False Consciousness From Mingling w/Regular Faculty

[mahagonny]

There's a pronounced difference between hanging out with tenure track faculty versus hanging out with part time faculty. In a nutshell, the tenure track faculty know they are supposed to have opinions about policies that affect their workday and their students; whereas, you're not. This is most strikingly evident on those instances where all the adjunct faculty you know have the same opinion, and it's in opposition to what's being done, and everyone knows it means a lot to all of you, and also that it means nothing to anyone else. Or when someone who has been a professional educator for 1/3 as much time as you have votes in a new policy.
Then when you hang out with 'regular' faculty again, the supposition that you can have an opinion (in fact, should have an opinion) takes hold, is spoken about in a way that's it's given. They want to welcome you because it would be rude not to, so they take the only option available: act as if you are like them. Except, the elephant it the room, you are starkly different from them.
It's kind of like oscillating between  (1) the unshakeable sense that you are a person whose knowledge and outlook are an essential (if small) piece of how policy evolves, and (2) the sense of being a non-person who should be always more invisible.
So where do you go with this awareness?
Much less trouble to simply treat the work as an independent contractor. A guy who's been hired to slap a new roof on someone's garage and then go away. Except educating young adults isn't like replacing a roof.

[nescafe]

I struggled with this when I was doing various kinds of NTT work, and it absolutely feels like gaslighting, exactly as you describe. It's so contingent on the institutional culture, too. One place I visited treated its NTTs as a hidden secret; no one on TT faculty ever reached out to us, our workspaces were separate from theirs, and my full year there I engaged with my dept chair maybe twice. At another place, the faculty made motions to be more democratic and many of them individually told me about how they prided themselves on treating NTTs like "one of us." The climate in the office was kinder, but when it came down to it, anything I thought, opined on, etc was discounted and I was simultaneously expected to perform TT labor at NTT pay.

Probably the worst interactions were when TT faculty tried to give me advice about the job market. Sometimes, these conversations were a thinly-disguised chance for them to perform self-congratulations of various sorts. Those faculty were generally the worst to work alongside.

I'm not sure how to perfectly navigate this social setting, but 100 percent agree with you that it's toxic and gaslighty. I would advise treating NTT jobs as contractor gigs, and nothing more. I say this even though I fully know that it's hard to do that.

[Wahoo Redux]

We've talked a lot on these boards, mahagonny, so I guess I care.

For the record, I am a trailing spouse who has long given up on ever getting a tenure position. I have been a FT GTA & PT CC adjunct in grad school; a trailing-spouse adjunct; a FT staff; a trailing-spouse adjunct at a different place; a FT VAP; an adjunct again; and now a FT NTT 5/5 lecturer----and I've had lots of interviews, only a couple of which have been at all successful. 

So don't think that I'm all high-and-mighty, 'cause trust me, I'm not.

I wouldn't take it personally regarding the hierarchy in higher ed.  Remember that a lot of these faculty have worked together for years---some of the people in our current uni have been friends for 20 years, know each other's families, have been through medical and personal tribulations, as well as the oscillations of university service.  One can certainly have friends of all stripes (even on the outside of the Tower!) but don't take it personally if the people that work together on the FT basis are a cabal; it's just natural.

As far as opinions about policies go, remember that TT folks have been tasked with making decisions about university functions (the same as they have been tasked as professional researchers), so of course they are going to have a particular perspective about how they should vote on [whatever].  And remember that, unless you are on a particular committee, and have a history of the [whatever], and have all the information on [whatever], an accurate opinion is probably hard to form.

Definitely faculty should listen to part-timers' opinions about their jobs, but keep in mind that they may have perspective and info that, rightly or wrongly, must stay privileged for whatever reason.

In other words, don't take it all so personally.

[mahagonny]

nescafe: that's it exactly, thank you

wahoo: It's not a matter of taking it personally or determining that you won't. It's the mixed consciousness experience. There is no solution. The 'solution' is only understanding what is happening to you and the psychological identity and agency issues that are overlaid. If you read nescafe's post you can get a look at things without personalities overplaying their role.

