Comments

  1. says

    There have been multiple instances in my past of being grabbed by PR firms or student groups to play the role of the nerdy professor in short clips. Fortunately, I think I’ve aged out of it — I no longer resemble the hip youngish professor.

  2. says

    If you no longer resemble the hip youngish professor, PZ, that can only mean that you’re evolving into another stereotype. Though I forebear to mention what stereotype that might be.

  3. Artor says

    You can totally nail the cranky, cantankerous crackpot professor though PZ. Your big Hollywood role is just waiting for you!

  4. numerobis says

    Yankee universities should get with the program and unionize! Then the collective agreement can set a reasonable level on adjuncts, and force the university to offer them a living wage.

  5. mykroft says

    My wife and I knew a high school German teacher who was offered a teaching position at a local university. He eventually turned it down. It would have meant a $10K cut in the pay he was making as a high school teacher.

  6. brett says

    @numerobis

    Yankee universities should get with the program and unionize! Then the collective agreement can set a reasonable level on adjuncts, and force the university to offer them a living wage.

    I’m in favor of that as well, although I wonder what the effect would be on PhD programs. Would they still churn out tons of graduates, most of whom presumably don’t get teaching gigs and then go into the private sector or elsewhere? Or would it cause a ripple effect, lowering the number of people going into doctoral programs?

    Either might be good.

  7. Great American Satan says

    You can already sense by now who your replacement will be on retirement. Life sciences are undergoing a demographic shift where nerdbros are labeling them as “chick majors,” so PZ the next will be three adjunct women who, between the lot of them, make half what you’re making now.

  8. numerobis says

    brett@11: Canada, where most (all?) universities have unionized faculty, churns out Ph.D. students who have little chance at a teaching gig. In Quebec the escape valve is to end up teaching at CEGEP (which is roughly equivalent to the last year of high school and first year of university in the US). Or to do something totally different.

  9. wcorvi says

    Many students go to grad school because they did so poorly as undergrads, they’ll never get jobs. They don’t understand that MORE bad education won’t help at all.

  10. says

    I am a full time Visiting Lecturer at a Siena College, a 4 year college in Albany, NY. I spent 35 years in public ed and had a decent salary when I retired. I was asked to adjunct in the physics department, 8 credits worth. The low pay did not matter since I was also collecting a retirement. During that semester they asked if I wanted a 3/4 contract. It was 9 credits and 3 x the pay! But I did not receive a contract until late August when school started the beginning of September. I talked to others who started teaching before they got contracts. You really do not know if you have a job the next year until you receive that contract. Many of the other adjuncts are PhD.’s with limited income from adjunct positions and no benefits. Some work at multiple schools and barely make ends meet.

    Several of the adjunct faculty from 3 colleges in the area have voted to unionize. No we have a voice to work together to remedy the low pay, the uncertainty of jobs and the lack of benefits. People should get some credit and seniority of hire for working multiple years. That is happening.

    Colleges today often have 40% of their classes taught by non-tenure track teachers who are mostly adjunct contracts. It saves them money in salary and benefits. The almighty dollar controls everything.

    Support your local adjuncts and encourage your alma maters to treat their temporary and part time faculty with respect.

  11. numerobis says

    wcorvi@14: “Many students go to grad school because they did so poorly as undergrads, they’ll never get jobs”

    Do you have a citation for that claim? Grad schools generally have acceptance criteria.

  12. Larry says

    Colleges and Universities seeming have a good thing going. They keep accepting new grad school candidates, educate them just enough with adjunct profs while charging fees as if they were full tenure track profs, then, after a few years, shove them out on the street with a worthless degree in hand to form the pool of PhDs from which they hire adjunct profs at a fraction of the full prof’s wage with no bennies to teach the next class of grad students.

    Its the Cycle of <Academic> Life.

  13. Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD says

    I don’t know whether it’s different where you are but here a PhD candidate is a net loss financially to the department . So we’re not doing it for the cash.

  14. numerobis says

    In the US and Canada, a grad student is at least cheap labour as a TA, or if you get can get grants for them, an outright gain. Particularly in the US, where the granting agencies are willing to pay a stipend plus overhead, PLUS “tuition” (which is really just another overhead charge).