MLA Report on Faculty

Education in the Balance: A Report on the Academic Workforce in English:

Significant changes in hiring practices at United States colleges and universities are causing a shift in the well-established balance among different types of faculty appointments. This past week [8-14 December 2008] the MLA released a report on the academic workforce that presents findings of extensive new research by an ad hoc committee of the ADE. The report, Education in the Balance, documents the emergence of a teaching faculty, made up largely of full- and part-time non-tenure-track instructors holding master's degrees, alongside the research faculty, made up of tenured and tenure-track teacher-scholars holding PhDs. Endorsed by the MLA Executive Council, the report includes new recommendations for appropriate staffing mixes in undergraduate sections at Carnegie Doctoral/Research, Master's, and Baccalaureate institutions. While colleges and universities have relied for decades on a faculty mix that has included full-time teachers, long-term part-time teachers, and teaching assistants, the accelerating trend toward covering large segments of the undergraduate curriculum by using non-tenure-track teachers instead of tenured and tenure-track professors is changing the character of the faculty and the educational experience of students.

A Call for Change

"End the University as We Know It": an op-ed piece in the New York Times by Mark C. Taylor, chair of the Religion Department at Columbia. It focuses on changing graduate studies, but there are some points about undergraduate work as well.

Of course, what institution pays adjuncts $5,000 a class? If that were the norm, I think contingent faculty would be a lot more satisfied with their work conditions.

Here is Marc Bousquet's scathing response to the article: he points out that Taylor's analysis is wrong in that oversupply of Ph.D.s is not the problem but rather the corporate university's structure--and that while Taylor calls for eliminating tenure, that system is already crumbling in the sense that 70% of faculty are not tenure-track at all but rather adjuncts, which has resulted in severe exploitation.

The State of the Humanities and Liberal Education

In February, the Modern Language Association (MLA) released a report on the relationship between majoring in English or a foreign language and pursuing a liberal arts education. Some of the statements in the report reaffirm the core values of the humanities while linking them to current issues that affect corporate America, such as globalization and technological progress:

The group concluded that the arts of language and the tools of literacy are key
qualifications for full participation in the social, political, economic, literary, and cultural
life of the twenty-first century. It affirmed the centrality of literature and reading to
undergraduate education. Interpretation, translation, and cross-cultural communication
are essential in today’s world. To meet the demands of technological innovation,
globalized societies, and the explosion of disciplinary knowledge, we recommend four
basic elements in the baccalaureate degree program in English and other languages: a
coherent program of study, collaborative teamwork among faculty members,
interdepartmental cooperative teaching, and the adoption of outcome measurements.

Over half of the report entails figures that chart the declining numbers of students graduating with bachelor's degrees in English or modern languages over the past several decades as well as statistics showing how many students go on to pursue and achieve graduate degrees in MLA fields. The writers of the report also make side comments about the importance of non-tenure-stream faculty in collaborating with tenure-track faculty on developing curriculum at the general education level as well as making sure the disciplines of English and modern languages provide adequate preparation for both the workforce as well as graduate study.

This is just one report of many commissioned by the Teagle Foundation, a philanthropic initiative that focuses on liberal education. On the organization's Web site, several disciplines provided similar assessments and recommendations "On the Relationship between the Disciplines and Undergraduate Liberal Education," including religion, economics, biochemistry and molecular biology, and history. In fact, the Resources section of the Teagle Foundation's site is packed with reports and essays on the state of liberal education in the U.S. that are of interest.

Finally, Chris Hedges' op-ed piece "Higher Education Gone Wrong: Universities Are Turning into Corporate Drone Factories" links the decline of the humanities with the swelling of corporate ranks by undergraduates whose lack of liberal education causes, reinforces, and condones moral nihilism. Unlike some of reports to the Teagle Foundation, then, the valorization of humanities disciplines focuses not so much on the practical, professional training it can provide to those undergraduates who are seeking to enter the workforce upon receiving their diplomas. Rather, the value of the humanities lies in its capacity to inspire and encourage careful critical thinking, questioning, and thus resistance against dangerous structures of power and the amelioration of our nation's current ethical climate--ideas inculcated by such thinkers as Adorno, Kant, and yes, even our beloved Newman.

