Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 08:20:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: Nick Carbone <nickc@marlboro.edu>
To: CyberJournal for Rhetoric and Writing <RHETNT-L@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Subject: Diasporing
I like Eric's advice and Marcy's observations because they reaffirm a
choice I made to never leave New England, and now that my family is
rooted in a community they like, to never leave Sunderland, MA. But one
of the attractions to tenure and teaching was job security--the nomadic
image Victor evoked seemed awfully close to the gypsy-scholar,
stock-the-rooms with part-timers at low pay, no insurance, so many of us
have railed against and suffered under. Or still rail against and still
suffer under. It wasn't too long ago that someone published a piece in
_CCC_ or _CE_ about working at two different schools both part time.
That said the only way, ultimately, to force change is to prepared to
walk away from the situation as it exists. That's pretty risky. I
suppose one could join an organization such as National Association of
Writing Consultants, which is a useful group for entrepreneurial scholars
and teachers who have transposed their academic interests to non-academic
settings.
Now how does one go about risk taking, really traumatic put
your-family-career-and-self-worth on the line risk taking--which is what
Eric's really calling for? It's one thing to do as Marcy suggests and to
opt for other careers--tech. writing, advertising, sales, community
service coordinator, think tank researcher, etc.; it's quite another to
teach beyond an institution and to do that for a living.
Is that to say I think it's impossible? No. I think it's an incredibly
complex problem, one that will require large doses of Eric's enthusiasm
to address, one that will create many models for success, and one that
could be a lot of fun trying to solve, maybe even more fun trying to do.
Maybe the place to start is with a kind of market research question:
where else are writing teachers/composition and rhetoric
theorists/computer pedagogist needed or could they be needed and how much
are they, in dollars, worth there?
Nick Carbone, Writing Instructor
Marlboro College
Marlboro, VT 05344
nickc@marlboro.edu