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The Good Life

February 19, 2012, 7:00 am

By Isaac Sweeney

In a review of my self-published essay ebook on adjunct life, called Students Losing Out, Claudia Dreifus, co-author of Higher Education?, said, “Here’s the dirty big secret of American higher education: It is being financed by thousands of underemployed adjunct faculty who work only for pennies and the love of teaching.” She’s right, but this is only one of many “dirty big” secrets. In my first year as a tenure-track professor, I have discovered another one: the tenure-track job sure can be a cushy one.

After being a full-time adjunct for a while, this tenure-track stuff is kind of a cinch. Of course, everything has to do with perspective. I used to travel between two colleges to cobble together minimum wage; now, I go to work in the morning and stay in the same place until I go home. I also teach at a two-year institution and the majority of my job is supposed to be devoted to teaching; I’m sure this situation is vastly different from a research-heavy institution. Still, I am required to serve the college in various capacities and engage in scholarship and/or other varieties of professional development. I also have advisees, something I never had as an adjunct. A few times during the semester, I even have to take stacks of papers home and stay up late grading them. While this sounds like a lot, it’s still a pretty good thing, relatively speaking.

For example, I recently attended the New Faculty Majority’s national summit. I’m getting reimbursed for all of my travel expenses plus a daily allowance for meals, which I didn’t go over; I’m actually going to make a little money on this trip. Another example: This semester, I’m teaching a 5/5 load, but my classes never start before 9 a.m. and they never end after 12:20 p.m. Add in some office hours and it’s rare that I leave my office after 4 p.m. As Dolly Parton said, “Workin’ nine to four …” or something like that. The thing that really makes this all so great is a livable wage all year long.

I worked hard to find this position and I still work hard. I still love what I do and I am truly grateful that Richard Bland College has given me a chance. At one point, when I was an adjunct, I was mildly scared of a tenure-track job, in no small part because of the comments from tenured and tenure-track faculty members who frequent The Chronicle’s Web site. They made it sound rough. So far, compared to being a full-time adjunct, it’s been anything but.

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  • Ciocccholly

    In 2011, is there really a
    University of Wisconsin administrative position called “Vice Provost for
    Diversity and Climate?” 

    If so, the recent behavior of its current occupant, Damon
    Williams (as described by Peter Wood), should be fully investigated. 

    If Williams is found guilty of inciting
    such thuggish and adolescent BAMN-style behavior, he should be summarily
    dismissed and his office disbanded as being hostile to maintaining an academic climate.

  • chuckkle

    Of course this is Wood’s editorialized opinion piece.  It slides between fact and biased interpretation.

    1. Although there was a debate format presentation on campus later that day, Wood provides no substantive discussion of the critique offered there of the CEO reports.  While Wood says he’s talked to the CEO supporters, he doesn’t seem to have any interest in the substantive rebuttal by Prof. Church and others.

    2. While spinning his interpretation of the events as a “mob,” Wood does allow that others present saw it differently.  The police present didn’t see the need to arrest anyone, not has the state’s attorney seen any need to begin any prosecution.  Given decades of experience in handling football crowds and swarms of drunken students when the bars on State Street close on weekend nights, Madison officials do have a good idea of how to handle these situations.  They don’t seem as anxious as Peter Wood watching the O’Reilly show.

    3. Wood practices his own slippery style most obviously in the paragraph on Williams at the press conference.  ”Perhaps in classic “community organizer” fashion, Williams set them in motion …”  This can be read two ways: (a.) perhaps resembling a community organizer or (b) perhaps Williams instigated them.  If we read it as the latter, maybe he did, maybe he didn’t.  If we read the former, Wood is asserting that Williams did indeed instigate the crowd to enter the room (although the doors and clearly open at this point for people to exit and enter, and the conference is formally ended). The basis for this more sinister interpretation is that by showing a clenched raised fist he was signaling the crowd: “[Williams] emerges from the room pumping his fist in what looks like a “go get ‘em” signal to the protesters.”  In Woods fevered imagination a rather common gesture (arm raised, clenched fist) is not read in its usual way as an affirmation of power and solidarity. (See, for example, among many examples the iconic image of US African American athletes on the winner’s podium at the Mexico City Olympic Games, or news images from the Arab Spring, or the Iran protests, etc.)  Rather, Wood reads it as a secret code that will begin some nefarious action.

