I saw this today online at The New York Times, and you know, it needs to be said loudly and often: part of any stimulus to the economy has to target education. And it seems to me that it wouldn't be a bad idea to give anyone teaching a break. At the end of the day, teaching at any level is a less and less desirable occupation. If the idea is to get the best and brightest to want to help shape the next best and brightest, finding ways to help make teaching desirable rather than simply profitable seems in order.
There's a lesson in this, incidentally: what's cheapest and most convenient (what a market view pushes) is not always the best in the long run. This is certainly the case in education.
And let me make the point, briefly, that innovation isn't just due to math and science. If the recent problems in banking tell us anything, it's that there's a substantial need for some of those fluffy liberal arts ideas out there: things like ethics and history and economics seem like they'd go a long way to helping shape the future.
Showing posts with label higher education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label higher education. Show all posts
Oh, and also it's important for actual teaching...
Just saw, buried down the page on this Inside Higher Ed.com Quick Takes, that concern is rising that employment patterns in higher education are making it tougher to find qualified faculty to become administrators. The note mentions that only 3% of folks under the age of 34 who are teaching are doing so in full-time positions.
That's a lot of adjuncts (and likely grad students), though maybe it would be a little tempered by how many people teaching are under 34. I'm betting the number is higher than my first impression of it.
It amuses me though that the thrust of this is on how this is affecting administration and not on, say, how it impacts the quality of education itself. It's a bit like when I worked in the corporate world and there was a big shake up. The whole company freaked out because they were afraid they weren't going to have enough middle-managers. The thought was "of course we can get folks on the line: there's a ton of them."
It came back to bite that company in the ass, and I do wonder whether it won't do the same here in good ol' higher education.
That's a lot of adjuncts (and likely grad students), though maybe it would be a little tempered by how many people teaching are under 34. I'm betting the number is higher than my first impression of it.
It amuses me though that the thrust of this is on how this is affecting administration and not on, say, how it impacts the quality of education itself. It's a bit like when I worked in the corporate world and there was a big shake up. The whole company freaked out because they were afraid they weren't going to have enough middle-managers. The thought was "of course we can get folks on the line: there's a ton of them."
It came back to bite that company in the ass, and I do wonder whether it won't do the same here in good ol' higher education.
Why Candidates Should Negotiate
As I mentioned in the previous post, there's some flap here about candidates negotiating. While I won't go into the gruesome details of it all, I did think, as I was responding to my colleague, that there are some pretty important reasons (from both sides of the table) why candidates should negotiate.
Reason 1: Sometimes Opportunity Only Knocks Once
Not so far back, just after this blog started, I mentioned negotiations for the faculty contract here. One of the things that I uniformly heard from older faculty when they talked about their distresses with pay scale was that they only had one real moment to influence their salaries: the moment of negotiation. After that, raises came and went, but there wasn't the ability to push for more beyond whatever system the university had in place without getting an outside offer.
Reason 2: Give a Little, Get a Little
This is going to sound needlessly Machiavellian, but it's true. When I did hiring in the corporate world, one of the things my mentor told me was to always be prepared to let someone we were recruiting win a bit. His reasoning was that someone who came in and who saw that the place they were being employed could be reasonable and that wanted them badly enough to give in a little, would be a happier employee in the long run. If the interview is the first chance for someone to meet faculty, negotiation is their first chance to meet the University. That's an impression that will last.
Academic searches are often reluctant to try this logic out, but I bet if you surveyed faculty who didn't get to negotiate - or who got nothing from them - you'd find a pretty high occurrence of faculty who were prepared to leave their jobs. If keeping faculty is really the priority of your university, be prepared to not just negotiate, but to "lose" a bit.
Reason 3: Where the School Negotiates Says a Lot About Its Priorities
One of the things I've learned in my academic interviewing time is that a school that truly sticks to its priorities will be prepared to back up those commitments if a candidate can offer a connection to them. If a school claims it wants research but can't spring for a little extra research money, be wary. If they value teaching but won't find some ways to help you integrate better, then you know they're blowing smoke.
Reason 4: There Are Two Kinds of Attention - Negotiations Are the Right Kind
Here's the thing: if a candidate is trying to negotiate with you, it means they're interested in you. If they just take your first offer, it likely means they're desperate. Which one they are will tell you a lot about where you might be headed. Academic hiring is, as noted here, there, and everywhere, ridiculously problematic. A person who negotiates, though, has to be taking some level of interest in you, and that means if you get them, they're likely coming in with a different energy and commitment to what you want.
Certainly, it's not always the case that the candidate is interested in you, but if the Prisoner's Dilemma taught us anything, it's that we're better off entering a negotiation with some sense of faith in the person and their motives than we are if we start by doubting them.
On some level, the negotiation process has to be seen as a testing of university resources and commitment. Done correctly, it's a chance for both sides of the table to emerge happier and stronger from the process.
Reason 1: Sometimes Opportunity Only Knocks Once
Not so far back, just after this blog started, I mentioned negotiations for the faculty contract here. One of the things that I uniformly heard from older faculty when they talked about their distresses with pay scale was that they only had one real moment to influence their salaries: the moment of negotiation. After that, raises came and went, but there wasn't the ability to push for more beyond whatever system the university had in place without getting an outside offer.
Reason 2: Give a Little, Get a Little
This is going to sound needlessly Machiavellian, but it's true. When I did hiring in the corporate world, one of the things my mentor told me was to always be prepared to let someone we were recruiting win a bit. His reasoning was that someone who came in and who saw that the place they were being employed could be reasonable and that wanted them badly enough to give in a little, would be a happier employee in the long run. If the interview is the first chance for someone to meet faculty, negotiation is their first chance to meet the University. That's an impression that will last.
Academic searches are often reluctant to try this logic out, but I bet if you surveyed faculty who didn't get to negotiate - or who got nothing from them - you'd find a pretty high occurrence of faculty who were prepared to leave their jobs. If keeping faculty is really the priority of your university, be prepared to not just negotiate, but to "lose" a bit.
Reason 3: Where the School Negotiates Says a Lot About Its Priorities
One of the things I've learned in my academic interviewing time is that a school that truly sticks to its priorities will be prepared to back up those commitments if a candidate can offer a connection to them. If a school claims it wants research but can't spring for a little extra research money, be wary. If they value teaching but won't find some ways to help you integrate better, then you know they're blowing smoke.
Reason 4: There Are Two Kinds of Attention - Negotiations Are the Right Kind
Here's the thing: if a candidate is trying to negotiate with you, it means they're interested in you. If they just take your first offer, it likely means they're desperate. Which one they are will tell you a lot about where you might be headed. Academic hiring is, as noted here, there, and everywhere, ridiculously problematic. A person who negotiates, though, has to be taking some level of interest in you, and that means if you get them, they're likely coming in with a different energy and commitment to what you want.
Certainly, it's not always the case that the candidate is interested in you, but if the Prisoner's Dilemma taught us anything, it's that we're better off entering a negotiation with some sense of faith in the person and their motives than we are if we start by doubting them.
On some level, the negotiation process has to be seen as a testing of university resources and commitment. Done correctly, it's a chance for both sides of the table to emerge happier and stronger from the process.
Singing for your supper...
A lot of you have probably read the article on Inside Higher Ed about Marshall University accepting a gift that carried a stipulation that a particular book be taught. To talk about it as a question of academic freedom ("academic freedom means you don't have to teach the book") is a bit shortsighted since what the contract for the gift does is essentially put a price tag on that freedom. Honestly, this shouldn't be surprising - there have been plenty of in-roads that are not only well-paved but well-trod - that would lead a donor to think this would be fair game.
On one hand, the increasing professionalization of higher education has given plenty of cause for other institutions to feel like they could dictate curriculum. And I want to be clear that we can't just talk about this in terms of business, which would be the first logical jumping off point from the article. As an institution, higher education is increasingly dependent on the will of outside benefactors. Take a stroll through any campus and look at everything that's got a plaque on it. In virtually every case, the money that bought that plaque and that helped procure that space came with stipulations. When you're dependent upon the kindness of strangers, you can't be surprised when one of them makes you perform a bit.
Obviously, there are strategies for dealing like things with a gift that requires you to teach a particular view. First, don't take it. But if you do, you don't have to teach it the way they want. Want to talk about Ayn Rand and The Wealth of Nations? Well, you can talk about all the ways those things don't really fit the world we live in quite so well as people would like us to believe. But the larger strategy has to be finding a better way to fund higher education.
On one hand, the increasing professionalization of higher education has given plenty of cause for other institutions to feel like they could dictate curriculum. And I want to be clear that we can't just talk about this in terms of business, which would be the first logical jumping off point from the article. As an institution, higher education is increasingly dependent on the will of outside benefactors. Take a stroll through any campus and look at everything that's got a plaque on it. In virtually every case, the money that bought that plaque and that helped procure that space came with stipulations. When you're dependent upon the kindness of strangers, you can't be surprised when one of them makes you perform a bit.
Obviously, there are strategies for dealing like things with a gift that requires you to teach a particular view. First, don't take it. But if you do, you don't have to teach it the way they want. Want to talk about Ayn Rand and The Wealth of Nations? Well, you can talk about all the ways those things don't really fit the world we live in quite so well as people would like us to believe. But the larger strategy has to be finding a better way to fund higher education.
The Rules of Academic Engagement
You know, sometimes I wish blogs could have subtitles. Or that when academic bloggers wrote, they gave their posts titles the way they title their papers. And in the interest of humor and familiarity, I decided to take up the challenge myself and make try a post that draws on the conventions of one form of academic communication to talk about another form.
[Addendum: Be warned, this isn't a blog post. It's a commitment. And as you may have learned, that means once you start reading it, you cannot stop. ]
That said, if this post was a journal article, it would be titled thusly:
Part of why I invoke Kissinger's quote - though I think he's wrong about the stakes - is that what you've just seen is the academic equivalent of guerrilla warfare. And while Kissinger didn't exactly know how to get us out of those situations, he did ultimately learn that the danger of guerrilla warfare was that the rules which were evident weren't the rules that should best be followed.
So, knowing the rules, you can begin to develop strategies to circumvent them. I'll be using the Happy Gumdrop Dustup as a means of both explaining the seeming rules of conflict management within academic society and strategies which may be of use by would-be gumdrops and gumdrop collaborators in helping circumvent these problems. For a concise history of the dustup, here is a useful reference.
If you look at the discourse so far, you'll see a few rules very clearly in evidence. Sadly, I'd like to say that these things just happen here, but having sat through faculty meetings at three different institutions (as Gumdrops go, I'm getting stale), served on a variety of committees at two, worked on organizational boards, and played at faculty poker nights, I can say that this isn't the only time I've seen this1
It must be stressed that while this behavior is more common than we might like, it is far from the norm. What triggers the behavior is up for debate, and its worth noting that a close reading shows some interesting metaphorical trends and is grounds for further inquiry.2
Rule 1: Give No Quarter
Kissinger says academic fights are vicious because the stakes are small. I say they're vicious because they are our equivalent of bare-knuckle boxing. Proving we're right is sport - and for some, it's a blood sport. And in blood sports, you must ALWAYS fight to win, not to compromise. 3
Strategy and Analysis:
This rule, in fact, suggests, the first and most important strategy to dealing with this sort of situation. Unlike the metaphorical cage match we are comparing this to, no one in fact is locking the metaphorical cage. You are free to step out at anytime, whether this be the debate or some larger situation, such as a job.
