Abstract
This piece gives a first-person account of what it has been like teaching as an adjunct in NYC during the pandemic. It explores the myriad challenges of working as contingent faculty, and how inequities like low pay and little or no access to employer-based healthcare have been amplified by COVID-19. It also touches upon how policies and procedures put in place to grant accommodations for online teaching have the potential to set a dangerous precedent vis-à-vis employee privacy, opening the door to discriminatory hiring practices that could be justified by our current crisis, disguised as a concern for public health. The essay concludes by considering the costs of continuing to undervalue contingent faculty as a cost-saving measure, and how such practices could lead to a shortage in qualified instructors in the future.
Recommended Citation
Koski, Scott
(2021)
"Academia During the Pandemic: The Limits of Empathy and Compassion,"
Survive & Thrive: A Journal for Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine: Vol. 6:
Iss.
1, Article 22.
Available at:
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/survive_thrive/vol6/iss1/22