racy helps colleges e cost of ucatio. - Columbia University Graduate ...

Bad pay, zero job security, no benefits, endless commutes. Is this any way to treat PhDs responsible for teaching a gel1eration <strong>of</strong> col ege students? By Eric L. Wee PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRIS HARTLOVE AS DREAMS GO, LARISSA TRACY'S IS SIMPLE. She'd get up and head to work at Georgetown <strong>University</strong>. She'd stroll to her wood-paneled <strong>of</strong>fice lined with her medieval literature books. Light would scream in through the windows as she'd waic to teach one <strong>of</strong> her classes later in the day. But before that she'd have time to chat with colleagues about work and teaching and life. Maybe she'd get lunch with one <strong>of</strong> them. Or maybe she'd work on an article about the lives <strong>of</strong> female saints in the Middle Ages, her specialty. In the summers, she'd travel and attend conferences. Life would be good. She <strong>of</strong>ten thinks about that dream on days like this. On this chilly October morning she's merging onto Interstate 395, near her Shirlington apartment, and heading south on her daily 50-mile trek to Fredericksburg. It's 7 o'clock as her black Mazda Protege slides into the fast lane at 80 mph. She pushes hard on the accelerator and begins eating her toast. She needs to pass her first marker, the Quantico Marine Base, by 7:3o-otherwise, she'll be late for her first English composition class at Mary Washington College. The clock doesn't stop ticking after that: She'll teach four classes at three different <strong>colleges</strong> today. And those are just some <strong>of</strong> the six classes she's teaching this fall term, double the normal load <strong>of</strong>a college pr<strong>of</strong>essor. Or what used to be normal. Adjunct pr<strong>of</strong>essor Larissa T<strong>racy</strong> cobbled together a living by teaching at three different <strong>colleges</strong> last spring.