A Love Letter to Adjunct Faculty & An Invitation to Meet at #AWP23
January 31, 2023
When it came time to defend my thesis as an MFA candidate, I asked one of my favorite professors if she would do me the honor of sitting on my thesis committee. She enthusiastically agreed, but a few weeks before my defense date, the administration sent an email informing me that as an adjunct, she was not really part of the faculty and that she would have to sign a form granting her temporary faculty status in order to form a legitimate part of the committee.
I was baffled. She had instructed at least one of my courses per semester throughout my degree. How could they treat her like an outsider? It was embarrassing to ask her to sign what I considered a humiliating document, but she didn’t bat an eye. She signed it and supported me to the end.
Only later, when I was working as an adjunct myself, did it occur to me that serving on my committee also meant she was volunteering her time. She did what good teachers often do—she put the student first, even if it meant sacrificing her pride and free time. This tendency towards benevolence is exactly what institutions of higher learning increasingly exploit, paying the now-majority of their workforce wages that do not rise above the federal poverty level.
My short stint as an adjunct before coming to work at AWP weighs heavily on my mind. I had no health insurance or retirement, and I once had all my classes canceled and my plans fall apart a week before the semester was to start. Meetings were not technically required, but to stay in the loop I had to attend on my own time. Some of my colleagues hustled from university to university to scrape together a full-time load. And as part of the adjunct faculty senate, I saw a still-surprising amount of despair firsthand.
Some might say to those adjuncts, “Why do you put up with it? Why don’t you just leave?” Some do. But many others stay because teaching the subject matter is their passion—and that should be rewarded, not belittled. Educational quality cannot be sustained when it is built upon the breaking backs of an exhausted underclass.
As the current director of membership services at AWP, I’ve wrestled with how to help adjuncts. This abuse of generosity is not limited to the creative writing field, and certainly I have no grand illusions of suddenly fixing an inherently broken higher education system. But I also refuse to do nothing.
I can only start very small, with things in my direct control. I have met with Cynthia Sherman, our executive director, and the AWP Board, and we are in agreement and resolve to do the following:
- Provide a forum for adjuncts to meet together at the annual conference
- Give adjuncts the same low membership rate as students (currently $49 per year)
- Strengthen the existing AWP Recommendations Regarding Non-Tenure-Track Faculty
- Survey adjuncts to develop a more robust plan for change
The first adjunct meeting will be led by AWP board member and fellow adjunct James Tate Hill. It will be held at the 2023 AWP Conference & Bookfair on Friday, March 10, 2023 at 9:00 a.m. PT in rooms 338-339 of the Summit Building, Seattle Convention Center, Level 3.
We are cognizant that the conference can be cost-prohibitive for adjuncts not offered funding through an institution. Even though we provide scholarships and work-exchange for the conference itself, at this time AWP is unfortunately not in a position to offer any travel funding. We particularly encourage adjuncts in the Pacific Northwest region to attend this first gathering of adjuncts at #AWP23 and will provide additional opportunities to all adjuncts to offer feedback. We look forward to hosting adjuncts from other regions at future conferences.
However, all adjuncts—everywhere—can take the survey now so AWP can know how to better advocate for you and serve your interests. Please also forward the survey to other adjuncts within your network. If you have thoughts that won’t fit neatly into this survey, please feel free to email me directly at miranda@awpwriter.org. My door is always open.
In solidarity,
Miranda González
Director of Membership Services