Netflix Announces New Series "The Adjunct," as Follow-Up to "The Chair"

Cross posted from the Academe Blog, with permission of the author.

Netflix Announces New Series “The Adjunct,” as Follow-Up to “The Chair”

BY CATHERINE M. YOUNG

Follow the foibles of Claire Park, a Walt Whitman expert and part-time instructor at a small liberal arts college and large public university as she looks ahead to the fall semester and wonders how she will pay her November and December rent if her third class is canceled because not enough students registered for “iSing the Body Electric: Walt Whitman in the Digital Age.”

Guffaw as Claire picks up an extra class at a religious college and has a hilarious outfit-changing montage in which Claire decides to risk wearing pants, then decides against it, then puts on a long black skirt and a loose sweater, and her BFF tells her, “You look like a pregnant witch.”

Cringe as Claire can’t print her course materials on the adjunct printer and asks the Visiting Assistant Professor, Maria, if she can use her personal office printer, causing Maria to spill coffee on HER course materials. Claire and Maria, who might have been friends in another life, never speak again.

Watch Claire stand at the computer that sits between the microwave and mini-fridge in the main office because the computer in the faculty lounge has an ancient browser that won’t load any websites except AOL. Claire does not have the “administrative privileges” to update the browser.

Holler “YIKES!” as the department chair tells Claire to print her course materials at home. Claire debates confessing that she’s been out of ink for eight months.

Chuckle as Claire tries to hide her dented 2012 laptop from students by quickly removing it from her bag to the lectern before class starts.

Purse your lips as Claire conducts unpaid required office hours with students in a loud crowded hallway because she has no office.

Celebrate Claire’s triumph in securing a shared cubicle, only to discover that one of her cubicle mates leaves evidence of Acral peeling skin syndrome all over the keyboard.

Watch Claire petition the office manager for a can of compressed air with which to clean the keyboard. This is a twelve-week process. In the end, the office manager agrees to give Claire access to the compressed air for five minutes each week. When the office manager discovers Claire using the compressed air to clean her 2012 laptop, Claire’s weekly access is revoked.

Chuckle at the university security guard’s total exasperation at Claire’s “aw, shucks” face when she tries to swipe herself into work using her ID from the other college.

Grimace as Claire is cajoled into teaching a twenty-seat senior seminar and then finds out it’s been intentionally over-enrolled to twenty-seven students.

Wince as Claire eats her bagged lunch of peanut butter and jelly while her students swipe their meal cards for sushi and smoothies.

Let the pit in your stomach grow as Claire smiles incessantly to make the department chair feel at ease while he slings his leg over the armrest of his chair during their syllabus meeting. While debating the nuances of the meeting with her BFF, Claire calls this move “the chair chair.”

Watch Claire teach a newly developed class with controversial content while the person who developed the class is on paid research leave. Follow the “cancel culture” debate as a student makes good points and Claire tries to defend a curriculum she didn’t develop.

Cheer as Claire finally gets up the courage to ask the illustrious physics professor who has the classroom before her to erase the whiteboard when his class is over.

Tear up as a student discloses to Claire that she is the victim of a sexual assault, making Claire realize she has received no training from Human Resources. Watch Claire’s surprise when she finds out she is a mandated reporter.

Deeply inhale your breath through clenched teeth as Claire pauses while adjusting the lights because she got distracted by reading the “active shooter” directives posted next to the door.

Clench your fists with anxiety as Claire accuses a student of plagiarism and his response leads her to think he might commit an act of violence. Watch Claire request that the dean intervene.

Blanch as Claire brings substantial evidence of gender and racial bias in student evaluations to her department chair and the chair tells Claire that her “merit raise” will be based solely on the student evaluation score.

Cringe as Claire hides from the department chair for the entire fall semester because the chair told Claire she might have to resign due to pregnancy.

Tsk tsk when Claire is dropped from her regular teaching gig at one school so that the school doesn’t have to give her health insurance. Tsk tsk again when Claire gladly teaches at the same school a year later because “it looks good on her CV.”

Sigh heavily as Claire accepts too many classes for the spring because she doesn’t want to “burn any bridges” with the department chair, whom Claire overhears describing adjuncts as “horses in a stall.”

Whisper “yikes” when Claire applies for a tenure-track position at one of the colleges where she teaches and does not get an interview.

