Are the Humanities Doomed?

[Kron3007]

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.

BTW everyone, don't tell me what the value of research is. I didn't ask. I've read the answers hundreds of times already.

Well, you literally posed the question "  What is the benefit of that research, then?", so don't be surprised when people answer that question.

[Kron3007]

I also disagree with the assessment that TT professors are necessarily expensive.  I bring in far more money through government research grants and industry funds than I cost the university, and I teach for them as well.  So, it is far more complex than simply comparing my salary/costs to an instructor and declaring that I am more expensive.   

But life long employment of a tenure track professor that doesn't go as planned can be extremely costly to a department. Can even put them under. You're hoping that discussion never comes up. But remember, the people who read the NYT are paying and borrowing a lot.

Yes, there are many breakthroughs accomplished by tenure track professors.  Actually our world is full of them in every discipline, business, and science.  We get a huge bang for the buck from our TT colleagues.

You should see some of the dynamite my field has been producing while on sabbatical (eyeroll).

My father suffered through two types of cancer.  One was sent into remission with minimal pain via a process developed at the U.Wisconsin-Madison.  The other killed him because it was not well understood and no good treatment exists.  This is just one example.

sorry about your Dad, bro, but that is one obviously-we-know-this-already answer. Are you channelling Marshy and Polly?

Sure, not every TT position leads to great discoveries, but others do.  This is similar to investments, some stocks do well, others bomb, which is why most people use mutual funds to diversify their investment.  In much the same way. I can provide breakthroughs from TT researchers and you can provide examples of dead wood.  What really matters is the overall impact to society.

Personally, I think that the benefits of higher education to a society s pretty clear and , at least in my field, teaching at the advanced level benefits greatly from people actively engaged in the newset technologies through research.  So, you can look at research from the economic impacts, but it is also important for teaching so you would miss the point.

[mahagonny]

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.

BTW everyone, don't tell me what the value of research is. I didn't ask. I've read the answers hundreds of times already.

Well, you literally posed the question "  What is the benefit of that research, then?", so don't be surprised when people answer that question.

And don't be surprised when people ask if the investment has worked out as hoped, and what happens when the answer in not 'absolutely, yes'. Particularly when the money used to run a TT line could be put to other use. For example, let's pick a number as an estimate, say, 50 or 60 persons who have jobs designated as 'part time' could be provided with funding for professional development opportunities, which could change their work dramatically and bring benefit to the student experience, paid for department meetings, provided with TA's, etc. Since we're talking about that vibrant community and environment we all value.
i find it striking that some tenured faculty have so much difficulty acknowledging that the widespread neglect and isolation of part time faculty are now longstanding, accepted standard practice of higher ed. You keep reading things like 'use of contingents has been growing lately' which is like saying 'hey have you heard they can make a car that uses electricity?' It's almost like psychological denial.

Sure, not every TT position leads to great discoveries, but others do.  This is similar to investments, some stocks do well, others bomb, which is why most people use mutual funds to diversify their investment.  In much the same way. I can provide breakthroughs from TT researchers and you can provide examples of dead wood.  What really matters is the overall impact to society.

It isn't just a matter of 'deadwood' as in someone who's gamed the system. Some tenured professors are involuntary deadwood. The demand for what they teach has decreased or the department's focus has shifted or there's department infighting and feuds, or more than one of these things together, so that a professor is relegated to working at the fringes.

Impact to society = dollar cost.

[Wahoo Redux]

i find it striking that some tenured faculty have so much difficulty acknowledging that the widespread neglect and isolation of part time faculty are now longstanding, accepted standard practice of higher ed. You keep reading things like 'use of contingents has been growing lately' which is like saying 'hey have you heard they can make a car that uses electricity?' It's almost like psychological denial.

Impact to society = dollar cost.

Mahagonny, my friend, I think your frustration is misplaced.  No one person or institution or job category is responsible for the dysfunctional system we have now.  It simply evolved (devolved?) over a number of decades across the country----we all let it happen and allow it to happen now, including you if you are willing to take adjunct employment and adjunct pay. 

