Are the Humanities Doomed?

[ciao_yall]

Certainly the medical profession has long figured out that artificially depressing the number of med school students is a great way of maximizing highly profitable work oops for docs.

Suppose academia "artificially" reduced the number of PhD candidates, so that every one on graduating every one would be pretty much guaranteed a full-time position. Would that be a bad thing?

Suppose medical schools threw open their doors so that in a few years you had MDs complaining about not being able to find work, and others living out of their cars because their low-paying part time jobs wouldn't pay the rent. Would that be a good thing?

This has lead to the increase of jobs such as nurse practitioner and physician's assistant, who handle a lot of the routine care for patients because it is too difficult/expensive to get in to see an MD. So the problem is starting to solve itself.

Meanwhile med school is so expensive that it's difficult to get students to agree to specialize in low-cost general medicine fields such as pediatrics and obstetrics. To pay off those loans, it's cardiology. Or cosmetic dermatology and plastic surgery.

What I am saying, and have said many times before, is that we could employ a great many more qualified people if we converted our PT jobs into FT jobs, not quickly, but eventually.  I am suggesting we replace our para-professionals with FT professionals.  In other words, there is really NOT a lack of jobs, there is a lack of good jobs.  I don't know if this would hand a good FT job to every qualified teacher, but it would go a long way toward eliminating the grotesque disparities and inequities associated with under-employment in academia.

I guess we're going to have to just agree to disagree on this. Any way I see the numbers, there's a disparity. I'm not sure who is included in "para-professionals" so it's not clear how many jobs could be rationally restricted to PhDs in order to bridge that gap.

And.. who would decide "how many is the right number of...?" And which schools would be "allowed" to offer such programs?

[Myword]

Hey, just change your name to Staff or your initials to TBA. In the class schedule, all those classes will be yours!

[ciao_yall]

Mahagonny, we agree on a great many things but it seems to me that you have some sort of inferiority complex that is ruining any real discussion. 

No one I know "lords it over" anyone about anything.  I never discuss publishing or credentials with any of the adjuncts.  Until a couple of years ago I WAS an adjunct.  I suspect the attitude comes from the stingy pay and a dead-end career.  These days I discuss the job market with my one friend who is an adjunct and actively looking for a FT position. 

It is a simple fact that some folks have terminal degrees and publishing credentials which, generally speaking, qualifies them for faculty positions. Of course, these do not mean they are more effective teachers or better people overall than someone with less lines on the CV, but these do signify someone who is a serious academic in higher ed.  Sorry, that's the way of the world.  I might respectfully suggest you learn to deal with it.

Perhaps there is no point in these types of discussions.

The "ignore user" feature is really awesome.

[Wahoo Redux]

What I am saying, and have said many times before, is that we could employ a great many more qualified people if we converted our PT jobs into FT jobs, not quickly, but eventually.  I am suggesting we replace our para-professionals with FT professionals.  In other words, there is really NOT a lack of jobs, there is a lack of good jobs.  I don't know if this would hand a good FT job to every qualified teacher, but it would go a long way toward eliminating the grotesque disparities and inequities associated with under-employment in academia.

I guess we're going to have to just agree to disagree on this. Any way I see the numbers, there's a disparity. I'm not sure who is included in "para-professionals" so it's not clear how many jobs could be rationally restricted to PhDs in order to bridge that gap.

And.. who would decide "how many is the right number of...?" And which schools would be "allowed" to offer such programs?

Not sure exactly what you are asking. 

In English, for instance, there are often 3X the number of adjuncts as there are TT faculty.  The adjuncts teach classes that virtually every student in the university must take.  They should be FT.

Personally, I would rather see all programs staff by FT professionals. 

And how can one "agree to disagree" that adjunct employment is...what?  A good thing?  Or what, there are not a great many classes taught by PT faculty which could be taught instead by FT faculty?  Dumb.  Ignore feature.

[Wahoo Redux]

Sorry, somehow double posted.

[Wahoo Redux]

Let's do the back-of-the-envelope math again on why converting all the current terrible part-time jobs at state institutions into full-time jobs doesn't work.

