My Final Day at Cambridge College

When I came to Cambridge College in 2008, it was to teach in a unique educational leadership doctoral program that was started in 2006 to prepare school leaders with an unambiguous and historically-informed social justice agenda. As a full-time tenured faculty member, I was a rare bird, for the College at that time had fewer than 30 full-time "core" faculty members, which carried the same benefits and responsibilities as tenured faculty.  The rest of the faculty was comprised of adjuncts and part-time professors, and they numbered in the low hundreds. 

Due to administrative incompetence and penurious policies, the Ed Leadership EdD program was dead by 2014. I stayed on, continuing to teach in the Masters program and continuing to create new courses focused on antiracism, historical accountability, and social justice.

There have been exactly three new core faculty hires after me.  One moved into administration and the two others, I found out today, had their positions discontinued several days ago, resulting in curt, unceremonious Zoom layoffs that are, doubtless, planned to be permanent.  Today I became the third.  

If my math is correct, that leaves a total of five full-time core faculty members, as others in that 20-something number of 2008 have retired or are now deceased. And even though Covid, mismanagement, rumors of administrative improprieties, and managerial churn have taken their toll on enrollment, organizational continuity, and the number of recruits in the College's adjunct army, Cambridge College continues, nonetheless, to move forward with grandiose plans for Cambridge College Global, which we might see advertised on matchbooks worldwide.

And so I am offered 6.75 months of severance pay, per the AFT negotiated contract which expires this year, and no health or life insurance coverage beyond January 31.  That's what Cambridge College is offering its core faculty for 15 years of service.  That's not nearly enough, as the College knows now and will continue to learn anew as their crass plans unfold. 

In a final bit of sadly comic irony, the cheap clock that the College sent me just a few weeks back to mark my 15 years of teaching service stopped working after a few days.  I lasted 15 years, and as Cambridge College will come to know, I am still ticking strong.