Driving real change might require adjuncts to quit: Potter

Quitting might be the most radical and effective course of action that adjuncts can take if they want to disrupt the exploitation of part-time academic labour, writes Claire Potter. The author notes that “[a]side from the stress of trying to piece together a career one course at a time, the adjunct army -- permanently contingent, underemployed, overworked and underpaid faculty members -- has every reason to demand radical change.” However, Potter suggests that this demand for change usually takes the form of “radical utterances that get contingent faculty into trouble and leave a system that relies on a reserve army of labor unchanged.” Quitting academia, Potter argues, would leave universities with a shrinking group of part-time instructors and would force real change in higher ed hiring practices. Inside Higher Ed