Another example of how this manifests: the provost recently invited all us adjuncts to an online meeting to discuss developments in the wake of COVID-19. Out of the entire university something like eight adjuncts showed up. The meeting was over in a few minutes. She did the usual 'we are incredibly appreciative of what you are doing in these difficult times; we're here to listen to your questions and concerns.' No one had any. It's not really safe to talk about concerns on the one hand. On the other, since you have no voice, you have no role in forming policy. Your only advantage is the opportunity to be completely silent and follow instructions. So why would you do anything other? So the provost turns off the zoom session and goes on with her day. What does she think she accomplished in this meeting with eight silent adjunct faculty? It's bizarre--surreal. It's got nothing to do with me my foibles or anyone's bitterness. I didn't say a word.
Whereas on an internet forum everyone has a voice. All you do is log in and sound off. But why? There's no reason to. It's not real life. It's a false impression.
I'm sure a certain number of forumites sift through these threads while mentally sorting the posters, and then disregarding any who are not full time 'regular' faculty. Why wouldn't they? A few adjuncts blend in by mimicking the accepted attitudes.
I've got to get back to putting a new roof on someone's garage.

[bento]

I'm old enough to remember universities that had almost no adjunct faculty - I was an undergrad from 1970-1973, and a grad student from 1974-79, at big state universities.  During my career (at first sabbatical replacement, then NTT, then tenure-track-tenured-full), this has changed so much and I fear we are never going to get back.  The financial incentives for administration to keep using adjuncts to generate inexpensive but lucrative student credit hours is irresistible to them.  The corporatization of the university has gone so far.

OP, I think I understand the double consciousness you refer to.  I see it in my adjunct colleagues' eyes, at faculty meetings, when we discuss future tenure-track hire needs, travel funding, curriculum design ("Will I be here?"), any sort of policy.  They want to be good citizens but there is this really bright line between contingent and permanent or potentially permanent citizenship.  I am painfully aware that I am always at risk of tormenting by inclusion.  I have not found a respectful way to address this.  I'd appreciate your thoughts.

At my U, adjuncts teach a 4/4 load, and T/T teach 2/2.  The moments at meetings when the T/T complain about being overworked are ones where I want to jump out a window.

[polly_mer]

Being a worker bee is always hard.  We had a group meeting today that had the same oddity.  Yep, we're all world experts in our science, but blowback has been fierce when we answer honestly on administrative trivia that would make a difference.  Even when asked explicitly today, we all channeled our inner LarryCs and STFU for anything that wasn't science and therefore was not really up for discussion.

[Wahoo Redux]

Two things:

I definitely understand the objections to using grad students as an economic stopgap---but I will say that I got a lot of experience, felt like I was part of things, and did not incur additional student debt (which, no matter what the studies say, is a lifestyle burden) while being exploited as a GTA with a meager stipend.  In other words, I thought my grad fellowship was, on balance, a pretty good deal.

And I refuse to believe it is too late.  How many social and economic revisions have we seen in our lifetimes?  Could our parents have conceived of the cultural changes, good and bad, we live with today?
Things change.  We can direct these changes.  Sure, we will have to take into account a number of unavoidable factors such as birthrate, but nothing, nothing, nothing we face is intractable (even the birthrate).  Think of it like fighting global warming: it might be too late, or it might not----the important thing is that we try to fix it because we just might be able to (as long as we don't become defeatist).  We owe it to the future.  Won't somebody please think of the children!

[mahagonny]

I'm old enough to remember universities that had almost no adjunct faculty - I was an undergrad from 1970-1973, and a grad student from 1974-79, at big state universities.  During my career (at first sabbatical replacement, then NTT, then tenure-track-tenured-full), this has changed so much and I fear we are never going to get back.  The financial incentives for administration to keep using adjuncts to generate inexpensive but lucrative student credit hours is irresistible to them.  The corporatization of the university has gone so far.

OP, I think I understand the double consciousness you refer to.  I see it in my adjunct colleagues' eyes, at faculty meetings, when we discuss future tenure-track hire needs, travel funding, curriculum design ("Will I be here?"), any sort of policy.  They want to be good citizens but there is this really bright line between contingent and permanent or potentially permanent citizenship.  I am painfully aware that I am always at risk of tormenting by inclusion.  I have not found a respectful way to address this.  I'd appreciate your thoughts.

At my U, adjuncts teach a 4/4 load, and T/T teach 2/2.  The moments at meetings when the T/T complain about being overworked are ones where I want to jump out a window.

As they said in 'The Green Mile' "I wish I'd met you guys somewhere else."
Probably the best thing adjunct and tenure track faculty could do to make friends would be to play scrabble, tennis, talk about books, trade recipes or go to a symphony together (if you hunt for them there are discounted tickets). And I'm sure some do that. The workplace is the twilight zone for me, as far as it being an opportunity for bonding. And I suppose it feels funny on their end too. It's fine to be too busy to hang out on campus. It lets people off the hook in a way. Again, I'm not trying to solve anything as much as understand it, and you helped, by recognizing.

P.S. the previous two posts look like they belong to another thread. Maybe some malfunction. Or is it me?