On driving and surviving

Nearly two weeks after getting pulled over and ridiculed by a police officer who didn't like my car's headlights, I still tense up every time I drive through that little river town, which is right smack in the middle of my shortest route to campus. I have adjusted my schedule so I can leave the house after the sun comes up, which means I encounter more traffic and more school buses loading and unloading, but I still get nervous every time I get close to the tiny town where the police officer promised that he'd be watching me. 

This morning I saw a police car taking radar at the edge of town, where the speed limit switches from 55 to 35. Just seeing the police car made me tense up--even though I've always been careful about slowing down there. I'll bet the impatient pickup-truck drivers who ride my bumper itching for a passing zone don't get tense when they drive through that dinky little town. Will I ever again drive through there without fear?

If the aftereffects of a minor chewing-out can linger so stubbornly, you can just imagine the lingering impacts of our recent campus bloodletting. Here we are in Inside Higher Ed, where our campus cuts are placed in the context of a bunch of other colleges facing similar problems. We're in pretty good company, but that doesn't do much to diminish the local impacts. Departments are scrambling to construct fall course schedules, proposing changes to majors to reduce dependence on classes we can no longer offer, and searching for adjuncts to teach courses formerly taught by full-time faculty members whose positions were cut.

This kind of struggle makes me even more tense than my encounter with a condescending traffic cop. It feels unjust to cut a position and then try to replace the instructor with a contingent faculty member who will be paid poorly, won't have access to benefits, and is unlikely to be invested in the future of the College or the education of students beyond the classroom.

In addition, it's not easy to find adjunct instructors qualified to teach in certain fields in the Appalachian part of the state. A few hours away in Columbus or Cleveland we could find a deeper talent pool, but who's going to drive two or three hours to teach here for the piddly amount we pay for adjunct labor? All we can offer is a decent office--because so many positions have been cut that we'll have empty offices on every floor of my building.

Emotions are raw and anger bubbles up everywhere. Worst of all, though, is the fear: If that position can be cut, why can't mine? Faculty members have confided that they are afraid their actions are being monitored, that some malign force is watching their every move in search of some excuse to pounce.

I've adjusted my daily commute in response to paranoia about one solitary traffic cop who promises he's watching me, but what happens when that kind of paranoia infests an entire campus? Trust is a fragile vessel and easily broken; how can those of us who remain put the pieces back together when so many have been lost?