My life as a modern-day serf
Hey, remember this?:
Peasant: “Help! Help! I’m being repressed!”
King: “Bloody peasant.”
Peasant: “Oh, what a giveaway. Did you hear that? Did you hear that? That’s what I’m on about! Do you see him repressing me?
If you were able to instantly recall from that brief snippet the Peasants scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail featuring “Dennis” and “King Arthur”,
a) you likely have a concerning amount of brain space allocated to movie quotes, and
b) congratulations. Your mother was probably not a hamster. (How your father smelled is best kept to yourself.)
Back to Dennis. The reason this scene works is the ridiculous improbability of an extremely well-read, highly articulate, and acutely socially aware feudal peasant stacking mud as he objects to the way the king treats him, to the rigidities of the system, and to Arthur’s own claims on authority.
Watching this silly yet profound scene, I think most people can’t help identifying with Dennis, can’t help calling up their own experiences raging against the machine. I absolutely see myself in my previous life as an adjunct faculty at several of my local colleges. We also see this kind of frustration writ large in social movements, with Black Lives Matter being one of the most recent. Certainly large-scale repression has it’s subtler — and obviously less fatal — forms. One of the most systemic forms of repression exists as a kind of modern-day serfdom in today’s higher education, where the medieval serf has been reincarnated as the twenty-first century adjunct instructor.
Let’s compare the yesterday’s serf with today’s adjunct.
Serf
* lowest rank in feudal society
* worked one or more plots of land for the lord of the manor
* reliant on the landowner for usually inadequate financial support
* livelihood is at the will of the landowner
* increases in the profitability of the manor did not generally equate to increased profit for the serf.
* serfs were not protected by rights like freedom of speech
* serfs and other subjects in the manorial system were sometimes promised land of their own after so many years’ service
Adjunct
* lowest-ranking faculty
* teaches one or more classes (often in one or more schools) for academic administrators
* nearly 1/3 are living near or below the poverty line, and ¼ of families are enrolled in at least one public assistance program (food stamps, Medicaid, and/or they qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit 1
* livelihood subject to variables out of the teacher's control: enrollment, student survey's, i.e. likability (which can be directly correlated to students' grades) preferences of full-time faculty
* since 1980, tuition has tripled in public universities, and administrative jobs have increased 10x faster than tenured teaching positions 2
* “With no job security, precarious financial situations, and weak institutional support, adjunct professors may lack the independence and status they need to challenge students by presenting unpopular positions, critiquing commonly accepted ideas, or even giving out poor grades”.3
* adjuncts are often lured into teaching another semester with assurances of future full-time hours (or at least we were before the Affordable Care Act) or – you guessed it – an administrative position
These are just a few of the parallels between serfdom and adjuncting that I’ve experienced. There may be some of you willing to share your own thoughts. Have at it in the comments.
Thankfully, many adjuncts are starting to unionize. Also, there are advocacy groups working to improve conditions for adjunct faculty, like The New Faculty Majority and The Adjunct Project.
As for me, I’m planning to start an anarcho-syndicalist commune. You’re welcome to join me there.
1 Many of the facts and quotes in this article are from Caroline Fredrickson’s excellent piece in The Atlantic.
2 Ibid
3 Ibid