Along similar lines, you must be careful not to mistake the proposed solutions - which are often either/or solutions - with the full range of possible solutions. Most of your colleagues, when not in the heat of the battle themselves will recognize this (and the good ones will do this even if in the midst).
It's worth noting in the Gumdrop brouhaha that the arguing got loudest when people asserted these rights - whether in the right to leave a job or the right to leave (or to be asked to leave) a conversation. Arguments always require participants, and those who love to argue know very well how to try and gain them.
Rule 2: Choose Your Weapons But Don't Show It
In the academic dust-up, the chief weapons are definitions. This is a rule you should have learned in graduate school, where we've learned to cite our sources and clearly explain not just our definitions but why we've chosen them.
The academic dust-up, however, takes this rule and inverts it. In combat, after all, showing your strength is to expose your weakness. Offering up a definition is to allow the opposition to disarm you. So you must do your best to use your definitions stealthily, only revealing them as the briefest slashes of logic - enough to draw blood but untouchable.
Strategy and Analysis:
In any situation where you're being intentionally left in the dark, your goal becomes to try and gather information yourself. In the heated academic knuckle-duster, this is akin to dancing just out of reach while you study. Ask questions. Ask them different ways. Put the definitions themselves through their paces.
Just as importantly, be clear in yours. One place you can do this is in the academic interview. When I went through my first round of interviews as I was coming out of my program ABD, the fear of not having a job (and hence not having funding which would lead to not being able to finish the dissertation which swallowed the spider to catch the fly...) presented the temptation to try and be whatever a job wanted me to be. Resist this urge. In an interview, in your interactions with colleagues, be yourself. If there is a problem - and sometimes there will be - take it for the sign it is (and only for the sign it is).
The most interesting example of this from the Gumdrop debate was a member of the senior faculty camp who was upset that mentoring and invitations to dinner and invitations to dinner didn't net a junior faculty member's continued presence in the department. As a member of the gumdrop camp, I never would have imagined that a colleague's invitation to dinner(s) would equate to anything but some conversation and collegiality. Honestly, would any of us go to dinner with anyone if we knew it meant the possibility of shackling ourselves to their image of how we should behave for the next year of our lives? Sometimes a steak should just be a steak (or a veggie burger for my West Coast friends). Failing that, at least make sure if your dinner comes with a cost, that you actually put a bill out there. My assumption- and I think a reasonable one - was that the last time I had to put out because you bought me dinner was at the interview.
One of the truly distressing moments in the Gumdrops debate was that there was little attempt to define the problem. Reading between the lines of the debate, there were at least two different things happening. On one side, the junior faculty at the start of the debate didn't actually fit the definition being offered by seniors at the end. None were of the "one and done" variety being decried for taking a job and then leaving. Moreover, many of the faculty lumped into the Gumdrops actually fit a more senior role. Part of the underlying struggle shifted in the midst to trying to clarify what was actually meant by "junior faculty" because there were a substantial number of people in the middle (if only the early stages of it) of their careers.
Rule 3: Control the Terrain
Notice in the discourse of the academic dust-up how often one side or the other assumes that their context is every one's context. One thing Sun-Tzu has taught is that he who controls the battleground controls the battle. This is particularly true in the battle over meaning, where the clearest way to control the battle is to know the terrain better than anyone else. Begin by making them come to you and never, ever concede that there could be another possibility.
For example, while even recent studies show there is marked difference in how academics of different generations view their careers, including what they were and weren't satisfied with, this was largely left out of the debate.
Strategy and Analysis:
Most academic debates become about the context of the people involved. Sadly, as seen in the Gumdrop debate, there is no certain to guarantee that even when you offer a context for yourself that anyone will pay attention to it. But be sure you know yourself well enough to know not only what you want but why you want it.
One of the frustrations expressed by the "senior faculty" was ultimately that they couldn't understand why junior faculty didn't love their department/university/city as much as they did. While this is largely their failure of imagination, there are things you can do to try and prevent this problem in your own relations. First, ask questions about the things that matter to you. Almost invariably with the academic interview, there is not only time set aside for your questions but some time set aside for a tour (this may simply be a lift from the airport). This is your moment to begin to mark out and determine whether this is the place for you or not.
Rule 4: There are Two Kinds of Intelligence - Use Them Both
You know you are intelligent; that's how you got here. Rely on that. But don't be afraid to find intelligence about your opponent and to take advantage. If this means referencing some unfortunate behavior or some unthinking disclosure to gain advantage, you must do it. To some, this would equate to dirty fighting, but in any blood sport, you can't be afraid to press your advantages and take advantage of tactical errors
Strategy and Analysis:
This was one of the most unfortunate moments of the dust-up and probably the most distressing. That members on both sides began to strike out in highly personal ways on the road to trying to make their point. Honestly, it's pretty embarrassing imagining students or colleagues or donors somehow chancing on these moments. And that's the question I've been asking myself today: how would this look to someone not in the midst of it.
I would also imagine, having read some of the more vitriolic moments, that there's a temptation by bloggers involved to stop entirely. Charitably, I'll say that this wasn't an attempt at an actual chilling effect on the parts of the posters who felt the need to resort to attempts at using personal details about members of the blogging community as a means of bolstering their arguments. I'm not personally convinced of that. From the standpoint of those who have benefited from others blogs, I certainly hope this won't be the consequence.
But the bigger point here is that you've got to be prepared to own up to what you say and you've got be prepared that it might be used against you. This sort of thing doesn't happen just in the blogosphere, though it is (in my experience) much more common here. A recent Chronicle column (which I cannot find at the moment) suggested that new faculty should guard their secrets. That's not bad advice, though again, you mustn't be so guarded that you miss connections or somehow misrepresent yourself.
One of the secrets to negotiating any group dynamic - and take this form someone who's survived corporate America and is now navigating the Ivory Tower - is that spending more time listening than speaking will usually tell you all you need to know about your colleagues and your campus. As Gumdrops (or Gumdrops-to-be), spend those first moments of service listening - while we value your input we also understand that it can be overwhelming to be thrown onto the Curriculum Committee or Strategic Planning or whatever - and so we expect you'll be a little quiet. That's your chance to feel out where things stand and whether you've made the right choice or not.
Conclusions
There are a few important conclusions that I think can be made here.
The most important one is that those of us who blog and respond to blogs are only one segment of the faculty you're going to meet. The very fact that we're here and posting suggests something about us and how we deal with problems. We're a vocal minority, and should be interpreted as such. Recognize, too, that we use anonymity in productive and unproductive ways, and that same feature may well have been used against some of us in the community.
Secondly, though, I think you'll see that part of what really underlies the problem here isn't so much a generational thing (though that might be something of an intervening variable) but one of communication itself. By and large, those "senior faculty" who complained were really talking about how they felt deceived and used, a set of feelings the Gumdrops also feel but for very different reasons. My generalization of it is that for "senior faculty," it's about trying to foster relationships that fail, and for "junior faculty" it's about how relationships are set up to fail in the current structure. Those questions aren't going away anytime soon.
Third, I hope it's recognized that most (if not all - I couldn't say for sure) the "junior faculty" all did more than a little to give their jobs a chance. Taking that time to get to know the place and the people is certainly worthwhile, but that doesn't mean you have to stay. I've been advised by more than a few senior faculty (I know them and their credentials, so no quotes for them) who've advised me that even in the second year it's acceptable, but the third year may be seen as more preferable.
Finally, I hope that while the waters here seem treacherous and uncharted, that it's realized that most people really do want to work with you and see you advance in your career in a way that works for you, not just for them.
[Addendum: What? You're still here? Well, alright, have some footnotes then.]
1: Please note, however, while this implies that such academic guerrilla warfare is more common than just this thread, it does not imply that it is ubiquitous.
2: There are a few interesting patterns here. The question of academic vocation is often tied to a series of very particular metaphors. The first is of academia as a calling. Outside of academia, this use of languages often carries with it a particular religious connotation. The extreme version of this, in both academia and religious callings, becomes a form of zealotry or fanaticism. The second metaphor has attempts to speak of the academic career in relationship (typically marriage) terms. In this formation, questions of abandonment, and infidelity become metaphors for behaviors by faculty in relation to each other, to structural agents, and to institutions. Both often carry with them implicit power dynamics that suggest peculiar (and often disturbing) implications.
3: This rule suggests certain corollaries:
[Addendum: Be warned, this isn't a blog post. It's a commitment. And as you may have learned, that means once you start reading it, you cannot stop. ]
That said, if this post was a journal article, it would be titled thusly:
Advice for Soon-to-be-Gumdrops Who've Been Following The Happy Gumdrop Dustup and Who Haven't Yet Killed Themselves/Their Senior Advisers or Completely Abandoned This Career Path: A Meta-AnalysisIt's a long standing truism of academia (typically attributed to Kissinger) that the reason academic politics are so vicious is because the stakes are so small. Certainly we've seen some evidence of just how vicious they can be recently. Among the posts of lurkers in various places, of soon-to-be Gumdrops, and amongst those of us already in this particular set of trenches, the whole episode has raised serious doubts. But even so, there are some lessons to be taken from this whole hullabaloo. If nothing else, realize that the academic community, just like your family, is, shall we say, quirky at least.
Part of why I invoke Kissinger's quote - though I think he's wrong about the stakes - is that what you've just seen is the academic equivalent of guerrilla warfare. And while Kissinger didn't exactly know how to get us out of those situations, he did ultimately learn that the danger of guerrilla warfare was that the rules which were evident weren't the rules that should best be followed.
So, knowing the rules, you can begin to develop strategies to circumvent them. I'll be using the Happy Gumdrop Dustup as a means of both explaining the seeming rules of conflict management within academic society and strategies which may be of use by would-be gumdrops and gumdrop collaborators in helping circumvent these problems. For a concise history of the dustup, here is a useful reference.
If you look at the discourse so far, you'll see a few rules very clearly in evidence. Sadly, I'd like to say that these things just happen here, but having sat through faculty meetings at three different institutions (as Gumdrops go, I'm getting stale), served on a variety of committees at two, worked on organizational boards, and played at faculty poker nights, I can say that this isn't the only time I've seen this1
It must be stressed that while this behavior is more common than we might like, it is far from the norm. What triggers the behavior is up for debate, and its worth noting that a close reading shows some interesting metaphorical trends and is grounds for further inquiry.2
Rule 1: Give No Quarter
Kissinger says academic fights are vicious because the stakes are small. I say they're vicious because they are our equivalent of bare-knuckle boxing. Proving we're right is sport - and for some, it's a blood sport. And in blood sports, you must ALWAYS fight to win, not to compromise. 3
Strategy and Analysis:
This rule, in fact, suggests, the first and most important strategy to dealing with this sort of situation. Unlike the metaphorical cage match we are comparing this to, no one in fact is locking the metaphorical cage. You are free to step out at anytime, whether this be the debate or some larger situation, such as a job.
Along similar lines, you must be careful not to mistake the proposed solutions - which are often either/or solutions - with the full range of possible solutions. Most of your colleagues, when not in the heat of the battle themselves will recognize this (and the good ones will do this even if in the midst).
It's worth noting in the Gumdrop brouhaha that the arguing got loudest when people asserted these rights - whether in the right to leave a job or the right to leave (or to be asked to leave) a conversation. Arguments always require participants, and those who love to argue know very well how to try and gain them.
