Invisible Adjunct

Academic Theme Park

As the process of adjunctification continues apace, with 43 percent of all faculty now part-time and university administrations claiming that, much as they'd love to, they simply cannot afford to invest in full-time faculty, it is rather discouraging to learn that millions and millions of dollars can be devoted to the building of water parks. But in the comments to Living Like a Student, 21st-Century Style, "better left nameless" (indeed) makes an excellent proposal. Instead of wringing our hands in despair over this trend, "better left" suggests, why not get in on the action:

Could TAs and adjuncts take advantage of this? Perhaps there should be a traveling carnival staffed entirely by adjuncts and TAs, with special 'academic' rides and games? Throwing darts at CVs for prizes? How about the dreaded 'Cattle Call' ride (sponsored by the American Historical Association)? A crowd of unsuspecting riders are forced to fight for a tiny number of seats for a rollercoaster. For the few that get on, many are ejected from the ride by a spring mechanism along the way and there are no belts to keep them in. Imagine a whole Western motif to it.

When a person is ejected, a Burl Ives mechanical voice yells out, 'You're history, partner!'

The AHA Tilt-a-Whirl? The MLA House of Horrors? The Academic Job Search Isolation Tank? The Grade Inflation Hot-Air Balloon Ride? Once we abandon all remaining vestiges of our archaic ideals of education and purge ourselves of all remaining traces of our old-fashioned notions of dignity, the possibilities are limited only by our imagination.