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[unemployedacademic]

<snip>

However, the blunt fact remains that far more people wish to have those teaching jobs in many areas of the humanities than jobs exist based on demand by bodies in the classroom.  That is the relevance to this thread: too many people chasing too few jobs and whining about why those jobs don't exist even though people who are smart and hard working enough to get a humanities graduate degree obviously could be qualified to do spectacularly well in areas that have jobs and need people who can speak, write, and synthesize information into a good argument (i.e., all the things that one should have gotten as the result of a humanities graduate degree).

And that's the thing that gets said so often, but then gets roundly ignored by many of the humanities types around us (though it's not limited to the humanities, it's just more prevalent there due to the state of the academic job market in the humanities, I think)--the idea that a PhD should or even must lead to a job in academia, even though it could be used more widely. However, there's a socialization thing going on where grad students get convinced that anything outside of the academy is settling for less. I don't know how we counter that.

Is either of these points really true?  First, there seems to be more than enough work for the number of PhDs in the humanities.  If one got rid of the adjuncts and the majority of TA assignments, then cut the massive intro class sizes, wouldn't there be more than enough open positions for the number of grads, especially since the size of grad programs would also decrease?  This would, of course, demand that money be diverted from unimportant construction projects -- stadiums being a prime example -- athletic programs, and bloated administrative salaries, but it is not as though the money is not available.  What is lacking is willingness among the existing faculty ranks to be held accountable for their institutions' and professions' survival.  I realize that the corporate oligarchs have seized control of university boards and legislatures, infecting university ideals with their short-term capitalist malaise, but the faculty have been complicit in allowing it to happen.  With the advantages of greater autonomy and a greater say in how their workplaces are run than many American workers, faculty have a greater responsibility.

And I doubt very much that most grads feel entitled to jobs.  If anything, articles in the Chronicle about "imposter syndrome" and my own anecdotal evidence suggest that the reverse is true.  The anger probably comes from the feeling of being betrayed by the profession coupled with the sheer stupidity of the current system.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that progressively decreasing the maintenance of the infrastructure as the demands on it increase will lead to disaster.  (But, then, that is the American way, is it not?  Just take a look at the current situation of American nuclear power plants, the leases for which are being extended decades beyond their slated closure and at 120% of capacity after severely underfunding their upkeep.)  To add insult to injury, the same fools who have created the situation continue to be lauded and showered with gifts.  A person may have been naive in thinking that he or she would buck the trends, but anger is still a justifiable reaction.

[fiona]

The previous poster doesn't seem to understand that universities do not have the money. S/he should read the earlier parts of this thread.

It's not a matter of evil admins. There Is No Money.

The Fiona

[emerson_scholar]

The previous poster doesn't seem to understand that universities do not have the money. S/he should read the earlier parts of this thread.

It's not a matter of evil admins. There Is No Money.

The Fiona

Unemployedacademic is not so far off the mark to justify this response.

I never knew The Fiona was really Fiona The Provost!

Eeenteresting.

[fiona]

Oh, good, I deliver the bad news (which has been discussed extensively earlier in the thread), but now we see a new melding of You Are a Tool of the System and Kill the Messenger.

You Must Be a Provost is the new mantra.

I am not now and never have been a Provost.

But I do believe in truth. Even if I were a Provost, I wouldn't be able to coin money.

The Fiona

[temporaryname]

The previous poster doesn't seem to understand that universities do not have the money. S/he should read the earlier parts of this thread.

It's not a matter of evil admins. There Is No Money.

Unemployedacademic is not so far off the mark to justify this response.

The Fiona, unfortunately, is correct.

There are certainly Evil Administrators<tm> (the provost where I used to work was one of them), but they're happily pretty rare.

Unless, I suppose, Emerson or Unemplyedacademic have identified how to, for example, split large intro sections up and afford to have them taught by tenure-stream academics.

