So adjuncts have zero right?

[Aster]

One problem could be that anybody could become a "professor". Supply is far greater than demand. I was chatting with a shopkeeper recently. Her daughter got a BS degree and now she is also a "professor" in ABC college. Some graduates from my low quality CC are also "professors". Within the college, there is an internal weighting system for promotion. Since they were students in my CC, they got higher chance to get promoted to full-time faculty than me. One lady finished a 1-2 year certificate program and she is a "professor". Her timetable is completely full and every semester she gets teaching duties. The college even uses her for advertisement to show how successful one could become. Due to lower education, the college pays them less salaries which administrators like. I heard from senior colleagues that these "professors" just ask simple questions on exams and students love it. Less complaints and less troubles for the school. These people compete for jobs with PhD holders. They are more welcome to teach there than "real professors".

Holy crap. That is ridiculous and sad. We have a similar situation at Big Urban College (lots of barely qualified professors who assess at the high school level), but we're still required to adhere to minimum accreditor requirements that all professors hold advanced degrees in their academic discipline. I don't know how anyone calling themselves a "professor" can be expected to competently perform their teaching, service, and scholarly output expectations by *merely* teaching classes. That's not being a "professor", that's just being an "instructor".

I would guess in most of those situations, research (i.e. "scholarly output"), isn't required. And service is probably mostly administrative, like student advising, etc.

The inconvenient but unavoidable truth is that having more education doesn't automatically make someone a better teacher. In fact, sometimes people with the most expertise in a subject are basically useless except at the graduate level. The important thing for student success is someone's ability to teach, not their "knowledge reservoir" beyond the current course's subject matter. Only the tiny few bright students who intend to continue in this discipline will be likely to be limited by this.

A basic level of content mastery is very much required for teaching at the college level. A bachelor's degree just doesn't cut the mustard with most regional accreditors, and a Master's degree by itself is viewed as low but minimum. The inconvenient truth is that one cannot be a good teacher within Higher Education without being a content matter expert.

[mahagonny]

Thread-drift is natural phenomenon, and in a thread which exhausted the main content in its early page, it is to be welcomed.

Or it's way to show one's non-interest in the topic from the start. Which is not what happened here, but sometimes it is.

[hamburger]

One problem could be that anybody could become a "professor". Supply is far greater than demand. I was chatting with a shopkeeper recently. Her daughter got a BS degree and now she is also a "professor" in ABC college. Some graduates from my low quality CC are also "professors". Within the college, there is an internal weighting system for promotion. Since they were students in my CC, they got higher chance to get promoted to full-time faculty than me. One lady finished a 1-2 year certificate program and she is a "professor". Her timetable is completely full and every semester she gets teaching duties. The college even uses her for advertisement to show how successful one could become. Due to lower education, the college pays them less salaries which administrators like. I heard from senior colleagues that these "professors" just ask simple questions on exams and students love it. Less complaints and less troubles for the school. These people compete for jobs with PhD holders. They are more welcome to teach there than "real professors".

Holy crap. That is ridiculous and sad. We have a similar situation at Big Urban College (lots of barely qualified professors who assess at the high school level), but we're still required to adhere to minimum accreditor requirements that all professors hold advanced degrees in their academic discipline. I don't know how anyone calling themselves a "professor" can be expected to competently perform their teaching, service, and scholarly output expectations by *merely* teaching classes. That's not being a "professor", that's just being an "instructor".

I would guess in most of those situations, research (i.e. "scholarly output"), isn't required. And service is probably mostly administrative, like student advising, etc.

The inconvenient but unavoidable truth is that having more education doesn't automatically make someone a better teacher. In fact, sometimes people with the most expertise in a subject are basically useless except at the graduate level. The important thing for student success is someone's ability to teach, not their "knowledge reservoir" beyond the current course's subject matter. Only the tiny few bright students who intend to continue in this discipline will be likely to be limited by this.

A basic level of content mastery is very much required for teaching at the college level. A bachelor's degree just doesn't cut the mustard with most regional accreditors, and a Master's degree by itself is viewed as low but minimum. The inconvenient truth is that one cannot be a good teacher within Higher Education without being a content matter expert.

Nowadays, teachers who allowed students to hand in assignments late and showed the students how to answer questions that ended up on exams are rated as good and caring teachers. Students' evaluations could affect employment opportunity.

When a senior colleague introduced me to another senior professor, he said that I got complaints from students. The senior professor immediately said that it means I am a good professor.

