After stories by the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Village Voice, Erin O'Connor points to "The Case of the Invisible Adjunct" in the Boston Globe about IA and the adjunctification of higher education."...I've got mixed feelings about the way IA has become, in the wake of her departure, a sort of faceless poster girl for the degradation of academic work," Erin concludes.

On the one hand, the human interest that surrounds her story has made it possible to publicize a problem that needs all the publicity it can get. On the other hand, the hand-wringing has a bitterly ironic quality to it: What IA wanted was a job teaching college history; instead, she has become facelessly famous as the woman who was wrongly denied that opportunity. Meanwhile, I have to wonder whether any of the gainfully employed academic historians who have publicly mourned the fate of IA have tried to find a place for her--a real, lasting place for her--in their profession. It's obvious from IA's site what a fine teacher and scholar she is--the Invisible Adjunct's blog may quite reasonably be read as one of the longest and most eloquent job interviews in history. She's readily reachable by email; if reporters can talk to her, so can prospective employers. So what's the problem? Inquiring and frustrated minds what to know.

Exactly. Invisible Adjunct has all the qualities one might want in a great teacher and scholar. Her management of wonderful conversations on the net for such a long time should make any alert history department anxious to hire her. Is there such a thing as"an alert history department"?
Update: In the discussion at Critical Mass, Tim Burke and David Salmanson tell us why O'Connor and I are unrealistic.