Rule 2: Choose Your Weapons But Don't Show It
In the academic dust-up, the chief weapons are definitions. This is a rule you should have learned in graduate school, where we've learned to cite our sources and clearly explain not just our definitions but why we've chosen them.
The academic dust-up, however, takes this rule and inverts it. In combat, after all, showing your strength is to expose your weakness. Offering up a definition is to allow the opposition to disarm you. So you must do your best to use your definitions stealthily, only revealing them as the briefest slashes of logic - enough to draw blood but untouchable.
Strategy and Analysis:
In any situation where you're being intentionally left in the dark, your goal becomes to try and gather information yourself. In the heated academic knuckle-duster, this is akin to dancing just out of reach while you study. Ask questions. Ask them different ways. Put the definitions themselves through their paces.
Just as importantly, be clear in yours. One place you can do this is in the academic interview. When I went through my first round of interviews as I was coming out of my program ABD, the fear of not having a job (and hence not having funding which would lead to not being able to finish the dissertation which swallowed the spider to catch the fly...) presented the temptation to try and be whatever a job wanted me to be. Resist this urge. In an interview, in your interactions with colleagues, be yourself. If there is a problem - and sometimes there will be - take it for the sign it is (and only for the sign it is).
The most interesting example of this from the Gumdrop debate was a member of the senior faculty camp who was upset that mentoring and invitations to dinner and invitations to dinner didn't net a junior faculty member's continued presence in the department. As a member of the gumdrop camp, I never would have imagined that a colleague's invitation to dinner(s) would equate to anything but some conversation and collegiality. Honestly, would any of us go to dinner with anyone if we knew it meant the possibility of shackling ourselves to their image of how we should behave for the next year of our lives? Sometimes a steak should just be a steak (or a veggie burger for my West Coast friends). Failing that, at least make sure if your dinner comes with a cost, that you actually put a bill out there. My assumption- and I think a reasonable one - was that the last time I had to put out because you bought me dinner was at the interview.
One of the truly distressing moments in the Gumdrops debate was that there was little attempt to define the problem. Reading between the lines of the debate, there were at least two different things happening. On one side, the junior faculty at the start of the debate didn't actually fit the definition being offered by seniors at the end. None were of the "one and done" variety being decried for taking a job and then leaving. Moreover, many of the faculty lumped into the Gumdrops actually fit a more senior role. Part of the underlying struggle shifted in the midst to trying to clarify what was actually meant by "junior faculty" because there were a substantial number of people in the middle (if only the early stages of it) of their careers.
Rule 3: Control the Terrain
Notice in the discourse of the academic dust-up how often one side or the other assumes that their context is every one's context. One thing Sun-Tzu has taught is that he who controls the battleground controls the battle. This is particularly true in the battle over meaning, where the clearest way to control the battle is to know the terrain better than anyone else. Begin by making them come to you and never, ever concede that there could be another possibility.
For example, while even recent studies show there is marked difference in how academics of different generations view their careers, including what they were and weren't satisfied with, this was largely left out of the debate.
Strategy and Analysis:
Most academic debates become about the context of the people involved. Sadly, as seen in the Gumdrop debate, there is no certain to guarantee that even when you offer a context for yourself that anyone will pay attention to it. But be sure you know yourself well enough to know not only what you want but why you want it.
One of the frustrations expressed by the "senior faculty" was ultimately that they couldn't understand why junior faculty didn't love their department/university/city as much as they did. While this is largely their failure of imagination, there are things you can do to try and prevent this problem in your own relations. First, ask questions about the things that matter to you. Almost invariably with the academic interview, there is not only time set aside for your questions but some time set aside for a tour (this may simply be a lift from the airport). This is your moment to begin to mark out and determine whether this is the place for you or not.
Rule 4: There are Two Kinds of Intelligence - Use Them Both
You know you are intelligent; that's how you got here. Rely on that. But don't be afraid to find intelligence about your opponent and to take advantage. If this means referencing some unfortunate behavior or some unthinking disclosure to gain advantage, you must do it. To some, this would equate to dirty fighting, but in any blood sport, you can't be afraid to press your advantages and take advantage of tactical errors
Strategy and Analysis:
This was one of the most unfortunate moments of the dust-up and probably the most distressing. That members on both sides began to strike out in highly personal ways on the road to trying to make their point. Honestly, it's pretty embarrassing imagining students or colleagues or donors somehow chancing on these moments. And that's the question I've been asking myself today: how would this look to someone not in the midst of it.
I would also imagine, having read some of the more vitriolic moments, that there's a temptation by bloggers involved to stop entirely. Charitably, I'll say that this wasn't an attempt at an actual chilling effect on the parts of the posters who felt the need to resort to attempts at using personal details about members of the blogging community as a means of bolstering their arguments. I'm not personally convinced of that. From the standpoint of those who have benefited from others blogs, I certainly hope this won't be the consequence.
But the bigger point here is that you've got to be prepared to own up to what you say and you've got be prepared that it might be used against you. This sort of thing doesn't happen just in the blogosphere, though it is (in my experience) much more common here. A recent Chronicle column (which I cannot find at the moment) suggested that new faculty should guard their secrets. That's not bad advice, though again, you mustn't be so guarded that you miss connections or somehow misrepresent yourself.
One of the secrets to negotiating any group dynamic - and take this form someone who's survived corporate America and is now navigating the Ivory Tower - is that spending more time listening than speaking will usually tell you all you need to know about your colleagues and your campus. As Gumdrops (or Gumdrops-to-be), spend those first moments of service listening - while we value your input we also understand that it can be overwhelming to be thrown onto the Curriculum Committee or Strategic Planning or whatever - and so we expect you'll be a little quiet. That's your chance to feel out where things stand and whether you've made the right choice or not.
Conclusions
There are a few important conclusions that I think can be made here.
The most important one is that those of us who blog and respond to blogs are only one segment of the faculty you're going to meet. The very fact that we're here and posting suggests something about us and how we deal with problems. We're a vocal minority, and should be interpreted as such. Recognize, too, that we use anonymity in productive and unproductive ways, and that same feature may well have been used against some of us in the community.
Secondly, though, I think you'll see that part of what really underlies the problem here isn't so much a generational thing (though that might be something of an intervening variable) but one of communication itself. By and large, those "senior faculty" who complained were really talking about how they felt deceived and used, a set of feelings the Gumdrops also feel but for very different reasons. My generalization of it is that for "senior faculty," it's about trying to foster relationships that fail, and for "junior faculty" it's about how relationships are set up to fail in the current structure. Those questions aren't going away anytime soon.
Third, I hope it's recognized that most (if not all - I couldn't say for sure) the "junior faculty" all did more than a little to give their jobs a chance. Taking that time to get to know the place and the people is certainly worthwhile, but that doesn't mean you have to stay. I've been advised by more than a few senior faculty (I know them and their credentials, so no quotes for them) who've advised me that even in the second year it's acceptable, but the third year may be seen as more preferable.
Finally, I hope that while the waters here seem treacherous and uncharted, that it's realized that most people really do want to work with you and see you advance in your career in a way that works for you, not just for them.
[Addendum: What? You're still here? Well, alright, have some footnotes then.]
1: Please note, however, while this implies that such academic guerrilla warfare is more common than just this thread, it does not imply that it is ubiquitous.
2: There are a few interesting patterns here. The question of academic vocation is often tied to a series of very particular metaphors. The first is of academia as a calling. Outside of academia, this use of languages often carries with it a particular religious connotation. The extreme version of this, in both academia and religious callings, becomes a form of zealotry or fanaticism. The second metaphor has attempts to speak of the academic career in relationship (typically marriage) terms. In this formation, questions of abandonment, and infidelity become metaphors for behaviors by faculty in relation to each other, to structural agents, and to institutions. Both often carry with them implicit power dynamics that suggest peculiar (and often disturbing) implications.
3: This rule suggests certain corollaries:
C1) First, the more marginal you feel your research/teaching is in relation to another variable (your colleague's research, the university's goals, the funding you receive, etc), the more likely to view to go the bloodsport route.
C2) The more marginal you feel someone else's research/teaching is in relation to another variable, the more likely to go the bloodsport route.
C3) The longer the pre-fight, the bloodier the match.
There's trouble right here in Academic City
Big discussions happening over at Dr. Crazy's place. Check out the useful post about approaching the job market after you've got a tenure track position and the useful comments about what the considerations might be once you do.
One of the thing I've noticed in my brief time in the blogging world (this go-round, at least) but also in academia at large is that there's a tendency to look at problems in a very particular way. Take this for example:
Structurally, the university system is made up in such a way that faculty would be crazy not to leave. The April departures edsmithers bemoans happen because of a structural process senior faculty, organizations, and universities have much more control over than do individual faculty. Do I want to have to wait till late in this school year to give my departure notice? Not really. Do I have to? If jobs are posted in the Fall, interviews are done in Winter, and hiring in Spring, then there isn't much say that the person being ired really has in the process. Now, consider this gem:
The other thing that neither/both/the same seem to ignore is that sometimes leaving is the responsible thing. It is entirely possible that one could land a job that seemed perfect only to discover they are a poor fit for that department's needs. By the logic shown in those threads, you don't ever get to part gracefully; you can only be shown the door. But that's not the way the job market works anywhere.
It's also intriguing to hear "senior faculty" (this keeps going in quotes because the only evidence I can find of an academic edsmithers seems to be teaching one course a year in the Santa Clara University Law program) who (if they are, in fact, senior faculty) would've come in at a substantially different pay scale relative to inflation than new faculty. I can imagine it would be easier to marry yourself to a place if you were making the sort of money profs who started in the 70s or 80s are getting paid. Come back down to my pay scale, though, and I'm betting you'll rethink it.
[Addendum: if we must keep using this marriage/career metaphor, then sooner or later, complainers must cope with the fact that, just as in real life, a lot of times when say "it's not you, it's me", it's really you.]
One of the thing I've noticed in my brief time in the blogging world (this go-round, at least) but also in academia at large is that there's a tendency to look at problems in a very particular way. Take this for example:
EdSmithers said...Ignoring the assumptions about why people leave, there are some things missing. The point that I never see mentioned at moments like this is that the people in question - in this case, junior faculty - are entering into a world with rules made by senior faculty.
I can't believe not a one of you has been a senior enough member of a faculty to know the damage that this "casting around for a better gig" does to a department.
The junior faculty of present day academe is made up of people like you, uncaring and selfish, not giving a shit about the students and colleagues you leave in the lurch with your pretty "look at me, love me, and miss me" announcement of departure in April of each year.
Structurally, the university system is made up in such a way that faculty would be crazy not to leave. The April departures edsmithers bemoans happen because of a structural process senior faculty, organizations, and universities have much more control over than do individual faculty. Do I want to have to wait till late in this school year to give my departure notice? Not really. Do I have to? If jobs are posted in the Fall, interviews are done in Winter, and hiring in Spring, then there isn't much say that the person being ired really has in the process. Now, consider this gem:
Webmaster said...Who'd want to stay at a job where "senior faculty" condescend and stereotype junior faculty in such ways as edsmithers or who are threatened with retaliation for exercising an option in the labor market as advocated by webmaster?
Imagine our delight in imagining you might deign to stay here in Pudknocker town another year or two!
We will certainly forget your casting around for a better gig when tenure and promotion loom.
