Re-imagining Ourselves as Career Athletes

The first chapter of Work Strong, "How to Keep (Bad) Employers from Kicking Sand in Your Face," discusses the bullying nature of the modern American workplace. Peter engages the reader in a discussion about how best to work with or around these bully employers. Peter challenges the modern American worker to stand up for themselves and realize that nobody is going to be a better advocate for you and your career than yourself.

There is something similar going on in colleges and universities all across the country. When I was reading this chapter, I was immediately reminded of a conversation regarding the career of adjunct faculty that happened recently in the LinkedIn group moderated by HigherEdJobs.

The questions I had posed were:

Why did you choose to be an adjunct faculty member?

What was a major draw to the position?

What are the advantages of being an adjunct faculty member?

Do you find there are challenges in this role?

Were they unforeseeable challenges?

I was surprised at the response we received from our group members. In a couple of short days we had over 60 comments from adjunct faculty, past and present, who presented a variety of issues to the group.

Some notable quotes that really speak to the heart of what Peter writes about in Work Strong were:

"They are underpaid. They are treated as independent contractors and do not get benefits."

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"I worked for years as an adjunct, but am now full -time. At first, I wanted to teach as an adjunct because I was also running a non-profit agency. So, it met my needs at the time. The downside, however, was I went without proper medical care for over ten years because working as an adjunct meant I had no benefits. I think many schools take advantage of adjuncts. Why pay full-time wages and benefits to an instructor if you can get two part-time adjuncts to teach the same number of classes?"

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"My feelings about being an adjunct vacillate between loving the freedom and terror of never finding enough work in any given semester to support myself. I guess you could say I have a love/hate relationship with academia and the "adjunct world."
-Celeste Walker

These people, along with several others, echo what Peter is getting at in the beginning of his book. Those of us in higher education would benefit from re-imagining ourselves as Career Athletes. As employees we need to take on the traits we admire most about our athlete heroes. Professors, no matter if they be an adjunct or associate, part-time or full-time, need to become more independent, passionate, continuously evolving, and bold about their careers. How will you tackle these challenges to obtaining a healthier career?