Editor's Note:  Fem 2.0 is sponsoring Wake Up! This Is the Reality blog carnival to promote discussions about the challenges of balancing work and life.  Jennie Smith joins the discussion from the perspective of a part-time faculty member, parent, trade unionist and writer.

Every day of my working life, especially since I had children, has been a struggle to devote myself to everything I care about without having any one focus take over my life.  Therefore, I have opted to do several jobs "part-time" to achieve a balance between my family, my students, my union work, and my writing.

Whereas in most fields of work, "part-time" merely means what it says, you do your work part-time, unfortunately, in higher education, the label "part-time faculty" comes with a stigma.  Higher education willfully overlooks the value of some very good part-time faculty--faculty who have taught in the high schools from which students come, faculty who practice in the field in which they teach, faculty who practice their art, and faculty who work in the community the college serves.  There is much that part-time faculty can offer.  The reasons for being part-time are as numerous as the part-time faculty themselves.

Many of the discoveries I have made stem from my different part-time jobs.  I have the perspective of teaching at two schools, being active in two unions, and in two English Departments.  I see what works or does not work at each college.  I make time to write every day.  Therefore, I have the frame of reference of an active writer, and I share ideas with my students with a feeling of authenticity.  I'm practicing what I'm preaching, which is important to me.

I first discovered my ability to write fiction when I took time off from teaching to stay home with my sons, then one and three years old.  Because I was part-time, I was able to take off for two years.  I wrote because my mind had time to explore, to search for something on which to attach itself.  I understand why faculty need sabbaticals.  This balance gave me time for inspiration.

Returning to teaching after this period off, I considered full-time work.  However, I surveyed what happened to new full-time faculty, and I began to see part-time work as more ideal for me.  I still had small children, so I only taught as much as I could handle, which was typically one class per semester.  I gave that class my all though.  I remember one student tentatively raising his hand and asking, "Do you teach any other classes?"  I said no.  He knowingly nodded his head.  We laughed afterward as he explained that he could not imagine me sustaining this level of enthusiasm through a full load of courses.  Being part-time worked.  This balance gave me time for enthusiasm.

Now that my children are in school, and to pay off some bills, I'm carrying a 9 credit-hour load this semester, a little more than part-time, and not far from a 12 credit-hour full-time load.  Again, I considered that I should just apply for full-time work after all.  Immediately though, I felt trapped, suffocated with the thought of the obligations, and already missing the balance I still manage to have.  I remember that the full-time faculty member image I had when I was a college student rarely exists anymore, the revered professor in his/her office, writing, thinking, issuing well-respected, expert opinions that are heeded from above.

The new full-time faculty I know envy my time to write, and when I see how they are pressured into committee work and other duties on the long road to tenure (which may be gone by the time they get there), a full-time faculty position is no longer very appealing.  When threats abound that faculty will be held accountable to a population of students who are working full-time, going to school full-time, and may not even want to be there in the first place, I want to remain a "free agent," who has no real stake in the college.  I have little to lose as a part-time faculty member. 

As a young teacher, I loved to teach at the main campuses of my colleges, but now I happily teach at the branch campuses.  There it's just me and my students.  I try to stay out of the fray.  Full-time faculty members often become mired in the dirty department politics.  I have no interest in them, nor do I want to witness firsthand the bullying by administrators, and the pandering of new full-time faculty or hopeful part-time faculty.  Higher education today has been turned upside down.  No longer do ideas flow up.  The rules come crashing down, trying to break the spirit of the union and the departments.  Too often those who succeed are not necessarily the most deserving, but those who comply.

Of course, there are some tradeoffs I had to make for choosing to be a part-time faculty member.  Remaining as a part-time faculty member takes a lot of self-acceptance.  Persisting in an environment where some full-time faculty and most of the administration see you as second class takes focus on what matters.  I have foregone the respect that comes with the title of full-time faculty to keep my balance.  I am paid only about half of what a full-time professor receives for teaching the same course.  It shouldn't have to be this way.

There is still a part of me that remembers the state of higher education as it once was when I was a student, idolizing my professors.  This is why I became a union officer, to attempt to reverse the course while we still have some remnant of faculty control.  I fight for part-time and full-time faculty alike, remembering the image of what I wanted to be when I was growing up. 

Unions support a worker's individual choices, while still inviting them to belong to the whole.