    Wood’s version is a biased interpretation, which is fine for an editorial comment.  But it twists and omits along the way to end up with unproven and unsubstantiated claims: that the Vice Provost and Dean abused their authority, or that the students need to be disciplined.  And, “flash mobs organized to intimidate critics, or university officials purveying falsehoods to whip students into taking illegal actions.”  Claimed, yes; demonstrated, sorry, no cigar.

    Chuck Kleinhans

  • Ciocccholly

    Chuck made me chuckle when he opined that “If Wood says he’s talked to the CEO supporters, he doesn’t seem to have any interest in the substantive rebuttal by Prof. Church and others.” 
    Do share that substantive rebuttal with us. We can hardly wait. 

    Is it full of the usual racial double standards defense or insinuations that the State/Territory of Wisconsin aided and abetted slavery 150 years ago, or does it simply trot out the tendentious blather of BAMN’s ruses that rely on ethnic or racial identity groupthink?

    C’mon Chuck….give us another chuckle.

  • badger74

    So, this is where the Tea Party faction hides on the COHE. In a quiet right-wing hole where nobody goes much. BTW Steve Nass has NEVER had any real interest in the UW except to use it to stay in the headlines. He is a moron.

  • frankschmidt

    Mr. Wood neglects the fact that  land-grant universities were explicitly founded to educate the less-privileged sons and daughters of the state, for the benefit of the common good. In other words, they were founded as affirmative action institutions for students who couldn’t go to established colleges in the East. Why should Wisconsin, or any other institution, abandon that tradition? Admission to land-grant institutions has never been based solely on “merit,” nor should it.

  • tjfarrel

    There is also the overly familiar “community organizer” label as applied to President Obama by his political opponents: a clear suggestion that a) somehow or other this is all Mr. Obama’s fault and b) that Mr Obama is himself a poster child of all that is wrong with affirmative action.
       I get that this is an opinion pice; I know how blogs work.  The invocation of “community organizer” is still pretty slimy even by those standards.

  • minnesotan

    Lovely tactic to present a false dilemma: if merit is not the basis of admissions policy, then it must be race, right?!

  • silencenolonger

    What is disturbing here is the lack of transparency by the University. If they believe diversity is important, they should stand by their moral position. It is this underhandedness that bothers people.
    Kids brought up in poor neighborhoods, have poorer schools and more social problems.  They should be given a break. Then say it, instead they treat it like it is in bad social taste to even want to discuss this. Do they really believe this country is a meritocracy? Universities need to grow a spine and stand by their beliefs..

  • dank48

    . . . where he open the front doors from inside. 

  • megginson

    This misses the point that defenders of admissions policies such as those of UW have been trying to make: This is NOT a moral position (even if plenty of people do believe that there are historical wrongs that still echo). It is a well researched position taken on the basis of the value of diversity for the entire student body of the campus. Folks who don’t know about that research can find it, and plenty of references to it, in the work of Patricia Gurin and others that led to a mildly conservative Supreme Court coming down on the side of the principles of the University of Michigan’s admissions policies (yeah, 5-4, but the Constitution says that counts as a win, and U-M did have to clean up the shortcuts they were taking in their application of their policies, but the principle stood up). I have not yet heard any serious public arguments about that *educational* position other than “I don’t believe it; let’s talk about reverse discrimination instead.” That is clearly the position that CEO has taken.

  • marktropolis

    Yeah, it’s all about the mobs. And the “community organizers” (equals dangerous, law-breaking, people of color). Here, Wood is just working the PR on behalf of CEO and NAS. No real interrogation of the content, since there’s an assumption that CEO and NAS are righteous in their work.

