One Professor's Counter-Attack

Let me just preface this post with an unfortunately necessary disclaimer:  I am fully aware of how hard the non-union people in the middle class and working poor in the private sector work. But this isn't about them. This is about me and the people in my position (or similar) who are being attacked by a certain element of the Republican Party and their sympathizers in the general public. These are the people attacking me and my fellow teachers. And I have had it. 

The attack:

Teachers' Unions 101: A is for Agitation 


Wis. Teachers Ready to Help--But Not Forfeit Rights 


President of largest PA faculty union calls Ohio bill 'poor governing'


Wisconsin Liberals Starve Children


Protecting bad teachers [note the last sentence...most teachers are incompetent]


Conservative groups rally behind anti-teachers union legislation

Tea Party Holds Counter Rally Downtown 

Michele Bachmann weighs in on Wisconsin teacher sick-out: "It's a dereliction of duty"


And before you start to protest by saying, but wait, the conservatives and radical Tea Partiers are attacking teachers' unions, not teachers...consider this: An attack on the existence of my union IS an attack on ME. 


I am angry at the Tea Party, conservative talk show hosts, and their conservative counterparts in the general public for thinking that I make a good target for fixing budget problems. Indulge me a moment and I will show you why this attack is unnecessary.

To set the record straight, I do pay taxes, I do vote, and I do work year-round. I do NOT have an easy job.  I do make $50,000 a year/gross and I am represented by a union. I do have about 100 new students across four classes every semester, plus my department, university, and community service requirements, committee work, scholarly research, and assisting former students with recommendation letters and graduate school and job and scholarship applications.

I am not rich and never will be. I will never make over $100,000 a year. I may never make more than $75,000 a year. I do have $60,000 in student loan debt on top of all of my other bills, moving expenses, and other expenses associated with moving and starting all over in a new location.

I am not married, do not have kids, and cannot afford to buy property, so receive none of the tax benefits from being in this class.

If my governor and the Republican legislators in my state attack my union (and hence, attack me and my right to negotiate for health benefits, sick leave, grievance policies, classroom size, and control over curriculum design, in addition to my salary), you damn well better believe I would attend a sick-out with my fellow faculty, despite being a first-year junior faculty member. And that is NOT a dereliction of duty...it is PART of my duty as a faculty member in a unionized university system.

We are one. Together, we can protect our rights. Divided, we will be run over and decimated, reduced to mere cogs expected to do a lot more for much, much less. And yes, our students will suffer, almost as much as we will.

I do work hard and my job is made more complicated by both the administration and the students. For instance, imagine if a large percentage of your annual review came from your company's interns. And that carried equal weight to your supervisor's opinion of how effective you are at your job. That is equivalent to what we, as faculty members, must tolerate. Our students' opinions about how well we do our jobs (despite not being trained or qualified to make this judgment) are weighted heavily in our yearly reviews - and are included in our tenure files. Therefore, if I want to be a tough teacher with high standards and expectations, demanding more academic rigor and critical engagement from my students, I may well pay the consequence in bad student evaluations because many students don't want to work hard or be challenged in any serious way, which then affects my ability to KEEP MY JOB.

Still think my job is easy? Ok, let's continue then.

I do not plan on retiring. Ever. I fully anticipated this even before I became a professor (my third career, so trust me, I'm NOT incompetent), so the argument that union people all retire at 50 is a malicious LIE. And those who believe this are drinking the Tea wholesale without first thinking about or investigating the truth.

I do pay dues to a union that expects me to work hard, do my job, or pay the consequence by being fired - my union does NOT exist to guarantee the employment of unethical slackers - that's in our CONTRACT.

To demonstrate all of these abstract ideas, here is a brief rundown of two typical days for me as a junior faculty member...and it should be known that once I do achieve tenure (if my present university continues to reappoint me for five years and my student evaluations aren't too bad for five years and if the tenure committee decides to grant me tenure - not a guarantee), then my responsibilities INCREASE. Once a faculty member is tenured, she must do MORE, not less. She must become the barrier, the target, the protector of junior faculty, the person standing between unfair administrative expectations and the new faculty member's struggle with figuring out the landscape and realities of the job. She must also step up and participate in more difficult committees with more serious decision-making responsibilities.

What my first two days last week looked like:

Monday. Rise at 7:30, answer student emails, review documents and prep for observation of temporary faculty member. 10 - 11am, observe instructor, taking notes the entire time on netbook. 11-12 meet with students to discuss their project one progress. 12-1 department meeting to discuss which temporary faculty to roll over into tenure-track positions. 1-2 cover class for officemate. 2-3 meet with students, then begin assessment memo draft (I am one of the two "assessment experts" in the department because of my prior experiences - both of us are junior faculty). 3-5 teach my one class for the day. 5-6 casual conversation with fellow department faculty re: internal dept. issues, plus responding to several student emails. 6pm - leave campus. 6:30-7 dinner and reading student blogs. 7-9 various personal phone calls. 9-10 watch MSNBC and read student blogs. 10pm - go to bed/sleep.

Tuesday. Rise at 6am and prepare for day. 8-11 teach my two classes. 11-12 full department meeting. 12-1 meet with students, unable to eat lunch. 1-3 teach my class. 3-5 continue drafting assessment memo, email faculty in other departments for necessary information, respond to student emails, respond to fellow faculty emails, read student blogs, research and select readings to assign to my students in the next classes. 5pm- head home. 6-8 dinner, respond to student emails, continue research readings and TED talks for use in classes, read student blogs, read academic article on assessment. 8-9 personal phone calls. 9-10 watch MSNBC and read student blogs. 10pm - go to bed/sleep. (Sensing a pattern here?)


You get the point. Do other people work hard? Yes. Do other people have the variety and complexity of tasks and responsibilities that I have in the course of my job? No. Not in the same way.

Do any of us deserve to be vilified as people who don't work hard, who don't work enough, and who aren't worthy of a decent salary with benefits and the ability to negotiate (when we make an average of four to 11 percent less than people working in the private sector)? No. As a professor who has elected to "take the summer off" so that I can work on my other job responsibility of publishing an academic article as opposed to teaching, I condense 12 months of work into nine...and then work another three months at a more relaxed pace.

Does this make me worthy of vilification and scorn? Absolutely not.

Please think before you agree with the fallacious and untrue arguments coming from the political Right. Research and investigate (beyond Fox News). Ask a teacher what her days are like before you rain down your judgment and assumptions based on nothing more than weak-ass Tea delivered in a broken teacup.

In solidarity.