The other thing that neither/both/the same seem to ignore is that sometimes leaving is the responsible thing. It is entirely possible that one could land a job that seemed perfect only to discover they are a poor fit for that department's needs. By the logic shown in those threads, you don't ever get to part gracefully; you can only be shown the door. But that's not the way the job market works anywhere.
It's also intriguing to hear "senior faculty" (this keeps going in quotes because the only evidence I can find of an academic edsmithers seems to be teaching one course a year in the Santa Clara University Law program) who (if they are, in fact, senior faculty) would've come in at a substantially different pay scale relative to inflation than new faculty. I can imagine it would be easier to marry yourself to a place if you were making the sort of money profs who started in the 70s or 80s are getting paid. Come back down to my pay scale, though, and I'm betting you'll rethink it.
[Addendum: if we must keep using this marriage/career metaphor, then sooner or later, complainers must cope with the fact that, just as in real life, a lot of times when say "it's not you, it's me", it's really you.]
The woes of the job market?
New Kid on the Hallway in this post (found via Tenured Radical in this post) has me thinking about the whole job prospect question. The underlying question that we rarely get to ask is about whether the whole shebang of these jobs actually makes us happy.
I remember when I entered my Ph.D. program, there was an annual start-of-the-term new kids on parade moment where all the incoming students had to address the sea of obviously not-ready-to-be-back faculty and explain what they wanted to study and why they wanted the Ph.D. When my turn came up, I explained my area of interest and then said "I'm getting a Ph.D. because I always wanted to see if I could get one." This comment was the only one I recall causing anyone to stir. Later at the "reward you for being good monkeys" dinner, not one but three faculty members pulled me aside to caution me that my answer was, at best, politically dubious. One even told me I'd never make it if that was my reason.
Of course, he didn't realize just quite how far I've been willing to go for spite, so maybe I owe him thanks now that I've got the degree.
But still the question gets buried now that I'm out. And it's interesting to think about - particularly in light of the looming question of whether my mode of providing job application materials might actually be seen as somehow contentious - whether I want to be a member of this particular club or not. My parents were shocked recently when I expressed such a strong to desire to be out of this locale that I'd consider jumping the academic ship (or is that the academic shark?). Of course, I haven't been able to get them to look at the blog though it answers oh-so-many of their questions about my doubts about this field.
So I still don't know what I'll do about the job packets. But I've got more food for thought.
I remember when I entered my Ph.D. program, there was an annual start-of-the-term new kids on parade moment where all the incoming students had to address the sea of obviously not-ready-to-be-back faculty and explain what they wanted to study and why they wanted the Ph.D. When my turn came up, I explained my area of interest and then said "I'm getting a Ph.D. because I always wanted to see if I could get one." This comment was the only one I recall causing anyone to stir. Later at the "reward you for being good monkeys" dinner, not one but three faculty members pulled me aside to caution me that my answer was, at best, politically dubious. One even told me I'd never make it if that was my reason.
Of course, he didn't realize just quite how far I've been willing to go for spite, so maybe I owe him thanks now that I've got the degree.
But still the question gets buried now that I'm out. And it's interesting to think about - particularly in light of the looming question of whether my mode of providing job application materials might actually be seen as somehow contentious - whether I want to be a member of this particular club or not. My parents were shocked recently when I expressed such a strong to desire to be out of this locale that I'd consider jumping the academic ship (or is that the academic shark?). Of course, I haven't been able to get them to look at the blog though it answers oh-so-many of their questions about my doubts about this field.
So I still don't know what I'll do about the job packets. But I've got more food for thought.
The grand experiment...
It's amazing how picky academics can be.
I say this in anticipation, though I could certainly offer more than a little evidence. As I've noted previously, I'm hitting the job market this year. After a few years teaching - typically (at least for those of us just starting out) we're advised to wait until our third year of teaching someplace to apply elsewhere - I've decide it is time for me to see what the jobs out there are like. And while looking for jobs is never fun - even when you've got one and can look just to see - looking for academic jobs is about the worst experience I've ever had.
Typically for an academic job, you're putting together a fairly lengthy packet of information: a letter, your C.V., references and/or their letters as a start. Then you might be asked for samples of your research/writing/production (depending upon your field). Possibly they want syllabi. Maybe they want statements of your teaching philosophy and your research intent. Maybe they want evaluations. Oh, and while you're at it, it couldn't hurt to send your transcripts (official, of course). Sure, send both the graduate and undergraduate transcripts.
If they want all of that, it's a pretty sizable packet. For me, the full packet can reach 200 pages., of which the average search committee member will look at maybe 10 (letter, C.V., references, and maybe a syllabus of interest). I'm told the smaller packets used to be very popular, but it hasn't been my experience. Now everyone wants everything, and frankly, it's a pain in the ass.
Sure, I can come up with a justification for why someone might want to know what my GPA was fifteen or so years ago in courses I might not even be teaching anything about today. I had to reach for that explanation, but I found one.
It still doesn't make this process any easier to swallow.
So this year, I'm going to experiment. Instead of printing and somehow binding together 200+ pages so someone can subjectively knock me out for my choice to talk about research before teaching on page three of a CV that chronicles everything but my shoe size (14, depending on brand), choice of beverage (Coke Zero if we're talking non-alcoholic) and a brief description of my ideal mate (thank goodness, because my answer still changes daily on this one). So before the University of Southern Nowhere You Want to Live asks me for a printed letter telling them whether I like Pina Coladas and walks in the rain, I've decided to let them do the work (or at least the printing) by sending them a CD with all the documents they could ever want.
Here's where things get nervous though. It's entirely possible though this would be a good, applicable, environmentally friendly use of technology to solve a problem, it may be seen entirely otherwise. After all, we all had professors who seemed so ancient they probably wore sundials on their tweed-covered wrists, right? And that hasn't changed. So what I risk with this approach, designed to save me some effort while demonstrating some tech savvy (which I like to think would be important for the sorts of things I want to do), is that it may land on the desk of someone more curmudgeonly than yours truly.
Imagine, doing all that it takes to make a CD-Rom that'll run on PCs and Macs (and maybe Linux/Unix machines) with 200 pages or so of documentation in some way that's both easy to follow and interesting, only to have it be the excuse someone doesn't call for an interview?
Wish me luck.
I say this in anticipation, though I could certainly offer more than a little evidence. As I've noted previously, I'm hitting the job market this year. After a few years teaching - typically (at least for those of us just starting out) we're advised to wait until our third year of teaching someplace to apply elsewhere - I've decide it is time for me to see what the jobs out there are like. And while looking for jobs is never fun - even when you've got one and can look just to see - looking for academic jobs is about the worst experience I've ever had.
Typically for an academic job, you're putting together a fairly lengthy packet of information: a letter, your C.V., references and/or their letters as a start. Then you might be asked for samples of your research/writing/production (depending upon your field). Possibly they want syllabi. Maybe they want statements of your teaching philosophy and your research intent. Maybe they want evaluations. Oh, and while you're at it, it couldn't hurt to send your transcripts (official, of course). Sure, send both the graduate and undergraduate transcripts.
If they want all of that, it's a pretty sizable packet. For me, the full packet can reach 200 pages., of which the average search committee member will look at maybe 10 (letter, C.V., references, and maybe a syllabus of interest). I'm told the smaller packets used to be very popular, but it hasn't been my experience. Now everyone wants everything, and frankly, it's a pain in the ass.
Sure, I can come up with a justification for why someone might want to know what my GPA was fifteen or so years ago in courses I might not even be teaching anything about today. I had to reach for that explanation, but I found one.
It still doesn't make this process any easier to swallow.
So this year, I'm going to experiment. Instead of printing and somehow binding together 200+ pages so someone can subjectively knock me out for my choice to talk about research before teaching on page three of a CV that chronicles everything but my shoe size (14, depending on brand), choice of beverage (Coke Zero if we're talking non-alcoholic) and a brief description of my ideal mate (thank goodness, because my answer still changes daily on this one). So before the University of Southern Nowhere You Want to Live asks me for a printed letter telling them whether I like Pina Coladas and walks in the rain, I've decided to let them do the work (or at least the printing) by sending them a CD with all the documents they could ever want.
Here's where things get nervous though. It's entirely possible though this would be a good, applicable, environmentally friendly use of technology to solve a problem, it may be seen entirely otherwise. After all, we all had professors who seemed so ancient they probably wore sundials on their tweed-covered wrists, right? And that hasn't changed. So what I risk with this approach, designed to save me some effort while demonstrating some tech savvy (which I like to think would be important for the sorts of things I want to do), is that it may land on the desk of someone more curmudgeonly than yours truly.
Imagine, doing all that it takes to make a CD-Rom that'll run on PCs and Macs (and maybe Linux/Unix machines) with 200 pages or so of documentation in some way that's both easy to follow and interesting, only to have it be the excuse someone doesn't call for an interview?
Wish me luck.
I'm ready for my close-up, Professor DeMille...
Here's an academic dare for you: would you put your course up on YouTube? According to this article from Inside Higher Education at least one professor is willing to give it shot, having created a class that will, at least for the first half, be filmed and posted on YouTube. You can check it out here.
There are some interesting ideas raised by this type of course. YouTube is certainly a growing part of our culture, though we might be over-emphasizing just how big a part it is. Last term I spent a considerable amount of time talking with my students about Lonelygirl15 and the drama surrounding her YouTube videos (not sure what this is? Here's the first Lonelygirl15 video - you can watch the rest from there). Taken in by articles in the New York Times and other major news sources about the popularity of LonelyGirl15, I entered my class confident in the assumption that my students were rushing back to their dorm rooms to see what the latest YouTube offerings were.
Not a single student out of 70 had heard of Lonelygirl15, and as is only possible in the mathematics of student apathy, even fewer actually cared. But I pressed on, confident that we were exploring something they'd find useful to know about. But as the term went on, I had to ask myself was I just one more professor (with an admitted desire to study technology) sucked in by a gimmick?
Recently I was asked by so members of my institution to explain why I don't use Blackboard. I had a whole host of reasons, most of which boil down to Blackboard's ability to make everyone who uses it lazier. There's an appropriate way to use that technology, but me posting my lecture notes doesn't seem to be it. Too many students come to rely on that as a means of keeping up with everythng, and hence, they can't or won't keep up with anything themselves.
With technologies like YouTube, the question is a different one: is this technology so important that it should warrant the focus we sometimes give it? As a professor, I'm often tempted to run wherever my interests lead. Sometimes that's a good thing; sometimes not. I'll be curious to see how the YouTube course goes, and I'm sure I'll be posting about it again.
There are some interesting ideas raised by this type of course. YouTube is certainly a growing part of our culture, though we might be over-emphasizing just how big a part it is. Last term I spent a considerable amount of time talking with my students about Lonelygirl15 and the drama surrounding her YouTube videos (not sure what this is? Here's the first Lonelygirl15 video - you can watch the rest from there). Taken in by articles in the New York Times and other major news sources about the popularity of LonelyGirl15, I entered my class confident in the assumption that my students were rushing back to their dorm rooms to see what the latest YouTube offerings were.
Not a single student out of 70 had heard of Lonelygirl15, and as is only possible in the mathematics of student apathy, even fewer actually cared. But I pressed on, confident that we were exploring something they'd find useful to know about. But as the term went on, I had to ask myself was I just one more professor (with an admitted desire to study technology) sucked in by a gimmick?
