Alt-Ac, Two-Tiered Faculties, and Tenured-Adjunct Relations

Alt Ac:

 * "The dire reality of the jobs crisis demands a new approach" https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-AHA-s-Mission-Needs-to/246243
 * A focus on career diversity, alternative careers, or alt-ac jobs (whatever term one wishes to use) distracts from what should become the AHA’s central mission: advocating and organizing to ensure that history departments remain robust and enduring intellectual spaces within our universities and colleges.


 * "A Moral Stain on the Profession"
 * https://www.chronicle.com/article/A-Moral-Stain-on-the/246197
 *  misguided emphasis on “alt-ac,” the AHA reinforces a stratified and unequal system of academic labor and obfuscates the structural problems inherent in the job market.

Two-Tiered Faculties:

 * Interesting takes on the two-tier academy are in the comments of this article: https://www.aaup.org/article/our-job-was-fix-it
 * based on maintaining a 2-tier faculty system which is the root cause of the dysfunction in higher ed. In some cases, contingent faculty are stronger instructors, researchers, and contributors to our social fabric than tenure-line faculty. The "mess" is that the 2-tier system is supposedly based on merit, which is both highly subjective and clearly untrue.

Tenured-Adjunct Relations:

 * "Confronting Biases Against Adjunct Faculty" https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2019/02/14/how-bias-toward-adjuncts-plays-out-among-students-other-faculty-and-administrators
 * Here are some of the worst things I've heard or read in my winding careers. In an article I read: "complicit in their own exploitation." In person: "Are you still here?" In person: "Your husband has work, so you're okay." In person: "Adjunct? Oh that's terrible." Upon being moved to a small office: "Now you are in your place." I think this article is written with eloquence and with grace.​​​​​​​ https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2019/02/14/how-bias-toward-adjuncts-plays-out-among-students-other-faculty-and-administrators#comment-4337314899

Meanwhile supposedly “progressive” professors in the Humanities do not attack the system of spousal hires, legacy admittance, or the reality that search committees do not appoint PhDs from outside the top 20 universities to tenure-track positions. Instead, former MLA president professor Michael Berube and professor Jennifer Ruth for example argue for "teaching" tenure lines that mean less money and no research support. Kind of like a "woman's position" or "diversity-hire" tenure track that tacitly penalizes faculty for conducting research – despite the fact that all PhDs are trained to be researchers. Relatedly, similar neoliberal tenured faculty believe multiple Humanities PhDs should emerge: alt-ac and regular faculty. But in reality this means three PhDs. 1. Regular faculty. 2. Teaching faculty. 3. Alt-ac. Tenured in English love things like this. It means they don't teaching writing composition, ever. Recommendation: tenured faculty in humanities should destroy the search committee norm that rewards affiliation with prestigious universities and start appointing people who are ABSENT from faculties now. Those are, if you hadn’t noticed, people of color who did NOT study at top-ranked universities, many of whom are female and now adjuncting. Maybe they even (gasp) had a child and attended community college. https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2019/02/14/how-bias-toward-adjuncts-plays-out-among-students-other-faculty-and-administrators#comment-4338002577''​​​​​​
 * ''Search committees demonstrate EXACTLY the same attitude, penalizing adjuncts for being adjuncts.