A Note from the Editor
Profession brings articles, news, and resources to all MLA members—whether you teach, write, advise students, or work in a library or an archive or a faculty development center. . . .
Fall 2018
Contingent Labor
In This Issue
Confessions of a Prize Heifer: From Adjunct to the Tenure Track
If you’re an adjunct and you think you’re not good enough and that somehow not being good enough got you where you are, don’t believe that. . . .
Social Intelligence in General Education Literature Courses
In reframing general education literature classes in the context of social intelligence, I don’t mean that we should resort to condescending platitudes—like the humanities teach us “how to be human.” . . .
Mentoring and Institutional Change
We therefore owe it to ourselves to adopt institutional arrangements that are best for carrying out the academic mission, and I would suggest that mentorship arrangements are a key part of doing so. . . .
One Hundred Job Ads from the Humanities Ecosystem
If academic job ads routinely ask for a wide range of skills, why does graduate school training often devalue the activities that would build these skills? What does a faculty member do—actually, fully? . . .
Common Good, Not Common Despair
We thought that institutions would be more likely to pay contingent faculty members a living wage, increase opportunities for advancement, and offer security if their rankings depend on their willingness to do so. . . .
Adjuncts, Staff, and Solidarity
[A]s more and more PhDs and other terminal-degree holders find work inside academia but still work as adjuncts on the side, we need to start thinking about how we can build solidarity across those lines. Staff members are our allies in changing the culture of higher education. . . .