Glimpse of an unknown world

My attendance at the Squaw Valley writers conf last week exposed me to a world I was unaware of. Not the world of writers conferences, but the world of adjunct English Department faculty. I gave a ride up there to a guy from New York who has taught at something like five or six different schools as adjunct faculty over the last decade; in my workshop group there were several others with similar careers; and over the course of the week I talked to, or overheard, several more people who fit the same description.

It seems there's this whole cadre of M.A.s and M.F.A.s at the colleges and universities of our great nation, thousands of people who never went on to get their Ph.D for whatever reason, who make whole careers out of teaching three or four classes every semester. Jobs are plentiful, and often offer great benefits even if the pay isn't that high. Who knew!?

Now I just discovered a features on McSweeney's in which the job of adjunct professor of writing is burlesqued. Perhaps people have suddenly just started talking about this. No doubt in a few years there will be novels and movies with main characters who are adjunct professors of writing -- or, in the shorthand phrase, adjuncts. (While at Squaw, I even heard "adjunct" used as a verb.)

Seems like a good idea, from the outside. On the other hand, I never did want to go to grad school badly enough to even get a master's (though once, several years ago, I did apply in a particularly slapdash, naive and incomplete way -- I didn't want to do it badly enough to even find out what a completed application really entailed) and I certainly get paid better doing technical writing. It'd be nice to have summers off, though.

Google: define: adjunct faculty.
Boston College Adjunct Lecturers and Part Time Faculty (college chosen at random)