The Advocate

A Day in the Life of a GC Adjunct

Anonymous

The alarm clock goes off like an explosion. I open one eye; it’s eight a.m., so I press the snooze button. Soon I will be packing last night’s leftovers for lunch like a zombie while I wait for the coffee to kick in—I am too cheap (or rather, too poor) to throw away six bucks on some lousy soup and crackers at the GC cafeteria. My paycheck would be gone in a blink if I started living large like that. I stuff my bag with bananas and apples—they are for snacking during my commute. Finally, I trudge to the subway, and remember that the fares just went up again. I fight an old lady and a little girl to be able to get into the packed car so I can have my nose pressed against a tall man’s armpit. Did somebody just pinch my butt? Great! I can’t think of a better way to spend two dollars than this. I would like to read, but I can’t move my arms. Two hours later I emerge at my destination. I have half an hour to get ready to teach a class.

My desk at the College Where I Teach (CWIT) was probably made before World War I—the room has that familiar smell of dust and old books. I hope my allergies won’t bother me too much today; I am already out of Claritin. I wish I could open the windows or turn down the heat, but the windows seem shut for good, the thermostat is broken, and the 60-year-old professor with whom I share the office always complains that it is too cold. His stuff is everywhere—pictures, posters, books, old papers. I guess I could try and make myself feel a little more at home and bring some stuff to make this place nicer, but who knows if CWIT will hire me again next semester. I don’t want to invest myself.

Somebody knocks. A student comes in before class to ask some questions. Hallelujah! I am hoping for some intellectual stimulation. Why did I not understand what he wanted to say in his essay? he asks. I look at the text again. The sentence starts with a quotation mark, begins to ask a question, yet ends before any verb appears. How do I tell him that he writes at a second grade level?

Total frustration at myself, the students, and the American educational system has been a prominent theme in my life since I became an adjunct. At first, I thought it was just me. I thought I was a horrible professor. I was thrown into teaching without any advice or training. By now, I know it is not about me. I have attended so many teaching seminars, incorporated so many different genres into my syllabus, made the class as exciting as I could, tried to reach out to students in so many different ways. I know they like it, they often try hard, sometimes they engage the material, and they care about it. Yet, they cannot write and they can hardly read. Somewhere along the line, someone really failed them—probably many someones.

I love CUNY and I wish we could go back to providing a free education for everyone. I do what I can to fight tuition hikes, and I am proud that my institution produces such high percentages of minority graduates. My students are interesting people: young mothers, Jamaican nurses, a man who used to be homeless, and many beautiful Puerto Rican boys. Some of them hardly speak English. I don’t let that excuse slide because English is my second language, too. I read sixty to one hundred horrible papers per week. I know that my students need to learn how to write and I hope they can learn by writing, so I assign a lot of it. I have them write plays, dialogues, letters, and simple essays. I often see glimpses of critical thought and understanding, but mostly the writing is horrendous. They have no concept of what a full sentence is, what a subject is, verb agreement, how to quote, how to edit. They plagiarize. Their paragraphs don’t make any sense. Many of them are lazy and do not go to the trouble to add “s” to their plurals, completely omit the “ed” in past tense verbs, or write like they are really, really high. I wonder if it would help me grade their papers if I got high myself. Unfortunately, the adjunct salary does not really allow for such luxuries.

I want to scratch my eyes out. There are thirty more papers waiting for me on my desk at home. The professor I work for decided that I am better suited to grade them—she sticks to lecturing. I am bitter because she gets paid so much more but I am stuck with the shitty part of the job. Anyway, I plow through the papers, investing myself totally, writing long notes about how to improve—only to find out that two weeks later, on another assignment they make the same bloody mistake I advised them not to make ever again.

I try hard not to compare my students with the kids in my own high school. I went back there recently to teach a weekend workshop and, on any given day, the worst student there is writing and reading on a level that is light years beyond that of the students at CWIT. The difference is that those smart high schoolers are from predominantly middle-class families and nice neighborhoods, while the CWIT kids are teenage mothers, Rikers Island alumni, or working parents with three kids and a fourth one on a way. I am usually the only white face in the room, and I routinely lie about my age because so many of them are older than me.

I rush to the classroom to teach, which I enjoy. My academic discipline allows me to connect what is going on in our lives with what is going on in the world. I like when the students ask questions, or when they start really getting into it. I am grateful for being allowed those glimpses into their lives, and for them letting me know what they think and feel. We talk about so many difficult things, but I often find myself disappointed that I cannot seem to convince them to see things from my perspective. It is hard to be balanced if you come from a progressive background, are an activist, and see your students struggle so much. I hear their stories and see them getting kicked by life. Yet, when they talk about their dream of a better life—they talk about how to stop paying taxes so they can have money to pay rent, about owning a gun so they can protect themselves, or about getting a better job at some bank. Some are sympathetic and interested when I talk about fighting tuition hikes, getting involved in local politics, or joining unions to improve the education system of which they themselves are victims.
But mostly they just want to be left alone, graduate, and make some money.

