime movies, this post is going to interest you zero.

Recently Lifetime unveiled a cheerleader-themed batch of movies.  There were five.  Off the top of my head, I believe they were called Undercover Cheerleader, Identity Theft of a Cheerleader (Maiara Walsh is AMAZING), The Wrong Cheerleader and two others that I will look up at the end of this post*.  I watched three of these with my 13-year-old daughter as we bond over horror movies at the theater or ridiculous Lifetime movies at home.

ALL FIVE of these movies had these things in common:

1) They were about cheerleaders.
2) Each girl was new to a school after moving.
3) Each girl was being raised by a single mom (some were widows, some were divorced), and can we say daddy issues??
4) Being a cheerleader equated to instant popularity.

I think most of the girls ended up dating football players except one where the girl dated an older alumni guy... Cheerleader Escort, maybe?

Lifetime notoriously follows patterns with their movies.  I make fun of Hallmark movies that follow the same formula: successful woman moves back to her hometown to help out with something and ends up falling in love with a guy who she went to high school with.  I can't tolerate Hallmark movies.  The level of cheese and gag-worthiness is too much.

I think those fans probably feel the same about my dear Lifetime movies.  I once had the thought that people at the Lifetime headquarters have three bingo rolling machines.  The first machine contains adjectives.  The second machine contains nouns and the third machine contains a conflict.  Every month someone runs the bingo machines and they assemble the regular casts (shout out to Josie David, Leslie Hope, Gail O'Grady, Josie Bissett, and Ashley Scott) to crank out the next "psycho" or "wrong" or "killer" or "babysitter" or "dad" or "mommy" movie.

The upcoming string of movies actually has a unique spin as they were all "ripped from the headlines."  The only way I can convince my husband to watch Lifetime movies with me is if they are based on true events, so this is a big score for people like myself that are fascinated by kidnappings and "real" happenings.  I definitely will NOT be watching the College Scandal one because that's just dumb.

In closing, as a highly educated woman that finds romance to be gross and cliche, I have no idea why I am so drawn in by the idea of a man that is stalking his new neighbor and has a dead ex-girlfriend in his backyard... or a couple that moves to suburbia because their daughter got in trouble at her last high school and develops a relationship with an abusive jock.  I am captivated and my DVR will constantly be filled with these time-wasters.

*The last movie was The Secret Life of Cheerleaders- that memorable, huh?

The things they don't tell you about child support that you should know!

I decided to write this in blog form because I feel it will be easier to comprehend in writing.  So here is the back story: when I initially filed for divorce from my first husband, child support was calculated based on our incomes at the time.  I wanna say that I was getting like $181/mo for two kids.  Fast forward a couple years and my ex filed to have the support lowered based on an income of him not having a job.  In Iowa, the state minimum for two children is $48/month.  I *think* it's $35/month for one child.  For the past three years, I have been frustrated, thinking that it was yet another reason why our government was broken.  How is it fair that I work two jobs and pay for everything while he skates by with only being obligated to pay $48/month?? 

If you are a parent who has their kids full-time, you know they aren't cheap.  Child support is supposed to cover the necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, utilities.  Plus think about the extras: birthday party gifts, field trips, sports fees, club fees, school fundraisers, medicine, toiletries... the list goes on and on. 

And God forbid you complain about it on social media- I've heard every response in the book (mostly from men) about why I'm a horrible person for expecting a dad to help support his children financially.  But that's not what this post is about.  It isn't about who is right and who is wrong because I think that the majority of decent human beings know.  And this also isn't a post to bash on my ex.  I am writing this for women who thought they were getting screwed over because the biological dad didn't work (or worked under the table) and they had no choice but to accept getting nothing in child support.

THE GOOD NEWS:  So for three years I stewed about this.  I tweeted law-makers and complained on FB posts.  I vented on social media.  Then about six months ago I decided to start doing some research.  I found the child support laws for Iowa.  It was updated in January of 2018, so I don't know how far back this section goes, but I came across this:

Rule 9.11 Variance from guidelines. The court shall not vary from the amount of child support that would result from application of the guidelines without a written finding that the guidelines would be unjust or inappropriate as determined under the following criteria: 
9.11(1) Substantial injustice would result to the payor, payee, or child(ren). 
9.11(2) Adjustments are necessary to provide for the needs of the child(ren) or to do justice between the parties, payor, or payee under the special circumstances of the case. 
9.11(3) Circumstances contemplated in Iowa Code section 234.39. 
9.11(4) The court may impute income in appropriate cases subject to the requirements of rule 9.5. If the court finds that a parent is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed without just cause, child support may be calculated based on a determination of earning capacity. A determination of earning capacity may be made by determining employment potential and probable earnings level based on work history, occupational qualifications, prevailing job opportunities, earning levels in the community, and other relevant factors. The court shall not use earning capacity rather than actual earnings or otherwise impute income unless a written determination is made that, if actual earnings were used, substantial injustice would occur or adjustments would be necessary to provide for the needs of the child(ren) or to do justice between the parties.

Now that I had this information, what do I do with it?  I went to the Child Support Recovery Unit website (in your state it would be whomever is responsible for collection and distributing payments.)  I filed for a review since it had been more than the required two years.  Of course their review came back as no change because he still had no income.  I felt a bit disheartened, but when you receive your report, it says that you can request in writing a court hearing for review if you disagree with the findings.  You have to send back a letter stating that you want a review and why.  I wrote that my reasoning for why was based on the above court rules for variance from guidelines.  I was still a bit worried that it was a pointless venture, but I commented on a local FB mom support group asking if anyone had gone to court over child support and what the outcome was.  I got soooo many responses from moms in the same position I was in, but only one response from someone who had actually gone.  Her ex had taken HER to court for a reduction because she was voluntarily unemployed so she could be a SAHM.  The court imputed earnings on her based on her prior work experience and education.  This was not good news for her, but good news for me if that was going to be how it went for me.

Fast forward to the court hearing.  I had all my necessary documents, pages of notes, print-outs, everything I thought I would need to plead my case.  I didn't use any of it.  We sat down with a public attorney for the state who had all our information on record.  She presented what she thought would be fair based on his "earning potential" at the time, based on an income of $24,500 a year with me making more on my end.  The total amount of monthly support for two children based on that income was $522!  However, her job is to try and get it so that you don't have to go in front of a judge.  In order for that to happen, the two parties must agree to an amount.  Of course my ex was opposed to that amount and he tried to argue HIS side about why he shouldn't have to pay that much.  The lawyer made it clear that the judge would impute earnings on him whether he had a job or not and that it was likely the judge would impute a similar amount.  So after a couple hours of listening to him argue, we settled on a lesser amount.  I won't give the amount, but it was a lot more than $48/month and even more than the original $181/month in our divorce decree.

Justice was served... for me anyway.  Now it is your turn to try and get what you and your children deserve.  If you find yourself in the same position I was in, do not just accept it.  Iowa is definitely not leading the way for anything when it comes to fair laws, so unless you live in an even shittier state, I'm sure the law is on your side.  It just takes a bit of digging and some paperwork.  If you have any questions or need help, please contact me!  aborderlinemom@gmail.com  You deserve what is fair.