I am Speaking at #BCCAgora Today about #AdjunctChat

I have spent my energies online recently communicating via my Twitter feed and related to #AdjunctChat, so I have not posted anything here directly in some time. That all changes as of today!

I was invited to speak at #BCCAgora today, and while it is happening in real time at Berkeley City College in Berkeley, California, I will be attending, presenting, and discussing online synchronously. The event — A conversation about outsourcing education, higher education culture and adjunctivism — is rather aligned with my increasing interest in adjunct work, most notably related to my ongoing facilitation of the weekly #AdjunctChat and its newer Facebook group.

The focus of my contribution today will be:

What I Learned in #AdjunctChat: Collaboration, Concerns, Disciplinarity, and Equity

There is not a single adjunct, contingent, part-time, visiting, or non-tenure track instructor experience, concern, or issue. Some want to share ideas with others in similar experiences or situations. Others like to focus on issues of access and equity with their full-time and tenured colleagues. Still others are interested in exploring new possibilities that arise through the US higher education focus (though increasingly a global practice) on adjunct instructors teaching the majority of courses, on seemingly all levels, in higher education. Whatever the experience or discipline, I find that those with a passion for teaching and researching their areas of interest bring a keen sense of sharing and collaborating to those who are interested in learning more, regardless of the topic and differences in perspective.

Adjuncts are a curious population of knowledge workers, and the over-reliance on their efforts in academia is fundamentally shifting how we run our programs and learners interact with the public face of their institutions. What this will all mean is anybody’s guess, though being part of the experience makes this a dynamic and exciting time to engage with formal higher education.

I am really looking forward to this opportunity to share some of what I learned, as well as collaborate with others with similar interest. Is anybody wants to follow along, the link to the discussion will be available on the #BCCAgora site. and the tag is #BCCAgora.