I feel angry and bitter when I realize how many of my colleagues, and many older, tenured professors think that they are helping my students by letting them slide by. They give them As and Bs “for encouragement,” praise them for submitting a paper on time, and do not assign professional academic papers because they are “too difficult.” My students are shocked when I have to give Ds to half of the class, and don’t understand why they cannot use a Daily News article for class analysis, like they do in other classes. I sympathize with the pressures that they are under and respect that they have taken it upon themselves to try to counteract the effects of the many years of failed public school education. But for every professor who gives a damn there is another who is too tired to care, or who genuinely believes that students cannot do better. I know that they can do better, but they are infantilized daily. They are allowed to act and write like adolescents, and told that their marginally acceptable product is “good enough.” I think we are cheating them out of their education and not giving them their money’s worth. And me? I am a hypocrite myself. As much as I do care now, I also know that the moment I am offered a better paying job with health benefits, I will kiss CUNY goodbye and not think twice about it.

I genuinely value CUNY’s mission and believe in public education. I would love to stay here, but that would be self-destructive. I refuse to be treated the way CUNY treats its adjuncts, if I can help it. I am underpaid, underappreciated, overworked and cannot treat seriously any employer who does not offer health benefits for this difficult work. I think that the PSC and the Adjunct Project are wonderful, but I don’t want to wait another two years to buy another pair of shoes.

I run to my other job. This one is illegal, so I cannot really talk to many people about it. As an international student, I am supposed to pay the out-of-state $3,500 tuition per semester and make do with 20 hours of work. It is ridiculous, and I know we all cheat to survive.

Then I am off to teach yet another class at a different CWIT school. I eat something unhealthy, with a lot of sugar, as I commute. No wonder my ass gets bigger by the hour. I have to watch out because I don’t have health insurance, so I have to learn to take care of myself better. Soon GC will eliminate the Wellness Center and I will loose any contact with the medical profession for the next few years. After my class, I attend a committee meeting, and later I help a fellow student prepare for an exam. I go the ATM and find out that I have three dollars left in my account. It’s a good thing today is a payday at the Graduate Center. I can probably survive the few days it will take for my paycheck to clear. Unfortunately, the Bursar says that the school took my tuition out of my paycheck and I still owe them money. My heart almost stops, as I quickly do the math in my head. Well, the school made a mistake; they were supposed to give me a check for a few hundred bucks. They apologize and tell me to wait: “its in the mail.” I wonder how long I can live on rice and beans again and decide to find another babysitting or waitressing gig to tide me over.

I am heading to meet a professor to talk about my dissertation proposal. Her office is locked even though I have an appointment. Half an hour later, I call her at home. She apologizes: she forgot because she is finishing a chapter for her book and her publisher is on her back; we will talk in a few weeks when she gets back from a conference in Hawaii. I feel stuck with this whole dissertation business and desperately need advice. Otherwise I will become one of those eternal ABDs. So I email another professor to whom I sent my work a month earlier. He responds that he is sorry but he was too busy traveling to look at it yet, and suggests that I go see Professor Stinky Breath, who really knows much more about my topic and my area. But Professor Stinky Breath has a tendency to look at my chest way too often and makes awkward jokes. It is not threatening in any way, just pathetic. I would rather dig myself out than go see him.
I still have time to check my email quickly before the GC closes. Yes, they close the library here earlier than at the undergraduate colleges. I was going to get myself a high-speed connection at home, but then suddenly my department decreased my funding. They need to lure incoming freshmen with more attractive financial aid packages, they say. This just means I will spend more time and money to apply for all those grants I won’t get. I wrote eight grant proposals this semester alone. I am lucky I found so many, because there are few opportunities for non-green-card holders. I was close to getting one of them but it went to another student. He is not embarrassed to admit that he does not really intend to write about what he said he would (and what the grant required), and jokes that he is lucky the grant administrators don’t know about his wife’s investments, or else he would not meet the financial aid requirements. Ironically, I receive an email from my mom, asking me again when will I get married and have babies, like a normal girl should.

On my subway ride home I manage to read a few pages of a novel by my favorite Japanese author. This is the only time I allow myself to read non-fiction. It is such a luxury and a nice departure from the dry, convoluted language of the writers in my discipline. As I narrowly escape the spit of a coughing elderly businessman seated across the isle from me, I decide that I am finally going to leave New York, drop out of the program and get a job. I’ve already promised myself that a couple of times before. I wonder if I will finally do it this time.

The author is a doctoral student at the Graduate Center.