Are the Humanities Doomed?

[Myword]

The humanities are not doomed. I heard that long ago. The name humanities is not very descriptive or apt nowadays, though historically it was accepted. General Studies is not good either. The name should be dropped.

I totally agree with this analysis of the librarians. Undervalued, unappreciated, underpaid and treated with apathy at so many places. I have a M.L.S. so I know. However, librarians who also teach classes online or in class are looked at more as faculty. Teaching library "science". Of course, it is and never was a science by any stretch. Librarians who think that know nothing about real science. Most academic librarians that I know of are ignored by the faculty and considered staff. They don't use the library themselves nor do they send their students there. English, history and humanities departments usually use the collection more than others. Since the internet and all the journal-book databases developed, librarians are expected to know how to use them efficiently and with speed. Immediately. So many professors, even at teaching universities are not aware of the skills needed to do this. Everyone seems to think that librarians read books on the job.
No that it matters, but the situation is worse in public libraries.

[spork]

Writing for journalism will do that for you.

M.

Well and good, but this training is scarce to nonexistent in doctoral humanities programs -- because the faculty running those programs are themselves terrible writers.

[mamselle]

Agreed.

I edit some of them.

;--}

M.

[spork]

Adjunctopia

[Wahoo Redux]

Adjunctopia

How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?

[mahagonny]

Adjunctopia

How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?

It's behind a paywall, but no matter; I already know what it says.

[Wahoo Redux]

Adjunctopia

How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?

It's behind a paywall, but no matter; I already know what it says.

It is old news for those of us in the biz.

However, I have posted numerous times about the insurgence of mainstream coverage on this topic.  This is one of the ways that things get changed in our culture (why people want to disagree with a pretty basic, pretty overt fact of life I do not know).  And no, if you are now inclined to make a "we cannot snap our fingers" or "there's not going to be a massive hiring surge" type comment, that's not what I am saying.

Academia is clearly contracting for some obvious reasons such as birth rate decline and the cost of getting a degree.  Academia is also contracting and dissolving for some issues we might be able to correct such as hiring practices, given enough time and momentum.  This is what we should be thinking about.

[mahagonny]

Adjunctopia

How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?

It's behind a paywall, but no matter; I already know what it says.

It is old news for those of us in the biz.

However, I have posted numerous times about the insurgence of mainstream coverage on this topic.  This is one of the ways that things get changed in our culture (why people want to disagree with a pretty basic, pretty overt fact of life I do not know).  And no, if you are now inclined to make a "we cannot snap our fingers" or "there's not going to be a massive hiring surge" type comment, that's not what I am saying.

Academia is clearly contracting for some obvious reasons such as birth rate decline and the cost of getting a degree.  Academia is also contracting and dissolving for some issues we might be able to correct such as hiring practices, given enough time and momentum.  This is what we should be thinking about.

Well and good, but I'd take a wild guess that the NYT article does not have a solution other than putting more money into higher education, which will neither have the effect of eliminating adjunct hiring nor improving things for people who take these jobs. Because giving more money to higher ed never changes the fact that higher ed always wants more money, and adjunct hiring is one of their go-to methods for raising it.
(on edit) Putting it another way, more money for higher ed will not mean adjunct jobs pay better. The money will go to people who there who are already good at getting money.

[Wahoo Redux]

Adjunctopia

How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?

It's behind a paywall, but no matter; I already know what it says.

It is old news for those of us in the biz.

However, I have posted numerous times about the insurgence of mainstream coverage on this topic.  This is one of the ways that things get changed in our culture (why people want to disagree with a pretty basic, pretty overt fact of life I do not know).  And no, if you are now inclined to make a "we cannot snap our fingers" or "there's not going to be a massive hiring surge" type comment, that's not what I am saying.

Academia is clearly contracting for some obvious reasons such as birth rate decline and the cost of getting a degree.  Academia is also contracting and dissolving for some issues we might be able to correct such as hiring practices, given enough time and momentum.  This is what we should be thinking about.

Well and good, but I'd take a wild guess that the NYT article does not have a solution other than putting more money into higher education, which will neither have the effect of eliminating adjunct hiring nor improving things for people who take these jobs. Because giving more money to higher ed never changes the fact that higher ed always wants more money, and adjunct hiring is one of their go-way methods for raising it.

The article offers no solutions.

Perhaps.  Money will always be an issue.

