If Famous Poets Worked in College Administration
Lead me not to the mention of tenure lines
A temporary position is not a temporary position
Which alters when it need of faculty finds
Or bends to department petition
O no! it is a budgetary slam-dunk
That looks on the toiling masses and is never changing
It is the carrot for every wand’ring adjunct,
Whose worth’s known (though we make her pay for parking).
— “Lead me not to the mention of tenure lines,” William Shakespeare
The Rose is red
The Violet’s blue
Sugar is Sweet
And so are you going to come in on Saturday to lead tours for incoming Freshmen?
— — “Weekends, Schmeekends,” Mother Goose
Some prophets say tenure is gonna end tomorrow,
But others say you’ve got a week or two,
The Chronicle is full of every kind of blooming horror
And you sit worrying
what you’re gonna do.
I got it.
Contingent Labor.
— “Come and Be My Adjunct,” Maya Angelou
Your absence has gone through me
like thread through a needle.
(We’ve noticed you haven’t yet deducted your sick days from your leave report).
— “Academic Separation,” W.S. Merwin
How do I exploit thee? Let me count the ways.
I exploit thee to the depth and breadth and height
my corporate lawyers say I can…
and if the Board of Trustees permitteth,
I shall but exploit thee better after I bust your union.
— “Sonnets from the ‘Poor? Oh Please,’” Elizabeth Barrett Browning
There is no first, or last in Assessment cycles– It is Centre, there, all the time.
— “Untitled, Because Who Reads These Reports, Anyway?” Emily Dickinson
I spy on you as certain obscure things are to be spied on,
in secret, between the confidential employee complaint hotline
and your anonymous and embittered colleagues.
— “One Hundred Letters in Your HR File,” Pablo Neruda
A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of students and you in a classroom before the podium
late of a spring semester, and seated in a corner
a youth in a MAGA hat who might feel offended by your lecture on racism and
sue —
But this I advise: be content, happy in just having a job, speaking little,
perhaps not a word.
— “A Glimpse of the End of Academic Freedom,” Walt Whitman
And fare thee well, my toiling laborer,
And fare thee well, a while!
And your chance for promotion will come again, my laborer,
Tho’ first you’ll have to serve on ten thousand committees.
— — “A Red, Red X on your Promotion Packet,” Robert Burns
When you are old and weary and full of sleep,
And nodding by your laptop, download this spreadsheet,
And analyze the institutional data, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once when you thought we hired you to teach poetry
— “When You Are Old and Long to Retire But Can’t Because We Just Cut Your Health Benefits,” William Butler Yeats