(It bugs me that pronouncements like Unemployedacademic's so often come without anything approaching specifics--I mean, fine, let's split up large intro sections. If we split them up so that each student has a single tenure-stream academic dedicated entirely to that student, we could solve the whole problem and students wouldn't feel like they get lost in the crowd! But tell me--who's going to pay that academic's salary?)

[unemployedacademic]

I have, in fact, read the rest of the thread and I know that administrators constantly claim that there is no more money.  I do not believe them.  It's not that I think that they are evil or not telling the truth.  Instead, I interpret their statements as meaning that there is no more money for the faculty because we have other priorities which we see as necessities.  No one has held administrators accountable for the degradation of instruction.  Instead, administrators have only been accountable to the corporate oligarchs who have imposed a short-term, short-sighted set of priorities on academe as they have throughout American society.  The crisis in the academy is merely one facet of a larger crisis in the American economy, where workers have been steadily increasing their productivity even as they reap fewer of the rewards.  We have not surpassed Gilded-Age inequality in wealth distribution by running out of wealth.

My interpretation is supported by Cary Nelson's recent comments about how there are hidden pots of money in university budgets, discretionary funds designated by administrators for certain projects that they then describe as necessary to faculty senates.  It is also supported by institutions' ability to fund money-losing sports behemoths to the tune of many millions of dollars (according to a NCAA report released only last year or the year before, only some 5% of Div. 1A sports programs break even or make money).  It is based on their ability to funnel millions of dollars to the trustees' cronies in order to build superfluous new buildings, on their ability to pay for gourmet dining halls and spa-like dorms, and to pay advertising firms millions of dollars every few years for ludicrous "rebranding" campaigns.  Obviously, not all of these conditions apply in every case, but the trend to increase the use of contingent labor has remained constant in all circumstances -- ballooning endowments, the increase in tuition at 3 times the rate of inflation, etc. -- over the last four decades.  Universities have been making money.  They just haven't seen spending it on the faculty as necessary.

And, for those who complain about a lack of state funding, why would faculty continue to agree to increases in class sizes without concomitant increases in funding?  At what point should one cry "uncle!"  Better to refuse to teach beyond a certain cap than to degrade instruction to the degree that we now see.  One only has to look at the current surge in the demand for online courses to understand the impact of ballooning class sizes.  This demand only makes sense in light of students' experiences with massive lecture courses, which are less convenient than online courses for students and more expensive than online courses for administrators.  They certainly aren't less work for committed academics.  It says a great deal that students do not perceive a difference between big lecture courses and watching taped lectures online.  Just wait until the trend really picks up steam and the grading for even more courses are outsourced to bright, educated academics in India.  Then, we'll be talking about the job slump's extension to TAs and adjuncts.

[alleyoxenfree]

Chime to unemployed academics points about priorities.

At the last three universities where I worked, the money was hidden in the plain sight by a lack of accountability and an unwillingness or inability of tenured faculty, chairs, and deans to object.  Object, and your school may be on the chopping block tomorrow.

So there was a massive amount of money for student services (including one uni where there were three overlapping offices, all providing the same services), travel money for administrators who delivered the exact same talk at the exact same conference but in changing Wonderful Cities year after year (everyone one including the president, no one cared, it was considered a perk of the administrative job to travel on the taxpayer dime).  Where else?  Entertaining budgets for higher ups, handouts to friends as "consultants," the ubiquitous $100,000 outlay to a strategic planning firm, the similar outlay for a search in which great applicants are not scarce.

Then there was money spent on multiple searches because three of the deans were so abusive to their chairs that they couldn't keep them, so year after year, those positions needed to mount regular searches.  There was no accountability to the taxpayers for these HR funds.  And there was the chair of a program who refused to do advance planning and so frequently needed to make expensive travel and entertaining changes at the last minute, regularly costing the uni $20K-$100K per year in losses.  Finally, funds paid in hush money to a staff member who was expected to testify against them in a discrimination lawsuit but who "retired" inside with a nice chunk of unprecedented cash.

[mad_doctor]

Chime to unemployed academics points about priorities.