Recently I was asked by so members of my institution to explain why I don't use Blackboard. I had a whole host of reasons, most of which boil down to Blackboard's ability to make everyone who uses it lazier. There's an appropriate way to use that technology, but me posting my lecture notes doesn't seem to be it. Too many students come to rely on that as a means of keeping up with everythng, and hence, they can't or won't keep up with anything themselves.
With technologies like YouTube, the question is a different one: is this technology so important that it should warrant the focus we sometimes give it? As a professor, I'm often tempted to run wherever my interests lead. Sometimes that's a good thing; sometimes not. I'll be curious to see how the YouTube course goes, and I'm sure I'll be posting about it again.
Blame Canada
For a little bit, after I'd complained in a previous post on the blog and with friends about the low pay of faculty members, I began to think I was off my nut. Years of swallowing the rhetoric of a pure market economy had me a little dazed. If I wasn't making good money and couldn't afford to rent an apartment as a new faculty member because I was saddled with debt, wasn't that my problem? How could I even think that the market might be weighted unfairly.
"Time to move on to other issues," I thought. I almost faltered.
Until I saw this article about assistance to new professors working at Canadian universities. Briefly, momentarily, I'm given hope. Now I see that it's possible that an employer recognizes all those costs and actually wants to help. What an interesting model helping with housing suggests to American universities. Here's something small schools might try to think about when they're wondering about the third year bleed of good faculty who've been there but won't stay.
Now if I could only get a job in Canada....
"Time to move on to other issues," I thought. I almost faltered.
Until I saw this article about assistance to new professors working at Canadian universities. Briefly, momentarily, I'm given hope. Now I see that it's possible that an employer recognizes all those costs and actually wants to help. What an interesting model helping with housing suggests to American universities. Here's something small schools might try to think about when they're wondering about the third year bleed of good faculty who've been there but won't stay.
Now if I could only get a job in Canada....
Check, please...
Back to the education beat: this article in the New York Times detailing the rapid growth of the fee sends a pretty interesting warning to colleges and to students. Anyone who has been in school in the last decade has been victim to the university created fee (yes, it's more apparent at publicly supported schools, but don't mistake easy visibility as a symptom).
It's good to hear that students striking back. Transparency wouldn't be a bad idea here. Imagine going out to dinner and finding a $1 chair fee tacked on to the bill. But as a solution, that doesn't go far enough. The increasing privatization of education seems to have not only turned down this road years ago but to have strapped a brick to the gas pedal. Consider the evidence together: financial aid scandals where schools are taking money to steer students towards high cost private loans, a sort of payola scandal to help with high -cost study-abroad programs, and renewed distress at ever growing fees.
I'm reminded of those discussions and charts that show what funds for the war could have done if spent on other things (here's one if you're curious). While I don't want to mire this down in that discussion, all of these symptomatic financial problems beg the question: what would happen if we Valued (capital V intentional) education the way we all say we do during election years?fin
It's good to hear that students striking back. Transparency wouldn't be a bad idea here. Imagine going out to dinner and finding a $1 chair fee tacked on to the bill. But as a solution, that doesn't go far enough. The increasing privatization of education seems to have not only turned down this road years ago but to have strapped a brick to the gas pedal. Consider the evidence together: financial aid scandals where schools are taking money to steer students towards high cost private loans, a sort of payola scandal to help with high -cost study-abroad programs, and renewed distress at ever growing fees.
I'm reminded of those discussions and charts that show what funds for the war could have done if spent on other things (here's one if you're curious). While I don't want to mire this down in that discussion, all of these symptomatic financial problems beg the question: what would happen if we Valued (capital V intentional) education the way we all say we do during election years?fin
Teachers who make a difference
Fair warning: this post could also be titled "One More Reason I Should Get Out of Here" or, after reading my last post, "Nothing Goes Up That Does Not Come Down".
So yesterday, I was out hobnobbing with other faculty around a field throwing things to each other. And during a break, we did what faculty often do: we began to talk about students in classes, comparing notes, horror stories, and the all-too-rare success story. Somebody was telling us about a student who from day one of his very difficult class - and I say this with a twinge of envy: I want my class to be as difficult as his is reputed to be - just got it. The student could offer a good definition off the top of her head, could argue a point, and most importantly, felt not one iota of shame for being smart and liking it.
Incidentally, feminist friends, this is the next mission. Body image aside, let's start to deal with the fear of being seen as smart.
It was at this point that another faculty member chimed in.
"You've got to shut that down," he laughed. And we weren't - or at least I wasn't - quite sure what he meant.
"You've got to shut that down," he repeated. "I had a student once who had their hand up at every question. They answered them all, 10 for 10, perfectly correct. So I said to him 'Man, you've got to get a social life.'"
Awkward laughter and a bit of stunned silence.
"He got up and left the class, and never came back. Never saw him again." And he was beaming proudly. Proudly! He thought he'd done a good thing. Why is it that if a dog craps on my carpet, I can smack it, but when a colleague does it, we're forced to be polite? I can only hope he recognized the sarcasm and bitterness in my voice when I said "Yes, teachers who make a difference" and walked away to get some water.
Argh.
So yesterday, I was out hobnobbing with other faculty around a field throwing things to each other. And during a break, we did what faculty often do: we began to talk about students in classes, comparing notes, horror stories, and the all-too-rare success story. Somebody was telling us about a student who from day one of his very difficult class - and I say this with a twinge of envy: I want my class to be as difficult as his is reputed to be - just got it. The student could offer a good definition off the top of her head, could argue a point, and most importantly, felt not one iota of shame for being smart and liking it.
Incidentally, feminist friends, this is the next mission. Body image aside, let's start to deal with the fear of being seen as smart.
It was at this point that another faculty member chimed in.
"You've got to shut that down," he laughed. And we weren't - or at least I wasn't - quite sure what he meant.
"You've got to shut that down," he repeated. "I had a student once who had their hand up at every question. They answered them all, 10 for 10, perfectly correct. So I said to him 'Man, you've got to get a social life.'"
Awkward laughter and a bit of stunned silence.
"He got up and left the class, and never came back. Never saw him again." And he was beaming proudly. Proudly! He thought he'd done a good thing. Why is it that if a dog craps on my carpet, I can smack it, but when a colleague does it, we're forced to be polite? I can only hope he recognized the sarcasm and bitterness in my voice when I said "Yes, teachers who make a difference" and walked away to get some water.
Argh.
Heresy 101?
Remember that faculty breakfast and dog and pony show? Well there was more to it. One other interesting point in the recent faculty breakfast and cattle show was the address by the university president Without giving too much away, the University president is among other things, a fairly good natured person, concerned with faculty ideas (or at least that's the sense I get based on his regular invitations to take faculty and students to lunch or dinner), and a Catholic priest. And in his address to the incoming and old faculty, he did something not so surprising, all things considered: he suggested that it wouldn't be a bad idea for faculty to begin classes with a moment of prayer.
Now this prompted all the usual responses:
But in the interest of charity, Christian or otherwise, I want to try and avoid the usual negative rant that this might inspire. After all, in some ways the sort of debate discussed in this New York Times article becomes so strangely polarizing as to be useless. So instead, let me set the stage with a bit of background.
Like many people I know, I've got a distrust of religion that's deep and glaring. I'm not comfortable saying it is because I'm liberal - I think it would be interesting to see what a liberal religious movement would be capable of politically. I've even debated tackling a book that would play with some of those ideas. And I don't think it's because I'm well-educated. I know plenty of well educated people who have some strong faith or other.
The roots of my distrust that I'm willing to point to come from direct experience with religion. I spent some time in a middle school affiliated and run by members of a particular religion, and the experiences there were more than enough to make me shudder at all manner of things. It's because of my time there that I don't trust big groups clapping at the same time. It's because of my time there that I feel a little nervous any time a large group of people does anything in unison. And there are later experiences that have only deepened this distrust. And I would be remiss to ignore that I do feel like I benefited from being dragged to church as a child when the choice was still my parents. There were moral lessons that I take from there that I think were quite valuable. And there were communal lessons as well.
But sniping aside, there's a big question that wouldn't hurt to play with. Let's assume for a moment religion isn't going away. Not here, not in the larger culture. If that's the case, sooner or later, those of us who are liberal, well-educated folks are going to have to offer some notion of how to integrate religion of all varieties into education (in the same way that I think the left must sooner or later claim some religious space as well).
Part of the difficulty seems to be the assumption that the only way to be sensitive to religious beliefs is to facilitate religious practice. Why is it that the notion of appropriateness of timing seems to fly out the window in the American context (perhaps it does this elsewhere, but I couldn't say)?
I suppose, as a colleague of mine noted, we could do simple things to bridge the gap. In his case, it was designing a syllabus that was so frightening even non-believers would hope for divine mercy. That's one solution.
Now this prompted all the usual responses:
- you can't make us pray, we take public money
- you don't have to pray, you can have a moment of silence
- we're at an institution with a religious bent - and with a priest as president - so you can't really be surprised at this
- etc, etc, etc.
But in the interest of charity, Christian or otherwise, I want to try and avoid the usual negative rant that this might inspire. After all, in some ways the sort of debate discussed in this New York Times article becomes so strangely polarizing as to be useless. So instead, let me set the stage with a bit of background.
Like many people I know, I've got a distrust of religion that's deep and glaring. I'm not comfortable saying it is because I'm liberal - I think it would be interesting to see what a liberal religious movement would be capable of politically. I've even debated tackling a book that would play with some of those ideas. And I don't think it's because I'm well-educated. I know plenty of well educated people who have some strong faith or other.
The roots of my distrust that I'm willing to point to come from direct experience with religion. I spent some time in a middle school affiliated and run by members of a particular religion, and the experiences there were more than enough to make me shudder at all manner of things. It's because of my time there that I don't trust big groups clapping at the same time. It's because of my time there that I feel a little nervous any time a large group of people does anything in unison. And there are later experiences that have only deepened this distrust. And I would be remiss to ignore that I do feel like I benefited from being dragged to church as a child when the choice was still my parents. There were moral lessons that I take from there that I think were quite valuable. And there were communal lessons as well.
But sniping aside, there's a big question that wouldn't hurt to play with. Let's assume for a moment religion isn't going away. Not here, not in the larger culture. If that's the case, sooner or later, those of us who are liberal, well-educated folks are going to have to offer some notion of how to integrate religion of all varieties into education (in the same way that I think the left must sooner or later claim some religious space as well).
Part of the difficulty seems to be the assumption that the only way to be sensitive to religious beliefs is to facilitate religious practice. Why is it that the notion of appropriateness of timing seems to fly out the window in the American context (perhaps it does this elsewhere, but I couldn't say)?
I suppose, as a colleague of mine noted, we could do simple things to bridge the gap. In his case, it was designing a syllabus that was so frightening even non-believers would hope for divine mercy. That's one solution.
Education on the clock...
I'd never thought about it before reading this article from the New York Times, but education in America serves, as much as anything, as a sort of calendar marking time. I didn't think about it when, as an undergrad, I mentioned to my interim advisor that I didn't have a plan for my electives - at least not a plan that he'd agree involved any forethought. Instead, I told him, I was going to take the courses that sounded interesting. This was clearly a foolish, wasteful idea in his eyes: the sign of a student set to drift along through college and probably not even make it out.
