LB Thompson is the recipient of our first annual FA Award for Excellence in Adjunct Service. (photo courtesy LB Thompson)

As a follow up to the FA's awards and recognition celebration held on January 28, I have interviewed each of our award recipients so people can learn more about their good work.

Below the interview is the official nomination that was made on behalf of LB Thompson.

Q — Because you teach and work mostly on the Eastern Campus, I’m well aware of the wonderful work you do with our students, in classes, your student club and the writing center. Talk to our readers about being an adjunct at SCCC.

A — Well, for an adjunct who is teaching at different places and commuting a lot, it’s harder to be as present as we would like to be for our students. I teach at SCCC, Farmingdale, and I drive out to The New School/Parsons once a week to co-teach a text and image class. A lot of time is spent in a car, commuting between schools.

But still I feel like the college is an oasis. The Oklahoma town I grew up in was dominated by football and church, not a place that was exactly trendy for anyone who is LGBTQ. But it has become especially clear to me after the isolation of this past year that I really need my habitat. College campuses are enriching; you learn from and interact with people who also engaged with the pursuit of knowledge. We need this as denizens of an English department. We need the company to get beyond just being noses in a book. We need to do more to help adjuncts find and keep those connections.

Q — A common stereotype about adjuncts is that they are the “come, teach and leave” crew, that they aren’t as involved in the life of the campus as others. But I know that you are advisor to a student club, you serve on committees and so much more.

A — Partly that’s to give me those in-person connections that we all need. Working on the Creative Writing Festival, for example, doesn’t feel like a chore. That’s my chance to be with people who like the same things I do. I want to be active with it. Being more involved with more than just teaching and getting back in my car has made a big difference in my own frame of mind. Working in the writing center helps a lot too because being in a space with colleagues gives a sense of community.

As co-advisor to the Gender Sexuality Alliance for four years, we brought in guest speakers, took student groups into the city, brought the LGBTQ Network to campus for workshops, did some film screenings and voter registration drives. Service with and for students also is more about enjoying time with good people engaged in similar pursuits. That too is part of the habitat.

Q — The FA is deeply concerned about the experiences of our adjunct colleagues. What advice can you share on that?

A — We know that adjuncts are being exploited and we know this is an entrenched problem. It’s not just SCCC. We need a revamping of the whole higher ed system. The exploitation is frustrating, but if I feel cranky and frustrated when I’m home, that’s one thing, but when I’m interacting with students or colleagues, I would never let that show. It’s not the students’ fault that the system is set up this way. I’m determined to give them the most wonderful educational experience that I can give them. I had extraordinarily generous professors myself and I want to offer my own students a bit of that. You don’t have to look hard to see our students’ stories. You can see how their lives interfere with school in the most heartbreaking ways, and you feel compelled to help. 

Q — How does it feel to be the very first FA member to receive an award for excellence in adjunct service?

A — It is definitely possible to feel invisible as a contingent worker, and it is meaningful to have official recognition of your presence in the community. It matters to have someone say “we see you.” I hope that the visibility here might make it possible for more of us adjuncts to get to know each other. We have some really awesome adjuncts at SCCC. No matter your field, there’s so much cross pollination that can happen. If we want to advance our own learning and our own ways of teachings, we have to collaborate. There’s not a lot of incentive to work together, so maybe this can contribute to a culture where adjuncts aren’t only going from the car to the copy machine to the classroom. Everything is better if we get to know each other and share ideas. 

Nomination for LB Thompson, Excellence in Adjunct Service

I am honored to join you all here. I’m especially deeply honored to be here with you, LB, to present the Excellence in Adjunct Service Award. It’s the inaugural presentation of this award and arguably the most hard won of the distinctions. After all, there are many more adjuncts at the college, each cobbling together teaching assignments from multiple higher educational institutions or other part-time or full-time gig work, traveling all over Suffolk and Nassau counties. So, adjuncts are stretched thin which can make it impossible to commit to college service at all. And this year’s inaugural recipient is no different. And yet, this recipient does the impossible.

The Excellence in Adjunct Service Award honors exemplary involvement in our learning community. This award honors outstanding dedication to student learning and development outside the classroom. It honors excellence beyond the formal role of teacher, advisor and mentor. It recognizes outstanding commitment to enhancing a culture of inclusive excellence at the college and within our community and demonstrated dedication to intellectual discovery and social and ethical awareness that transforms lives, builds communities and improves society.

Well, it’s obvious to me and it soon will be to you too that the Excellence in Adjunct Service award must have been conceived with LB Thompson in mind. Those of us lucky to be in her orbit, colleagues, friends and students alike, admire her compassion, her thoughtfulness, her intellect, her humor, her courage and her exemplary dedication to students, colleagues and our communities within the college and beyond its walls. She’s the exemplar to which we should all attempt to emulate. At the same time, we are here to celebrate LB’s unique and peerless service. A service recognized in the collection of her contributions motivated by her deep fidelity to a pedagogical, social and personal praxis.

My first substantive conversation with LB was during our car ride to a NYSUT Community College Conference. We shared concerns over adjunct inequities, racial, educational and economic inequities. What emerged from that conversation? Well, she is today a co-founder of the only 501(c)3 community-based nonprofit in Suffolk County, our community, with the mission to bring liberal arts education to justice involved individuals in Suffolk County jails and to those on probation and parole. And this is just one of many community nonprofits she’s involved in.

Here at the college, LB participated in past college Creative Writing Festivals. She serves on the FA elections committee and FA adjunct task force—just to name a few faculty related contributions out of more.

LB’s community engagement and faculty contributions are truly impressive, indeed. But it is her engagement with students that truly inspires. LB’s teaching ethics and practices make it clear that she knows teaching at a community college requires a holistic approach. For several years she served as Gender & Sexuality Alliance faculty advisor at our Eastern Campus, and this year she is the faculty advisor for the college-wide Sexuality and Gender Alliance.

And, while many faculty members might avoid the trouble, LB doesn’t shirk from the more difficult situations facing our students. In fact, she embraces them. For example, she once spent a weekend helping a homeless student find housing and helped this same student secure additional needed support from the college. I know this because I was there when the student approached her.

She found shelter for another who was facing violence at home. She secured transportation for more than one student. I have witnessed LB spend an afternoon calling Planned Parenthood centers locating hormonal therapy for one of our trans-men students. Frankly, this list can go on.

Frequently you’ll find LB working one-to-one with her present and former students outside of class and on her own time. You’ll find her with students in the cafeteria, sitting on a bench outdoors, in the library, at a table in a hallway in the Orient Building.

And again, for those of us who are lucky enough to be in her orbit know that LB Thompson is much, much more than an adjunct professor. She is a force behind what makes Suffolk County Community College a special place for our students and for her colleagues.    

There is no other faculty member more deserving of special recognition than LB Thompson. And I just can’t believe that there could be any other future recipient of the FA Excellence in Adjunct Service Award who can fill her shoes.

I am profoundly honored, my dear colleague and my friend, to be the one introducing you today. I’m thrilled to present you with the FA Excellence in Adjunct Service Award. I wish it was in person.