At the last three universities where I worked, the money was hidden in the plain sight by a lack of accountability and an unwillingness or inability of tenured faculty, chairs, and deans to object.  Object, and your school may be on the chopping block tomorrow.

So there was a massive amount of money for student services (including one uni where there were three overlapping offices, all providing the same services), travel money for administrators who delivered the exact same talk at the exact same conference but in changing Wonderful Cities year after year (everyone one including the president, no one cared, it was considered a perk of the administrative job to travel on the taxpayer dime).  Where else?  Entertaining budgets for higher ups, handouts to friends as "consultants," the ubiquitous $100,000 outlay to a strategic planning firm, the similar outlay for a search in which great applicants are not scarce.

Then there was money spent on multiple searches because three of the deans were so abusive to their chairs that they couldn't keep them, so year after year, those positions needed to mount regular searches.  There was no accountability to the taxpayers for these HR funds.  And there was the chair of a program who refused to do advance planning and so frequently needed to make expensive travel and entertaining changes at the last minute, regularly costing the uni $20K-$100K per year in losses.  Finally, funds paid in hush money to a staff member who was expected to testify against them in a discrimination lawsuit but who "retired" inside with a nice chunk of unprecedented cash.

I've got one for you both...  A few jobs ago (mid-size, private, non-selective LAC), the admins brokered an exchange agreement with a european university.  This was done without any consultation with the faculty, and when we found out about it, we advised against it on the grounds that we didn't know enough about what this school had to offer, or even whether or not they were playing us.  Of course, the admins went ahead and did it anyway.  The idea was to exchange students and faculty between our two schools.  To make a long story short, over the duration of the agreement, we had a small handful of their students spend a semester or two on our campus, and only one of our students - the Provost's son - went to Europe.  We never saw a single one of their professors, and only one of our professors went over there, one whom we viewed as a token exchange to validate the good intentions of the agreement.  The program was canceled after three or so years because it was about a half a million in the hole (they never told us the exact amount).  So, why was there so much interest in this agreement?  Well, every single one of our executive and senior admins, and several mid-level admins (deans, directors, etc.) spent time over there to perform "essential administrative functions".  Many went more than once, and some took their families (spouses who worked at the uni also, children enrolled, etc.), for an average of about ten days each. 

The program quietly died - we didn't know it was gone until one of us asked about it in a faculty meeting one day.  Supposedly, the program wasn't making any money on account of there being no exchanges taking place, although it was unclear from the start how we would make any money at all or break even on it (which is why we advised against it in the first place).  In hindsight, it was an off-the-record vacation benefit for university administrators under the guise of an exchange agreement.  All our "losses" were simply travel expenses for the admins to go visit Europe.  I don't think the admins believed we were so stupid that we'd never figure out what they were doing, but I do believe that they didn't give a cr@p what we thought about it, since they knew there was absolutely nothing we could do about it without suffering severe retaliation.  As if to add insult to injury, we were subsequently informed in a faculty meeting that the pay raises being negotiated in our collective bargaining agreement would suffer on account of how the university's revenues were underperforming their projections. 

[alleyoxenfree]

Chime to unemployed academics points about priorities.

At the last three universities where I worked, the money was hidden in the plain sight by a lack of accountability and an unwillingness or inability of tenured faculty, chairs, and deans to object.  Object, and your school may be on the chopping block tomorrow.

So there was a massive amount of money for student services (including one uni where there were three overlapping offices, all providing the same services), travel money for administrators who delivered the exact same talk at the exact same conference but in changing Wonderful Cities year after year (everyone one including the president, no one cared, it was considered a perk of the administrative job to travel on the taxpayer dime).  Where else?  Entertaining budgets for higher ups, handouts to friends as "consultants," the ubiquitous $100,000 outlay to a strategic planning firm, the similar outlay for a search in which great applicants are not scarce.