    For those of you looking for a different version of the story (and a version that isn’t based entirely on second- or third-hand reports), see the series of posts over at Sara Goldrick-Rab’s blog: http://eduoptimists.blogspot.com/. Especially since most of Wood’s references come from individuals/organizations who are either sympathetic to CEO and NAS. Come on, he’s using O’Reilly’s show as a reference? Can you actually call that a news program with a straight face?

  • marktropolis

    In 2011, did Texas really just execute a white supremacist? In 2011, do we still have people questioning a sitting president’s nationality because he’s white? In 2011…

    Short version, yes, in 2011, there is still the need to have someone in every college or university who is paying attention to these issues. Unless of course you live in a world where racism doesn’t exist. In which case, I hope you’re enjoying the blue skies and white sandy beaches. It’s still raining over here in reality-world.

  • peterwwood

    If megginson has “not yet heard any serious public arguments” responding to the substance of Patricia Gurin’s report or the writings of others who defend racial preferences on “educational” grounds, it is surely because megginson hasn’t looked very hard.  The Gurin report was subject to close critique not long after its issue.  See for example Thomas Wood and Malcolm Sherman’s Race and Higher Education (pp. 78-109 for the Gurin report) http://www.nas.org/polimage.cfm?doc_Id=89&size_code=Doc.  Or Larry Purdy’s book, Getting Under the Skin of Diversity.  I also dealt with the Gurin report and other such Arguments in my book Diversity:  The Invention of a Concept. 

    As to the claim that “the principle stood up” under Supreme Court scrutiny in the 5-4 decision in Grutterr v. Bollinger, because the Constitution “counts that as a win,” I rather doubt that megginson regards all such narrow votes on the Supreme Court as vindications of principle.  If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the currently pending Fisher case from Texas and uses it to overrule Grutter, would that too count as a vindication of “principle?”

    There are clearly clashing principles at stake in this broader debate.  On one side are those who argue that “diversity” is a Constitutionally valid pursuit that should subordinate individual rights and human equality.  On the other side are those who argue that equality before the law should limit government use of racial classifications to egregious situations in which there is no other practical remedy and even then must be “narrowly tailored,” and that college and university pursuit of “diversity” does not pass that test of “strict scrutiny.” 

    “Diversity” came into the lexicon of higher education by means of Justice Powell’s side remarks in his 1978 opinion in The Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.  No other Supreme Court justice endorsed his view, which was taken by many at the time as odd and self-contradictory.  Powell inveighed against racial stereotypes but at the same time embraced them profoundly, supposing that the mere presence in a medical school lecture hall of people of different races would adduce the educational benefit of “representing” different points of view for everyone’s educational advantage,  Black students would provide the service of representing “black” perspectives by their mere presence, etc. 

    It took American higher education six or seven years after the Bakke decision to work up much enthusiasm for this peculiar idea.  And it took even longer for supporters to go looking for empirical evidence that “diversity” so construed has real “education” benefits.  The poorly conceived and haphazardly executed Gurin report was hacked out by the University of Michigan in the run-up to the Grutter decision as a last ditch effort to give some semblance of substance to the claim that Diversity has educational benefits.  It failed any meaningful test of good social science, but it did give Justice O’Connor the fig leaf she needed to elevate the pursuit of “diversity” in higher education  to an official Supreme Court loop hole in the principle of equal protection of the laws.

    Will this stand further judicial review?  I doubt it–and so do many supporters of the diversity doctrine.  That is one reason why people like Vice Provost Williams at the University of Wisconsin are resorting to such unseemly tactics. 

    Peter Wood

  • dobbsart

    Steve Nass has for years been abusing his legislative authority to wage a vendetta on higher education in general and the University of Wisconsin in particular. So nothing, and no investigation, that he undertakes as regards this matter should be interpreted as anything other than what it surely is: a biased, sham-fisted frontal attack in the ongoing culture/intellect wars.

    I say this completely irrespective of the numbers revealed by CEO’s studies, which, if they are indeed accurately obtained and interpreted, are shameful and damaging.

