by Chris Cumo

Tim Coogan has taught part-time 15 years for community col- leges in New York and New Jersey. He has been on every cam- pus in New York City except Columbia University and the New School. At Rutgers University, where he has taught more than a decade, Coogan has an office and contributes to a pension. He has medical coverage from LaGuardia Community College in New York City and teaches as many as 18 courses a year. At $3,000 a course on average he earns some $54,000 a year.

But what about the rest of us who have neither the option nor perhaps the stamina to teach 18 courses a year and who wouldn’t get $3,000 a course even if we did? The conventional wisdom is that adjuncts whose incomes hover around the poverty line should find work in business, government or anyplace else that will hire them. When part-time teaching didn’t land University of California, Berkeley English Ph.D. Annalee Newitz on the tenure-track she left academe to become features editor at The San Francisco Bay Guardian. The lesson seems to be that the rest of us should follow Newitz into the world of post-academic capitalism.

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