On the need side (assuming everything else remains constant):

* 60 adjuncts at 2 sections per semester is 120 sections semester. 

* 120 sections * $3000/section is a budget of $360k per semester. 



On the supply side (assuming everything else remains constant):

* 120 sections per semester at a 4/4 load means 30 full-time positions each semester.

* $65k in salary + 25% in benefits means each full-time position costs $81.25k per year or $40.625k/semester.

The budget for those 30 full-time positions is then $1.2M/semester or more than 3 times the current budget.

Taking the salary down to $40k per year with 25% in benefits still means a budget of $750k/semester, more than double the current budget.


***

On that same budget of $360k/semester with 25% benefits, we can pay 6 people $48k/year.  Going from 60 jobs to 6 jobs may not be what anyone wants, particularly those who preferred a part-time job and now have no job.

What point do you think you make when you post these sorts of things, Polly?

If we convert PT to FT jobs, it is going to be more expensive.  We know.

Some people will lose their lousy PT jobs.  We know.

Anything----from infrastructure to vet benefits to battling COVID-19---is going to be very expensive and more money than we really want to spend.  We know.

It will be expensive to fix our colleges.  That's part of the deal.  Meanwhile, Bloomberg spent $500M to drop out of the presidential race.  America has the money.  We need to convince the public that we are worth the expense.

[marshwiggle]

What I am saying, and have said many times before, is that we could employ a great many more qualified people if we converted our PT jobs into FT jobs, not quickly, but eventually.  I am suggesting we replace our para-professionals with FT professionals.  In other words, there is really NOT a lack of jobs, there is a lack of good jobs.  I don't know if this would hand a good FT job to every qualified teacher, but it would go a long way toward eliminating the grotesque disparities and inequities associated with under-employment in academia.

I guess we're going to have to just agree to disagree on this. Any way I see the numbers, there's a disparity. I'm not sure who is included in "para-professionals" so it's not clear how many jobs could be rationally restricted to PhDs in order to bridge that gap.

And how can one "agree to disagree" that adjunct employment is...what?

Agree to disagree on the idea that there would be enough good jobs for all of the PhD holders who want them if part-time positions were consolidated.

[Wahoo Redux]

Never said that, Marshy.  Reread. 

[marshwiggle]

Agree to disagree on the idea that there would be enough good jobs for all of the PhD holders who want them if part-time positions were consolidated.

Never said that, Marshy.  Reread.

I am suggesting we replace our para-professionals with FT professionals.  In other words, there is really NOT a lack of jobs, there is a lack of good jobs.

OK, I re-read it.

I don't know if this would hand a good FT job to every qualified teacher, but it would go a long way toward eliminating the grotesque disparities and inequities associated with under-employment in academia.

I assumed "qualified teacher" and "para-professional" above to suggest there might be non-teaching FT jobs for PhDs to make up the difference between possible FT faculty (i.e. teaching) positions and available candidates.

Honestly, what did I mis-read?

[Wahoo Redux]

Agree to disagree on the idea that there would be enough good jobs for all of the PhD holders who want them if part-time positions were consolidated.

Never said that, Marshy.  Reread.

I am suggesting we replace our para-professionals with FT professionals.  In other words, there is really NOT a lack of jobs, there is a lack of good jobs.

OK, I re-read it.

I don't know if this would hand a good FT job to every qualified teacher, but it would go a long way toward eliminating the grotesque disparities and inequities associated with under-employment in academia.

I assumed "qualified teacher" and "para-professional" above to suggest there might be non-teaching FT jobs for PhDs to make up the difference between possible FT faculty (i.e. teaching) positions and available candidates.

Honestly, what did I mis-read?

Firstly, do your own homework.

Secondly, write clearly.  What are you saying there?

Look, it's very simple: We have an army of PT jobs on the books all over North America.  If we could convert these PT jobs into FT jobs we could offer a great many people actual careers (maybe not all, but I am betting it is pretty close in disciplines like English which teach a great many sections of composition and gen ed classes).  The need for teachers is there, we are simply parsing these classes out in dribs and drabs of 1 to 3 classes----jobs with no benefits, low pay, and no stake in the employing university.  We could get a much better quality of teacher if we could make them actual employees with some stakes in their careers.  All these programs pumping out PhDs are pumping out needed teachers.  We simply don't have careers for most of these people----we have lousy PT jobs that are attenuating our universities.  This may not be true of every discipline.

