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# Are You a Commuting Adjunct? There's a Magazine for You (Sort Of)
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/are-you-a-commuting-adjunct-theres-a-magazine-for-you-sort-of/
- Published: 2015-08-12T22:31:12.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:30:59.000Z
- Description: Last month, artist, writer, and editor Dushko Petrovich launched Adjunct Commuter Weekly, "the first magazine devoted to the lifestyle needs and shared interests of a rapidly growing and increasingly influential demographic."
- Author: Jillian Steinhauer
- Tags: Art, Dushko Petrovich, Print media, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:08 (2014, 2015, part 2)

![The front page of the first and only print edition of 'Adjunct Commuter Weekly' (screenshot by the author)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2015/08/acw-homepage2.jpg)

The front page of the first and only print edition of ‘Adjunct Commuter Weekly’ (screenshot by the author) (click to enlarge)

The adjunct professor population has [grown rapidly](http://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/files/AAUP-InstrStaff2011-April2014.pdf?ref=hyperallergic.com) over the past 40 years in the US, to the [point where](http://www.aaup.org/issues/contingency/background-facts?ref=hyperallergic.com) “non-tenure-track positions … now account for 76 percent of all instructional staff appointments” in higher education here. So, it was only a matter of time before someone recognized that there’s a demographic hiding behind that statistic, and that the demographic has [needs](https://www.guernicamag.com/features/the-teaching-class/?ref=hyperallergic.com), like healthcare, job stability — and its own trade publication.

Yes, last month, artist, writer, and editor [Dushko Petrovich](http://dushkopetrovich.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) launched [*Adjunct Commuter Weekly*](https://www.facebook.com/events/103835586633502/), “the first magazine devoted to the lifestyle needs and shared interests of a rapidly growing and increasingly influential demographic,” according to the press release. Petrovich solicited interviews (with “Platinum Commuter” [Sam Messer](http://samuelmesser.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com)), essays (“Five trains each way means ten trains a day,” “Blur of Chobanis”), poetry, photography, sudoku, and more from a roster of “some of the world’s most illustrious adjunct commuters”; he [Kickstarted](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2101422223/adjunct-commuter-weekly/description?ref=hyperallergic.com) the production costs to the tune of $5,157 (more than many adjuncts [make per course](http://chronicle.com/article/Adjunct-Project-Shows-Wide/136439/?ref=hyperallergic.com)); and on Thursday, July 30, he launched the impressively packed publication with a 20-page full-color newsprint tabloid at an [event](https://www.facebook.com/events/103835586633502/) at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

And then, a week and a half later, *Adjunct Commuter Weekly* ceased publication. Because of financial and time constraints.

“*Adjunct Commuter Weekly* is content driven, and I think that’s the underlying problem, financially. I see that very clearly now,” Petrovich told Hyperallergic. “The ads, for example — they were all free. In fact, they were stolen, screen grabbed. Maybe I should have gotten ads from Amtrak and academic publishers, but that might have jeopardized the content. I didn’t want to do that.

![Copies of 'Adjunct Commuter Weekly' (image via Facebook) (click to enlarge)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2015/08/acw-car.jpg)

Copies of ‘Adjunct Commuter Weekly’ (image courtesy Adjunct Commuter Weekly) (click to enlarge)

“Or maybe I could have had a better fundraising model,” he continued. “The Kickstarter went over the $4,300 it cost to print, design, proof, and mail the first issue, but it didn’t go over enough for me to pay for a second issue. People were very generous, but no one gave over $150\. I just couldn’t get any big investors to believe that this would be ‘the new Uber for adjuncts.’ Maybe I could have a big gala with famous adjunct commuters and they could lean on their department heads for money? Maybe Soros? I did want to do an IPO, but then, as I said, I got caught up in the content.”

And content costs money too. “I got many offers from people to contribute for free to future issues,” Petrovich explained, “and even on a weekly basis, but while I was happy to accept volunteer contributions one time, asking people to do free work week in and week out started to feel a little too much like … adjuncting.”

All hope is not lost, though. *Adjunct Commuter Weekly* will officially relaunch as ACW, a “multiplatform new-media content experience” featuring a ride-sharing app and a podcast — which no one will be compensated to make, “unless people want to donate to us.” How 2015.

I asked Petrovich what he thought the swift rise and fall of *Adjunct Commuter Weekly* indicated about the state of journalism and/or adjuncting today.

“While I do see the print model as a problem, I think the underlying economic model is a bigger problem,” he said. “Both in journalism and in adjuncting — but also in health care, manufacturing, and every other industry I can think of — we are being cut up into smaller and smaller pieces. It wasn’t lost on me that we had to send out our press release rebranding *Adjunct Commuter Weekly* as ACW on the same day that Google rebranded as Alphabet.”

But whereas Google employees get to [bring their pets to work](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-favorite-perks-2014-7?ref=hyperallergic.com#dogs-are-welcome-6), Petrovich must now work on the go. “I’ll be doing all of the ACW work in my car,” he explained, which naturally limits the nature and depth of it. That’s a loss for journalism, but a sure win for hypercapitalism — after all, a magazine serving the needs of the adjunct commuter must think and act like one: infinitely adaptable.