Why I No Longer Teach as an Adjunct Faculty Member at the College of DuPage

I have had the opportunity to work for a few outstanding Associate Deans at the College of DuPage over the past 31 years. Sally Hadley and Jan Gessaman come immediately to mind because of their integrity, professionalism, competence, forthrightness, sincerity, and fairness.  They made adjunct faculty members believe that they were integral contributors to the college’s mission of “educating students for responsible citizenship, civility, and mutual respect in a multicultural and global society,” which they are, and not cheap, disposable appendages of this institution.  To her credit, Jan Geesaman was the only supervisor to observe my teaching.

I have enjoyed honest and sincere inquiry with my colleagues and students over the years, especially by way of the Socratic Method. However, I do not enjoy a quasi-dialectic that is disingenuous.  

To Beverly Reed, Associate Dean:

I believe your dissimulated e-mails are an attempt to humiliate a colleague and exploit your position.  I believe you did not originally intend to assign a class to me.  I realized this when some of my colleagues already had their fall assignments, and when I had to write you and ask what class I would be teaching because the deadline for book orders was imminent.  I believe you did not intend to offer me a class or notify me because you did not acknowledge my prior telephone requests to review my student evaluations from the past three years.

I became sure about your intentions when you aggressively remonstrated our colleague Joanne Barsanti’s request to attend our meeting and, finally, when you blatantly denied receiving the letter I had sent you through e-mail last semester regarding my solicitude about my recent students’ failures and retention.  Your response: “I never received it…  I’m sorry… When did you send it?  That’s such a hectic time of year…  You didn’t ask me to respond in your letter,” though the subject line of that e-mail stated: I called your secretary this morning, hoping to speak to you. (Ironically and quite inadvertently, you gave me proof in our first meeting that you had read that letter). 

My letter’s explicit purpose was to begin a serious and pertinent discussion with you about the types of students that adjunct faculty members teach at the College of DuPage, especially in the composition program; the retention-rate issue; our students’ attention deficiencies; and how these problems might be addressed.  These have been my concerns, including how some modern technologies that students use (for instance, abbreviated texting and Google for research) have negatively affected their ability and performance in classes. 

                                                                                             

Your subterfuges, verbal contradictions, and uncomfortable demeanor at Friday’s meeting, however, revealed an incredulous mendacity poorly disguised as collegial dialogue.  I knew after I left this meeting that your defensiveness would turn into a counterfeit barrage of saccharine power-play e-mails; nonetheless, I played along with your games even though you altered your questions each time I responded to them.  You should be ashamed for using such equivocal and spurious tactics with a colleague. 

Furthermore, I knew that you would never send me a list of colleagues that I requested (four times) so I could begin discussing “successful-retention” strategies with them.  It was evident that retention rates were not the real issue of our discussions, nor were the 69% average rate for ABC's and the 27% average rate that you quoted for failures and withdrawals at the College of DuPage.  Though I have been “self-reflective” throughout my career; nevertheless, I will not lower course standards or requirements in an attempt to satisfy acceptable retention and failure rates. In one of your e-mails, you stated brashly that “None of us have arrived.” You are partially correct, and you have a long way to go.

This is the “information” that you “[really needed] before [you] proceeded” to assign a class for me this fall: after I left our meeting on Friday, April 9^th, I understood what some of the adjunct and full-time faculty members had warned me about regarding your uncomplimentary methods of dealing with adjunct faculty and your guarded personality.  What my colleagues said about you was unfortunately and undeniably true. 

Finally, as a result of this incident, I hope you will not continue to treat other adjunct faculty members rudely, for there are many instructors who depend upon their COD paycheck and have no recourse but to remain unresponsive to your bullying. I am sorry I have had to say these things to you.  When confronted with perfidious effrontery and injustice, I have always chosen to do what I believe is the right course of action by confronting the perpetrator.  Our two meetings, your actions and inactions, and e-mails made me cognizant of the fact that I do not want to work for someone like you.

Glen Brown

April 11, 2010

P.S.  For the record, Joanne Barsanti assumed the role of an ethical and consummate professional during my conversation with her about these concerns. Moreover, you need to teach Composition 1101 and 1102 at the College of DuPage for a few years to fully understand the situations that adjunct faculty members confront in these classes.