[Ruralguy]

If a professor only gets a handful of complaints over all of their classes and they tend to be uncorrelated (one says he's strict, one says he's lenient, the other says hes a sloppy dresser, and a last one says he was late once or twice) then they can probably be dismissed. But if there are, say, 10 complaints over , say, at most 150-200 students, and they seem to be addressing similar problems, and the scores are a little low, then perhaps something needs to be addressed. Just saying something like "complaints mean you are good" is rather glib, and absent any real analysis. Of course, one shouldn't bow to the alter of evaluations or even formal complaints, but hey, the education is for them, not us. They shouldn't dictate the details of the curriculum, but if you don't listen (meaning profs in general), then the students will walk if they can, and if they don't feel they can, they'll continue to speak negatively of you.

[Caracal]

One problem could be that anybody could become a "professor". Supply is far greater than demand. I was chatting with a shopkeeper recently. Her daughter got a BS degree and now she is also a "professor" in ABC college. Some graduates from my low quality CC are also "professors". Within the college, there is an internal weighting system for promotion. Since they were students in my CC, they got higher chance to get promoted to full-time faculty than me. One lady finished a 1-2 year certificate program and she is a "professor". Her timetable is completely full and every semester she gets teaching duties. The college even uses her for advertisement to show how successful one could become. Due to lower education, the college pays them less salaries which administrators like. I heard from senior colleagues that these "professors" just ask simple questions on exams and students love it. Less complaints and less troubles for the school. These people compete for jobs with PhD holders. They are more welcome to teach there than "real professors".

Holy crap. That is ridiculous and sad. We have a similar situation at Big Urban College (lots of barely qualified professors who assess at the high school level), but we're still required to adhere to minimum accreditor requirements that all professors hold advanced degrees in their academic discipline. I don't know how anyone calling themselves a "professor" can be expected to competently perform their teaching, service, and scholarly output expectations by *merely* teaching classes. That's not being a "professor", that's just being an "instructor".

I would guess in most of those situations, research (i.e. "scholarly output"), isn't required. And service is probably mostly administrative, like student advising, etc.

The inconvenient but unavoidable truth is that having more education doesn't automatically make someone a better teacher. In fact, sometimes people with the most expertise in a subject are basically useless except at the graduate level. The important thing for student success is someone's ability to teach, not their "knowledge reservoir" beyond the current course's subject matter. Only the tiny few bright students who intend to continue in this discipline will be likely to be limited by this.

A basic level of content mastery is very much required for teaching at the college level. A bachelor's degree just doesn't cut the mustard with most regional accreditors, and a Master's degree by itself is viewed as low but minimum. The inconvenient truth is that one cannot be a good teacher within Higher Education without being a content matter expert.

Nowadays, teachers who allowed students to hand in assignments late and showed the students how to answer questions that ended up on exams are rated as good and caring teachers. Students' evaluations could affect employment opportunity.

When a senior colleague introduced me to another senior professor, he said that I got complaints from students. The senior professor immediately said that it means I am a good professor.

Agree with rural guy. Some complaints on course evals are about the nature of the subject, (We had to read all these books!) some are about a course being difficult, others are just about a mismatch between the student and the instructor's teaching style. You don't need to worry about that kind of stuff if it is balanced by other good comments and ratings. For example, if you get comments that your class is too hard, you want to also have comments about your willingness to help students who put the time in. If some people don't like something about your style, you want to also have  comments from students who say that they enjoy the way you teach.

Also, there's a difference between negative course evals and complaints that go directly to your chair or others. You can't avoid the occasional person who has a vendetta, but if it is happening all the time it means something is going wrong.

[Vkw10]

I agree with both Ruralguy and Caracal. Some complaints isn't a problem, when balanced by some positive comments. You can't please everyone all the time. But you really need to look at why people are complaining, because sometimes there really is an area that needs improvement.

[dismalist]

Stuff said above is all true, but I would like to add an experience of mine which shows there are other things at work, too.

I taught one hell of a lot as an adjunct and that for a long time. My evaluations were pretty good on average, but had a high variance. I was puzzled and disappointed. Then one day the scales fell from my eyes! In one evaluation a student had written: This is probably the worst class I've ever taken. However, I don't think it's Dismalist's fault. None of us want to be here!

After reading that, I developed a lilt in my walk and never worried about teaching evaluations again.

