STUMP » Articles » National Adjunct Walkout Day: Time to Rethink Careers » 25 February 2015, 06:53

To wit: to be an adjunct is not a career. It’s a part-time job. If that part-time job is getting in the way of your goals, then TRY TO DO SOMETHING ELSE.

I am an adjunct at UConn. I just got this email:

2015 National Adjunct Walkout Day

National Adjunct Walkout Day is February 25, 2015. Adjuncts and other Contingent Faculty all over the country will take advantage of this time to bring attention to the work they do. Here in Connecticut, we cannot engage in work stoppages as per state statute, and our contract with the University prohibits such actions.
However, we plan to raise awareness through National Adjunct Walkout Day to shed a light on the destructive effects “adjunctification” is having on students, faculty, departments, and disciplines.

On Wednesday, 2/25, UConn AAUP will be distributing information on the working conditions of Adjunct Faculty. The table will be located in the Storrs campus Student Union opposite Chuck & Augie’s from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. We encourage you to stop by the table to pick up flyers, stickers, and other handouts to show that contingent faculty matter here at UConn.

For more information on National Adjunct Walkout Day, visit http://nationaladjunct.tumblr.com/ and http://www.aaup.org/get-involved/issue-campaigns/one-faculty

Join us and be a part of the change.

Here is some “change” for free: the reason you are exploited as adjuncts is that you are suckers.

If they are paying you too little, then DO A DIFFERENT JOB.

Yes, sell out, get a corporate job, whatever.

They can get away with underpaying y’all because you are too “proud” to go outside academia. Just do it. Go. You may even be happier. If fewer suckers take up their shitty offers, they might just raise wages, like Walmart has had to do.

You can come back in the future, like me, when you can do it as a hobby.

As a hobby, it pays okay. It definitely pays better than any craft business I could run.

Anyway, I can’t join in their “action” as: 1. I don’t teach on Wednesdays and 2. I’m there only in the evenings, just like all the other adjuncts who have good-paying day jobs.