Catherine M. Young studies popular entertainments including musicals, circus, and vaudeville. She advocated for and helped collaboratively develop the City University of New York Graduate Center’s first-ever Doctoral Student Parental Accommodation Policy. She has been and is currently contingently employed. Her Twitter handle is @fickle_freckled.

Comments

[Jason Yackee]

Come on, adjuncting is the ultimate "no one is making you do this job" kind of job. The terms and conditions are knowable up front; and if you don't know, you will learn them pretty quickly. The pay sucks. You have no status or governance rights. There is no career path into a tenure track position. But so what? Take one of life's myriad other, better-paying paths.

The "adjuncts are exploited" line is even more idiotic as applied to law school adjuncts--who are people who have highly valued skills and knowledge that they can certainly sell on the legal labor market to paying clients. Which most of them do, or did. Adjuncting in law schools was never intended to be, nor should it be, a full time job. Most (all?) law adjuncts do it because they like teaching, are looking for something fulfilling to do in retirement, and/or because they think the "adjunct professor" line on their CVs will help out their (paying) legal practice.

Lubet would, apparently, prefer that we not let them teach for us, or that we blow up our budget (and charge our students more in tuition as the obvious consequence). But where's the sense in that? My school pays our adjuncts peanuts. Something like $3,000 a course. A yet we have what seems to be an inexhaustible supply of people who want the job. These aren't people living in tent cities and begging for your half-eaten Big Mac. They aren't mental nitwits or naifs. They are highly accomplished local lawyers who come into this game voluntarily. There's no deception, and no coercion. It's about as truly voluntary an arrangement as you can imagine.

[Steve L.]

That's pretty harsh, Jason. The erosion of tenure lines in humanities and social science is a serious problem for faculties, students, and adjuncts.

I agree this does not affect law school adjuncts. The author of this piece, however, teaches literature.

[John Browning]

Contrary to Jason’s belief, most adjuncts provide valuable ( and valued by students) instruction in more specialized and practice-oriented course offerings that simply can’t be taught by theory-focused full-time faculty who have little if any meaningful practice experience. Ever learn Intellectual Property from a professor who’s actually handled a Markman hearing or obtained trademark protection for a client? If you took my course, that answer would be yes. The same goes for learning PR from a professor who can imbue doctrinal instruction with real world practical perspective from representing clients in legal malpractice litigation and disciplinary proceedings ( me again). And yes, while most adjuncts like me do it out of a sense of service to the future of the profession, many of us have academic chops that might surprise you, including published scholarship. My 5 law books and 40 law review articles are more than many of the full time faculty at schools where I’ve served as an adjunct. Despite this, adjuncts remain the second class citizens of the law school faculty, undervalued and under appreciated.

[anon]

John

It is a matter of social justice. How assets are distributed fairly. Legal academia is teaching us, by example, what that means.

Adjuncts could work at McD's if they don't like it. They choose.

Let them eat cake!

[anon]

BTW, the notion of "equal pay for equal work" as enunciated by legal academia is truly exposed as risible here.

TO be sure, regular faculty have duties beyond teaching ("we let them teach for us"). Committee meetings (so onerous, no?), and, the big one, scholarship.

But, what are we to say of the commonly found tenured professor who never really wrote anything of consequence and now doesn't even try?

These folks work, usually, for two semesters, and grade papers. During the week, they might be found in their offices two days per week.

Other than these 30 or so weeks, they are not required to teach or even be on campus.

So, the work of the adjuncts, teaching just like they do, paid at a rate of 1/10 or 1/20 or even less?

Imagine the first year, first semester. A law school is making its first impression on its new enrollees. It sends in, to teach a doctrinal course, an adjunct, and pays that person 3K.

Any rationale person would say that the teaching function - some would say the core mission of a law school filled with professors whose scholarship is nil or close to it -- is not different when the adjunct teaches the course.

This is not to say there aren't numerous examples of the truly pernicious, intentional acts by the law schools to disadvantage the adjunct faculty. Courses are scheduled and distributed to avoid any adjunct gaining benefits.

As suggested by the post above, all manner of indignities are zealously heaped on adjuncts, are they not?

Really, it is a study in the ability of humans who exploit others, directly and intentionally, while boasting about their virtue.