Author Topic: "Dumb" Texas Governor Rick Perry and His Impossible $10k Degree  (Read 9834 times)

makattak

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Re: "Dumb" Texas Governor Rick Perry and His Impossible $10k Degree
« Reply #25 on: April 22, 2014, 02:47:32 PM »
Just about the time this thread appeared I saw in my local newspaper an article borrowed from some big, mid-western paper about a woman who is setting out to unionize adjunct professors. According to the article, adjuncts are paid only $10,000 to $15,000 per year, with no job security and no benefits, for what is effectively almost a full-time job. This is for people with Ph.Ds. That's less than the stipend graduate teaching assistants receive, in many cases.

The article notes that the percentage of such poorly-paid adjunct professors compared to tenure track positions has risen from about 30 percent several years ago to 60 or 70 percent today. Which tells me that the universities are scamming the students, annually raising tuition by factors much higher than inflation or the CPI while at the same time cutting the real cost to the university of the most expensive part of providing the education -- the instructors.

Not the article I saw, but on the same topic: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/us/more-college-adjuncts-see-strength-in-union-numbers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Close, but no. They are still paying the "instructors" a significant wage. However, these professors do very little instructing. They do research. Additionally, the administrative costs have risen three- or fourfold. What was once one dean per campus is now multiple deans and multiple vice presidents. With an attendant staff for each.

They pay the adjuncts basically nothing because they are spending so much elsewhere and SOMEONE has to teach these classes. The tenured faculty have long ago demanded that they be required to teach at most 2 classes a semester.
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MechAg94

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Re: "Dumb" Texas Governor Rick Perry and His Impossible $10k Degree
« Reply #26 on: April 22, 2014, 10:28:19 PM »
Are the adjunct professors trying for experience or just hoping for full professor positions?  It seems to me there are plenty of small colleges and junior colleges who might need instructors. 
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MillCreek

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Re: "Dumb" Texas Governor Rick Perry and His Impossible $10k Degree
« Reply #27 on: April 22, 2014, 11:15:37 PM »
Are the adjunct professors trying for experience or just hoping for full professor positions?  It seems to me there are plenty of small colleges and junior colleges who might need instructors. 

I have some friends who are adjuncts at local community colleges.  They do it for two reasons: they are trying to make some money and experience while waiting for a tenure track position to open up at some college/university, if ever; and they are damn thrilled to be working in their field at all.  They have told me stories about hundreds of PhDs applying for a single anthopology position, for example.  Even at the adjunct level, for most teaching positions, there is a tremendous oversupply.
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RocketMan

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Re: "Dumb" Texas Governor Rick Perry and His Impossible $10k Degree
« Reply #28 on: April 23, 2014, 08:53:02 AM »
I don't care as long as they hurry up with the food replicators, transporters and holodecks.

To heck with those.  I want my flying cars and personal service robots.
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