[Maryann Corbett]

Some very distressing news concerning a friend of the Sphere, here:

The Poetry versus the Party Line: The Dismissal of Ned Balbo

[John (J.D.) Smith]

Thank you for sharing this.

Academia has become something much stranger and uglier than what this first-generation college student once imagined.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Your books and prizes attest to your being a prize catch for any academic institution. I wish you a happy solution as speedily as possible--though I am not minimizing the problems of relocation and spousal employment.

So sorry to hear this, Ned.

[Michael Cantor]

I feel sorry for you, and sorry for academia. When somebody with your credentials and history goes through what you have, it sends a sad message. The very best of luck in finding a new position.

[W.F. Lantry]

http://cheausa.org/poet-versus-party...sal-ned-balbo/

[Michael Juster]

A shame--Ned's a fine poet and person.

The adjunct role is frequently abused, particularly in the liberal arts. I had a nice run at BU for three years teaching in the law school and gave it up only because the nature of the course involved a ton of work and I had growing responsibilities at the day job and as the father of teenagers.

I taught an upper level undergraduate course in formal poetry one year at Emerson on short notice to sub for Bill Knott. The course was highly rated by the students and they asked me to do it again the next year in the MFA program. About three weeks before the start of the semester some administrator calls me in and tells me he has decided that I "have to teach" some other course I was wildly unqualified for--nineteenth century fiction or something like that--instead of what I knew and had been preparing. When I politely declined he was furious and insisted that I "have to teach" what he told me to teach. I told him quietly that I did this for fun, not money, and if that was his attitude he could find someone else--which I knew he knew he could do.

For me it probably made my life easier; for people who survive by teaching adjunct, it is usually a miserable way to live.

[Michael Juster]

Maybe we can combine the two Ned threads?

[Siham Karami]

Wow, this is extremely unfair, extremely disturbing. It appears that one individual alone, by virtue of his power, could interpret "rules" as he likes and to his advantage, riding roughshod on the lives, careers, and commitments of others. And it seems he is perfectly happy, and empowered, to ignore the pleas of almost everyone but himself, and maybe a few who want to ingratiate him. I never knew universities were so autocratic and could be governed by some dictatorial chump, and that he could act as if all that mattered were his own decrees. I wish Ned Balbo all the best, and hope somehow this nightmare can be rewritten...

[Siham Karami]

Yes, I just commented on the other thread, then found this one. I wish the best for Ned Balbo who certainly deserves better. The other victims are the students, who may now lose an outstanding teacher who is irreplaceable. I hope something happens to make Loyola feel consequences for this idiocy. So they can understand that ultimately the university is no better than its faculty, a fact, along with fairness, that should guide how "rules" are interpreted.

[E. Shaun Russell]

Threads merged.