I have never known TT faculty to be dismissive of adjunctification, and more are taking it seriously now.  Sure, you have your presumptive divas and prima donnas and pigfaced swollen heads from time to time, but by and large most TT faculty are perfectly descent middle-class peeps who simply succeeded in getting a job in a bad job market.

Yes, you get good bang for the buck from the TT contingent. 

[mahagonny]

i find it striking that some tenured faculty have so much difficulty acknowledging that the widespread neglect and isolation of part time faculty are now longstanding, accepted standard practice of higher ed. You keep reading things like 'use of contingents has been growing lately' which is like saying 'hey have you heard they can make a car that uses electricity?' It's almost like psychological denial.

Impact to society = dollar cost.

Mahagonny, my friend, I think your frustration is misplaced.  No one person or institution or job category is responsible for the dysfunctional system we have now.  It simply evolved (devolved?) over a number of decades across the country----we all let it happen and allow it to happen now, including you if you are willing to take adjunct employment and adjunct pay. 

I have never known TT faculty to be dismissive of adjunctification, and more are taking it seriously now.  Sure, you have your presumptive divas and prima donnas and pigfaced swollen heads from time to time, but by and large most TT faculty are perfectly descent middle-class peeps who simply succeeded in getting a job in a bad job market.

Yes, you get good bang for the buck from the TT contingent.

Why I couldn't possibly disagree more, as it relates to my many years of experience:

I am willing to take the work and the pay, but I fight for desperately needed improvement to the system through the union. Our tenured faculty sides with the administration , i.e. 'adjunct faculty already have health insurance through their employer, so their proposal to get access to health insurance at the university should be rejected.' It's online. We can read about it.

It's true, some of us have health insurance through another employer, in my case, another academic employer. As a result, my class cancellation rate today is 1/3 what it used to be. Stable health insurance for the instructor clearly benefits the student experience.
Why they are taking adjunctification seriously, if they are: they can use sympathy for adjunct faculty to increase hiring of a very few full time lecturers who will then lighten their service load, giving them more time for field-related creative ventures which tend to be depressingly mediocre and ordinary, yet touted by the department.
We can argue, speculate and try to glean what we can from data, about what's happening in the wider world, but my experience with tenured 'colleagues' over many years is what it is, and it makes me less and less of a fan.

[Wahoo Redux]

Fair enough, I guess.  Still seems a little reactionary to me.

Some of the things that have frustrated me about these boards are the sarcastic, condescending comments by people who seem to think that wanting to change the system equates to ignorance about how the system works.  I think a lot of this, however, comes from people feeling attacked----feeling attacked for simply being TT employees.  One of the other things that frustrated and frustrates me still is that the comment "stand with the adjuncts" seems to get such a negative reaction----which again, I think, comes from people feeling attacked.  There are a few professors out there who enjoy looking down their noses at anyone not tenurble, but they are few and far between and not an unusual personality type for any profession.  Most profs are sympathetic.

At the same time, one of the linchpins of democratic thought is that we must not rely too much on others but do things for ourselves.  The TT contingent have a lot of their own responsibilities and issues to deal with, so we can't expect them to drop everything.  The adjuncts where I work now are virtually invisible.  I almost never see the part-timers around the floor and they participate in virtually nothing on campus.  Many are (and I know this is a sore spot) not very well qualified to do their jobs.  They do no activism on their own behalf at all----and a lot are pissed about their situation and often openly hostile when I do see them.  I'm willing to stand with the part-timers but they have be standing there in the first place, not just bitching about it.

Go union!  Our union while I was PT  did not represent me.  They did represent my wife, however, and I really appreciated the union then.  Now I'm FT and I really appreciate the union for my own sake. 

