Doin' the Adjunct Dance

Or not.

Coincidentally, a community college just up the road from our house had a cattle call interview last Tuesday, for which I made the cut after posting my basic information. The Dean with whom I met raved about my stellar "pedigree," which was gratifying enough, but I hear through the grapevine that the actual person in charge of hiring is too busy to actually hire anyone to teach. In the meantime, the Dean told me that if I haven't heard back "after awhile" that I should definitely call.

So...what do I do? I guess the answer is to call after awhile (I think that less than a week is a little soon), but it's irritating to have to be begging for jobs that barely pay enough to cover childcare expenses, all for the sake of getting into a classroom again and being able to claim - however tenuously - an institutional affiliation.

I've also considered contacting the university up the road, but they seem to have a lot of people who are not actually trained in my field teaching in it (truly, it amazes me that this is even possible. If I professed to know their field and went applying for tenure-track jobs within it, I would be invited for interviews for the sole purpose of laughing me out of the room. But, since it's under the broad aegis of 'popular culture', everyone and their brother thinks they're ready to jump in and teach it). In particular, they have one person who teaches classes that are within my very small sub-field - with a focus on aspects of it that have long since fallen by the wayside. Since it requires knowledge of a comparatively esoteric language, people who have mastered the language tend to think that they have also mastered "the culture." Which, if you've mastered "the field," you know is 1) impossible, and 2) irredeemably pompous.

As a result, though, I'm not sure that there's any point to sending anyone there my CV. But if I don't send it there, and an opportunity doesn't materialize at the CC, I'm not sure what I can try next.