Here’s an announcement that kind of says it all.
Southern Illinois University Carbondale is asking department chairs to recruit graduates to serve as adjunct faculty on a volunteer basis.
A statement from the office of SIUC Chancellor Carlo Montemagno, posted on the chancellor’s website Tuesday afternoon, indicated that the university is developing a “pilot project” in collaboration with the SIU Alumni Association to “create a pool of potential, volunteer adjuncts with advanced academic degrees who might contribute as needed for up to three years after their approval.”
I’ve written a few rants about the appalling practice of universities surviving on the backs of poorly paid, part-time temporary faculty, that we churn out brilliant, educated people that we then put in such desperate straits that they’ll work for a pittance, and for long hours. But they were paid…poorly. Now we’re at the stage where the administrators, who are better paid than the faculty, are thinking they can get our intellectual labor for free.
If, 40 years ago when I was a graduate student, I had heard about this practice, I would have decided it was time to leave science and find an occupation that would keep me and my family alive. Not because I wanted to, but because it would be necessary.
We are looking at the end result of years of Republican misrule, of long efforts to starve and destroy the infrastructure of this nation.
The already devalued status of professors seems an instance of what is termed “gig economy”.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gig-economy.asp
“There is a wide range of positions that fall into the category of a “gig.” For example, adjunct and part-time professors are considered to be contracted employees, as opposed to tenured or tenure-track professors. Colleges and universities are able to cut costs and match professors to their academic needs by hiring more adjunct and part-time professors.”
Unpaid positions seem to be a waystation until they fully automate teaching via AI. Maybe *that’s* why PZ hates the Singularity. He unconsciously intuits the bleak outcome in academia. Bots lecturing bots.
I guess UBI and luxury communism are just around the corner. Will that really be a bad thing? I am only saying that to not seem a threat to Skynet.
>Now we’re at the stage where the administrators, who are better paid than the faculty, are thinking they can get our intellectual labor for free.
The rise of education bureaucracy is bemoaned by the right-wing as well. Perhaps some common ground here?
>We are looking at the end result of years of Republican misrule, of long efforts to starve and destroy the infrastructure of this nation.
It’s not a Republican thing. The growth of the university bureaucracy happened(-ing) in Canada as well [1]
[1]http://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/where-all-that-money-is-going/
Hemidactylus@1
Can we please stop using the phrase “gig economy”-it is casual labour which the Unions fought long and hard to abolish.
@3- AndrewD
Sorry. It’s a term I just recently picked up while immersed in universal basic income pros and cons. UBI as posed by libertarians seems poised to gut social services and could be damaging to unions. Some argue it gives workers more leverage against owners or employers. Others say it would be a public remedy of the negative externality of slave wages that already plague us. That Charles Murray is a cheerleader for UBI gives me pause.
But this casual labor seems a real thing and “gig” apt for the phenomenon. Disturbing trend. Isn’t Uber disrupting the tradition of London taxi drivers and The Knowledge?
The more useless a job, the more it gets paid. The less useful a job, the less it gets paid.
Always the same, like a goddamn law of nature.
Nurses, artists, letter carriers, garbage collectors, and now scientists; people who actually contribute to society get paid worse and worse, while the bullshit jobs get paid better and better.
Hm, I just noted I accidentally miswrote the second sentence. I’m sure you get the correct meaning…
SIUC is literally saying that their own Ph.D. program degrees are worth nothing to them. Why on earth should anyone else think their degree is worth getting now, if even the school that awards the degree thinks its economic value is zero?
Grand idea. If the concept takes hold on a larger scale, before long you’ll get frowns if your CV doesn’t include volunteer teaching when applying for a temporary, paid position. It’s bolting a new bottom rung to the ladder.
LOL
no, it isn’t. they are lying to you.
look at the voting records and bills introduced by neoliberals over the last 40 years.
there is NO common ground with rationality and sanity any more. there is only narcissism, tribalism, and greed on the right any more.
start your educational journey here.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot
continue in detail here.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09518398.2012.673025?src=recsys&journalCode=tqse20
it’s laughable to think the right actually has stood for anything rational for the last 40 years.
Why is tuition going through the roof while admin salaries jump up and teaching position salaries stagnate ? Why do “sports” schools get paid hundreds of millions for their sports teams TV contracts while tuition goes through the roof and admin salaries jump up and teaching position salaries stagnate ?
It is a Republican thing. The root cause is the ongoing destruction of public education funding by the Republicans.
It’s a classic Republican thing: get yourself into power, give yourself a large salary, and deliberately wreck the institution you’re supposed to be serving.
@ 7 carlie
SIUC is literally saying that their own Ph.D. program degrees are worth nothing to them.
It took me a minute to get this, but you are correct. Maybe they will offer free parking or bus tickets?
@hemidactylus #4
Uber was indeed trying to disrut the traditional London taxi model, however they screwed up badly, too many ways too many times, and no longer have a license to operate in London. Heartbreaking isn’t it?
While I completely agree that Republicans are leading the charge against public education, Dems are far from innocent. Look at Illinois, their budget is in a huge mess which is contributing to underfunding and frankly endangering the state higher education existence and Dems helped get to this point. Again I agree that the current Republican Governor has been the worst actor in the budget mess, it took decades for Illinois to be in the situation it finds itself and Dems at the very least are guilty of kicking the can down the road.
Another example: can you really say Arne Duncan under Obama was a supporter of public education and unions? He was a big promoter of high stakes testing and charter schools. Both of which do nothing to improve public schools.
Electing Dems will help but is far from sufficient to improve the state of education in this country.
yes it is the conservative mind set that is the root of this. it is rooted in the idea that everything should be run like a business, including education. It has all ready taken over religion where the results are judged by money and it’s associated power. So why should not education be run like a business for profit? Why not all of government? That is the thinking here. That Democrats have been some what seduced by this idea is one of the saddest facts of recent history.
uncle frogy
There are ideological issues at play, to be sure. On the other hand, the Internet has created an atmosphere that students can learn material on their own time, on their own pace, and as deeply as they want. Lectures from professors from top Universities are there on Youtube for free. Many good educators are also there sharing their valuable insights into various topics with everyone for free.
As the quality of online lectures (and learning material) converge to near perfection on most academic subjects, there is less and less incentive for students to physically attend lectures. Instructors’ job is becoming mostly about selecting the material and course structure and making sure students learn it. Even that is a challenge with the proliferation of online cheating. So it might make sense for universities to try to hire big names in research (to attract funding and students) but delegate the actual task of teaching things to the students to the Internet (with ever decreasing help from underpaid teaching staff).
Ignoring these facts and just asking for more money will not make things better. The other day, I saw someone on TV who enthusiastically advocated teaching computer science in high schools on behalf of some education lobby. “Don’t teach trigonometry; teach coding”, the host proclaimed (to which thankfully her guest objected!) I understand the frustration, but I don’t think teaching coding is going to help much. Yes, students will learn to compute more efficiently. But what is it they will need to compute?
This is a very hard problem. I think it is probably the pedagogical problem of our times and we may be a long way from solving it.
Lectures is not the be all and end all of education. Real education includes a feedback loop determining how well the students are progressing. Courses and scenarios adhust cybernetically.
Online stuff doesn’t do that and produces poor measures of attainment at best.