[mahagonny]

At the same time, one of the linchpins of democratic thought is that we must not rely too much on others but do things for ourselves.  The TT contingent have a lot of their own responsibilities and issues to deal with, so we can't expect them to drop everything.  The adjuncts where I work now are virtually invisible.  I almost never see the part-timers around the floor and they participate in virtually nothing on campus.  Many are (and I know this is a sore spot) not very well qualified to do their jobs. 

How do you determine this? Do you mean they are not well qualified to do their jobs and you believe that you see evidence of this from the learning outcomes of their students, or do you mean they are not both qualified and competitive to have your job, and you would prefer that their sections were being staffed by full timers?
Because what I have been reading is there is an abundance of qualified people to teach in college, but it is the job
market that is lacking in health. Why would anyone intentionally hire lame instructors when it's a buyer's market? If someone is hiring weak instructors when he doesn't have to, why does he have tenure, and who gave it to him?

If they're not friendly to you, I can see why you have not much of a soft spot for them. But that wouldn't be me. Anyone who wants even a casual acquaintance with me gets courtesy in return. It's when they think their health and lives are more important than mine and they are within their rights to make things up about us and broadcast them over the internet and the media that I'm going to talk about them. They will still get courtesy on campus, of course. But I'll admit that it doesn't bother me too much when, apparently, they don't want a relationship at all until they are doing their term as chair, and even then, as little as possible. We are used to it, and as you've already read, one them had made a broadside on our union.

[Wahoo Redux]

At the same time, one of the linchpins of democratic thought is that we must not rely too much on others but do things for ourselves.  The TT contingent have a lot of their own responsibilities and issues to deal with, so we can't expect them to drop everything.  The adjuncts where I work now are virtually invisible.  I almost never see the part-timers around the floor and they participate in virtually nothing on campus.  Many are (and I know this is a sore spot) not very well qualified to do their jobs. 

How do you determine this? Do you mean they are not well qualified to do their jobs and you believe that you see evidence of this from the learning outcomes of their students, or do you mean they are not both qualified and competitive to have your job, and you would prefer that their sections were being staffed by full timers?

Honestly (and again I know these are some sore spots for you), but yes to all of that.

Many but not all the part-timers have the bare minimum qualifications (degree, experience, aptitude, publication, etc.) to teach in higher ed.

Not all but many of the part-timers have a terrible reputation among students and staff.

No, they do not have the same qualifications I have, at least on paper.  I'm no superstar, but I have worked very hard to make myself a good academic and it has paid off in a number of ways.

And yes, I would prefer that college teaching jobs were staffed by well-qualified full-time faculty with an investment in their careers and their campuses.

Realize that I am making no judgments about you or anyone else on these boards, just what I have seen in the places I've worked.

Because what I have been reading is there is an abundance of qualified people to teach in college, but it is the market that is lacking in health. Why would anyone intentionally hire lame instructors when it's a buyer's market? If someone is hiring weak instructors when he doesn't have to, why does he have tenure, and who gave it to him?

Polly and I had this debate some time back----it made her very irate.

There are plenty of jobs for people in academia.  What you have been reading is that there are not enough full-time and/or tenure-track jobs for academics.  In other words, in a number of disciplines we do not have careers for people because we've diced the work into a slew of PT jobs.

I've never seen hard numbers, but if we turned all the PT jobs into FT jobs we would have enough to employ maybe not all but a great many more qualified academics than we are now.

If they're not friendly to you, I can see why you have not much of a soft spot for them. But that wouldn't be me. Anyone who wants even a casual acquaintance with me gets courtesy in return. It's when they think their health and lives are more important than mine and they are within their rights to make things up about us and broadcast them over the internet and the media that I'm going to talk about them.

They're friendly to me when I see them, which is rarely, and when we know each other, which is also rare (again, these folks are never around).  In fact, of the people we hang out with, we have really only two very good friends from the faculty----one is retired, and the other is an adjunct.  The part-timers are generally very bitter toward their campus.  I don't think my health and life is more important than anyone else's (not actually sure what you are talking about there, my friend) but I do think some of these folks should be replaced with professional academics.