    Also, FWIW, Lori Berquam has been at UW for years and is herself a relative sham. I’m truly shocked that she retains the position of Dean of Students after mishandling and mismanaging incident after incident for much of the past decade.

  • Barbara Piper

    “It is a well researched position taken on the basis of the value of
    diversity for the entire student body of the campus. Folks who don’t
    know about that research can find it….”

    Whatever the moral issues involved here, my reading of the literature on evaluating the effects of “diversity” in higher education is that the major benefits are to non-minority students, and they are pretty weak benefits at that. From this perspective, the ‘diversity’ push could be read as simply another effort to benefit majority students, not minority students. I was a bigger fan of traditional affirmative action policies that did not pretend that there were such wonderful benefits to everyone, but simply acknowledged that a group of people who had suffered hundreds of years of slavery and discrimination might deserve special consideration in hiring, college admissions, etc, without significantly lowering standards for access to such opportunities.

  • unusedusername

    “It is a well researched position taken on the basis of the value of diversity for the entire student body of the campus.”
     
    It looks like recent research shows that this is not the case, from today’s Chronicle:
     
    “More Diversity on Campus Leads to Less Diversity Among Friends, Study Finds”
     
    http://chronicle.com/article/More-Diversity-on-Campus-Leads/129110/
     
    People like to interact with others like themselves.  Bringing in more diversity just creates self-segregation.

  • badger74

    If you actually read the UW policy it states just that. 

    “Our application process is designed to help
    us find these students. We don’t use formulas and there is no required minimum
    test score, GPA, or class rank. We read each application thoroughly, one by one.

    We focus first on academic
    excellence—courses, grades, and test scores. Beyond academics, we look for
    qualities such as leadership, concern for others and the community, and
    achievement in the arts, athletics, and other areas. We’re also seeking
    diversity in personal background and experience and your potential for
    contribution to the Wisconsin community.”

  • badger74

    According to the most recent data (Fall 2011) from the UW, only 28.3% of Black students were admitted to the UW compared with 54.7% of Hispanics, 53.5% or so overall for Asians, and 56.8% for Whites. So whites and Asians are about twice as likely to be admitted to the UW.

    http://apa.wisc.edu/Admissions/New_Freshmen_Applicants.pdf

  • marktropolis

    There’s a difference between counting heads (which is what the study you cite does) and actually attempt to define learning outcomes, which what the research did in U. Michigan (and Shape of the River for that matter).

    And yes, please tend to self-segregate in the sense of tending to stay around folks that they are comfortable around. Are you suggesting that we should let that be? Do we need to go back to Plessy v Ferguson?

  • marktropolis

    Wood, in your third paragraph you’re not only setting up a false dichotomy, you’re willfully misrepresenting what advocates of affirmative action have been saying for year.

    And please, stop with the equality language. You and yours have spent the last 30 years trying to redefine that term in contradiction to reality. CEO, ACRI, CIR, all these organizations have taken the language of equal rights and civil rights and twisted them to meet your intentions. If you actually look at the body of work that CEO, ACRI, CIR and others have accrued over the years, the overwhelming evidence point to the aim to ensure white supremacy in education and employment. I’m sure you can cherry pick a case or two where the beneficiary is a person of color, but the overwhelming whiteness of their clientele tells the story. 

    They shall be known by their fruits. And the fruits of CEO, ACRI and CIR, show a predisposition  towards ensuring white equality under the law, and not much else. So please quit the equality and civil rights mumbo jumbo – you’re just spinning the language to fit your un-equal, and your un-civil rights agenda..

  • cwm4c

    If Vice Provost Williams actually used his University account to send the alleged e-mail and/or tweet, he should be censured or fired.  This should be very easy to check in under 2 minutes from the IT office.

  • cwm4c

    Chuck,

    Since I accused you of:

    “Chuck, it seems you cannot ever resist posting to Peter’s blog. Please do us all a favor and change your auto notification of peter’s postings to your own auto post of “I hate Peter.” That would be much shorter to post, achieve the same thing, and save the rest of us the trouble and time time of reading your anti-Peter babble.”

