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[hilde]

I said it was "in effect" and ad hominem attack insofar as you attacked a certain "type" of literature scholar for flashy or trendy research without evidence of what you specifically mean by it, and more important, with evidence of what percent of research fits your (vague) description.

Your test of "what the average person can name" is similarly vague, but maybe I'm just not getting it.

From what I read, "the average person" is pretty dubious about evolution, clueless about geography, and there is ever-worsening literacy both in science  and mathematics, in general. Your optimism that the average person could name 25 scientific or technical developments is not something I share. I think they would need to be able to do more than simply name a technology that was developed, too--they should have to understand the basis of the development to demonstrate knowledge. Do you anticipate that a populace with large percentages believing that humans have not evolved since their (divine) creation are going to be able to say much in the way of scientific explanations?

This is not to blame people for an education system letting them down, it's just to say that there's no special case to be made against literary scholarship. It's a general problem, and it comes back--in my view--to a general preference for low taxes (and private consumption) over higher taxes (and public education). Ever-more stuff, ever-less knowledge. That's the deal, and it's not working, educationally or environmentally.

As to your general point about tenure and disconnection from the public, I guess I see why you say it but your test of "what the general public wants" is not the proper measure of what a university does. That's what the marketplace is for. A fraction of my students want to learn Aristotle. Should I adjust my syllabus and add in Snoop Dogg or The Matrix until I give them what they want?

That can't be what you are suggesting but it is an ideology that lurks behind the student-as-consumer model. I assume instead that your point is that the subject matter taught in college should be, in principle, connect-able to practical life. I agree, but I'd argue that the chain of connection can be long and elaborate--but this then requires, ethically, that the teacher/researcher in the classroom be able to take the students all the way up the chain.

If I may wax metaphoric: The way out of the cave is sometimes long; we do better to insist upon the responsibility of the teacher to lead people out rather than insist that the cave doesn't exist.

We are now getting far away from the OP, so, enough.

[gastr1]

As to your general point about tenure and disconnection from the public, I guess I see why you say it but your test of "what the general public wants" is not the proper measure of what a university does. That's what the marketplace is for. A fraction of my students want to learn Aristotle. Should I adjust my syllabus and add in Snoop Dogg or The Matrix until I give them what they want?

That can't be what you are suggesting but it is an ideology that lurks behind the student-as-consumer model.

An ideology with an agenda that seems to always be connected to some conservative think tank that doesn't really want to give the students what they want so much as what it wants...usually something less focused on recent trends, just as not_in_a_college has suggested, and more focused on some other ill-defined curricula that (we assume) suits its own purposes. 

[not_at_a_college]

Actually, I'm not that far off the original post.

I have never made the argument about "what the public wants should drive the curriculum," only that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to fret about the public being mislead about a process that it doesn't know or care that much about.

If the general public is unaware of the research and publishing that plays a big part in tenure decisions, they are unlikely to be defrauded by the use of titles that in different places indicate different tenure status.

[comp_queen]

Instead, a large percentage of classes are taught by people who have not earned a PhD (grad students) or who are paid so little that they're scrambling around piecing together work from two or three different universities just so that they can make ends meet (adjuncts).  In both cases, parents and students aren't getting what they're paying for.  To borrow your analogy, instead of the Chik-fil-A chicken sandwich, complete with recognizable lettuce, tomatoes, and chicken breast, they're being fed Chicken McNuggets - something only dressed up as the real thing.

The ignorance of the public at large about hiring practices, professorial ranks, and the tenure process fuels the system.  I would guess that if parents and students had a clue about who actually does the teaching, about what those individuals are paid, and about the working conditions of many in the adjunct pool, things would change rather quickly - not because they necessarily care about the wellbeing of grad students and adjuncts but because they're not getting what they think they're paying for.  As a case in point, I sent my students this semester to the AAUP numbers for faculty salaries.  Their jaws hit the floor when they pieced together my rank with those numbers and realized that my salary is significantly less than what they pay for tuition + room and board each year.  There was a palpable sense of outrage, especially when I explained to them that some of the other jobs that I do to bring in some much needed extra cash take away from my ability to teach them as well as I would like.

Two disclaimers:  First, having my students look at their school's faculty salaries fit within the context of that particular course.  I don't regularly bring this kind of university politics into the classroom.  Second, when I say that adjuncts are only dressed up as the real thing, I am calling out the universities and departments that take advantage of the oversupply of PhDs to staff many of their classes with underpaid workers who don't even get the benefit of knowing whether they will have a job six months down the road.  I have nothing but respect for anyone (whether adjunct, tt, or tenured) who makes a career of teaching at the college/university level.

And with that, I step down off my soapbox for the time being.

Trabb, I put away my matches when I got to your last paragraph.  Thank you.  I am tired of people on the boards just assuming that adjuncts like me are somehow "less."  Adjunct folks with PhDs are not "beneath" their TT counterparts.  For that matter, neither are those of us without PhDs who want to teach in CCs or perhaps high school.  I stopped after the MA because I just want to teach.

Thanks for the good words.

[hilde]

not_at_a_college:

I looked back over your recent posts and see that you did not make the argument that "what the public wants should drive the curriculum," as I said you did. I apologize for what appears to be a mischaracterization on my part. As you assert, flawlessly, the public cannot be mislead about that which it is ignorant.

comp_queen:

I want to add a personal note that I was an adjunct for 7 years before I got a tt job; often I made only $1700 or so a course. From this experience I developed the opinion, articulated by myself earlier in this thread, that full status and tenure is due to excellent teachers--not to mention a thorough reassessment by academe itself as to what knowing is all about.

Sometimes, hierarchies are natural outgrowths of winnowing practices rooted in the goal of excellence; too often, though, hierarchies cause stagnation, elitism, and remoteness from universities' intercourse with communal life. (Not that it is only their fault, mind you.)

Now that I am part of a university in a more formal way (as a tt) I can see, too, that hierarchies can promote and preserve the identities of those doing what I am happy to call the "good works" of teaching and research, despite the often cruel dismissals by the marketplace and its servile media. Nothing could be healthier for students, individual faculty, and the academe itself that the inclusion and embrace of our fellow teachers.

(I wonder sometimes if the model of the blogosphere holds some lessons for how the structure of the academy needs to rethink. Are community colleges already ahead on this one? I anticipate that exhortation.)

[not_at_a_college]

Certainly, ignorance makes one more easy to mislead, but in this case less likely to care about it.

And since you never questioned the qualifications of the instructors to teach, only what they were called, it's hard to make a case that real harm was done.

[hilde]

not_at_a_college:

And since you never questioned the qualifications of the instructors to teach, only what they were called, it's hard to make a case that real harm was done.

Agreed. That the instructors were qualified was a background assumption for the proposed inquiry into how labels should be used.

In the specific dimension of parents-who-are-oblivious-to-titles, you are right: there is no harm. And while this thread has enumerated many more dimensions of potential harm than that one, I think you've taken this particular harm off the table.