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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Trump should pity the poor PhD: Glenn Reynolds |
| 2017-02-17 |
| We’ve heard a lot about the problem of inequality in America over recent years. But most of that talk has ignored one of the very worst pockets of inequality in American society. I speak, of course, of the American university system and its treatment of adjunct professors and graduate students. Academics seem to think that the business world is a feudal environment characterized by huge status differentials and abusive treatment of underlings. They think that because, to be honest, that’s a pretty good characterization of . . . the modern university, where serfs in the form of adjunct professors toil in the vineyards. As a recent piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education reports: "Tenured faculty represent only 17% of college instructors. Part-time adjuncts are now the majority of the professoriate and its fastest-growing segment. From 1975 to 2011, the number of part-time adjuncts quadrupled. And the so-called part-time designation is misleading because most of them are piecing together teaching jobs at multiple institutions simultaneously. A 2014 congressional report suggests that 89% of adjuncts work at more than one institution; 13% work at four or more. The need for several appointments becomes obvious when we realize how little any one of them pays. In 2013, The Chronicle began collecting data on salary and benefits from adjuncts across the country. An English- department adjunct at Berkeley, for example, received $6,500 to teach a full-semester course. It’s easy to lose sight of all the people struggling beneath the data points. $7,000 at Duke. $6,000 at Columbia. $5,950 at the University of Iowa." ...Today universities have a two-tier class system: Tenured professors and administrators on top, with generous pay and benefits and job security, while many (in some places most) required courses are being taught by the equivalent of serfs, with low pay, no job security, and little in the way of status. Of course, if you leave the academia entirely, it's even worse. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #13 sort of like any paper I ever seen by a Saudi has an Egyptian coauthor. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-02-17 17:01 |
| #12 ...sort of like Saudis buying the right to put an Arab name on a researcher's paper as a coauthor, to show the accomplishments of Islam. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2017-02-17 16:06 |
| #11 UCI had a Nobel Laureate who didn't even do his research on campus. As long as he does it - and puts UCI on papers as affiliation |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-02-17 15:49 |
| #10 Here's my research. Jobs have been going overseas while people have been pouring in feeding off of a US Public deficit that had double on only 8 years. Do the math. |
| Posted by: Nero White 3083 2017-02-17 12:36 |
| #9 I had an administrative position at UCI back in the day. I knew for a fact that many of the tenured professors were not even on campus for months on end. UCI had a Nobel Laureate who didn't even do his research on campus. They use these big name professors to pimp a class to students and then some GA teaches it and the professor doesn't even do office hours. I knew of some chemistry classes taught in the Medical Sciences Department that were taught by UNDERGRADUATES...yep, the GAs were too busy doing research so they had juniors and seniors teaching freshman chemistry. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2017-02-17 12:14 |
| #8 Supposedly, the tenured professors are doing important research. Now, how important that research really is I'm not prepared to say. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2017-02-17 11:46 |
| #7 Which makes me wonder when the Left says that without gun control, we'd all be shooting each other all the time. The Left lacks among other things, self awareness and self control. I'm sure you have noticed the astonishing level of projection the Left engages in. |
| Posted by: Spinesing Gray3122 2017-02-17 11:40 |
| #6 I've seen similar arguments made about charitable giving. The Lefties say it must be done by government, because otherwise no one would do it voluntarily. The numbers belie this claim. What's happening is that liberals are confessing something about themselves. Which makes me wonder when the Left says that without gun control, we'd all be shooting each other all the time. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2017-02-17 10:42 |
| #5 If someone has a double doctorate in medieval history and complains they cannot get an adequate job, I do not feel sorry for them. I think you missed the point. You have part-time adjuncts doing most of the teaching while tenured professors are over paid and do virtually nothing. Add to that the lopsided administration/faculty situation and the administrators making obscene money to boot. MAKE the Left eat their own dog food. Alinsky the crap out of these hypocrites. |
| Posted by: Daffy Throlulet9033 2017-02-17 08:29 |
| #4 Wizard of Oz: Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma. See: Student Loan program |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2017-02-17 08:10 |
| #3 I know someone who has a Masters in puppetry!. Can't understand why he can't get a 6 figure income job. "I have a Masters!" |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2017-02-17 07:27 |
| #2 Are they any good in their field, BZ? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-02-17 07:04 |
| #1 If someone has a double doctorate in medieval history and complains they cannot get an adequate job, I do not feel sorry for them. |
| Posted by: BernardZ 2017-02-17 04:29 |