Why did I do it? In high school, I'd been assured by guidance counselors, by well-meaning teachers, even by friends with the same concerns that college was to be different from high school: we'd all get to do what we were interested in, not what the state or school board or our parents told us we needed. No more Calculus if I didn't want it, no more Government and Economics. College was about my desires. And though college wasn't the land of milk, honey and free academic choices I'd been promised it wasn't so far from it either. And so, I spent electives on things like World Literature courses, a First Amendment law course, a Jazz history course, even a feminist theory course (not because I thought I'd meet chicks there, either). When it was time to graduate, my school only allowed you to have one minor. But I'd jumped around enough without ever abandoning my major to have had five.
A lot of the same thought drives my views on education today. I'm happier because I got to explore. I even wound up taking more of those pesky Government and Economics courses than my high school career (largely spent drawing pictures of my Econ teacher in various embarrassing costumes) would have suggested. Along the way, I learned not just about cultural anthropology, not just about media history, or even about the practice of experimental psychology but also about smart decision making, about how differently people I thought I understood viewed the world, and even a bit about where I needed to be in the world. It was, as college is often assumed to be, my first real taste of freedom.
But it also took me five years and a summer session to graduate, and today I've got the student loan debt that reflects that particular desire. Even looking at that debt didn't spur me to this new thought: education is a form of Taylorism (if you're not sure what that means, see the definition offered here). What my first advisor had been trying to tell me was that taking longer than four years in college intentionally was a waste of time. It was unproductive.
What that article made me think about was a sort of cultural norm about when we become adults and what it means to be an adult in this society (look: a term from my cultural anthropology course!). At the end of high school, we assume people become adults: they're ready to make decisions, to serve their country, to pay taxes, etc, etc. But most importantly, they're ready to contribute in the most basic way: by getting a job. And if you're not ready to get a job, then the only excuse is to go to college. Why? So that when you're done, you can get a better job (huh - that course in sociological theory doesn't seem so crazy now...).
These are assumptions, of course (okay, so that logic course did pay some dividends). And perhaps unfortunately, we've normalized them - we've made rules based on those assumptions. And the modern academic system is built around them - it even penalizes "bad" decision making. A college education is assumed to take four years. If it takes more, you can find your access to financial aid diminished, you're guaranteed to have to answer in interviews why it took you so long to get out, and you may even take a hit to your reputation with friends and family ("Oh, you know he just drifted about awhile. I always thought he had more direction...").
But what if, as the New York Times article suggests about high school, a longer time spent in college might offer a different set of benefits than simple productivity?
Just a few days ago, I was in advising a student, and I found myself making the assumption for them that they need to be done in four years. And the student, not surprisingly for someone just entering college after years of having older authorities pass down unexplained proclamations, accepted it. Maybe I should have asked what she wanted to get out of her college career? Was she in it for a job? Or was their something more? And if she answered that she wanted something more than the quickest route to a slightly better job, how would the system have to work differently?
As I prepare for the first week of classes, I think I may have just hit on the first essay for my freshmen. I'll let you know how they answer.
Why did I do it? In high school, I'd been assured by guidance counselors, by well-meaning teachers, even by friends with the same concerns that college was to be different from high school: we'd all get to do what we were interested in, not what the state or school board or our parents told us we needed. No more Calculus if I didn't want it, no more Government and Economics. College was about my desires. And though college wasn't the land of milk, honey and free academic choices I'd been promised it wasn't so far from it either. And so, I spent electives on things like World Literature courses, a First Amendment law course, a Jazz history course, even a feminist theory course (not because I thought I'd meet chicks there, either). When it was time to graduate, my school only allowed you to have one minor. But I'd jumped around enough without ever abandoning my major to have had five.
A lot of the same thought drives my views on education today. I'm happier because I got to explore. I even wound up taking more of those pesky Government and Economics courses than my high school career (largely spent drawing pictures of my Econ teacher in various embarrassing costumes) would have suggested. Along the way, I learned not just about cultural anthropology, not just about media history, or even about the practice of experimental psychology but also about smart decision making, about how differently people I thought I understood viewed the world, and even a bit about where I needed to be in the world. It was, as college is often assumed to be, my first real taste of freedom.
But it also took me five years and a summer session to graduate, and today I've got the student loan debt that reflects that particular desire. Even looking at that debt didn't spur me to this new thought: education is a form of Taylorism (if you're not sure what that means, see the definition offered here). What my first advisor had been trying to tell me was that taking longer than four years in college intentionally was a waste of time. It was unproductive.
What that article made me think about was a sort of cultural norm about when we become adults and what it means to be an adult in this society (look: a term from my cultural anthropology course!). At the end of high school, we assume people become adults: they're ready to make decisions, to serve their country, to pay taxes, etc, etc. But most importantly, they're ready to contribute in the most basic way: by getting a job. And if you're not ready to get a job, then the only excuse is to go to college. Why? So that when you're done, you can get a better job (huh - that course in sociological theory doesn't seem so crazy now...).
These are assumptions, of course (okay, so that logic course did pay some dividends). And perhaps unfortunately, we've normalized them - we've made rules based on those assumptions. And the modern academic system is built around them - it even penalizes "bad" decision making. A college education is assumed to take four years. If it takes more, you can find your access to financial aid diminished, you're guaranteed to have to answer in interviews why it took you so long to get out, and you may even take a hit to your reputation with friends and family ("Oh, you know he just drifted about awhile. I always thought he had more direction...").
But what if, as the New York Times article suggests about high school, a longer time spent in college might offer a different set of benefits than simple productivity?
Just a few days ago, I was in advising a student, and I found myself making the assumption for them that they need to be done in four years. And the student, not surprisingly for someone just entering college after years of having older authorities pass down unexplained proclamations, accepted it. Maybe I should have asked what she wanted to get out of her college career? Was she in it for a job? Or was their something more? And if she answered that she wanted something more than the quickest route to a slightly better job, how would the system have to work differently?
As I prepare for the first week of classes, I think I may have just hit on the first essay for my freshmen. I'll let you know how they answer.
Son of Shameless Self-Promotion
So this morning, I attended the annual welcome back faculty breakfast where we get to briefly gawk at new faculty who're made to pirouette while the higher-ups get attempt to use their vitas as part of a comedy routine. Meanwhile, while we - the entrenched, bored, on-our-best behavior old faculty - stuff our faces with free cafeteria food (I am increasingly convinced there is nothing more enticing to academics than the notion of a free lunch). Also this is where the University president traditionally exhorts us to some grand "moral" goal (the quotes are there because I don't necessarily equate the morals the president espouses with my own). And over the last two years, they've also started introducing us to the university's new marketing plan. That's right, kids, greasy bacon and academic commercials!
Oddly enough, most of us don't ever think about how universities market themselves. I'd imagine if you wanted to sell a university, you'd have to choose the best way to reach your ideal demographic. You'd probably edit your information to appeal to a 19 year old. Or maybe you'd even suggest, in addition to the official information, that someone try to figure a way to make the kids who're already at your university make their own commercials.
First, you target them, then you infect them. Viral marketing has come to the university.
Pause a moment and think about what that would look like. Would it say much about education, amidst all those fast edits and off-center camera angles? Would you even want to? Ever search for your university's name on YouTube? Could be worth looking at whatever turns up.
Oddly enough, most of us don't ever think about how universities market themselves. I'd imagine if you wanted to sell a university, you'd have to choose the best way to reach your ideal demographic. You'd probably edit your information to appeal to a 19 year old. Or maybe you'd even suggest, in addition to the official information, that someone try to figure a way to make the kids who're already at your university make their own commercials.
First, you target them, then you infect them. Viral marketing has come to the university.
Pause a moment and think about what that would look like. Would it say much about education, amidst all those fast edits and off-center camera angles? Would you even want to? Ever search for your university's name on YouTube? Could be worth looking at whatever turns up.
Off to the races?
Just for the sake of completion, I should mention that today I let both my Dean and department chair know that I'm planning to apply for jobs this school year. I'm hoping that both will contribute a letter of reference for me - of course, if they for some reason say no, then I'm in a bit of a quandary.
Last year I did a very small job search, mostly in hopes of landing someplace near my aging parents. And there was some oddness with my department chair over the matter of reference letters. It wound up being something of a semantic game: "You asked if I'd be willing to write a letter; you didn't actually ask if I would write one." that ultimately worked out, but that gave me a scare about the whole process. For a moment, it felt like my battleship was in a wading pool and someone just dropped a torpedo in the water with it. My career - where I lived, what I did, and all the things that extend from that: happiness, a social life, health - could be tanked because I forgot to say "Mother, may I?"
Life in academia carries with it a continuing sense of indebtedness in a way that I've never experienced as acutely anywhere else, even in my several years in the kiss-ass or die corporate banking area. Obviously there's intellectual indebtedness - that's why we cite things so religiously. And certainly I owe a lot to the various faculty and colleagues who've asked me to read something, who've challenged what I asked them to read, who argued with me over drinks at the bar on Thursday nights. But it goes beyond that. Having done both hiring in both and firing in the corporate world, I remember all too well how references worked there. When I was at the bank, checking references was essentially limited to calling an employer and asking "Did Person X work there?" There can be all sorts of legal hassles if they try to tell you that Person X was a bad employee, plus most people find someone who isn't going to hang them anyway.
In academia, the reference can be everything. You don't have to look far to find someone in academia who owes their career (or their lack of it) to the person who chaired their dissertation committee. When I first looked for an academic job, one of the interviews I had owes no small debt to the friendship between my undergraduate advisor and someone working at the school in question. Academics aren't afraid to call someone they know where you worked and asked for all the dirt. And they're not afraid to share with anyone and everyone who'll listen.
Increasingly (at least in my experience) potential employers want detailed reference letters at the outset of an application process. It used to be - or so I'm told - fairly common to just list contact information, and if an employer wanted more details, they'd contact references. But in the years I've been jumping from place to place and job to job, the majority have wanted letters.
Where this really becomes problematic is when you're casting a wide net. My first year of job searching, when I was A.B.D., I applied to 108 jobs. Imagine if even a quarter of them wanted a full letter (and I'm fairly certain it was more than that). Now imagine that you've somehow done someone wrong (or that they think you have).
Scary, huh?
So presently, there are four jobs out that I'm interested in. The theory is that since I've got a couple of publications and a book contract plus good teaching evaluations, that this is my best year to jump to a new ship. I'll keep you posted how it goes.
Wish me luck.
Last year I did a very small job search, mostly in hopes of landing someplace near my aging parents. And there was some oddness with my department chair over the matter of reference letters. It wound up being something of a semantic game: "You asked if I'd be willing to write a letter; you didn't actually ask if I would write one." that ultimately worked out, but that gave me a scare about the whole process. For a moment, it felt like my battleship was in a wading pool and someone just dropped a torpedo in the water with it. My career - where I lived, what I did, and all the things that extend from that: happiness, a social life, health - could be tanked because I forgot to say "Mother, may I?"
Life in academia carries with it a continuing sense of indebtedness in a way that I've never experienced as acutely anywhere else, even in my several years in the kiss-ass or die corporate banking area. Obviously there's intellectual indebtedness - that's why we cite things so religiously. And certainly I owe a lot to the various faculty and colleagues who've asked me to read something, who've challenged what I asked them to read, who argued with me over drinks at the bar on Thursday nights. But it goes beyond that. Having done both hiring in both and firing in the corporate world, I remember all too well how references worked there. When I was at the bank, checking references was essentially limited to calling an employer and asking "Did Person X work there?" There can be all sorts of legal hassles if they try to tell you that Person X was a bad employee, plus most people find someone who isn't going to hang them anyway.
