1) This is a reminder thread on how to support your contingent-faculty colleagues at the start of the academic year. I write from the experience of having been contingent faculty for 3 years, and having been on the tenure track for 3 years.
2) The start of the year is a crucial time to reach out to your colleagues in contingent positions. New colleagues may have just uprooted for a short-term job, which can be overwhelming when starting to teach in a new place and preparing for the job market *while moving*.
3) You need to reach out and include them from the beginning, making clear that they are welcome and an indispensable part of the faculty. Give them the prerogative to accept or decline social requests. Don’t assume an answer for them and exclude them on that basis.
4) Those in subsequent years of a postdoc or VAP position—ie not new to the institution—have been working their asses off on the job market in addition to doing their actual jobs. So don’t forget them amid the sea of new faces. When I was a VAP...
5)...I had a series of interviews with high-profile institutions two years in a row, all of which amounted to zero offers. I was ashamed because I knew my TT colleagues knew I had those opportunities and yet was back as a VAP. When they made me feel included, I dropped the shame.
6) Offer your time to read materials and manuscripts for your non-TT colleagues. Don’t wait for them to ask. Offer first. No one in that position wants to feel like they’re imposing. Don’t be pushy, but be clear that offering your assistance in this way is not a problem.
7) Check in on your colleagues, especially at the beginning of the semester, and ask if there’s anything they need to do their best work that they’re not getting. Use your institutional advantage to try to get them what they need. VAP me did not want to rock the boat.
8) Particularly for new colleagues, help advertise their courses. Particularly for semester-to-semester adjunct faculty, if the courses don’t fill, they don’t get paid.
9) With students, speak of your continent faculty colleagues in terms that place them on equal ground with all other faculty. Reputation matters in a teaching-learning scenario. Let your colleague address in the classroom the injustices of academic labor on their terms...
10) ...I don’t mean elide or sweep under the rug the differences in working conditions. I mean be sensitive to the fact that contingent faculty are especially vulnerable if students see them as anything less than appropriately accomplished and deserving....
11) ...well-meaning TT colleagues will sometimes draw attention to contract differences to show their support for contingent faculty, but in ways that actually undermine the authority and standing of their non-TT colleagues in the eyes of students. Understand this is delicate.
12) If you’re putting together a symposium or event or dinner, etc., make sure it’s not all TT colleagues. Again, the idea is offer the opportunity to contingent colleagues, but don’t be pushy.
That’s all I have. Nothing too insightful, just simple reminders. /end
That’s all I have. Nothing too insightful, just simple reminders. /end
