PTSD: Part-Timer Stress Disorder How to find out if you have it; what to do about it. by Lori Phelps, Psy.D. In the past year I have been fielding a lot of questions as to why part-time faculty stay in the situation we are in—a situation which can only be called abusive and demeaning. We are a marginalized group, working in a two-tiered system, where we are clearly being discriminated against in terms of pay, health benefits, office hours, and a host of other working conditions. We are as educated, well informed on the whole, hard working and intelligent as our full-time peers. So why, then, have we allowed ourselves to be treated so unjustly by our colleges? My discipline, Psychology, provides a conceptual framework for articulating what can certainly be considered an adaptive (yet unhealthy) reaction to an abnormal situation. While our passivity is normal, it is clearly not in our best interests to allow it to continue. This article contains my reflections about the psychological effects of long-term "freeway flying."
As I reflected over the past year on the plight of almost 30,000 part-timers in our state, pieces of insight began to coalesce in my mind. As I tried to defend myself and my part-time colleagues (“why do you stay? why do you put up with this horrific treatment?” came the questions from outsiders), it dawned on me that we are reacting as oppressed, victimized people often do— we have withdrawn, lost our sense of value and worth, and we are using the natural defense mechanism of denial to ward off the psychic pain we experience in response to our situation. Psychologists see this exact phenomenon in battered women and men all the time, as well as in victims of many kinds of trauma. In order to describe these psychological dynamics, I will use the masculine pronoun to refer to the batterer, and the feminine pronoun to refer to the victim, just for the sake of simplification; however, you should know the research indicates that men are probably battered as often as women are, although they report it far less often. Here is how the battering situation typically manifests.
The battering escalates slowly over time; it never starts on the first date, although perhaps signs are there which the victim fails (or refuses) to recognize. Each time an incident happens it is a shock to the victim’s system and further erodes her sense of self. After each incident the batterer apologizes, tells the victim he needs her, that he could not make it without her, and promises never to do it again. The victim wants to believe, so she convinces herself that it won’t happen again and “behaves” to ensure that it doesn’t. But you know the story: it always happens again. And when asked why she stays the victim responds, “because I love him.” Friends and family, if they are aware of the abuse (often they are not), try to convince the victim to leave, telling her that the batterer will never change. Most of the time these entreaties are ignored by the victim and, sometimes, she stays until the batterer kills her.
For the “adjunct” the form of the abuse is different, but the dynamics are very similar. We start teaching part-time for a variety or reasons, but gradually take on more classes to try to eke out a living “temporarily,” or so we tell ourselves. The next thing we know we are freeway flying to four or five different schools for a ridiculously small amount of money—far less than our full-time peers make for significantly less work. Nonetheless, we convince ourselves that as soon as a full-time position becomes available we will get it. When a position opens and we don’t get it, we tell ourselves that next time, surely, we will get in. And we go on teaching under the most appalling conditions, living out of our cars, begging for classes, going on unemployment in the summer, working without benefits of any kind, meeting our students in the halls for office hours; on and on the list of abuses goes. In the meantime, our deans and administrators coo at us at flex meetings, telling us how important we are, how much we are needed, how much we are loved and appreciated. They promise that more full-time openings are coming. We hear this and we swallow it, just as the battered spouse does, trying to believe that our batterer (read, administration) will change. When asked by outsiders why we stay we say, “because we love teaching.”
All of this mistreatment sets up the very same dynamic seen in battering relationships. We, the battered adjuncts, lose our sense of self-worth, we lose our sense of our own power, and we experience constant fear, tiptoeing around our deans and administrators trying not to stir up their ire, trying to “behave.” We go in, hats in hand, begging for classes each semester, juggling crushing schedules, praying that the classes we are offered will not conflict with classes at our other schools, and we become caught, sometimes for 10 and 20 years, in a cycle from which we cannot extricate ourselves.