[mahagonny]

At the same time, one of the linchpins of democratic thought is that we must not rely too much on others but do things for ourselves.  The TT contingent have a lot of their own responsibilities and issues to deal with, so we can't expect them to drop everything.  The adjuncts where I work now are virtually invisible.  I almost never see the part-timers around the floor and they participate in virtually nothing on campus.  Many are (and I know this is a sore spot) not very well qualified to do their jobs. 

How do you determine this? Do you mean they are not well qualified to do their jobs and you believe that you see evidence of this from the learning outcomes of their students, or do you mean they are not both qualified and competitive to have your job, and you would prefer that their sections were being staffed by full timers?

Honestly (and again I know these are some sore spots for you), but yes to all of that.

Many but not all the part-timers have the bare minimum qualifications (degree, experience, aptitude, publication, etc.) to teach in higher ed.

Not all but many of the part-timers have a terrible reputation among students and staff.

No, they do not have the same qualifications I have, at least on paper.  I'm no superstar, but I have worked very hard to make myself a good academic and it has paid off in a number of ways.

And yes, I would prefer that college teaching jobs were staffed by well-qualified full-time faculty with an investment in their careers and their campuses.

My God, don't you get it yet?? You're faulting them for not being qualified to have your job. They don't have it. You do, and you don't want theirs.  It's a drag getting what you pay for when you're cheap isn't it? LOL
There can be other reasons their performance isn't wonderful, too. Beyond their control. It could also be that they suspect their work isn't what it should be and that has caused their deteriorated attitude. Maybe it could be they were given a five minute interview by someone who doesn't expect much, has a poor attitude toward adjunct faculty already, and is looking for something to go poorly so they can be replaced with a full timer.

[Wahoo Redux]

Not sure what you are saying there.

You are correct that the need to fill all these PT slots means that there is not proper vetting or oversight----who has time?

As far as "my job" and "their jobs"...we do largely the same thing.  I just do more at one institution than the PT-ers do and I am paid better.

[mahagonny]

Not sure what you are saying there.

You are correct that the need to fill all these PT slots means that there is not proper vetting or oversight----who has time?

As far as "my job" and "their jobs"...we do largely the same thing.  I just do more at one institution than the PT-ers do and I am paid better.

Our chair obviously doesn't think they have time to do their job, because they're not doing it. Neglects to tell us about all sorts of day to day functioning kind of stuff. This makes us vulnerable to bad reviews from students and other faculty, and makes us uneasy. All of this could be solved by paying us to attend a meeting once or twice a month.
Tenure track people do not want us to succeed, or want us to succeed just enough to have a barely functioning system. It undermines their campaign to add to their ranks.

[Wahoo Redux]

Huh.

I really can't tell you about your own experiences...doesn't sound like any scenarios I am aware of in academia.  Generally speaking, the increased reliance on adjuncts makes it harder for TT folks on the job----less people to do service work, cover classes, or strengthen shared governance. 

Maybe you should find a job at a friendlier campus.

[marshwiggle]

There are plenty of jobs for people in academia.  What you have been reading is that there are not enough full-time and/or tenure-track jobs for academics.  In other words, in a number of disciplines we do not have careers for people because we've diced the work into a slew of PT jobs.

I've never seen hard numbers, but if we turned all the PT jobs into FT jobs we would have enough to employ maybe not all but a great many more qualified academics than we are now.

From the article referenced above,

• There were about 1.1 million part time faculty in 2018.
• There were about 400000 full time faculty in 2018.
• There were about 55000 PhDs granted in 2018.

So, if there are about 1.5 million faculty, and 55000 new candidates appear each year, that means faculty should be retiring after 1500000/55000=27 years maximum to keep everyone employed.

A few factors that would make it significantly less than 27 years:

• Many part time faculty only teach a single course, so 1.1 million part time faculty would be replaced by many less than 1.1 million full time positions.
• Some disciplines have markets outside academia, and the ratio of faculty needed in a discipline to PhDs awarded in that discipline is going to vary, so for some disciplines there is more of a surplus.