But the point is that people will object to the sorts of hiring practices the article points out.  Degrees are expensive; do people really want to pay all that money for an army of part-timers?  My experience has been that students do care when you explain to them who is teaching their classes.  I believe parents will too.  Is the way academia hires "the American way"?  Etc. 

[mahagonny]

Adjunctopia

How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?

It's behind a paywall, but no matter; I already know what it says.

It is old news for those of us in the biz.

However, I have posted numerous times about the insurgence of mainstream coverage on this topic.  This is one of the ways that things get changed in our culture (why people want to disagree with a pretty basic, pretty overt fact of life I do not know).  And no, if you are now inclined to make a "we cannot snap our fingers" or "there's not going to be a massive hiring surge" type comment, that's not what I am saying.

Academia is clearly contracting for some obvious reasons such as birth rate decline and the cost of getting a degree.  Academia is also contracting and dissolving for some issues we might be able to correct such as hiring practices, given enough time and momentum.  This is what we should be thinking about.

Well and good, but I'd take a wild guess that the NYT article does not have a solution other than putting more money into higher education, which will neither have the effect of eliminating adjunct hiring nor improving things for people who take these jobs. Because giving more money to higher ed never changes the fact that higher ed always wants more money, and adjunct hiring is one of their go-way methods for raising it.

The article offers no solutions.

Perhaps.  Money will always be an issue.

But the point is that people will object to the sorts of hiring practices the article points out.  Degrees are expensive; do people really want to pay all that money for an army of part-timers?  My experience has been that students do care when you explain to them who is teaching their classes.  I believe parents will too.  Is the way academia hires "the American way"?  Etc.

I don't know. Good questions. What do people want to pay for? Expensive full time positions so professors can teach a little and publish research? What is the benefit of that research, then? And please, I already know that someone can point to a breakthrough in some field that happened because a tenured professor had the opportunity to find it. Because the question should be not be 'what have the most dazzling academically -employed researchers accomplished' but 'what is the bang for the buck.' As long as money will always be an issue.

[marshwiggle]

It is old news for those of us in the biz.

However, I have posted numerous times about the insurgence of mainstream coverage on this topic.  This is one of the ways that things get changed in our culture (why people want to disagree with a pretty basic, pretty overt fact of life I do not know).  And no, if you are now inclined to make a "we cannot snap our fingers" or "there's not going to be a massive hiring surge" type comment, that's not what I am saying.

Academia is clearly contracting for some obvious reasons such as birth rate decline and the cost of getting a degree.  Academia is also contracting and dissolving for some issues we might be able to correct such as hiring practices, given enough time and momentum.  This is what we should be thinking about.

Well and good, but I'd take a wild guess that the NYT article does not have a solution other than putting more money into higher education, which will neither have the effect of eliminating adjunct hiring nor improving things for people who take these jobs. Because giving more money to higher ed never changes the fact that higher ed always wants more money, and adjunct hiring is one of their go-way methods for raising it.

The article offers no solutions.

Perhaps.  Money will always be an issue.

But the point is that people will object to the sorts of hiring practices the article points out.  Degrees are expensive; do people really want to pay all that money for an army of part-timers?  My experience has been that students do care when you explain to them who is teaching their classes.  I believe parents will too.  Is the way academia hires "the American way"?  Etc.

One of the problems is that the numbers quoted by various stakeholders can be used to imply all kinds of different things. For instance,
"the percentage of students taught by part-time faculty" can be pretty close to 100%, if every student has at least one part-time instructor. "Ratio of part-time instructors to full-time faculty" is also misleading since most part-time people won't be teaching the equivalent of a full load, while some may be teaching more than that over multiple institutions. On the other hand, "number of courses taught by part time instructors" can be deceptively low when there are huge, multi-section courses taught by multiple instructors which will still just count as "1" course.

The metric I would propose as being closest to the way parents and students will think about the problem is "the proportion of a graduate's courses that were taught by part time instructors". So, if a degree consists of about 40 courses, then 25% taught by part-time faculty would amount to 10 courses, or about 1 per term with a couple of terms having 2 courses taught by part-timers. I think most people would think that's OK, but 50% probably isn't.

To get traction with the people who pay for the education, the numbers will have to be meaningful, not just cherry-picked by either side to tell whatever story they want.

[ciao_yall]

Adjunctopia

How often have I posted about the adjunct crisis reaching mainstream media?

It's behind a paywall, but no matter; I already know what it says.

It is old news for those of us in the biz.