    You vehemently denied it saying Peter often posts and you don’t respond.  Since my post, Peter has written 3 articles and you’ve responded 3 times–all within the first 2 responses!  I have nothing for/against Peter or you, but it seems for your health, you should restrain, restrain, restrain.  Just try it once….

  • emwhitephd

    I read the intelligent Frankschmidt comment differently. The quote marks around “merit” seem intended to question the definition of the term as used by Wood and his defenders, a simple-minded one based on test scores. Minnesotan confirms that simple-mindedness in his comment.  Merit is complex.

  • chuckkle

    Your statement needs clarification: you mean 28.3% of applicants?

  • chuckkle

    cwm4c:  I did respond to your accusation with a factual statement:

    “As far as constantly responding, you must have confused me with someone else.  Since the beginning of July, Wood has written 11 essays, and I’ve only responded to 4 of them by my reckoning.”  (Woods Sept 7 blog).

    It’s your reading that this is “vehemently” denying.  I did respond to his Sept 19 blog, a day after it was posted (see the date of the first two responses before I entered mine).  Seems like restraint to me.  It is pure speculation on your part that I have some kind of automatic alarm that alerts me to a Wood event (I don’t: visit me and look at my computer if you like).  But of course it serves your purpose of smearing me by claiming that and repeating the claim although I already responded.  Thus I can only take your statement that you “have nothing for/against Peter or you,” as either a flat out lie or coming from someone so disturbed they don’t know their own mind.

    Clearly you are hoping that I will just not participate in the dialogue since I often raise uncomfortable matters for you.  Well, airing of different views is basic to these CHE blogs, and to academic life in general.  Get used to it.

    The functional life of a blog posting and response seems to be about one day max.  Occasionally the matter gets hashed out over a long stretch (for example the Wood climate warming discussion that went on for dozens of posts and several weeks…btw, I didn’t participate in that).  Therefore a timely response is totally appropriate.  Need more schooling?  Respond off list.

    Chuck Kleinhans

  • cadman70454

    I don’t need to look up “mob” in a dictionary to let me know what a mob is.  Wisconson is full of democrat mobs, and this one was just one more democrat mob.  Fire the administrative instigators then arrest them and pursue charges under RICO laws for conspiracy to instigate a riot.  Then expel all the students who participated in activity other than law abiding activity.

    To liberals who wish to participate in meetings or gatherings that they like to invade, I suggest you purchase a copy of “Robert’s Rules of Order” and study it and abide by it.  If not, then you are participating in anarchy and your claims of free speech has nothing to do with the mob behavior.

  • dlr

    You wrote… “The odds ratios of individuals with identical academic credentials being
    admitted to undergraduate study at the University of Wisconsin were 576
    to one if the applicant were black and 1,494 to one if the applicant
    were Hispanic.”    

    But you didn’t provide the odds ratio for a white student, or an asian student.    That is the key piece of information needed to describe the amount of prejudice being shown by the university.   Exactly how much less likely is a white candidate or an asian candidate to be admitted than a black or hispanic with identical academic credentials.

    It would also be interesting to find out what the ratio of men to women with identical credentials.   I have heard that women are also being systematically discriminated against in university admissions.    I have heard that women are being rejected routinely with credentials that gives a man an automatic admission.   This is just wrong.   

  • 5ftflirt

    Since women now outnumber men on almost all campuses, I doubt that is true.

  • Ciocccholly

    The CEO Report demonstrating the rampant use of double standards in undergrad admissions at U of Wisconsin should surprise no one. Universities proudly defend such policies as necessary to their mission. It is a national disease.

    The fraud and dishonesty of the “diversity” zealots are palpable when one reviews the huge disparities in time-to-degree and graduation numbers. The numbers of black and Hispanic students who drop out, disillusioned and bitter, are a bitter reminder of the real long term effects of such immoral and deceitful admissions practices trading under the anachronism that is “diversity.”

