Thread by @RadioFreeTom

This article has been making the rounds every few weeks, and I think it's misleading. The adjunct system is terrible in every way. But this isn't a good case for that argument. Bad career choices, maybe. But adjuncting was at the end, not the beginning. /1
theatlantic.com/education/arch…

And because this woman has passed away, I'm sure I'm going to get the usual claims of lack of empathy. Her story is a sad one. But this story is also full of career red flags, and if anything, it seems like her career was afloat longer than it should have been. /2

I've been on both sides of this situation; denied tenure, working on contracts, and later tenured. There is a time to tell someone that it's time to try a different line of work. That didn't happen here, and maybe that was part of the problem. /3

I was in that dilemma at least three times, and had senior mentors who said: "If this (application, interview, grant, etc) doesn't work out, it might be time to pack it in." I was grateful to have people speak to me with brutal honesty, even if I didn't like it. The point... /4

...is that in a world now *glutted* with PhDs, and PhD programs showing no sense of mercy to stop over-producing, those conversations could save a lot of people from a life of misery. Not sure if that happened in this case; maybe it should have. /5x