Inside the Current Issue

Trading Undergrads for Canines: Adjuncting versus Dog Walking

Will Weikart

What did YOU do this summer?

I walked dogs and made more money than I've ever made in the five years I've lived in NYC as a CUNY Graduate Center student. In fact, I made more than double what I made as a CUNY adjunct teaching two classes.

Let me explain. Last semester I taught as an adjunct for the first time. I taught Social Theory to students at John Jay College and Queens College. Prior to that, I was one who never wanted to be a professor, but after last semester, I had a complete change of heart. I loved teaching and I loved the students. I wish I could've taught over the summer and continued to teach this semester. It's a shame. But I'm not sad about it. I'm fucking pissed.

The reason why I can't teach again for now is simple. I can't afford to. Teaching two classes in CUNY brought home the bacon to the tune of just under $1,000 per month. Even last Spring, when my rent was a mere $500 (about as low as one can expect to pay in NYC), I could barely support an existence. We're talking: late rent, perpetual strings of late fees on various bills, service disconnections, the embarrassment of lacking TRAIN FARE... the whole deal. Sure, we adjuncts have most of the responsibilities of a "normal" professor with almost none of the benefits (health insurance, etc.). But what about something as obvious as PAY? Who can afford to live in NYC on $12k per year? I know people who do -- I've been one of them -- and I'm still not sure how we pull it off. The short answer is, we assume debt -- the very lifeblood of contemporary bio-political capital, and a major mechanism of material control.

Financial insecurity has probably been the main reason, or at least the greatest external constraint, slowing my academic progress at CUNY.

So, what about dog walking? I work for a small company in lower Manhattan that does all manner of pet care and services -- but mainly, walking peoples' dogs when they can't or don't want to. I'm sure you've seen them -- the famous (but increasingly inaccurate) image is of the group walks (one person holding multiple leashes connected to a veritable urban PACK of dogs). I work for a company that does only individual walks and happens to pay well -- I think better than most. Independent dog walkers, however, can make up to $50k per year or more. Many of them can afford to live in Manhattan -- even, like, in the Village. I've discovered that, unlike adjuncting, dog walking comes with fringe benefits such as occasionally reading while at dog runs; making connections with clients (e.g., I have one client who owns a moving company and recently moved me only charging "cost" -- I'd never been able to afford the luxury of a mover before!); I have more control over my time "outside" of work; and I'm in pretty darn good physical shape. I get to bike every day to work (never mind the sweat rings!), where I interact with "clients" who don't speak, and I rarely see my boss -- nor he I. This is one of the only jobs I've ever had at which I feel almost completely and unambiguously ethical.

So, my point with all this, which is probably pretty apparent by now, is, stop killing yourself as an adjunct. Get a job outside academia if you have to. As adjuncts we are hurting ourselves, the pool of full-time job seekers, and the students. I'll admit, knowing what I know now, I would be mighty reluctant to take an undergraduate class in my major -- the ONLY time I will ever take that class -- from someone who 1) may have had no teaching training or preparation whatsoever (as is the case with most of us); 2) may have NEVER taught college before (never mind the particular subject/course); and 3) may have been hired literally a day before classes started (or even after classes started, as I'm sure you have seen). Don't get me wrong -- I'm sure there are a lot of great adjuncts out there, CUNY and elsewhere. I feel I did a competent job for my first time. But overall we are nothing but scabs in an increasingly market-ized academic/intellectual ghetto.

All semester long I never had the heart to tell my students, who referred to me as "professor," that I am NOT a fucking professor, and may not be one for a long time. In fact, I only have the degree (BA) that many of them are literally just about to receive. I never knew exactly what to say when one admiring (or dreading) student asked, "So what are you teaching next semester?" ("I don't know -- they may not rehire me.") What do YOU tell YOUR students?

I still don't have health insurance but at least now, for once, I don't have the stress of utter and constant economic insecurity. Consider it a giant raised middle finger to the gristmill that is the entire CUNY adjunct system.

Will Weikart is an unapologetic anarchist in the Sociology program.