  • Barbara Piper

    No, that is precisely why it is true. The fear on many campuses, especially small private colleges, is that the percentage of women students will tip over 60%, the magic number at which the school will appear to be a ‘predominantly women’s college’. At that point, the wisdom goes, men will stop applying.

    One way that many colleges have tried to hold this off is to apply lower admission standards to men, to keep the percentage of male students above 40%. It seems blatantly discriminatory, but that’s the logic of admissions….

  • chuckkle

    Ah yes, cadman and his little Peter Wood claque: can’t be bothered with facts such as (1) the press conference was OVER when the students entered the room, (2) press conferences do not use Robert’s Rules of Order.  In fact, I would LOVE to see a Tea Party event run by Robert’s Rules of Order because I’m sure that in about 5 minutes of the start some Tea Partiers would be pulling out their (permitted hidden carry) guns and demanding to be heard, “rules of order” be damned.

    Actually, I think Peter Wood would think that using a dictionary to look up a word like “mob” would be a good idea before using it carelessly or even provocatively as he did in this post.  Cadman might want to use a dictionary to look up the correct spelling of the Badger State.

    Interesting suggestion, though, to expel students automatically who swarm around after football games or are drunk and disorderly on State Street.

    Chuck Kleinhans

  • chuckkle

    It would be a whole lot easier to grant some higher reasoning or policy aim to the anti-diversity crowd if they showed any concern for the racial inequality built into the K-12 system.  After 13 years of manifest inequality, they suddenly want everything to be a level playing field.  If Peter Wood and CEO would address preferential admissions for legacies and athletes it would be a lot easier to think they are genuinely concerned with meritocracy in admissions. As it is, they’re busy shoring up more privilege for the already privileged.

    Chuck Kleinhans

  • peterwwood

    I linked the entire report.  the data you ask for is a click away, though you don’t seem to understand what an “odds ratio” is.  The answer to your question is pretty apparent in the figures I cited.

    Peter Wood

  • peterwwood

    My tiresome critic Chuckkle is tireless in the pursuit of attempts to change the subject.  I have no fondness at all for legacy admissions or preferences for athletes.  I don’t recall on any occasion defending such distortions of college admissions based on academic merit.  But there is a difference between such distortions and race-based preferences.  The nation fought a Civil War to end slavery and passed  the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which includes the Equal Protection Clause, which provides that all citizens in all jurisdiction receives equal protection of the laws, e.g. without regard for racial identity.  The decision in Brown v. The Board of Education was based on the Equal Protection Clause. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes Title VI which prohibits racial discrimination by agencies that receive federal funds; Title VII prohibits discrimination against an individual on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.  The U.S. Supreme Court over decades of decisions limited the use of “racial classifications” to extreme situations, e.g. ones that passed the two-part test of “strict scrutiny.” 

    All of this, in addition to common sense, points to a fundamental difference between racial preferences in college admissions and preferences for “legacy” students or athletes.  The latter two may be wrong-headed (as many, including me, believe) but they are indisputably legal, and they have no direct connection to the profound harm we do ourselves by making racial identity a salient factor in deciding college admissions.

    Peter Wood

  • chuckkle

    Excellent response.  Thanks for clarifying your position on legacies and athletes.  Now, how about the other matter, the race inequality in the K-12 system?  (Actually, I don’t imagine Peter Wood is totally oblivious to this; but his sycophants certainly are.)
    BTW, this quick response by Wood is fine evidence that he must have this automatic instant notification that cwm4c alludes to.  Perhaps cwm4c will now advise Wood to chill out.

    Chuck Kleinhans

  • Ciocccholly

    More chuckles from Chuck with his tendentious and predictable bait and switch routine when it comes to the racist conceits imbedded in the diversity industry. 

    Roger Clegg and CEO documented the rampant racial and ethnic double standards in the U.W. admissions process. 

    Peter Wood dispassionately explored the BAMN-style thuggery and maniacal behavior on display by the legions of the diversity brownshirts who despise being exposed. Chuck has few problems with those censorious thugs.