So only the most idealized breakdown of numbers would indicate that there is anything close to a potential full time position to anyone qualified, even if all part time positions were converted to full time. Academics crying for more fulltime hiring, if they're honest need to be similarly crying to reduce or eliminate their own PhD programs if they want to claim that "someone" is to blame if graduates can't get employment.

[mahagonny]

Huh.

I really can't tell you about your own experiences...doesn't sound like any scenarios I am aware of in academia.  Generally speaking, the increased reliance on adjuncts makes it harder for TT folks on the job----less people to do service work, cover classes, or strengthen shared governance. 

Maybe you should find a job at a friendlier campus.

Increased, as of when, approximately? the chairs I've been working for are ten to fifteen years younger than me. They've been fully aware of what the lay of the land is. Adjunctification was well under way before even i started teaching. Did these tenured faculty make poor life choices, and now that should be our problem?

I am not convinced that chairs do not have the time to manage adjunct staffing, basic housekeeping communications and relationships. They begrudge the time it takes. It takes time away from other pursuits. Things that will get them another promotion, more salary and a bigger pension for those golden years. Many of them resent that adjuncts are present at all. It's been evidenced on these fora and the previous one.

This is not necessarily that they are bad people at all. (Although for those of them who want to take a snooty attitude about us, colleagues of theirs may express disapproval on a pseudonymous forum, but no one's going to get in their way or give them trouble about it. It is condoned.) They are responding to system that hordes opportunities and remuneration for them by depriving others who generally don't even have a voice.

You are correct that the need to fill all these PT slots means that there is not proper vetting or oversight----who has time?

You are making excuses for people who are well compensated and in abundant supply.

BTW, I do have a job at a friendlier campus. It is a college that does not award tenure. It's not only that it's friendlier. It is, from my workday experience, better functioning in all regards. Therefore, my comparisons appear on the forum, which I wasn't even going to frequent, but Polly made a point of inviting me. I guess this is diversity. Someone provides the untenurable, solidly professional adjunct perspective, whether they like it or not.
It's not that the tenure-is-God campus is driving me crazy and I can't manage it. I do not come here for advice. Internally, I am a happy, well-enough adjusted person. I have opinions though.

So only the most idealized breakdown of numbers would indicate that there is anything close to a potential full time position to anyone qualified, even if all part time positions were converted to full time. Academics crying for more fulltime hiring, if they're honest need to be similarly crying to reduce or eliminate their own PhD programs if they want to claim that "someone" is to blame if graduates can't get employment.

And most likely it's not gonna happen. Only occasionally. PhD programs give your school prestige.

[Wahoo Redux]

From the article referenced above,

• There were about 1.1 million part time faculty in 2018.
• There were about 400000 full time faculty in 2018.
• There were about 55000 PhDs granted in 2018.

So, if there are about 1.5 million faculty, and 55000 new candidates appear each year, that means faculty should be retiring after 1500000/55000=27 years maximum to keep everyone employed.

A few factors that would make it significantly less than 27 years:

• Many part time faculty only teach a single course, so 1.1 million part time faculty would be replaced by many less than 1.1 million full time positions.
• Some disciplines have markets outside academia, and the ratio of faculty needed in a discipline to PhDs awarded in that discipline is going to vary, so for some disciplines there is more of a surplus.

So only the most idealized breakdown of numbers would indicate that there is anything close to a potential full time position to anyone qualified, even if all part time positions were converted to full time. Academics crying for more fulltime hiring, if they're honest need to be similarly crying to reduce or eliminate their own PhD programs if they want to claim that "someone" is to blame if graduates can't get employment.

Oh Marshmellow.  These numbers are worthless if we are discussing the adjunct army which really refers to a couple of specific disciplines.

We need the number of PT jobs in English, history, etc. and how many jobs these would create if they were converted to FT jobs. 

You've been posting less obnoxious, clueless stuff lately...and then there's this.