While an MA is no less a “real” anthropologist than a PhD, what we’re examining here is professional development. Without the terminal degree one has always has the possibility of finishing, even if the desire is not there.

Once you have a PhD the credentialing process is complete. So we’re controlling for that variable.

On a similar theme, I think another possibility are people who are locked into adjunct positions (even crummy ones), are actually okay with it, and have stopped looking for tenure track jobs. While my job doesn’t pay very well it is rather easy and thus affords me plenty of time to be with my three kids.

Nevertheless, I had to go through a few years of angst and feelings of failure before I came to this point. Even now I remain thoroughly ambivalent about my employment status. I’m sure you felt something similar when you did not receive tenure. I think once you said you were “apocalyptic” afterwords!

Anyways, I expect that a sense of ambivalence and doubt will turn up in many responses… but we shall see.

When you check my answers, you may discover a phenomenon not imagined in your questionnaire, becoming an adjunct as a hobby instead of a livelihood. This possibility is quite common in Japan and, I understand from gossip, in business and other professional schools in other parts of the world. The business schools call adjuncts of this type “clinical professors,” and hires them to share their practical experience with students more interested in recent war stories than in organizational theory.

This is, in many respects, a totally different world from that of adjuncts who are just starting academic careers and hoping to win tenure. I mention it here only because it represents a possibility rarely considered in these discussions. Securing a livelihood outside of academia while retaining academic interests and returning to teach at a later point in your life,

And I’ll clarify the survey: if you have a PhD in Anthropology and you adjunct or have adjuncted, you’re eligible to complete the survey, regardless of what kind of department you adjunct for.