Flushing Out the Basements

In recent decades, higher education has increasingly relied on contingent faculty to teach multiple sections of composition courses with low pay and few benefits. Administrators have argued that institutions need these faculty to protect tenure-track faculty in times of financial difficulty and to manage fluctuating enrollments. When Hurricane Katrina forced universities and community colleges to declare financial exigency or force majeur, contingent faculty were the first to be terminated. However, their dismissal did not protect tenured and tenure-track faculty. Moreover, without contingent faculty, the Xavier University English Department successfully managed to staff composition classes in the first semesters following Katrina, a period of uncertainty and fluctuating enrollments. This success shows that the employment of large numbers of part-time faculty cannot be rationalized. Furthermore, faculty should strive to integrate part-time colleagues into the academy, and administrators should follow the example of departments which have successfully converted part time positions into tenure-track appointments.