I decided to leave my nearly full time adjunct job of 11 years and wanted to let my chair know now for the fall so they can plan. It’s a weird relationship where my name is already on fall classes in the registration website, but I won’t receive a fall contract until July or August.
I emailed my chair Tuesday morning and have not gotten a response. Did I write an unprofessional note? Should I have waited until summer? Should I have asked for a face to face?? Am I just totally unimportant? It just feels like a huge slap in the face after a decade of hard work mostly full time, for the lowest of pay.
Email sent 9am Tuesday:
Good morning xxxxxx,
I’m writing to inform you that I will not be returning to xxxxxx. in the fall. I’ve been honored and grateful for the opportunity to teach at my alma mater for the last 11 years, and will deeply miss the students, xxxxx, and colleagues. The kindness and care I experienced last spring during my dad’s passing was exceptional and I’ll always be deeply grateful to you, xxxxx, and others who allowed me to step away and focus on family for those weeks.
I wanted to let you know now so you can get started on my replacement; I’m happy to help with a transition if there are questions. Xxxxx is definitely in a strange spot and it’s going to be a very tough class for any incoming instructor.
Two notes on that: Fall 2024 xxxxxx had 24 students at 8:30 in the morning; I’ve never had such poor attendance and high fail rates. My current class is 15 students at 10am. The difference is night and day—attendance is way up, students are awake and engaged, and content is going much faster.
I noticed that for the fall schedule MW, xxxxx is capped at 24 and is scheduled at 8am. If I were teaching it this fall, I’d be lobbying you right now for either a smaller cap size or a later time. So, I thought I’d mention it in case either of those changes are possible to make the incoming instructor more successful.
Sincerely,
OP
Comments
Adjuncts who are not adjuncting for fun or as a side hustle are being taken advantage of.
Jesus. I would have certainly expected a reply by now. I’d follow up on the email.
Are they in town? At a conference, maybe? Hopefully…?
Do they have a history of being spiteful / passive aggressive? If no to the last one, maybe they’re sincerely swamped, and haven’t been able to give your email the full attention it deserves. Maybe they’re scrambling to figure things out before they reply.
Honestly, you’re a saint for putting up with the adjunct life for so damn long. I agree with the other commenter—adjuncts for the most part are taken advantage of in an abhorrent way in academia. I did it for three semesters out of love for the subject matter and my chair/assistant chair. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I remember having a short cry when I got my first paycheck. It was abysmal.
I hope your next steps are exciting ones!
I left my tenured academic job six years ago and it took two weeks for anyone to acknowledge my resignation….
I assume you already signed a contract for the fall.
It is disappointing that they did not respond promptly. But maybe they are swamped and planning on catching up on email over the weekend. Sometimes people don’t write a quick response because they believe the situation calls for a more meaningful and considered response, but then it slips their mind. Definitely, the department and institution should be deeply grateful for your work.
I mean, you might just send a simple follow up asking them to confirm receipt. Like "just checking to make sure you received this".
Since you asked for feedback, my honest take is it’s an awfully long message for what you’re trying to accomplish. I’ve resigned a tenured position with 2 sentences. You’ve combined your resignation with other less pressing issues (things that are more "fyi" and don’t require any action) and it’s entirely possible that they could have missed it.
Making suggestions about the class size and meeting time for classes you aren’t teaching is a bit weird. Not unprofessional but I might be slightly annoyed to receive these suggestions in a resignation email… I’d most likely just ignore them and say something like "thanks for letting me know, sorry to lose you".
However, I could also see a busy chair opening this, seeing that it’s long and something to do with next year (i.e., doesn’t require immediate action) and filing it to look at later, all without noticing the main point.