Then there was money spent on multiple searches because three of the deans were so abusive to their chairs that they couldn't keep them, so year after year, those positions needed to mount regular searches.  There was no accountability to the taxpayers for these HR funds.  And there was the chair of a program who refused to do advance planning and so frequently needed to make expensive travel and entertaining changes at the last minute, regularly costing the uni $20K-$100K per year in losses.  Finally, funds paid in hush money to a staff member who was expected to testify against them in a discrimination lawsuit but who "retired" inside with a nice chunk of unprecedented cash.

I've got one for you both...  A few jobs ago (mid-size, private, non-selective LAC), the admins brokered an exchange agreement with a european university.  This was done without any consultation with the faculty, and when we found out about it, we advised against it on the grounds that we didn't know enough about what this school had to offer, or even whether or not they were playing us.  Of course, the admins went ahead and did it anyway.  The idea was to exchange students and faculty between our two schools.  To make a long story short, over the duration of the agreement, we had a small handful of their students spend a semester or two on our campus, and only one of our students - the Provost's son - went to Europe.  We never saw a single one of their professors, and only one of our professors went over there, one whom we viewed as a token exchange to validate the good intentions of the agreement.  The program was canceled after three or so years because it was about a half a million in the hole (they never told us the exact amount).  So, why was there so much interest in this agreement?  Well, every single one of our executive and senior admins, and several mid-level admins (deans, directors, etc.) spent time over there to perform "essential administrative functions".  Many went more than once, and some took their families (spouses who worked at the uni also, children enrolled, etc.), for an average of about ten days each. 

The program quietly died - we didn't know it was gone until one of us asked about it in a faculty meeting one day.  Supposedly, the program wasn't making any money on account of there being no exchanges taking place, although it was unclear from the start how we would make any money at all or break even on it (which is why we advised against it in the first place).  In hindsight, it was an off-the-record vacation benefit for university administrators under the guise of an exchange agreement.  All our "losses" were simply travel expenses for the admins to go visit Europe.  I don't think the admins believed we were so stupid that we'd never figure out what they were doing, but I do believe that they didn't give a cr@p what we thought about it, since they knew there was absolutely nothing we could do about it without suffering severe retaliation.  As if to add insult to injury, we were subsequently informed in a faculty meeting that the pay raises being negotiated in our collective bargaining agreement would suffer on account of how the university's revenues were underperforming their projections. 

Ding, ding, ding!  Another winner.  Then there is the international travel by admissions officers (I also know of this one) without any accountability as to how many students are actually recruited, and in the day of Facebook, whether there are any cheaper ways to recruit. 

[renji]

I am always annoyed at these articles -- they lump in the millions of serfs working at the University of Phoenix or strip mall universities and then try to make some point about all American universities.

The truth is that there have never been more TT/tenured faculty on earth than exist at this very moment.

Including University of Phoenix or strip mall university faculty in a study and then pretending that TT/tenured faculty are disappearing is simply being dishonest.

[fiona]

Anecdotes are always more enticing than data. And lofty pronouncements ("They won't get away with this!") are always more energizing than the hard slogging work of actually figuring out or wringing from the evil admins or legislators the amount of money needed to have small classes taught by fulltime professors.

It's tiresome to see pronouncements instead of plans.

The Fiona

[alleyoxenfree]

Dammit, where is that God of Statistics!  Did he fall into the volcano again?!

[magistra]

I'm still on DvF's article.  First, Cal State apparently paid their TAs the equivalent of $17,169.05.  I don't think inflation has kept up.  (Harvard paid $7,417.03 per class.)  But I really love this statement: "Thus while an unmarried TA can survive on his stipend, a married grad must put his wife to work—and even then, says Cal Graduate Dean Sanford Elberg, it takes a "religious dedication to get through."

But, but....she has to type my manuscript!

[daniel_von_flanagan]

Me, I'd like to know whatever happened to "attractive brunette" Janis Hull, 27.  I also want to know what the male TAs look like. - DvF

[t_r_b]

Me, I'd like to know whatever happened to "attractive brunette" Janis Hull, 27.  I also want to know what the male TAs look like. - DvF

Let's see: Berkeley, late 60s... I'm thinking hairy. If photos existed, their children probably wouldn't recognize them.