However, I have posted numerous times about the insurgence of mainstream coverage on this topic.  This is one of the ways that things get changed in our culture (why people want to disagree with a pretty basic, pretty overt fact of life I do not know).  And no, if you are now inclined to make a "we cannot snap our fingers" or "there's not going to be a massive hiring surge" type comment, that's not what I am saying.

Academia is clearly contracting for some obvious reasons such as birth rate decline and the cost of getting a degree.  Academia is also contracting and dissolving for some issues we might be able to correct such as hiring practices, given enough time and momentum.  This is what we should be thinking about.

Well and good, but I'd take a wild guess that the NYT article does not have a solution other than putting more money into higher education, which will neither have the effect of eliminating adjunct hiring nor improving things for people who take these jobs. Because giving more money to higher ed never changes the fact that higher ed always wants more money, and adjunct hiring is one of their go-way methods for raising it.

The article offers no solutions.

Perhaps.  Money will always be an issue.

But the point is that people will object to the sorts of hiring practices the article points out.  Degrees are expensive; do people really want to pay all that money for an army of part-timers?  My experience has been that students do care when you explain to them who is teaching their classes.  I believe parents will too.  Is the way academia hires "the American way"?  Etc.

I don't know. Good questions. What do people want to pay for? Expensive full time positions so professors can teach a little and publish research? What is the benefit of that research, then? And please, I already know that someone can point to a breakthrough in some field that happened because a tenured professor had the opportunity to find it. Because the question should be not be 'what have the most dazzling academically -employed researchers accomplished' but 'what is the bang for the buck.' As long as money will always be an issue.

The benefit of the research is advancing thought in various fields. Rhetorically, one might point out that the American Revolution was nearly 250 years ago, so what is the point of continuing to study it? What we know as modern social science was established in Germany in the 19th century, so why don't we all just memorize those ideas and not bother questioning or challenging these ideas?

The point of college (besides learning the norms, dispositions and culture of the professional class) is (also) to participate in a vibrant intellectual community. Being surrounded by professors, graduate students and other undergraduates who have depth in various fields teaches one to listen, learn, exchange complex ideas and challenge one's assumptions.

I work at a community college with no research at all. It's cheaper than our local State Universities because we don't have research overhead. Still, we can really only teach introductory topics. That said, our profs do make the effort to stay current in their fields as part of class prep. They publish textbooks and articles from time to time on their own.   

Still, I can't say the students are having the same first and second year experiences they would be having at an institution with active research programs, or with a bunch of adjuncts teaching the survey courses. It could even be the same textbook. It's about the discussion and the learning experience outside of the textbook.

[ciao_yall]

It is old news for those of us in the biz.

However, I have posted numerous times about the insurgence of mainstream coverage on this topic.  This is one of the ways that things get changed in our culture (why people want to disagree with a pretty basic, pretty overt fact of life I do not know).  And no, if you are now inclined to make a "we cannot snap our fingers" or "there's not going to be a massive hiring surge" type comment, that's not what I am saying.

Academia is clearly contracting for some obvious reasons such as birth rate decline and the cost of getting a degree.  Academia is also contracting and dissolving for some issues we might be able to correct such as hiring practices, given enough time and momentum.  This is what we should be thinking about.

Well and good, but I'd take a wild guess that the NYT article does not have a solution other than putting more money into higher education, which will neither have the effect of eliminating adjunct hiring nor improving things for people who take these jobs. Because giving more money to higher ed never changes the fact that higher ed always wants more money, and adjunct hiring is one of their go-way methods for raising it.

The article offers no solutions.

Perhaps.  Money will always be an issue.

But the point is that people will object to the sorts of hiring practices the article points out.  Degrees are expensive; do people really want to pay all that money for an army of part-timers?  My experience has been that students do care when you explain to them who is teaching their classes.  I believe parents will too.  Is the way academia hires "the American way"?  Etc.

One of the problems is that the numbers quoted by various stakeholders can be used to imply all kinds of different things. For instance,
"the percentage of students taught by part-time faculty" can be pretty close to 100%, if every student has at least one part-time instructor. "Ratio of part-time instructors to full-time faculty" is also misleading since most part-time people won't be teaching the equivalent of a full load, while some may be teaching more than that over multiple institutions. On the other hand, "number of courses taught by part time instructors" can be deceptively low when there are huge, multi-section courses taught by multiple instructors which will still just count as "1" course.

