Posted on 04/18/2017 7:03:12 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
Academics are always mystified that the lumpenproletariat (i. e., us working stiffs of all income levels) don't join them in the class struggle.
It turns out that the one place in America that has a class system is in the institution where they teach them. "In a one-on-one meeting with the school's provost/interim president, I asked if the administration believes that adjuncts share the same academic freedom as full-timers," Larry Jaffee an adjunct assistant professor at the New York Institute of Technology in Manhattan, wrote on the Academe blog maintained by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). "He was emphatic we do, and was very sympathetic to the plight of the adjuncts."
"The provost plans to propose to the AAUP chapter a new classification of 'instructor professors,' for faculty like me who are not covered by the agreement.While I appreciate his sympathy, it begs the question: Who’s the employer here?'
"I know this local chapter leadership, and they're never going to go for the proposal. And in my opinion, such lip service by both the administration and the local AAUP chapter just reinforces the obvious institutionalized caste system in place, one that pays tenured full-timers four times the money that adjuncts receive for doing the same job, and none or the medical benefits or other perks."
"Simply, adjuncts make more of an impact on the lives of our students than our tenured, full-time colleagues. When are they as well as the institutions we serve going to acknowledge the gross pay inequality, and compensate us accordingly?"
Tenure and manure......they both stink...............
Universities exist for the administrators and professors. They don’t exist for the students.
Really just administrators. Tenured professors are a vanishing breed. This is partly their own fault because many if not most are self-indulgent, lazy, entitled, and desperately leftist except in hard science departments. But much of the blame goes to administrators who are steadily destroying good teaching, research and scholarship so that they can increase their own compensation.
I worked in a university administration many years ago and I was dealing with a faculty discipline issue when the academic Vice President made an off-hand statement that as far as faculty were involved, the French Revolution never occurred. Faculty and low-level and mid-level administrators were the worse to deal with.
You nailed it in just 13 words! Congrats, FRiend!!
& here’s how they keep the kids from noticing—http://yourteenmag.com/teenager-school/teen-college-life/stunning-dorms-preposterous-luxury
In other words, Orwell’s Inner Party elite versus the Outer Party worker bees.
Tenure is going away rapidly. I recently retired from a large northeastern state university. Seven years ago, my department had 28 tenured or tenure track professors ranging from untenured assistant professors through tenured full professors.
This year only six remain. Here’s how it’s happening.
As older professors retired, the university replaced them with adjuncts (non-benefit employees paid by the class). The adjuncts were paid between $2,000 and $3500 per class depending upon the subject. Existing professors were expected to recruit, manage and evaluate the adjuncts in addition to their regular duties that included teaching, university and community service, and scholarly activities (research and publishing).
Next, the university created a new class of educators called instructors. They held one or three year contracts and were paid less than half of a tenure track salary. Typically, they made about $40,000 a year and were teaching only contracts. Contracts were not renewable after three years.
Tenured faculty were expected to recruit and manage them as well. As the number of tenured faculty dwindled, the management load and committee load of the remaining professors doubled and tripled. In my case, that meant three or four committee meetings a day in addition to teaching classes with as many as 120 students per section. This whole situation made the job unrewarding and hectic. I hardly had a moment to assist individual students with the subjects at hand.
The university offered buy outs for anyone 59.5 years or older. They generally worked out to be a bit less than a year’s salary. All five of the professors in my area jumped at the chance to get out of an awful work environment. We got out of the education business entirely.
Tenure offers nothing other than a review before you can be fired. There are lots of ways to drive employees away.
The current situation at the university is that the remaining career educators are miserable and classes are being taught by whoever is willing to take $2,500 for a full semester class of up to 120 students. Don’t get me wrong. Some of the adjuncts are very good, but their prospects of ever getting a full-time job are bleak and the good ones don’t stay very long.
End of rant.
I tell parents who fear the AP US History test that their kids have a better chance at a fair treatment of history in a 100 level class taught by lecturers.
If it isnt going into professors then where is all the money going?
Insightful and excellent post. Thanks for taking the time to comment on the reality in academia.
Administrative bloat
Facilities
Diversity programs
Cost shifting to give money to students who drop out but were brought in to meet various metrics - so you don’t see the black kids accepted based on demographics instead of ability past the first or second year or else they become social justice warriors to get a degree they can complete
And many colleges are now mandating first and second year students live in dorms if not with parents, to secure the extra money for room and board.
“If it isnt going into professors then where is all the money going?”
In our case, it was going to two major places:
1. New buildings. In ten years, they built more than 20 new buildings, some extremely large. All had to be built, populated with equipment, and maintained.
2. Administrators. Every new building needs staff, directors and maintainers. It used to be a joke around campus that pretty soon we would have a Vice President of Vice Presidents. Well... The Provost, Senior Vice Provost, Vice Provosts and all of the administrative staff and spaces that they need. Deans need multiple Associate Deans and their staff. Then, of course, the Office of Diversity, the Sexual Harassment and Rape Prevention office, the Women’s Center, LGTBQ outreach officers and all of the Directors, staff and space they take up.
All of this happened with only about a 10% increase in undergraduate students.
Campus architechtecture. Lots of building construction.
State of the art.
What a scam.
Stanley Kurz: “ We won’t win until we admit how badly we’re losing.”
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/446799/can-deregulation-restore-campus-free-speech-reply-peter-augustine-lawler
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