Happy Labor Day, everyone!
Remember that without unions and laborers, you'd likely have been working 80 work weeks since you were children for scrip. And don't forget that there people who still are working those long weeks as children from scrip.
Showing posts with label labor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label labor. Show all posts
Anyone Know a Good Labor Attorney?
So rather than go out on a high-note here at my soon to be former SLAC, it's going to be a struggle. I'm still working to get paid what others were for a canceled class from last summer (the university incorrectly canceled classes, and when the mistake was pointed out, paid $1,000 to all the faculty this happened to except me because mine was a graduate course).
This summer, when I pointed out that I was in the same situation that caused the courses to be erroneously canceled in violation of the union contract last summer and that I expected the university to adhere to the contract this time, I've been informed that even though I'm teaching two summer courses (they've met for two days now), the union contract doesn't apply to me because I gave my letter of resignation. Of course, things being what they are, I was never offered a different contact to work under.
This summer, when I pointed out that I was in the same situation that caused the courses to be erroneously canceled in violation of the union contract last summer and that I expected the university to adhere to the contract this time, I've been informed that even though I'm teaching two summer courses (they've met for two days now), the union contract doesn't apply to me because I gave my letter of resignation. Of course, things being what they are, I was never offered a different contact to work under.
Academic Freedom, Workers Rights Tested
Just came across this in a couple of places, and thought I'd share it. It's a petition in support of Dr. Loretta Capeheart, a professor at Northern Illinois University, who has come under fire for her work with worker's rights groups, student protest groups, and for simply speaking out at her university.
Give it a look. I'm trying to find a link to some places that provide a bit more information, and as I come across them, I'll update this post.
Give it a look. I'm trying to find a link to some places that provide a bit more information, and as I come across them, I'll update this post.
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.
This "Bright Gumdrop Unicorn" is about solutions not just problems
Continuing the thought process about junior faculty looking for other jobs (that began here, and continued here, and summed up nicely as a sort of Hotel Californication by Maggie May, and today blew up with this Rate Your Students post and the beginnings of the responses),
here are a few thoughts that I'd like to see addressed. And at the end, a proposed solution.
Having followed the posts, it's interesting to hear that "senior faculty" (by the way, if "junior faculty" get painted as a single brush, so do you, gramps - this post is going to take the same tone I'm seeing from the "senior faculty" in hopes that by speaking their forked tongue language, they'll get the point a bit better) really are as insular as Abe Simpson.
First, because it seems they can no longer distinguish between reasons for leaving. In none of the posts above that brought this up has anyone given any indication they're doing a one year and out situation, and yet this seems to be the assumption made by the "senior faculty" posting in response. Second, because they can't quite imagine that people don't love everything the same way they do, they seem to take someone doing typical job things - trying to find positions that fit better, pay better, etc. - as some sort of personal affront. It's great that you love your town, your university, your country, your 7 pm bedtime after "Matlock" is over, but honestly, hegemon, that doesn't mean everyone has to.
If we're not happy, if we're far from the things we care about, if we're not getting what we need then we have two choices: we can wait for you to finish your victory cabbage, your 40 mile walks through the snow with no shoes, and your stories about how FDR beat Superman in a footrace and help us fix it , or we can do something to fix it ourselves. From the posts thus far, the choice is obvious. And if that's the way we feel, why do you want us there anyway? If we're as selfish and egotistical, why cry when we leave? Wait - that would mean you'd have to teach those intro courses you hate, serve on more committees, do more research, reprep old lectures, stop peddling your cars with your feet and enter the modern world.
Most importantly, recognize that you've got more than a little blame in this, old folks. You've perpetuated a system. You've done job hires the way they've always been done, you've hired junior faculty out from under other departments and been glad to have them. You've passed off the duties you don't want to the person at the wrong end of the career ladder. So change how you hire, change who you hire, or hush up and relax - I'm sure "Lawrence Welk" will be on soon, and then you can take your naps and dream of shooing kids off your lawn.
And you know what? I know why you want me to stay. I've just spent parts of several days watching your poor argumentation - name calling, castigation, the need to resort to profanity and sad stereotypes - to bolster your points. I've seen your weak logic, your reliance on strawmen arguments, your inability to think critically about the system you're in, and your strange assumptions that everything is either/or. The whole point of this post, after all, is designed as both argument against and satire of how you "senior faculty" are coming across. You need me to teach you critical thinking as badly as your students do from the sounds of it. Just because I'm looking for a new job doesn't mean I don't appreciate and want to help students, that I don't like the university, or that I voted against social security or whatever it is that's really got your Depends in a wad.
Oh, and that solution: for all of you more curmudgeonly-than-thous who think junior faculty shouldn't leave one job to go to another, put that in your ads. If you really think that badly of someone trying to find a situtation that is good for them and good for the school and their students, own it. You write the job ads. Because I can tell you, if that's your attitude, I don't want to work with you anyway, you narrowminded, judgemental, sanctimonious windbags.
here are a few thoughts that I'd like to see addressed. And at the end, a proposed solution.