I cannot make this any clearer. 

[marshwiggle]

We have an army of PT jobs on the books all over North America.  If we could convert these PT jobs into FT jobs we could offer a great many people actual careers (maybe not all, but I am betting it is pretty close in disciplines like English which teach a great many sections of composition and gen ed classes).  The need for teachers is there, we are simply parsing these classes out in dribs and drabs of 1 to 3 classes----jobs with no benefits, low pay, and no stake in the employing university.  We could get a much better quality of teacher if we could make them actual employees with some stakes in their careers.  All these programs pumping out PhDs are pumping out needed teachers.  We simply don't have careers for most of these people----we have lousy PT jobs that are attenuating our universities.  This may not be true of every discipline.

We agree on all but that one line. Here are a couple more things:

• Requiring a PhD instead of a Master's will increase the number of positions available.
• Getting rid of all of the "professional fellows" will *increase the number of positions available.

Any statistics I have seen suggest most part-time faculty are teaching significantly less than a full course load. (That's often a restriction in their contracts.) There are a few freeway fliers who teach at multiple places and so can actually teach more than a full load. However, from any stats I've seen there are far fewer of them. So consolidating all of those positions will result in a significant reduction of jobs in total, even though they will be better jobs.


So, unless the number of Master's holders and professional fellows is equal to that difference, there would be a significant number of people who who wind up with no job at all. To be clear, I think that would be worth it because the system would be better.

If you have data suggesting otherwise I'd be glad to see it.


(*Although perhaps not as much as expected. Many courses taught by professional fellows are ones that normal faculty would not be suited to. For instance, if an English department offers a course on "Publishing a Novel", which is taught by a published author, it doesn't make sense to have it taught by a faculty member who hasn't published a novel. Requiring a PhD would mean the course would probably just go off the books and not be taught at all.)

[Wahoo Redux]

We have an army of PT jobs on the books all over North America.  If we could convert these PT jobs into FT jobs we could offer a great many people actual careers (maybe not all, but I am betting it is pretty close in disciplines like English which teach a great many sections of composition and gen ed classes).  The need for teachers is there, we are simply parsing these classes out in dribs and drabs of 1 to 3 classes----jobs with no benefits, low pay, and no stake in the employing university.  We could get a much better quality of teacher if we could make them actual employees with some stakes in their careers.  All these programs pumping out PhDs are pumping out needed teachers.  We simply don't have careers for most of these people----we have lousy PT jobs that are attenuating our universities.  This may not be true of every discipline.

We agree on all but that one line. Here are a couple more things:

• Requiring a PhD instead of a Master's will increase the number of positions available.
• Getting rid of all of the "professional fellows" will *increase the number of positions available.

Any statistics I have seen suggest most part-time faculty are teaching significantly less than a full course load. (That's often a restriction in their contracts.) There are a few freeway fliers who teach at multiple places and so can actually teach more than a full load. However, from any stats I've seen there are far fewer of them. So consolidating all of those positions will result in a significant reduction of jobs in total, even though they will be better jobs.


So, unless the number of Master's holders and professional fellows is equal to that difference, there would be a significant number of people who who wind up with no job at all. To be clear, I think that would be worth it because the system would be better.

If you have data suggesting otherwise I'd be glad to see it.


(*Although perhaps not as much as expected. Many courses taught by professional fellows are ones that normal faculty would not be suited to. For instance, if an English department offers a course on "Publishing a Novel", which is taught by a published author, it doesn't make sense to have it taught by a faculty member who hasn't published a novel. Requiring a PhD would mean the course would probably just go off the books and not be taught at all.)

Um, yeah.  None of that stuff is controversial, Marshy.  All of it is known by the peeps here.  How many times have I or someone else pointed out that converting PT positions to FT positions will result in fewer overall jobs?  Argh.