[hamburger]

One problem could be that anybody could become a "professor". Supply is far greater than demand. I was chatting with a shopkeeper recently. Her daughter got a BS degree and now she is also a "professor" in ABC college. Some graduates from my low quality CC are also "professors". Within the college, there is an internal weighting system for promotion. Since they were students in my CC, they got higher chance to get promoted to full-time faculty than me. One lady finished a 1-2 year certificate program and she is a "professor". Her timetable is completely full and every semester she gets teaching duties. The college even uses her for advertisement to show how successful one could become. Due to lower education, the college pays them less salaries which administrators like. I heard from senior colleagues that these "professors" just ask simple questions on exams and students love it. Less complaints and less troubles for the school. These people compete for jobs with PhD holders. They are more welcome to teach there than "real professors".

Holy crap. That is ridiculous and sad. We have a similar situation at Big Urban College (lots of barely qualified professors who assess at the high school level), but we're still required to adhere to minimum accreditor requirements that all professors hold advanced degrees in their academic discipline. I don't know how anyone calling themselves a "professor" can be expected to competently perform their teaching, service, and scholarly output expectations by *merely* teaching classes. That's not being a "professor", that's just being an "instructor".

I would guess in most of those situations, research (i.e. "scholarly output"), isn't required. And service is probably mostly administrative, like student advising, etc.

The inconvenient but unavoidable truth is that having more education doesn't automatically make someone a better teacher. In fact, sometimes people with the most expertise in a subject are basically useless except at the graduate level. The important thing for student success is someone's ability to teach, not their "knowledge reservoir" beyond the current course's subject matter. Only the tiny few bright students who intend to continue in this discipline will be likely to be limited by this.

A basic level of content mastery is very much required for teaching at the college level. A bachelor's degree just doesn't cut the mustard with most regional accreditors, and a Master's degree by itself is viewed as low but minimum. The inconvenient truth is that one cannot be a good teacher within Higher Education without being a content matter expert.

Nowadays, teachers who allowed students to hand in assignments late and showed the students how to answer questions that ended up on exams are rated as good and caring teachers. Students' evaluations could affect employment opportunity.

When a senior colleague introduced me to another senior professor, he said that I got complaints from students. The senior professor immediately said that it means I am a good professor.

Agree with rural guy. Some complaints on course evals are about the nature of the subject, (We had to read all these books!) some are about a course being difficult, others are just about a mismatch between the student and the instructor's teaching style. You don't need to worry about that kind of stuff if it is balanced by other good comments and ratings. For example, if you get comments that your class is too hard, you want to also have comments about your willingness to help students who put the time in. If some people don't like something about your style, you want to also have  comments from students who say that they enjoy the way you teach.

Also, there's a difference between negative course evals and complaints that go directly to your chair or others. You can't avoid the occasional person who has a vendetta, but if it is happening all the time it means something is going wrong.

One department I used to work for has a well-known culture of complaints. In that department, it is common that whenver students don't like something, they just complain directly to the department head. Some of them also asked their parents to call or come to school to complain. Whenever parents are involved, the school is afraid and tries to do whatever to please the students. Whenever students accuse faulty members of violating their human rights, the school does the same thing.

[polly_mer]

One department I used to work for has a well-known culture of complaints. In that department, it is common that whenver students don't like something, they just complain directly to the department head. Some of them also asked their parents to call or come to school to complain. Whenever parents are involved, the school is afraid and tries to do whatever to please the students. Whenever students accuse faulty members of violating their human rights, the school does the same thing.

"violating their human rights" is either very, very serious or so far down the hyperbole path that reason cannot be seen.  Which it is doesn't actually matter when the goal is to keep paying customers continuing to pay instead of focusing on any aspect of education.

Upthread just a little was the assertion that someone cannot be a professor with only a bachelor's degree due to accreditation requirements.  That's true in the USA in fields/subjects where graduate degrees are common.  That's not necessarily true in other countries and it's certainly not true in the vo-tech/certificate branches of community colleges.  The word "professor" covers a lot of ground in the postsecondary education ecosystem and may indeed mean a focus on teaching, service to the institution, and professional development related to better teaching and better service.

In the certificate community college world that is far removed from a liberal arts idea of education, the most qualified people are very likely to be those with a certificate and several years experience over a PhD in some only tangentially related field.  Even regional accreditors like the HLC have policies on how to document alternate qualifications that are not based on graduate education.