The metric I would propose as being closest to the way parents and students will think about the problem is "the proportion of a graduate's courses that were taught by part time instructors". So, if a degree consists of about 40 courses, then 25% taught by part-time faculty would amount to 10 courses, or about 1 per term with a couple of terms having 2 courses taught by part-timers. I think most people would think that's OK, but 50% probably isn't.

To get traction with the people who pay for the education, the numbers will have to be meaningful, not just cherry-picked by either side to tell whatever story they want.

It also depends on the reason the faculty is part-time.

Someone who works as a professional in the field and "gives back" by teaching one class a semester, along with maybe bird-dogging talent to hire for their own firm, is going to provide a very different experience for a student than someone who is cobbling together a living as a freeway flyer.

[marshwiggle]

One of the problems is that the numbers quoted by various stakeholders can be used to imply all kinds of different things. For instance,
"the percentage of students taught by part-time faculty" can be pretty close to 100%, if every student has at least one part-time instructor. "Ratio of part-time instructors to full-time faculty" is also misleading since most part-time people won't be teaching the equivalent of a full load, while some may be teaching more than that over multiple institutions. On the other hand, "number of courses taught by part time instructors" can be deceptively low when there are huge, multi-section courses taught by multiple instructors which will still just count as "1" course.

The metric I would propose as being closest to the way parents and students will think about the problem is "the proportion of a graduate's courses that were taught by part time instructors". So, if a degree consists of about 40 courses, then 25% taught by part-time faculty would amount to 10 courses, or about 1 per term with a couple of terms having 2 courses taught by part-timers. I think most people would think that's OK, but 50% probably isn't.

To get traction with the people who pay for the education, the numbers will have to be meaningful, not just cherry-picked by either side to tell whatever story they want.

It also depends on the reason the faculty is part-time.

Someone who works as a professional in the field and "gives back" by teaching one class a semester, along with maybe bird-dogging talent to hire for their own firm, is going to provide a very different experience for a student than someone who is cobbling together a living as a freeway flyer.

Sure, and that's why I think Polly's use of the term "professional fellows" makes a clear distinction there. The courses they teach will often be somewhat more applied than the typical courses, and from my example above one of those sorts of "applied" courses a term would probably be viewed by most as a good thing.

One thing which I didn't mention is that this will be much more the case in fine arts disciplines. Visual arts, music, dance, and theatre all typically have lots of courses taught by professionals in the field without PhDs and, in that case, I think most would view it as positive.

[Wahoo Redux]

One of the problems is that the numbers quoted by various stakeholders can be used to imply all kinds of different things. For instance,
"the percentage of students taught by part-time faculty" can be pretty close to 100%, if every student has at least one part-time instructor. "Ratio of part-time instructors to full-time faculty" is also misleading since most part-time people won't be teaching the equivalent of a full load, while some may be teaching more than that over multiple institutions. On the other hand, "number of courses taught by part time instructors" can be deceptively low when there are huge, multi-section courses taught by multiple instructors which will still just count as "1" course.

The metric I would propose as being closest to the way parents and students will think about the problem is "the proportion of a graduate's courses that were taught by part time instructors". So, if a degree consists of about 40 courses, then 25% taught by part-time faculty would amount to 10 courses, or about 1 per term with a couple of terms having 2 courses taught by part-timers. I think most people would think that's OK, but 50% probably isn't.

To get traction with the people who pay for the education, the numbers will have to be meaningful, not just cherry-picked by either side to tell whatever story they want.

It also depends on the reason the faculty is part-time.

Someone who works as a professional in the field and "gives back" by teaching one class a semester, along with maybe bird-dogging talent to hire for their own firm, is going to provide a very different experience for a student than someone who is cobbling together a living as a freeway flyer.

Sure, and that's why I think Polly's use of the term "professional fellows" makes a clear distinction there. The courses they teach will often be somewhat more applied than the typical courses, and from my example above one of those sorts of "applied" courses a term would probably be viewed by most as a good thing.

One thing which I didn't mention is that this will be much more the case in fine arts disciplines. Visual arts, music, dance, and theatre all typically have lots of courses taught by professionals in the field without PhDs and, in that case, I think most would view it as positive.

I don't know why Polly uses the examples she does in context of the "adjunct death march."  Polly generally posts examples of professionals who are also teaching on the side----the way adjuncting is supposed to work----which is the not the big issue facing universities in regard to adjuncts.  There is no point in comparing the situations between English, foreign language, music, etc. and a local sheriff teaching a criminal justice class.