Adjuncts' Lack of Benefits More Important than Poor Pay?

According to this article on "The Part-Time Satisfaction Gap," a survey of adjunct faculty at community colleges revealed that contract-only instructors were more concerned with a lack of benefits--health insurance/care, retirement--than with their low pay. I know I would be more willing to stay in academia as a non-tenure-track faculty member if I were guaranteed a reasonable health care plan and some sense of saving for a future after employment. However, I'm not sure that many people would be content with $15,000 a year plus benefits unless they were supported by partners who had much greater income--those of us who depend on university employment for, well, survival can't really subsist on that amount alone for very long. This is why so many of us must maintain second (or even third) jobs, which sometimes detracts from certain teaching duties or independent research agendas (more for some than for others). And none of this still takes into account the idea of job security, an issue that has arisen in the workforce far beyond academia but is one of the supposed perks of tenure, for which adjuncts are not eligible.

Of course, there are also some funny lines in the article, like "[t]he bottom line is that part timers are less satisfied with their jobs than are their full-time counterparts." As in, "duh." Sorry, that was a particularly non-academic response. :)

How Should We Appreciate People?

After the Wealth of Nations book of Adam Smith, the main concern of people from any rank or class has been targeted mostly to maintaining their economic well-being and maximize their profit. This has definitely motivated people to work harder and try to be more and more skilled and experienced at a field that will promote their financial state and earn a better living. This approach has had, as other theories and movements, its good aspects and its "evil" aspects. It has definitely raised the wealth of the people who knew about it, but also has impoverished the countries that it is applied in terms of labor and is accused recently of the international poverty. The reason for this: it does not know any moral or spiritual value but is based totally on materialistic concerns and in some way it teaches how to exploit people as much as possible. The way that someone's work and effort is valued is in economic terms the most paid is the one who gives the highest marginal utility or the biggest surplus, or in everyday language the one who makes the highest profit.

This fact is also witnessed in negative ways in the university life, in the way how the attempts of everyone is valued and appreciated. Strange and surprising to everyone the coach of the basketball team is paid much higher than the president of the university. Why would everyone ask? Simply because he brings to the university a higher income than the president does. If this is legal, is it fair that someone who does a job that has nothing to do with the university' primary goal that is education, to have a high salary than the representative of the instituion to the outter world ? And this is the result that brings the immoralistic application of the theory that Adam Smith taught some centuries ago.

When it comes to the teachers it becomes worser. Teachers are the real runners of the university, those who "give life" to the university by offering what is required from it, by being the closest to students who are the primary source of income to the university. Teachers are the ones who work the hardest in the university life, who prepare what the students have come to university and spend their finances on. If a university has good teachers, it also has a good reputation, it also has more "customers"(students), it is also paid more attraction by the business and other fields that bring income, it is greated higher by the education experts. All these accomplishments give the university the opportunity to charge higher tuitions and fees and to attract more sponsors than its concorrents. Students who graduate from such universities have higher GPAs, are more knowledgeable and well-rounded, have a better understanding of life, are more prepared for their future professions, and so serve more to their families and the nation. They are the future sources of income that will run the countrie's activities tomorrow. And all of this is mostly thanks to the work and efforts of the teachers, who work the hardest in class and out of class and are the least paid among the officials. As is stated in "The Exhausting Job of Teaching" article by Shari Wilson, the teaching load is exhausting. A teacher has always to find ways how to explain better to the students, to make students work harder, to have grading policies that are more effective and fair. This definitely requires skills beyond their expertise. They have to apply to the fields of knowledge that solve the issues regarding these topics. This fact is also stated at the " Faculty" article by Nelson and Watt, teachers at the university do not have just to be graduate of "their own" but also to know all the trappings of the specialization of their faculty". The way that brought them to the status of being a teacher at the university is also one of the hardest. They have to finish a terminal degree in their field of knowledge, which generally means a five-year lasting Ph.D. degree after the college degree. There are plenty of workers who have just a college degree or at most a master degree but are much more paid than the teachers. Their jobs may be much easier to perform and require less effort but they are making more profit although there might be a smaller demand, a smaller market, a smaller supply for their field. But the ones who prepare all of these jobs, the architectures of these sources of income, the teachers are paid less and improperly to their efforts. After some years, the students that they are teaching in their classes will earn a better living than they do after years of tireless work and efforts. This is a real paradox to the common sense and conscience.