    Now comes Chuck inquiring about K-12 education. We are talking here about racist flaw and double standards in university admissions. Try to keep with us on this one Chuck, and go read the CEO report for starters.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Steve-Baker/628498193 Steve Baker

    From Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn: ‘The pitifulest thing out is a mob; … they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass.”

  • teapartydoc

    Graduate programs have seen a drop in enrollment. The universities are dumbing down curricula and using every trick in the book to attract students that pay out-of-state tuition. The price continues to rise at rates that outstrip inflation–even now. Soon the public will have had their fill and will ask their state legislatures to acknowledge alternative forms of certification and recognition of educational achievement. The university is looking into an abyss in which an inevitable decline and eventual free fall are going to happen. What we end up with is unpredictable. All we can say for sure is it won’t be what we have now.

  • Ciocccholly

    The behavior of Damon Williams, with its appallingly racist insinuations, is proof that hurling racial charges and epithets remains a way to get ahead on many university campuses by creating dubious, tawdry administrative positions, then staffed with folks like Williams who stoke the very fires they claim need to be put out! 

  • softshellcrab

    What “…racial inequality built into the K-12 system” are you talking about?    News to me.  Is there any evidence or documentation to back that up? 

    Yes, inner city schools disproportionatly filled with poor children with one parent tend to be low performing, if not also less safe, etc.   But it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anything “built in”.    What do you mean ‘built in”?    Big city school systems that are mostly minority, like Detroit, Cleveland, etc. tend to spend more per pupil on average than suburbs do.    Look it up.  

    The students skip school, drop out, get pregnant, cause trouble in school, and fail to do their homework, and the resulting poor school is someboy else’s fault?

  • marka

    I’ve actually watched the video of the event.  Certainly saw young people shouting loudly in unison. Maybe a ‘mob’?  Certainly trying to be disruptive.

    Looked again @ DoubleTree’s press release – its manager characterizes the group as a mob – states that they knocked down his employees – sounds more like a mob to me.  

    Then, a number of accounts have this group going to the room en masse towards its end.  Apparently no debate that this terminated the questions & answers by those already there.  Again, certainly disrupting proceedings.  Prof Olneck, trying to defend groups actions, admits that those actions had the intent of, and the effect of, terminating the conference.

    Finally the wink & nod of the demagogue: “Don’t wait for us to show the way.”  The coward’s way of inciting riot.

    If it looks like a mob, sounds like a mob, pushes like a mob, and acts like a mob … probably a mob.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Lou-Ann-Watson/1680020303 Lou Ann Watson

    let me guess, wisconsin has very strict gun laws? we in fla have a right to carry and there is no “duty to retreat” if you are attacked in any place you have a lawful right to be. militant leftists need to be much more careful when trying to mob an event in our state. citizens don’t have to wait for the police to get there to be “fair” as determined by politically correct police commissioners. notice no arrests were made…people were assaulted and because the hotel is too timid for whatever reason, no one was charged with anything. feel good about that? some time in the near future it will be union thugs with baseball bats, it’s the eventual progression…don’t call me paranoid, just call me prepared

  • sand6432

    So, how does one separate out admission decisions based on racial preference from decisions based on preferences for athletes? Did the CEO report attempt any such analysis by, say, eliminating all those admission decisions that resulted in athletic scholarships being given to minorities? — Sandy Thatcher

  • anotherstudent

    Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems as if the data don’t quite fit the author’s analysis.  Ms. Baum and Mr. McPherson pose the question “Is there really a long-term trend away from traditional college students?” Traditional college students, as the author claims, being the stereotype of the just out of high school student in late-teens to early 20s.  The data after 1970, although not identical, are relatively stable.  This indicates that the proportion of students who enroll as part time and/or are over the age of 25 is similar to those students who are full time and/or under 25 (ie the ‘traditional’ student).  Furthermore, with Ms. Baum’s and Mr. McPherson’s statistics of increased enrollment over the last decade, and given that the percentage of students is similar to recent years, this indicates a relatively stable proportion of ‘traditional’ to ‘non-traditional’ students.  

