Posted on 01/30/2015 6:01:10 AM PST by rellimpank
When Gov. Scott Walker remarked this week, while discussing proposed budget cuts to the UW System, that faculty and staff should be teaching more classes and doing more work, it bared one of the most enduring sources of friction in higher education.
To listen to many university critics, the primary function of faculty members is that of a teacher in a classroom — someone who educates students in a model that is, in many respects, a continuation of high school. Working with students whose families may have saved for years and taken on significant debt to afford higher education is primary; everything else is ancillary.
To listen to many in academia, the primary function is to advance themselves and their field through research and — yes — share their knowledge, but in ways that go far beyond the classroom. At the higher levels, that may mean competing for grants and running laboratories that employ and educate students; at lower levels, that may mean facing relentless pressure to publish while making sure students are exposed to cutting-edge knowledge in their field.
The governor's proposal of a two-year budget cut of $300 million for the University of Wisconsin System — and his comments accompanying it — seemed to be rooted in the perception that faculty members are either misdirected or underemployed.
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
—ping—
He’s mostly right, they’re mostly wrong, IMHO.
A very astute perception, indeed.
Their primary function is to be paid to do as little as possible.
LOL. Please, stop, I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe. When teaching looks easy, its because its easy. An no professor I ever had worked even 40 hours a week, unless you count perv-ing on the young female students under the guise of mentoring them "working."
Sir Scott Walker, Dragon Slayer...Striking at the belly of the beast.
Scott Walker lives rent free in so many Liberal heads, LOL!
Our University was found to be sitting on untold hundreds of MILLIONS stashed away for who knows what. They can absorb this hit.
I personally WITNESSED a famous author giving a check of $10 million to the University, and they just got $100 million from friends of Bill & what’s her name Gates!
Now, get back to work you slackers! Diamond Jim Doyle was about to lay about 20,000 of you OFF to balance our budget. Governor Walker SAVED YOUR JOBS!
But, they’ll never say Thank You. You can count on that!
Oh, boo-hoo! Honestly... I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a group of employees as prone to whining, self-pity, and self-inflation (not to mention inattentive and rude as audience members) as educators... and I’m speaking as a teacher who’s teaching at the high school level, and who’s taught at the college level!
I suppose I should clarify: the older, union-member teachers are the real problem... and they’re more than willing to throw their young and/or 1st/2nd-year colleagues onto the unemployment line, if only it gains them a few percentage points of salary/benefits increase. It honestly makes me sick; some of the best teachers I’ve ever seen (who were new) were let go because the loaf-around-while-pretending-to-be-overworked older faculty (most of whom were union officers or reps) didn’t want to sacrifice any possible gains for themselves.
Calling most teachers, “educators” is like calling most elite, “elite”.
Now there is a no-show job if I ever saw one. You teach liberalism, communism, and marxist theory, not how to be a journalist.
There is plenty of gov,t money availabe to study the effects of global warming on just about anything.
Really?
Used to be that any self improvement was dealt with on their summer break. Their primary function is to teach.
The corollary is they paid for how much teaching they can accomplish. That is their primary function.
If Walker really wants to hoist them by their collective petards, he should survey the majors offered by the universities, then compare them with the numbers of graduates, with that major, employed in that area of study after one year.
At the top of the list will be majors like nursing, and at the bottom majors like ethnic and gender studies, who likely place zero students in major related jobs.
Then Walker should propose to the state legislature that since these majors are not getting employment for the students, that they should no longer receive state subsidies. And further, students should be prohibited from using loan money to take these subjects.
After that, when the faculty is now wearing sackcloth, and rubbed ashes on their foreheads in morning, Walker can drop the other shoe: the elimination of indoctrination and frivolous courses entirely.
“competing for grants” => providing “academic support” for the anti-Christ, pro-government agenda of the left.
If your study or your conclusions don’t support this agenda, you ain’t gettin’ the grant.
Yep, there’s a huge difference between
“elitIST” and “elite”.
The true “elite” are those who are successful and intelligent.
ElitISTS believe people who CLAIM TO BE elite run everyone else’s lives.
If the universities want to look for opportunities to save money, they can start by getting rid of their Gender Studies and Critical Race Theory departments.
Getting rid of the indoctrination centers known as Political “Science” departments would be a move in the right direction as well.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.