[Kron3007]

One problem could be that anybody could become a "professor". Supply is far greater than demand. I was chatting with a shopkeeper recently. Her daughter got a BS degree and now she is also a "professor" in ABC college. Some graduates from my low quality CC are also "professors". Within the college, there is an internal weighting system for promotion. Since they were students in my CC, they got higher chance to get promoted to full-time faculty than me. One lady finished a 1-2 year certificate program and she is a "professor". Her timetable is completely full and every semester she gets teaching duties. The college even uses her for advertisement to show how successful one could become. Due to lower education, the college pays them less salaries which administrators like. I heard from senior colleagues that these "professors" just ask simple questions on exams and students love it. Less complaints and less troubles for the school. These people compete for jobs with PhD holders. They are more welcome to teach there than "real professors".

Holy crap. That is ridiculous and sad. We have a similar situation at Big Urban College (lots of barely qualified professors who assess at the high school level), but we're still required to adhere to minimum accreditor requirements that all professors hold advanced degrees in their academic discipline. I don't know how anyone calling themselves a "professor" can be expected to competently perform their teaching, service, and scholarly output expectations by *merely* teaching classes. That's not being a "professor", that's just being an "instructor".

I would guess in most of those situations, research (i.e. "scholarly output"), isn't required. And service is probably mostly administrative, like student advising, etc.

The inconvenient but unavoidable truth is that having more education doesn't automatically make someone a better teacher. In fact, sometimes people with the most expertise in a subject are basically useless except at the graduate level. The important thing for student success is someone's ability to teach, not their "knowledge reservoir" beyond the current course's subject matter. Only the tiny few bright students who intend to continue in this discipline will be likely to be limited by this.

A basic level of content mastery is very much required for teaching at the college level. A bachelor's degree just doesn't cut the mustard with most regional accreditors, and a Master's degree by itself is viewed as low but minimum. The inconvenient truth is that one cannot be a good teacher within Higher Education without being a content matter expert.

Nowadays, teachers who allowed students to hand in assignments late and showed the students how to answer questions that ended up on exams are rated as good and caring teachers. Students' evaluations could affect employment opportunity.

When a senior colleague introduced me to another senior professor, he said that I got complaints from students. The senior professor immediately said that it means I am a good professor.

You seem to take a lot at face value. Whoever said this was likely speaking tongue in cheek to be supportive, it is called social grace.  This is simply what people do.  If you are consistently getting more complaints than all the other professors in your department, there is a problem somewhere and you should spend some time reflecting on the nature of the complaints.  Some professors in this boat defend it by saying is it just because they have high standards and enforce them.  This may be true, but if your standards are far higher than everyone else in the college, you have miss-calibrated your level of rigor for the students you are teaching.  For example, you cannot expect students learning at a basic level in all their courses to suddenly meet much higher expectations in a single course as they are simply not prepared.  This is not the students' fault, it is simply a product of the system, and you cannot change this in your position. 

At  my university the grades in our graduate courses are ridiculously high.  A B+ would be considered a bad grade even though the definition of a B+ is that they have gone above our expectations.  So, obviously our expectations are too low if everyone exceeds them right?  However, if I were to give grades where the average is a B (which is defined as being above average) I would get nothing but complaints and the students in my course would be unfairly penalized by my decision to deviate from departmental norms (ie be less competitive for scholarships etc.).  So, I get in line and grade according to the customs here, not what I feel is right. 


   

[mahagonny]

At  my university the grades in our graduate courses are ridiculously high.  A B+ would be considered a bad grade even though the definition of a B+ is that they have gone above our expectations.  So, obviously our expectations are too low if everyone exceeds them right?  However, if I were to give grades where the average is a B (which is defined as being above average) I would get nothing but complaints and the students in my course would be unfairly penalized by my decision to deviate from departmental norms (ie be less competitive for scholarships etc.).  So, I get in line and grade according to the customs here, not what I feel is right. 

You are one among legions.

[the_geneticist]

One department I used to work for has a well-known culture of complaints. In that department, it is common that whenver students don't like something, they just complain directly to the department head. Some of them also asked their parents to call or come to school to complain. Whenever parents are involved, the school is afraid and tries to do whatever to please the students. Whenever students accuse faulty members of violating their human rights, the school does the same thing.

"violating their human rights" is either very, very serious or so far down the hyperbole path that reason cannot be seen.  Which it is doesn't actually matter when the goal is to keep paying customers continuing to pay instead of focusing on any aspect of education.

