Adjunct Underground Communique #4 - 01-27-2014
This week:
Cecilia Woloch reads her resignation letter
An extended interview with Cecilia Woloch
mp3 | pdf of resignation letter
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Cecilia Woloch, Popular Full-Time Non-Tenure Track Lecturer at USC, Resigns
Cecilia Woloch, a popular lecturer at USC, recently and reluctantly resigned her position on December 30, 2013. Woloch had taught in the English Department of USC’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Science since 2006 as what’s known as a Full-Time Non-Tenure-Track lecturer, also commonly known by its acronym as F.T.N.T.T..
While at USC, Woloch created five new courses over six years, as well as two extremely successful marquee programs, The Writer in the Community, as well as The Poet in Paris Maymester—all while working on a year-to-year contract, with little to no chance for merit-pay increases. Both of these programs, which still appear featured on the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Science website, along with accompanying video testimonials featuring Woloch and her students, serve as glowing examples of the education students will encounter if they enroll in classes in the Department of English at USC.
After a series of severe staff reductions and pay cuts, and years of refusals by the administration to recognize the remarkable contributions she’s made, or her considerable professional career outside of the institution, Woloch appealed to USC administration. Her goal was to negotiate a more equitable outcome that would permit these fantastic programs, and her presence, to continue. Her proposals were instead met with additional cuts and punitive counter-offers. A last-ditch attempt to negotiate a plan for her to at least finish out the Spring semester, as well as one last iteration of the extremely popular Poet in Paris Maymester program, was met with USC Vice Dean Dani Byrd’s terse response: “unequivocally no.”
As a result, Cecilia Woloch decided to officially resign her position, effective December 30, 2013.
A petition on Change dot org, created a by a former student of Professor Woloch’s, currently has over 500 signatures.
Cecilia Woloch serves as a chilling example of a loved professor who, despite years of work and several major contributions that were touted by her institution to recruit both students and donors, in the end was unable to receive even a fraction of the pay, staff support, stability, and respect that her tenure-track colleagues are typically afforded. Instead she was ultimately forced out by remorseless, unavailable, invisible administrators. Her story demonstrates the remarkable unfairness that full-time non-tenure-track faculty at USC and elsewhere today are facing, who in exchange for the immense amount of work and care that they generously donate to their respective schools, are unable to advance professionally, are paid outrageously low salaries, and are threatened with year-to-year contracts that risk not being improved or renewed.
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Related Links:
The Writer in the Community Program – USC Promotional Video: http://dornsife.usc.edu/videos/undergraduate/80/the-writer-in-the-community/
The Poet in Paris Maymester Program – USC Promotional Video: http://dornsife.usc.edu/videos/undergraduate/509/poets-in-paris/
Petition: Keep Cecilia Woloch at USC! Sign below to insist USC keep this inspiring educator in the classroom – https://www.change.org/petitions/keep-cecilia-Woloch-at-usc-sign-below-to-insist-usc-keep-this-inspiring-educator-in-the-classroom#share