    Rather than implying that the traditional student is disappearing, I believe the data suggests that the traditional students have stayed exactly where they are, at least since 1980.  

    I quite agree that different students have different learning abilities.  But I also believe that there must be a balance between what an academic institution can reasonably expect of all students (focusing on the general student) and what they can cater to the individual student (focusing on the specific student).  Take technology, as an example – students these days have grown up in a technology boom, and are likely to be well versed in different social media and general technology know-how (I am a college student and when I visit home I often stay up late playing games or watching movies, my mom always gets mad at me if I forget to switch the television from Video to TV mode, which requires the rather simple pushing of a button).  Perhaps an extreme example, yet it’s likely that this may represent some of the non-traditional of which the authors speak.  

    So then what is reasonable to expect the general student?  Many of the classes I have enrolled in require taking tests online, which requires basic internet navigation.  Other classes I must find scholarly sources on a similar subject I am researching, requiring search filtering.  I am sure I can think of other examples but for now this will do.  These are general skills that can be used in a number of professions, fields, and even in one’s on leisure.  Several of the introductory courses I have taken have spent a class period or two making sure we have these skills before we need to use them.  These general skills are certainly ones that all students should know.  If a non-traditional student, or even a traditional one for that matter, does not have these skills, I would say the learning institution is at fault.

    If, however, the skill is more along the lines of html, coding, or the like, the university should not pander those who do not know.  These aren’t general skills or applicable in a wide variety of fields.  

    What I’m getting at, albeit somewhat indirectly, is that a learning institution should only pander to its students insomuch as that they are able to learn and perform the course material, regardless a student fresh out of high school or one that is supporting a family and has been working for a number of years.  So long as students can learn and perform, the divide between a stereotypical ‘traditional’ student and ‘non-traditional’ need not exist.  I believe some division will always be present across generations as different generations have different priorities, are exposed to different societal elements, and can even have distinct cultures of their own.  A learning institution should not attempt to bridge these differences and make all students the same, they should ensure that all students wield the ability to learn.

  • graddirector

    Well, it sounds like you have two big advantages that make this less rough.  One, you have a large amount of teaching experience and presumably lectures/syllabi already prepared for your five classes.  The first time I taught as a new tenure track assistant professor I was assigned graduate classes that I had not considered the material for in 10 years.  I was probably spending well over 20 hours per week just preparing for the lectures in each class, not including grading, office hours etc.  A 5:5 load just would not have been possible.

    The other is that you are in a position lacking scholarship pressure.  Good scholarship requires intensive periods of uninterrupted time, but the pull of teaching and service destroys that time.  Further, with the extremely high levels of competition that have been developing in the past few years (particularly in STEM scholarship), ones best never seems to be enough. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=754065664 Cathy Hinga

    Aren’t you supposed to use your “spare time” to develop courses, advise, meet with prospective students, do peer reviewed research with students, go to professional meetings, have office hours, and be on faculty committees? And if you are a science professor you need to set up your labs.

  • armartinez4

    Thanks for this post! It’s nice to see a bit of optimism from time to time. There are so many people in the shoes you’ve described prior to your tenure-track job… Also, you did say you still work hard – it’s just nice to be better compensated/appreciated for the hard work you do put in.

  • andreology

    Yup, it’s the haves and the have-nots.

  • totoro

    How many hours in the class-room then is a 5/5 load? It can’t be more than 15 a week. A 2/2 load at the R1 university I used to work at was 8 hours a week in the classroom. For someone teaching new courses in technical areas there is a huge amount of prep involved. Oh and we were supposed to do research, apply for grants, advise PhD students etc. So for the first year or two it is a huge workload. After that it got easier.

  • http://twitter.com/odoketa David Barber

    I really enjoy this piece, especially in light of the recent ‘adjunct pay project’ ( http://adjunctproject.com/) the Chronicle wrote about. It demonstrates how, if you subject someone to a terrible job situation long enough, when they get a (good? acceptable?) one, they will be ecstatic.

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