Kelly Train, our Chief Steward, recently shared an essay by Herb Childress on the predicament of adjuncts in American universities: “This is How You Kill a Profession.” The content and tone are exactly what you’d expect from such a title.

However I recommend you read the essay if you haven’t already, if for no other reason than to commiserate on the lure of the academic life, its promises and disappointments. The essay is an excerpt from The Adjunct Underclass: How America’s Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, and the book seems to have struck a nerve. You’ll find a long review in the most recent issue of The New Yorker that contrasts the reflections of a privileged former president of NYU with Childress’s quasi memoir. It is Childress’s story that takes up the bulk of the review, and whose message supplies its conclusion.