I have decided to call this insanity, PTSD—not Posttraumatic Stress Disorder—but, rather, Part-Timer Stress Disorder. Think about it. It’s all there if you are willing to look. Do you have PTSD? Do you find yourself doing or thinking any of the things I mentioned above? If so, here is the cure: realize you have a problem, lift up your head and claim your value and worth as a human being and as an educator. Let go of your fear and take action to protect yourself. That is exactly what the organizing members of Adjunct Faculty United did. We are here to support you so that you can recover, too. Get involved. Be a part of the solution. Email Adjunct Faculty United at [email protected] or call 714-526-7220.
I am a fellow part-timer who teaches at Glendale Community College and Los Angeles City College in Los Angeles. I started being active in my local union about a year ago. It has been an eye opening, fulfilling, proactive and self actualizing experience. The California Federation of Teachers (CFT) has been very encouraging to part-timer activists. They have hired a part-timer coordinator specifically to help us keep in touch and work with each other to provide change in the rights, pay and benefits that adjunct faculty receive.Even in this one year I have seen huge changes come about. I am finally going to be able to buy into the medical insurance program of my choice with a State rebate for part of the premiums. I have received a real salary for working on the Executive Board of my local campus union organizing our parttimers. I am sent to conferences all over the State where I am learning about ways that part-timers can better their lot at the college level. All expenses of these conferences are being paid for by CFT.
On the other hand a colleague of mine is currently suing CTA [California Teachers Association--this is United Faculty's (NOCCCD Full-timers') sponsoring union] for ignoring her pleas for help during a grievance process she initiated against her district. After 10 years of working for her district she was laid off at the last minute and therefore was unable to find a position for the new semester in any other college. Her request for help from CTA was totally ignored.
KEEP UP THE FIGHT! ORGANIZING UNDER CFT WILL BE THE BEST WAY TO GET YOUR NEEDS THE ATTENTION THEY DESERVE ON YOUR CAMPUSES.
If it weren't for more than 30,000 part-time instructors, California community colleges simply wouldn't be able to function. Part-timers, sometimes known as "freeway fliers" or "road scholars" because many of them string together teaching jobs at far-flung campuses and commute from one to the next, allow the community colleges to expand and contract their course offerings from year to year and to respond with the agility that a dynamic California economy demands. To be blunt, they are also cheaper than full-time faculty. Many don't get health benefits. Few have office space.
But the community colleges -- the nation's single largest system of higher education with 1.3 million students -- have come to rely too heavily on their road scholars, who now outnumber full-time faculty by nearly 2 to 1. That heavy reliance isn't in the best interest of students, who don't have as much access to part-time instructors as to tenured faculty, who hold regular office hours. And it isn't always fair to the part-time instructors, many of whom are patching together full or close-to-full course loads
while making only a third to half the salary -- sometimes without any benefits -- of their full-time counterparts.The California Federation of Teachers, which represents part-time community college instructors, has for several years been lobbying the Legislature to boost their pay and benefits, and has met with some success. AB 420 by Assemblyman Scott Wildman provides matching funds for community college districts that want to offer health benefits and paid office hours for part-timers who teach at least 40 percent of a full-time load (a full-time load is considered five courses per semester). Some of the more progressive districts, such as Los Rios here in Sacramento County, already provide those benefits and will now get some financial help for doing so.
Equally important, however, is AB 420's mandate for the California Postsecondary Education Commission to do a study of the system's 30,000 part-time faculty, whose characteristics as a group remain a bit of a mystery. How many of them are actually stringing together a full course load at multiple colleges? How many are otherwise employed full-time and simply teaching a night course on the side? How many fall somewhere in between?
The first step in addressing the part-timer "problem" is to determine how much of a problem it is, how much it hurts students and how unfairly it treats the part-time faculty members themselves. The system needs to know, and so does the state, which relies heavily on the community colleges for its economic health. AB 420 sits on Gov. Gray Davis' desk, and he should sign it without delay.