In academia, the reference can be everything. You don't have to look far to find someone in academia who owes their career (or their lack of it) to the person who chaired their dissertation committee. When I first looked for an academic job, one of the interviews I had owes no small debt to the friendship between my undergraduate advisor and someone working at the school in question. Academics aren't afraid to call someone they know where you worked and asked for all the dirt. And they're not afraid to share with anyone and everyone who'll listen.
Increasingly (at least in my experience) potential employers want detailed reference letters at the outset of an application process. It used to be - or so I'm told - fairly common to just list contact information, and if an employer wanted more details, they'd contact references. But in the years I've been jumping from place to place and job to job, the majority have wanted letters.
Where this really becomes problematic is when you're casting a wide net. My first year of job searching, when I was A.B.D., I applied to 108 jobs. Imagine if even a quarter of them wanted a full letter (and I'm fairly certain it was more than that). Now imagine that you've somehow done someone wrong (or that they think you have).
Scary, huh?
So presently, there are four jobs out that I'm interested in. The theory is that since I've got a couple of publications and a book contract plus good teaching evaluations, that this is my best year to jump to a new ship. I'll keep you posted how it goes.
Wish me luck.
The Undying Art of Shameless Self-Promotion
It's around this time each year that U.S. News and World Report issues its annual college ratings. This is a bigger deal for colleges than for anyone, even the people who use them because it helps not only in recruiting students but in pushing for external funding.
What most people don't realize is just how tricky (read: near-crooked) the ratings are. For example, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal reported that when two colleges corrected information on their alumni-donation rate, their ratings slid. [Edit: they've since corrected this - only one of the two schools' ratings slid].
But what isn't so widely reported is that part of the rankings are based on the perceived status of the college or university by other colleges and universities. In other words, what other schools report they think of your school can determine your school's ranking. If just parsing that sentence takes a moment, you can be sure there's more fun in the works. Clearly, that sort of system seems like it shouldn't be a problem, right? In a world where education becomes more business than anything every day, we can count on truth over the bottom line, right? I mean, if we asked Coke executives to tell us what they thought of Pepsi, of course they'd be honest with us. The method is more than a little suspect, and it has resulted in some schools boycotting certain parts of the system (often leading to falls in their own rankings) and to ask for more information about the methodology itself, even claiming the system favors private schools.
It's amazing how often these things occur, though. Recently the school I'm at sent out messages to employees about a regional survey seeking to find the best places to work. There's no self-promotion there, I'm sure. What's interesting is that I've never heard anyone report on the ten worst places to work in a region though it seems like knowing that could be just as important.
What most people don't realize is just how tricky (read: near-crooked) the ratings are. For example, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal reported that when two colleges corrected information on their alumni-donation rate, their ratings slid. [Edit: they've since corrected this - only one of the two schools' ratings slid].
But what isn't so widely reported is that part of the rankings are based on the perceived status of the college or university by other colleges and universities. In other words, what other schools report they think of your school can determine your school's ranking. If just parsing that sentence takes a moment, you can be sure there's more fun in the works. Clearly, that sort of system seems like it shouldn't be a problem, right? In a world where education becomes more business than anything every day, we can count on truth over the bottom line, right? I mean, if we asked Coke executives to tell us what they thought of Pepsi, of course they'd be honest with us. The method is more than a little suspect, and it has resulted in some schools boycotting certain parts of the system (often leading to falls in their own rankings) and to ask for more information about the methodology itself, even claiming the system favors private schools.
It's amazing how often these things occur, though. Recently the school I'm at sent out messages to employees about a regional survey seeking to find the best places to work. There's no self-promotion there, I'm sure. What's interesting is that I've never heard anyone report on the ten worst places to work in a region though it seems like knowing that could be just as important.
The Devil's bargain (or contract negotiation for dummies)
Those of you trying to learn how to successfully negotiate a contract from the management side, take note: a key to ensuring a strong bargaining hand in negotiation is to redirect mistrust and frustration.
I've mentioned a bit about contract negotiations here, and in my previous post gave some example of how the proposed contract effectively pits faculty against each other on the way to a more equitable pay rather than against the university. Today, the conversation has shifted to something more interesting, and (again) the argument is coming between faculty.
As with many colleges the size of the one I teach at, the faculty workload is an issue. Here, faculty teach four courses per term. This is then cluttered up in terms of preps. For example, I might teach a term with two preps, but four total courses. There are a few competitive opportunities to get the number of courses reduced, and there are reductions built in for things like chairing a department and teaching certain numbers of graduate courses. Now it's worth noting that the majority of graduate courses at this school happen in the Business and Education programs (coincidentally (?), these are the same programs that have the highest pay). Making matters worse, the college's core curriculum - the courses that all students have to take at the undergraduate level, regardless of focus - are taught in programs that are on the low-pay, high-prep end of the scale. And the more courses you teach, the harder it is to do research which is one of the keys to getting that most holy (though it isn't what the average person on the street thinks) of academic goals: tenure.
Imagine having to prep lectures for four courses a week, grade the papers for all those courses, advise students, serve on a committee or three, and then try to figure out time to write papers for conferences and publication. Effectively, under a 4/4 load, the only research that gets done happens on your (unpaid) vacations, so you can imagine that workload is an issue.
The proposed contract has received some concessions on this score. Over the course of four years, the workload will be reduced to 3/3, with the number of course reductions decreased correspondingly. Seems like something everyone could get on board with, right?
Wrong.
Remember those reductions I mentioned that some people get for teaching graduate courses, etc? Well, those reductions become harder to claim if workload declines. The problem is this: while the number of courses that a faculty member has to teach go down, the number of courses that have to be taught doesn't. So you either have to hire new faculty (or adjuncts) or you give up reductions. This is where the faculty today's faculty-on-faculty aggression has hit. You see, in the short run, those people who have been able to get reductions based on graduate teaching - often to a 3/3 load under the current system - will lose those chances and will have to teach what the rest of the faculty have to teach.
Effectively, these faculty who are already paid more and teach less find themselves in the position where they're being asked to work more than they're accustomed for less of a raise than they might get otherwise. And faculty in the areas that pay worse are confronted with the fact that they teach more and earn less. There have been inferences made that graduate faculty work less, that helping one group is hurting the other.
And the University? Well, it's an interesting note that in none of the communications that I've been privy to has the University itself even been referenced.
I've mentioned a bit about contract negotiations here, and in my previous post gave some example of how the proposed contract effectively pits faculty against each other on the way to a more equitable pay rather than against the university. Today, the conversation has shifted to something more interesting, and (again) the argument is coming between faculty.
As with many colleges the size of the one I teach at, the faculty workload is an issue. Here, faculty teach four courses per term. This is then cluttered up in terms of preps. For example, I might teach a term with two preps, but four total courses. There are a few competitive opportunities to get the number of courses reduced, and there are reductions built in for things like chairing a department and teaching certain numbers of graduate courses. Now it's worth noting that the majority of graduate courses at this school happen in the Business and Education programs (coincidentally (?), these are the same programs that have the highest pay). Making matters worse, the college's core curriculum - the courses that all students have to take at the undergraduate level, regardless of focus - are taught in programs that are on the low-pay, high-prep end of the scale. And the more courses you teach, the harder it is to do research which is one of the keys to getting that most holy (though it isn't what the average person on the street thinks) of academic goals: tenure.
Imagine having to prep lectures for four courses a week, grade the papers for all those courses, advise students, serve on a committee or three, and then try to figure out time to write papers for conferences and publication. Effectively, under a 4/4 load, the only research that gets done happens on your (unpaid) vacations, so you can imagine that workload is an issue.
The proposed contract has received some concessions on this score. Over the course of four years, the workload will be reduced to 3/3, with the number of course reductions decreased correspondingly. Seems like something everyone could get on board with, right?
Wrong.
Remember those reductions I mentioned that some people get for teaching graduate courses, etc? Well, those reductions become harder to claim if workload declines. The problem is this: while the number of courses that a faculty member has to teach go down, the number of courses that have to be taught doesn't. So you either have to hire new faculty (or adjuncts) or you give up reductions. This is where the faculty today's faculty-on-faculty aggression has hit. You see, in the short run, those people who have been able to get reductions based on graduate teaching - often to a 3/3 load under the current system - will lose those chances and will have to teach what the rest of the faculty have to teach.
Effectively, these faculty who are already paid more and teach less find themselves in the position where they're being asked to work more than they're accustomed for less of a raise than they might get otherwise. And faculty in the areas that pay worse are confronted with the fact that they teach more and earn less. There have been inferences made that graduate faculty work less, that helping one group is hurting the other.
And the University? Well, it's an interesting note that in none of the communications that I've been privy to has the University itself even been referenced.
How I spent my summer vacation, 2007...
Apologies for being away so long. It was summer, and I stopped reading some things in favor of reading other stuff, and that didn't translate into good blogging material. Plus my summer courses didn't take, so I've not really been around the university (or around anywhere, really, as I've had big things to save up for - see the end of the next paragraph). But it's almost time to get back to it, and so, back to the blog.
Ignoring for a moment that academics don't really get summer vacations - we just get to stop teaching and drawing paychecks in favor of trying to do the research we've not had time for during the regular terms - summer vacation has been pretty good. I've managed to get two papers ready to be pitched, a couple of proposals coming up, one of my students got a job in her field and another is applying for graduate school, and I spent two weeks in Paris.
That ending clause is so nice, I'll say it twice: "and I spent two weeks in Paris."
But the really interesting bit (after spending two weeks in Paris, calling anything interesting this town is a stretch, but we'll run with it) is that the small school I'm at is in a contract negotiation year. The faculty here are unionized, though the union was described to me in orientation as a "company union." I've since been assured - though not by anyone actually representing or actively involved with the union - that such a description was an unfortunate choice of words and simply not true.
Last week the proposed new faculty contract was presented to a meeting of about 40 faculty members, and a few interesting things happened. I'm only going to tackle two major things here, though there were more. Best to leave something for future blog entries, right?
First, there was considerable distress - particularly from "new" faculty (who make up a majority of the faculty here) that they weren't included in the process. A quick check for e-mails (and I should note that I'm at a school where e-mail is THE way of communicating - on an average day, it isn't unheard of for someone to send an e-mail announcing they have extra staples they don't need and, 10 minutes later, an e-mail saying the staples have been claimed) shows that there has been no mention of the union since Fall term when a social was announced, at which more information was promised. It never came. So imagine the surprise when given the response was that faculty simply didn't care enough to get involve; if they'd really cared, they would have found the working groups they had no idea were being formed and continued.
But the second interesting thing was the proposed raise schedule. At this school, faculty raises are set for whatever period the contract stipulates - usually three years. And faculty raises help to determine the raises for staff at the university. I'm told that typically what the faculty get, so do the staff. The proposed raise this year is 3.5% (incidentally, that's less than the rise in cost of living according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics). But the way it breaks down is a little strange and is the second bone of contention about the proposed contract.
Before breaking it down, some things to keep in mind:
So imagine Faculty member X, who has been at the university for two years, makes $45,000 and Faculty member Y, who has been at the university for 25, makes $100,000. If the raise were a straight 3.5%, X would make $46,575 and Y would make 103,500 (before taxes, of course). With this proposed raise (assuming these two were the only faculty members), it would work out like this: X gets $46,600 and Y gets $102,700. I'm betting you can see what the bone of contention is here.