Upthread just a little was the assertion that someone cannot be a professor with only a bachelor's degree due to accreditation requirements.  That's true in the USA in fields/subjects where graduate degrees are common.  That's not necessarily true in other countries and it's certainly not true in the vo-tech/certificate branches of community colleges.  The word "professor" covers a lot of ground in the postsecondary education ecosystem and may indeed mean a focus on teaching, service to the institution, and professional development related to better teaching and better service.

In the certificate community college world that is far removed from a liberal arts idea of education, the most qualified people are very likely to be those with a certificate and several years experience over a PhD in some only tangentially related field.  Even regional accreditors like the HLC have policies on how to document alternate qualifications that are not based on graduate education.

Hamburger, what is it you want?  A magic stick to smack the title of "professor" away from anyone who doesn't have a Ph.D? 
You don't work there anymore. 
If you put  as much energy into your job hunt as you put into your anger, you might have some interviews coming up.  But right now, you come across as so bitter, so indignant, so mad at the world that you wouldn't make the cut.  Maybe it's time to pause the job search and work with a therapist.  I don't care what your background or qualifications are, you have to be in "good working order" to get a job. 

[hamburger]

One department I used to work for has a well-known culture of complaints. In that department, it is common that whenver students don't like something, they just complain directly to the department head. Some of them also asked their parents to call or come to school to complain. Whenever parents are involved, the school is afraid and tries to do whatever to please the students. Whenever students accuse faulty members of violating their human rights, the school does the same thing.

"violating their human rights" is either very, very serious or so far down the hyperbole path that reason cannot be seen.  Which it is doesn't actually matter when the goal is to keep paying customers continuing to pay instead of focusing on any aspect of education.

Upthread just a little was the assertion that someone cannot be a professor with only a bachelor's degree due to accreditation requirements.  That's true in the USA in fields/subjects where graduate degrees are common.  That's not necessarily true in other countries and it's certainly not true in the vo-tech/certificate branches of community colleges.  The word "professor" covers a lot of ground in the postsecondary education ecosystem and may indeed mean a focus on teaching, service to the institution, and professional development related to better teaching and better service.

In the certificate community college world that is far removed from a liberal arts idea of education, the most qualified people are very likely to be those with a certificate and several years experience over a PhD in some only tangentially related field.  Even regional accreditors like the HLC have policies on how to document alternate qualifications that are not based on graduate education.

Hamburger, what is it you want?  A magic stick to smack the title of "professor" away from anyone who doesn't have a Ph.D? 
You don't work there anymore. 
If you put  as much energy into your job hunt as you put into your anger, you might have some interviews coming up.  But right now, you come across as so bitter, so indignant, so mad at the world that you wouldn't make the cut.  Maybe it's time to pause the job search and work with a therapist.  I don't care what your background or qualifications are, you have to be in "good working order" to get a job.

Yes. That would be nice.

Every time I apply for jobs, every time I get very angry about the current situation. For example, I have 30+ years of experience in computers. When I used computers, most people did not even own one. Yet, no interview when I applied for IT jobs. These days everybody goes online to learn something and then apply for jobs saying that they know such and such.

[Ruralguy]

Yah, so? I was playing with TRS-80's in grade school, but how does that make me qualified to be an IT guy?

Of course I know you have a PhD related to machine learning, but even so, how would that necessarily make you, say, a Windows Network specialist?  You know better than me that in such jobs its all about very specific skills. Yes, you have to be a generalist too, and a good problem solver, and keep your cool when people are upset over malfunctioning devices, but if you don't know that specifics of the hardware and software in use, you are a dead duck in such a situation.

If others are getting jobs by taking online course in whatever software or coding language is hot at the moment, then do that as well!

I understand your frustration, but something has got to give. You have to, say, open yourself up to moving, or open up to doing the same superficial stuff others do.

[Stockmann]

One department I used to work for has a well-known culture of complaints....

You no longer work there, or even in academia. How is any of that your problem?

Every time I apply for jobs, every time I get very angry about the current situation. For example, I have 30+ years of experience in computers. When I used computers, most people did not even own one. Yet, no interview when I applied for IT jobs.

If your attitude shines through in your applications, it's no wonder you're not getting interviews. Maybe those people who are getting interviews are trying to show how they make a contribution to the organization they're applying for, rather than expecting the rest of the world to bow to their supposed superior expertise and give you a job where you're paid for being an expert (rather than for solving problems or making a contribution) because you worked very hard for your PhD.

These days everybody goes online to learn something and then apply for jobs saying that they know such and such.

If it's that easy, what's stopping you from doing the same?