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Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth—

Sherlock Holmes

These are the pieces of the puzzle. On July 21, I receive an invitation from thechair of the

interview committee for English adjunct faculty

. I attend this interviewat the Rio Grande campus on Friday 24 July. No further communication followsuntil 8 Aug. when I get an announcement of a Div. of Communications meeting,19 Aug. 6 pm

[HBC 201]

with RSVP to Kathy Judge. I reply. On 11 Aug. I get an e-mail from Judge:

Hello Dennis,I thought I answered you

[i.e. my RSVP],

but then I found an e-mail in my draft file, so I apologize if this is the first you’ve heard from me.

….….

… I’m sure there will be handouts & other information brought up to our meeting. We’ll makesure you get some information.

On 14 August I send:

….

I have not been contacted regarding any assignments or the timings of any classes. Maybethe meeting will provide some information regarding such. For now, I have no indications of such a connection

The reply:

At the meeting you will meet Sue Bloodsworth, the Administrative Assistant to Judy Sanders,Department Chair. She will be the one to talk to about getting class, as she does the staffingof the adjunct faculty.

….

Another element in the mix:

[Aug. 6 ]

Hello Dennis:I really appreciate you acceptance your acceptance of the hiring committee’s invitation tointerview with us. Your interview will be August 13

from 2:00 to 3:00 pm at the CypressCampus in room #1107.

….

Please be prepared to do a ten minute presentation on the present perfect verb tense.

….

Raul W. CantuAssistant Professor English for Speakers of Other Languages

I attend the interview. Returning to my car, I find I've put the room's boardmarker in my pocket. I am thinking Biff in Death of a Salesman. I return themarker. No response to an application has long been SOP. Even no reply for that job-fair kind of thing at Rio Grande might be expected. Granted, timings for ESLare likely difficult for me, which I, mention to the committee but that nothingfollows Cyrpress seems odd considering the expenditures. In context, it will turnout to fit..1

On the route back I stop at COSCO. Two more cases of beer… cheaper than rehab I say. In 2008 there were over $80,000 in medical bills for one of mydaughters. These included 10 EMS calls in Austin; one in Vail; 3 or so inColorado Springs, where I taught 4 sections of composition for a term. None of these bills will ever be paid. Is this a great country, or what?

[The relevance of this willeventually emerge. Trust me.]

On 19 Aug. I go to the Highland Business Center and find it is an ACC

campus

. What looting of public funds to save some failing commercial venturebegot this monstrosity? Aside from central location, any attention to design of aneducational facility is coincidental. There is ample parking. A vehicle pulls out andI get convenient spaceThe obstacles in taking a teaching assignment had been mounting. Thereis my line job which is unpredictable with regard to days worked. Once it is set,which it is now into October, it is too late to coordinate with teaching hours. Theresult is the earliest I can teach is around 4:30. The one endeavor is stable andfairly compensated on an hourly basis. Adjunct-ness comparatively is a joke.There would be a certain loss of income trying to accommodate earlier classes or days of the week, as this would eliminate my availability for any given lineassignment. Additionally, of the four campuses I have been to, only Rio Grandeand Stasney Lane are fairly convenient. Cypress is out of the question andgetting to HBC along I-35 in late afternoon or early evening is hardly less so.The game seems not worth the candle. Still, the discipline has its charm;and despite forty years of practice has not suffered

burn-out

. Opportunity andmotive for such, as shall be shown, were sorely wantingThere is a proverb that one can have the right to the work but no right tothe fruit of the labor. Adjunct is such a no-benefit scheme that, all costsconsidered, even the pay hardly matters. There are, of course, reasons to teachbeyond profit and loss analysis. If useless pursuits did not have rewards, no onewould engage in them. A discipline--like knowledge--may have dreamily its ownreward.In September, 1977, College English printed my article

CompositionTeachers: A Reniggering

. It was cited a few places and now merely signifies thatdevaluation began long ago. All that's memorable is the conceit that comparesteaching composition to another area of exploitation: There is a quote from LetUs Now Praise Famous Men.

…

and it is among all these the one of which the tenant can hopefor least, and can be surest that he is being cheated, and is alwaysto be cheated

….

[288]

Affliction came both from without and within. Administratively, for bean-counting,adjuncts were interchangeable and disposable. More serious and also self-inflicted was the de-skilling and corruption of the disciple by the ideological wrathof retribution. In a few places, solidarity reinstated itself and the blowback to thepathology of an administration devoted entirely to itself was organizing and unionrepresentations. Mostly, present company included, the disenchantment was2

complete. What more could be expected? There is a faculty of judgment, Kantsays, the want of which is ordinarily called stupidity, and for which there is noremedy.I entered HBC and wandered around. Signs on classroom doors said notto move furniture. I joined a line that had formed along a corridor. About 6:15 theline began to move to a point where there was a stack of deli cartons. Thechecker said my name was not listed. I could see the names and pointed tomine. I was issued a “veggie wrap” box and got a diet Dr. Pepper. Inside themeeting room were long tables strewn with plastic bags, pens and boxes of paper clips, presumably for the taking. More useful door prize items werecollected on a side table. I put my entry ticket in the cup for the wind-up MinnieMouse dildo.There was a Power-Point image projected on to a screen at the front of the room.It made no impression beyond some splotches of color. Most of those attendingwere women, the ratio was about 8 to 2. This seemed to me high even in a fieldthat has been long dominated by women or depending on your view one in whichthey were easily exploited by their own complicity. Perhaps all equality hadachieved was to open up more opportunities for the exploited to move to theexploiter class.

Divorced women with children

, I had said at an adjunct interestsection meeting, CCCC, 1988, Seattle. After the meeting I had the elevator tomyself back to the exhibition hall. Now it looked like divorced matrons with grownchildren. Would they be less resentful, less troubling the air whining aboutingratitude, sharper than a serpent's tooth?You have destroyed a discipline You have contaminated students with your insufferable mewing, enabling them to launch their interminable

consumer

complaints. Unwilling to face the reality of class-warfare and the real enemy of the power elite, you would rather slap allies with the rotting hand of ideology. Youhave rolled-over, pissed all over yourself to please administrators, who interestsare entirely self-interest enabled by a business model of education that isexecrable; a consumer

[i.e., student]

fraud; a gross betrayal of public interest. Insum,

a boot smashing the face

as Orwell puts it; updated to a

vampire squid …relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money

[MattTaibbi]

That’s the state of education, especially this state, which if it withdrew fromthe union would significantly raise the average intelligence of the remainder. After 16 plague years of George Bush, his gangster minions and their stateapparatuses of torture and murder, any claim that since then there’s been achance to improve is ludicrous. You lukewarm delusionists, lizard people withouthonor, cowards of the county; you of lip service and lick spittle, of up-markettrailer trash, outdoor-grilling, procreators of skateboards and PlayStations,cheese nibblers, wine sippers, Charlie Rose watchers--to paraphrase Weber …

this nullity

[that]

imagines that it has obtained a level of

…

never before achieved

… sophistication. [

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 181

]

of 00

FormAMorePerfectUnion

Punking Community College Administration: Insults & Injuries

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Tags:	composition adjunct Humanities community college grievances hiring and firing (more tags) composition adjunct Humanities community college grievances hiring and firing retribution corporatization of education (fewer)