Here's a moment for you game theorists out there. What do you think will happen? Faculty who feel largely unincluded in the negotiation process are given the choice of whether to approve a contract that effectively closes the gap between faculty members by pitting faculty member raises against each other. Think it'll pass? And before you place your bets, you should know that whether the contract is approved or not is determined by a simple majority of voters with no requirement of how many voters need to turn out. And the faculty have a little under a week to approve the contract.
Place your bets...
Ignoring for a moment that academics don't really get summer vacations - we just get to stop teaching and drawing paychecks in favor of trying to do the research we've not had time for during the regular terms - summer vacation has been pretty good. I've managed to get two papers ready to be pitched, a couple of proposals coming up, one of my students got a job in her field and another is applying for graduate school, and I spent two weeks in Paris.
That ending clause is so nice, I'll say it twice: "and I spent two weeks in Paris."
But the really interesting bit (after spending two weeks in Paris, calling anything interesting this town is a stretch, but we'll run with it) is that the small school I'm at is in a contract negotiation year. The faculty here are unionized, though the union was described to me in orientation as a "company union." I've since been assured - though not by anyone actually representing or actively involved with the union - that such a description was an unfortunate choice of words and simply not true.
Last week the proposed new faculty contract was presented to a meeting of about 40 faculty members, and a few interesting things happened. I'm only going to tackle two major things here, though there were more. Best to leave something for future blog entries, right?
First, there was considerable distress - particularly from "new" faculty (who make up a majority of the faculty here) that they weren't included in the process. A quick check for e-mails (and I should note that I'm at a school where e-mail is THE way of communicating - on an average day, it isn't unheard of for someone to send an e-mail announcing they have extra staples they don't need and, 10 minutes later, an e-mail saying the staples have been claimed) shows that there has been no mention of the union since Fall term when a social was announced, at which more information was promised. It never came. So imagine the surprise when given the response was that faculty simply didn't care enough to get involve; if they'd really cared, they would have found the working groups they had no idea were being formed and continued.
But the second interesting thing was the proposed raise schedule. At this school, faculty raises are set for whatever period the contract stipulates - usually three years. And faculty raises help to determine the raises for staff at the university. I'm told that typically what the faculty get, so do the staff. The proposed raise this year is 3.5% (incidentally, that's less than the rise in cost of living according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics). But the way it breaks down is a little strange and is the second bone of contention about the proposed contract.
Before breaking it down, some things to keep in mind:
- different areas in academia tend to be paid at different levels (for example, faculty of business tend to make considerably more than faculty teaching liberal arts courses). The typical reasoning for this that business faculty would make high salaries in the business world and so need to be paid more to teach (there are all sorts of flaws with this logic, but that's not today's point)
- schools of different sizes and research levels tend to pay differently. For example, Research I universities tend to pay more than liberal arts colleges. In part, this is because they tend to be more successful at drawing external grants. See the AAUP Faculty Salary Survey, available from the Chronicle of Higher Education.
- faculty hired recently tend to make comparatively less than faculty hired 10, 20, or 30 years before. If you adjust incomes for inflation, the more recently a faculty member has been hired, the more likely it is that they're being paid relatively less.
So imagine Faculty member X, who has been at the university for two years, makes $45,000 and Faculty member Y, who has been at the university for 25, makes $100,000. If the raise were a straight 3.5%, X would make $46,575 and Y would make 103,500 (before taxes, of course). With this proposed raise (assuming these two were the only faculty members), it would work out like this: X gets $46,600 and Y gets $102,700. I'm betting you can see what the bone of contention is here.
Here's a moment for you game theorists out there. What do you think will happen? Faculty who feel largely unincluded in the negotiation process are given the choice of whether to approve a contract that effectively closes the gap between faculty members by pitting faculty member raises against each other. Think it'll pass? And before you place your bets, you should know that whether the contract is approved or not is determined by a simple majority of voters with no requirement of how many voters need to turn out. And the faculty have a little under a week to approve the contract.
Place your bets...
Looking for love in all the wrong places...
Not so long ago, one of my relatives sent me a gift card and a note wishing me well. This was especially kind of them as I've not been in touch the way I should be, and I certainly haven't managed a visit. Tucked in the card was a note asking about my well-being and about that most typical of my family's concerns - am I seeing anyone.
I've been struggling for months with how to answer the question, and it may seem strange to address it here rather than across the dinner table or by the tried-and-true "reach out and touch someone." But bear with me. Let's ignore for a moment my own dating idiosyncrasies (and there are a lot of them, to be sure). Why talk about it in light of my career as a fledgling academic? The reason is relatively simple economics. What my relative doesn't understand - in fact, what many friends and family don't quite get (and what is never addressed directly) - is that I simply can't afford what they think I can. Not only am I not visiting (and rarely calling), but dating itself becomes a dicey proposition at best because I live on an income that's decidedly smaller than you'd expect.
A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education points out that while for the first year in quite awhile faculty salaries have grown at a pace that is higher than inflation and cost of living, it's only one year out of many. And, it notes, there are pretty wide disparities by discipline, rank, and type of institution.
Let me take a moment for anyone unsure of how life in academia works to help explain the notion of rank and type of institution.
In (American) academia, there are a variety of ranks which are largely invisible to anyone not actually involved in some way with this career ladder:
For example, it isn't uncommon for someone who is still completing their Ph.D to be hired as an instructor with the understanding that once the process is complete, they will jump to the next rung. The lack of the Ph.D is often a distinguishing feature for the adjunct/instructor position.
Moreover, quite often adjuncts and instructors carry a different workload - sometimes less, sometimes more - as a cost saving measure. At some institutions, for example, adjuncts are only allowed to teach a limited number of courses because exceeding that number would require the institution to offer health insurance to them. It is worth noting that at many institutions, a large percentage (often a clear majority) of undergraduate coursework - particularly large courses and introductory courses - is taught by people employed at this level.
It should also be noted, though I'll keep this part brief, that it isn't uncommon for institutions to hire someone at any of the above ranks as a fixed-term faculty member, which denies them the chance for tenure but tends to pay better than the typical one-year or term-by-term adjunct or instructor position.
With that in mind, one of the perks of academia that seems well-ensconced in the public consciousness is the notion of tenure. Typically this is understood to be a perpetual sort of job security that once achieved makes the holder invulnerable to being fired, etc. This isn't actually true, and it also ignores the process both pre- and post-tenure. In the typical case, tenure requires a six or seven year process (it varies slightly by institution and by the individual worker).
In order to get tenure, the typical faculty member must:
Pay also changes by the type of institution - whether the school is large or small, whether is has endowments from the State or outside business, whether it produces only undergraduates or graduates (and if so, what kind - schools that grand doctorates tend to pay higher wages). For more information, see the Carnegie Foundation's explanation of its classification system and uses.
In my case, I'm at a small, non-doctoral granting institution with a fairly small outside resources (State assistance is minimal as it is private, business support is limited because we're in an economically depressed area and the university hasn't done a good job at tapping alumni or seeking outside connections). I'm in the liberal arts side (which tends to pay less than the hard sciences and business sectors, though it is consistently the area that most employers indicate helps future employment the most). And my university doesn't pay well (this will come up again in this blog, I'm sure). So my pay is going to be smaller than it might otherwise be.
Let's put it in perspective: most people in this career path are going to have roughly ten years of higher education in order to get such a position. Think about that a moment and jot down or make a mental note of what you think that career must pay, considering the cost of higher education, the limited number of degrees, the importance consistently placed on education by employers, government policy, etc. Got your number?
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the average starting salary for someone with that education is roughly $55,000 a year at the typical Master's granting liberal arts school.
And that, my friends, is why I'm so rarely dating or visiting.
I've been struggling for months with how to answer the question, and it may seem strange to address it here rather than across the dinner table or by the tried-and-true "reach out and touch someone." But bear with me. Let's ignore for a moment my own dating idiosyncrasies (and there are a lot of them, to be sure). Why talk about it in light of my career as a fledgling academic? The reason is relatively simple economics. What my relative doesn't understand - in fact, what many friends and family don't quite get (and what is never addressed directly) - is that I simply can't afford what they think I can. Not only am I not visiting (and rarely calling), but dating itself becomes a dicey proposition at best because I live on an income that's decidedly smaller than you'd expect.
A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education points out that while for the first year in quite awhile faculty salaries have grown at a pace that is higher than inflation and cost of living, it's only one year out of many. And, it notes, there are pretty wide disparities by discipline, rank, and type of institution.
Let me take a moment for anyone unsure of how life in academia works to help explain the notion of rank and type of institution.
In (American) academia, there are a variety of ranks which are largely invisible to anyone not actually involved in some way with this career ladder:
- adjunct/instructor
- assistant professor
- associate professor
- full professor
For example, it isn't uncommon for someone who is still completing their Ph.D to be hired as an instructor with the understanding that once the process is complete, they will jump to the next rung. The lack of the Ph.D is often a distinguishing feature for the adjunct/instructor position.
Moreover, quite often adjuncts and instructors carry a different workload - sometimes less, sometimes more - as a cost saving measure. At some institutions, for example, adjuncts are only allowed to teach a limited number of courses because exceeding that number would require the institution to offer health insurance to them. It is worth noting that at many institutions, a large percentage (often a clear majority) of undergraduate coursework - particularly large courses and introductory courses - is taught by people employed at this level.
It should also be noted, though I'll keep this part brief, that it isn't uncommon for institutions to hire someone at any of the above ranks as a fixed-term faculty member, which denies them the chance for tenure but tends to pay better than the typical one-year or term-by-term adjunct or instructor position.
With that in mind, one of the perks of academia that seems well-ensconced in the public consciousness is the notion of tenure. Typically this is understood to be a perpetual sort of job security that once achieved makes the holder invulnerable to being fired, etc. This isn't actually true, and it also ignores the process both pre- and post-tenure. In the typical case, tenure requires a six or seven year process (it varies slightly by institution and by the individual worker).
In order to get tenure, the typical faculty member must:
- produce enough research (measured in books and articles published, conferences attended, etc.),
- taught to acceptable standards (a particular number of courses with acceptable student and peer evaluation)
- served at an acceptable level for the university in other capacities (serving on committees, helping get the university's name out into the academic and civic communities, etc.)
Pay also changes by the type of institution - whether the school is large or small, whether is has endowments from the State or outside business, whether it produces only undergraduates or graduates (and if so, what kind - schools that grand doctorates tend to pay higher wages). For more information, see the Carnegie Foundation's explanation of its classification system and uses.
In my case, I'm at a small, non-doctoral granting institution with a fairly small outside resources (State assistance is minimal as it is private, business support is limited because we're in an economically depressed area and the university hasn't done a good job at tapping alumni or seeking outside connections). I'm in the liberal arts side (which tends to pay less than the hard sciences and business sectors, though it is consistently the area that most employers indicate helps future employment the most). And my university doesn't pay well (this will come up again in this blog, I'm sure). So my pay is going to be smaller than it might otherwise be.
Let's put it in perspective: most people in this career path are going to have roughly ten years of higher education in order to get such a position. Think about that a moment and jot down or make a mental note of what you think that career must pay, considering the cost of higher education, the limited number of degrees, the importance consistently placed on education by employers, government policy, etc. Got your number?
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the average starting salary for someone with that education is roughly $55,000 a year at the typical Master's granting liberal arts school.
And that, my friends, is why I'm so rarely dating or visiting.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts (Atom)
