Tyler McAndrew
I am currently working for my fourth consecutive semester as an adjunct instructor at Pitt. I love my job. I love my department. I trust and respect my colleagues and the administration that we work under. I have good health insurance. I make enough money to satisfy my needs. But as a non-tenure stream adjunct instructor, I have no job security, no guarantee of a contract at the end of each semester.
I live my life three months at a time: in September, I need start saving in case I don't have a job come the end of December, or in case I find out two weeks beforehand that I'm going to be teaching only one class instead of two. On top of the two classes that I teach, I also have another job working twenty hours a week at a writing center at a neighboring university – a safety measure to ensure that I have some income in case I'm not offered a new contract at Pitt. Holding down that other job means that, during the semester, I am working six days a week, Monday through Saturday. This has been the case for the past year of my life.
I am told, through my student surveys and teaching observations, that I am good at my job, and I like to tell myself that this is something I have a future in. But it's also hard to imagine escaping the cycle that I'm in right now – I can't take the risk of leaving my tutoring job, but my schedule doesn't afford me the time I would need to work on the sorts of things that might lead to a more stable position at the university. Worse than that, I worry that my students will eventually pay for it, that I won't be able to give the time and energy I should to their work.
I would support a faculty union at Pitt because it could provide stability for myself and other teachers who are caught in similar positions. I would support a faculty union because I love my job, but each year, come December, or come May, I worry that I will find myself without one.
--Tyler McAndrew, English
I live my life three months at a time: in September, I need start saving in case I don't have a job come the end of December, or in case I find out two weeks beforehand that I'm going to be teaching only one class instead of two. On top of the two classes that I teach, I also have another job working twenty hours a week at a writing center at a neighboring university – a safety measure to ensure that I have some income in case I'm not offered a new contract at Pitt. Holding down that other job means that, during the semester, I am working six days a week, Monday through Saturday. This has been the case for the past year of my life.
I am told, through my student surveys and teaching observations, that I am good at my job, and I like to tell myself that this is something I have a future in. But it's also hard to imagine escaping the cycle that I'm in right now – I can't take the risk of leaving my tutoring job, but my schedule doesn't afford me the time I would need to work on the sorts of things that might lead to a more stable position at the university. Worse than that, I worry that my students will eventually pay for it, that I won't be able to give the time and energy I should to their work.
I would support a faculty union at Pitt because it could provide stability for myself and other teachers who are caught in similar positions. I would support a faculty union because I love my job, but each year, come December, or come May, I worry that I will find myself without one.
--Tyler McAndrew, English