Having followed the posts, it's interesting to hear that "senior faculty" (by the way, if "junior faculty" get painted as a single brush, so do you, gramps - this post is going to take the same tone I'm seeing from the "senior faculty" in hopes that by speaking their forked tongue language, they'll get the point a bit better) really are as insular as Abe Simpson.
First, because it seems they can no longer distinguish between reasons for leaving. In none of the posts above that brought this up has anyone given any indication they're doing a one year and out situation, and yet this seems to be the assumption made by the "senior faculty" posting in response. Second, because they can't quite imagine that people don't love everything the same way they do, they seem to take someone doing typical job things - trying to find positions that fit better, pay better, etc. - as some sort of personal affront. It's great that you love your town, your university, your country, your 7 pm bedtime after "Matlock" is over, but honestly, hegemon, that doesn't mean everyone has to.If we're not happy, if we're far from the things we care about, if we're not getting what we need then we have two choices: we can wait for you to finish your victory cabbage, your 40 mile walks through the snow with no shoes, and your stories about how FDR beat Superman in a footrace and help us fix it , or we can do something to fix it ourselves. From the posts thus far, the choice is obvious. And if that's the way we feel, why do you want us there anyway? If we're as selfish and egotistical, why cry when we leave? Wait - that would mean you'd have to teach those intro courses you hate, serve on more committees, do more research, reprep old lectures, stop peddling your cars with your feet and enter the modern world.
Most importantly, recognize that you've got more than a little blame in this, old folks. You've perpetuated a system. You've done job hires the way they've always been done, you've hired junior faculty out from under other departments and been glad to have them. You've passed off the duties you don't want to the person at the wrong end of the career ladder. So change how you hire, change who you hire, or hush up and relax - I'm sure "Lawrence Welk" will be on soon, and then you can take your naps and dream of shooing kids off your lawn.
And you know what? I know why you want me to stay. I've just spent parts of several days watching your poor argumentation - name calling, castigation, the need to resort to profanity and sad stereotypes - to bolster your points. I've seen your weak logic, your reliance on strawmen arguments, your inability to think critically about the system you're in, and your strange assumptions that everything is either/or. The whole point of this post, after all, is designed as both argument against and satire of how you "senior faculty" are coming across. You need me to teach you critical thinking as badly as your students do from the sounds of it. Just because I'm looking for a new job doesn't mean I don't appreciate and want to help students, that I don't like the university, or that I voted against social security or whatever it is that's really got your Depends in a wad.
Oh, and that solution: for all of you more curmudgeonly-than-thous who think junior faculty shouldn't leave one job to go to another, put that in your ads. If you really think that badly of someone trying to find a situtation that is good for them and good for the school and their students, own it. You write the job ads. Because I can tell you, if that's your attitude, I don't want to work with you anyway, you narrowminded, judgemental, sanctimonious windbags.
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.]
And now, back to our program...
Thanks to A. of Pop Tart fame, a few more tales of academic woe: professors unable to make it on their salaries. Not a new theme here - in fact, it's the theme that got us going - but the cases here are particularly distressing to hear about because they do a better job of giving real numbers.
It's interesting, sad and frightening to hear that average wages for professors have only come up .25% - yeah, you're reading that right - over the last 20 years when inflation is accounted for. There are very few careers that can match (and obviously, people in those careers should be glad they don't) that atrocious number. What the article doesn't discuss as it offers these tales is what the average cost of education is. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average student at a publicly funded school has $13,000 per year to cover for school attendance (note that doesn't include actual living expenses), which means just educational costs for someone getting a 4 year Bachelor's, a 2 year masters, and a 4 year Ph.D. would run $130,000 before they paid for food, rent, etc. The other interesting point in those stories is the number of times people were able to go to their families for help. I do wonder what happens to those students who don't have parents who can give them $100,000?
I've not gone so far as to work a second job, though I've considered it (teaching a 4/4, I'm not sure how it would work), I've not done it. And one thing I have decided is that if I can't find a job that puts me in a better position, then it won't be long before I have to leave this career behind.
It's interesting, sad and frightening to hear that average wages for professors have only come up .25% - yeah, you're reading that right - over the last 20 years when inflation is accounted for. There are very few careers that can match (and obviously, people in those careers should be glad they don't) that atrocious number. What the article doesn't discuss as it offers these tales is what the average cost of education is. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average student at a publicly funded school has $13,000 per year to cover for school attendance (note that doesn't include actual living expenses), which means just educational costs for someone getting a 4 year Bachelor's, a 2 year masters, and a 4 year Ph.D. would run $130,000 before they paid for food, rent, etc. The other interesting point in those stories is the number of times people were able to go to their families for help. I do wonder what happens to those students who don't have parents who can give them $100,000?
I've not gone so far as to work a second job, though I've considered it (teaching a 4/4, I'm not sure how it would work), I've not done it. And one thing I have decided is that if I can't find a job that puts me in a better position, then it won't be long before I have to leave this career behind.
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....
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.
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.
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