I took CA to be saying that what s/he describes is the new model of being a “real” professor. I tend to agree. And I also took some umbrage at the previous poster’s phrasing, “real professor.”

The risks you outline, however, are very real, though there are ways to work this new system to at least achieve a bit of a leveling of the playing field. To the risk of being laid-off at the end of any given semester, what I and many of my cohort do is intentionally over-book each semester. During the scheduling period each Feb/March I send out my vita to every school I can think of, and so by May I have usually been offered close to ten or eleven sections/classes. Then, as we get into early August, I simply call the chairs of the schools to which I’m going to say no and apologetically say ‘so sorry, but I’m unable to teach these classes due to schedule conflicts, but perhaps you can use me next year’. And they’re always understanding, and then they always say ‘yes, feel free to re-apply for next year’, and I do.

Obviously, that’s not exactly the most ethical approach, but hey, you do what you gotta’ do.

As for the pre-fab syllabus, if it’s a comp class, I don’t care. In fact, I prefer getting a pre-fab because then a) I don’t have to spend the extra effort of designing a syllabus; and b) if the syllabus sucks, it’s on them not me. That said, I’ve never been given a pre-fab syllabus for an upper level class, and I admit that would rub me the wrong way, but I also doubt it’s going to happen because who will have the expertise to design a pre-packaged syll. on, say, African-American lit. or Modernist poetry, etc.?

I would love, to use your words, have access to tenure, academic freedom, and dignified employment, but it’s pretty clear to me that that’s never going to be in the cards. And honestly, all things being equal, I’ve never had any issues with academic freedom. Dignity, though, is a more difficult one. What exactly is dignified employment? Tenured employment is in many ways privileged, at least in that the tenured have utter job security, but is it dignified? To hear many of the tenured talk about it, with all of the service expectations, advising, paper work, etc., etc., I’m not sure even they would use the word dignity.

When your school decides, out of the blue, to not rehire you one semester, then you’ll realize that, while you do the work of one, you simply are not “real faculty.”

When you are suddenly given a pre-prepared syllabus and told not to deviate from it, you’ll realize you are not “real faculty.”

When you find yourself without a single section and a dwindling bank account because you’ve gone a summer (or fall or spring) without work, then you’ll realize you are not “real faculty.”

When you suddenly realize that the institutions you have worked for have taken advantage of you by hiring you at bargain rates for most of your career, then you’ll realize you are not “real faculty.”

Oh, and when you finally wise up and realize that the overwhelming majority of the readers and commenters on this blog are only anti-adjunct in the sense that they believe most of those worthy and qualified colleagues working as adjuncts under what amounts to wage slavery should have access to tenure, academic freedom, and dignified employment, then, perhaps, you’ll finally realize that your former and current employers do not consider you (and probably have NEVER considered any adjunct) to be “real faculty.”

Comrade PhysioProf: I’m as “real” as you are. I have a Ph.D. and have been teaching for over ten years now. As an adjunct, I’ll teach anywhere from 5 to 7 classes/sections in a given semester — often it’s several sections of the same thing, so preps can be doubled or even tripled up. And then in the Summers I can afford to teach just two or three. Given what I’m used to teaching, two or three is a snap. I also teach upper-level classes, (yes, as an adjunct) but in certain respects those are indeed easier to teach than, say, comp. And some years I get lucky and get a one or two year full-time gig, but even in those years I don’t give up the adjunct gigs — more is more in my universe. In one two year stretch I got really lucky and had two full-time gigs, and ironically ended up teaching less and making far, far more than I do during the strictly adjunct years.

So Comrade, tell me how I’m not a real faculty member? Well, okay, “member” may be stretching things given that I rarely even know the others who are employed, be they full or part time. But that’s cool because most academics are elitist assholes like you who say things like “adjuncting also drives down salaries of real faculty.”

At this point, it’s become pure self-interest for me. I don’t care a lick if I’m driving your precious salary down. At least I can pay my rent, my bills, and I get to lay back (relatively) during the Summer. But dig it, Comrade A-hole, when I have a non-comp. course I do preps, I read new material to stay current with the field, and conduct classes just like a real professor. That’s right, Comrade, a REAL professor.

It is a surprise to me that my institution has titled adjuncts, assistant and associate. As a junior person, I was assigned to observe an adjunct one semester, only to be later informed that I was not allowed because he was “associate adjunct” and required an observer of a commensurate rank. I was relieved of course–the adjunct was indeed an experienced teacher, and though I was too in terms of number of courses taught, he was probably 20 years older than me, and I felt pretty anxious about generational differences and also about how my t-t status was going to color anything I said in my report. Anyway, I guess the “Associate Adjunct” is tenured in a way too–he gets appointed that after meeting a certain number of semesters, gets a pay raise (minor, as things go of course), relative job security, and better health benefits. I’m glad my school does this, but of course it’s problematic because it institutionalizes these two tiers and makes it harder for adjuncts to organize and ask for more than what they get now. The union and the university will probably both argue that they get more than most adjuncts.

Re: Lingua Franca, wasn’t there a “bad” one and a “good” one?

I, too, miss Lingua Franca. It came out when I was in grad school, and was a tremendous introduction to the guild. By comparison, blogs just don’t cut it. I’d love to peddle in more gossip and name-dropping, but I’m stranded out in the provinces. . .

KC–re: those downsized professionals. Here’s a retraining/retooling program that I’d support: a program for people with B.A.s/B.S.s and several years of work experience to do an accelerated teaching degree and license, and then put them in front of an elementary or secondary school classroom. I wonder if that wouldn’t help the schools and teachers get more respect from the taxpayers, who find it so fashionable to diss and dismiss them. (But then, that kind of a program would take real work and real re-training, not dilletantism.)