Not everyplace with necessarily require a PhD, but the competition would necessitate one in a great many circumstances, probably most circumstances.  This is the scenario for most FT jobs now.   

We don't have classes called "Publishing a Novel"----we have creative writing classes that are taught by well published creative writers, a great many of whom have PhDs and / or MFAs.  Nothing new there.  These are sometimes taught by adjuncts but generally taught by FT faculty. 

There are already indications (which I've posted before) that schools are working to hire more FT and less PT faculty.  The vectors have actually crossed.  I do think it is time to stop with the insistence that "there are no jobs" as if somehow the job market is a desert----it is not; it is a dystopia full of jobs that damage our higher ed system.   The numbers are there if one is not too pigheaded to see them.  It's what we do with the numbers now that counts.

[mahagonny]

(*Although perhaps not as much as expected. Many courses taught by professional fellows are ones that normal faculty would not be suited to. For instance, if an English department offers a course on "Publishing a Novel", which is taught by a published author, it doesn't make sense to have it taught by a faculty member who hasn't published a novel. Requiring a PhD would mean the course would probably just go off the books and not be taught at all.)

Perhaps so-- the courses that get taught will always be determined to some extent by the composition of the department and what the cool people, 'real faculty' (PhD and tenure) prefer to be identified with, with what would be best for students, or what they would be inclined to populate, (given a range of choices), competing with the career interests and promotion of these faculty. This would be increasingly true if the part time faculty are retrenched or eliminated.
These days in some humanities fields you can get quite a few things up and running if they promote diversity in the recognized ways. It helps to be on the inside track, as usual. 'Diversity credit' course requirements. I hear students snicker about these from time to time.

[nonntt]

The fundamental problem with the question in the thread title is that it uses the present tense. The humanities have been post-apocalyptic for over a decade now.

There might still be people living in the ruins of Hoover Dam, but the dam itself and the benefits it once provided are gone. We don't have the resources or knowledge to build a new dam or the specialized labor to operate one if we built it. There are still people who pile rocks across the Colorado River to divert water for irrigation for subsistence farming. It's important and necessary work, but it bears little resemblance to the coordination and specialization and ambition that once made building and maintaining the Hoover Dam possible.

Should we convert some part-time subsistence farmers to full-time ones and dismiss the rest? Of course. My students would be better off with a full-time teacher whose economic incentives do not mean spending as little time on them as possible. My TT colleagues would be better off with someone else to share the administrative load, even if I'm not that person. But creating a new set of full-time subsistence farming positions will not bring back the Hoover Dam, and the next bomb to fall may sweep away any remaining subsistence farmers still working the land along the river.

[mahagonny]

The fundamental problem with the question in the thread title is that it uses the present tense. The humanities have been post-apocalyptic for over a decade now.

There might still be people living in the ruins of Hoover Dam, but the dam itself and the benefits it once provided are gone. We don't have the resources or knowledge to build a new dam or the specialized labor to operate one if we built it. There are still people who pile rocks across the Colorado River to divert water for irrigation for subsistence farming. It's important and necessary work, but it bears little resemblance to the coordination and specialization and ambition that once made building and maintaining the Hoover Dam possible.

Should we convert some part-time subsistence farmers to full-time ones and dismiss the rest? Of course. My students would be better off with a full-time teacher whose economic incentives do not mean spending as little time on them as possible. My TT colleagues would be better off with someone else to share the administrative load, even if I'm not that person. But creating a new set of full-time subsistence farming positions will not bring back the Hoover Dam, and the next bomb to fall may sweep away any remaining subsistence farmers still working the land along the river.

the humanities in my field are not post-apocalyptic. We 'part-timers'  bring knowledge to work with us every day and disseminate it. What the TT colleagues are doing is less clear, or how I could help them. In order to get the full time non-TT position, you have to drink their Kool-aid. I mean, lots of it.
I can help students though.
Not every humanities field is doing the same thing, and not every department in the same field is doing the same thing.
The tenure track is the matrix, the think tank of higher education curriculum. It's where things get settled, implemented, exalted to the status of truth and quality. Sometimes,  mediocrity makes it to the top of the flagpole and starts waving in the breeze.
I appreciate your perspective.