Faculty Pay Rate

For years it has been astonishing to hear quotes on how much seemingly knowledgeable and well-deserving professors are paid for their services. These are the people responsible for educating the workers of the future, preparing today's young generation to advance into the working world and earn a living so that their children can be educated and prepared in the same way. Teachers put in long hours and work hard, yet at all levels of education appear to be drastically undercompensated for their efforts. There are of course anomalies and professors that do extraordinarily well, and unfortunately these salaries are what is most commonly known about. As said in Robin Wilson's article "College to Pricey? Don't Blame Faculty Pay," "People hear of a few very high salaries because that's very newsworthy," says Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors. "There aren't so many of those well-off professors as people think." Professors are commonly found with a terminal degree in their field of study, which includes prestigious accolades such as Ph.D.s and Master's degrees. Yet despite this high concentration of education and achievement, people with professional degrees in other fields are making much more than teachers. The question is why is there such a disparity in entry level salaries and room for career growth amongst those with professional degrees in education versus those with professional degrees in other fields?

A Failed Meritocracy

Russo’s book exemplifies how our goal to make a meritocracy out of all aspects of society has in many respects failed. Russo describes a situation in which a man (Hank Devereaux) has been elected to very important position in which he decides the fate of many people’s jobs. However, he doesn’t take his role seriously, doing very little to ensure that his colleagues will have jobs in the future. He is truly unqualified for this position, yet his humorous personality combined with other people’s belief that he would be easy on them ensured that he would be elected.

This situation draws parallel with many real world events and is more common today than I wish it were. How could Hank Devereaux acquire such a position while being so unqualified? How could a C student in college become the world’s most powerful man for 8 years? Personality plays too important a role when judging these situations. Do people get carried away with emotion and vote for the nicer or funnier candidate, or are people uninformed that this candidate is in fact unqualified? Either way, our society seems to be quite far away from being a meritocracy.

Are Scholarly Concerns Detached From The "Real World"?

Throughout Straight Man, the novel that we have been reading for our class this past week, the main character has very little contact with his own father. We learn from William Henry Devereaux Jr. that his dad was always very engaged by his studies and that he seemed to have little passion for much else, including his family. The protagonist is very bitter and angry at his father for leaving him and his mom for a series of graduate students, and generally tries to avoid seeing his father when any opportunity to do so arises. Towards the end of the novel, William Henry Devereaux Sr. returns to W.H.D. Jr.'s mother, and she urges her son to forgive his father and to accept his presence. Jr. goes on a walk with his dad, who proceeds to tell him that he has begun to reread the works of Charles Dickens (an author he has castigated for years). He claims to now feel guilty for criticizing the famous British author whose works he realizes contain something of "transcendent" significance. When W.H.D. Jr. asks his father if this is what he feels guilty about, his dad answers "yes" and tries to say something more but is too overcome by grief, sadness, and tears to do so. In the book, W.H.D. Sr. was a very smart man and a renowned scholar, but he obviously was not able to successfully maintain relationships. He could effectively investigate and communicate scholarly subjects and ideas, but he was not even able to tell his own son that he was sorry for deserting him. I wonder if Richard Russo's crafting of William Henry Devereaux Sr. was simply a part of the plot, an explanation of why his son became the way he was, or if it was something more meaningful and suggestive, perhaps a comment on the misguided nature of academia. When reading the novel, I had an idea that the author was trying to show that academic subjects, literature being used as an example here, can be interpreted backwards and forwards by scholars who still never come to any definite conclusions (as demonstrated by Sr.'s change in his opinion of Dickens after many years). However, the world we live in (family, friends, home, etc.) is real, is actually there, and unlike subjects of speculation, actually must be maintained (which Sr. neglects to do). Do you think that Russo was pointing out some kind of flaw in higher education through W.H.D. Sr., perhaps that a great amount of focus is placed on subjects of little importance or relevance to the real world, or was his character simply a part of the plot line? If he was pointing out a flaw, what is it do you think, and is it true?