2 Tracks for Faculty

Autor/in	Wilson, Robin
Titel	2 Tracks for Faculty
Quelle	In: Chronicle of Higher Education, (2012) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0009-5982
Schlagwörter	Teacher Effectiveness; College Faculty; Tenure; Doctoral Degrees; Educational Change; Graduate Students; Labor Force; Masters Degrees; Educational Finance + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Effectiveness of teaching; Instructional effectiveness; Lehrerleistung; Unterrichtserfolg; Fakultät; Amtszeit; Beschäftigungsdauer; Doctoral degree; Doktorgrad; Bildungsreform; Graduate Study; Student; Students; Aufbaustudium; Graduiertenstudium; Hauptstudium; Studentin; Labour force; Arbeitskraft; Erwerbsbevölkerung; Bildungsfonds
Abstract	The academic work force has been transformed over the past several decades, less by design than out of expediency. In 1969, professors who were either tenured or tenure-track made up 78 percent of the faculty. Those working part time made up only 18.5 percent. By 2009, those proportions had almost flipped, with tenured and tenure-track making up just 33.5 percent, and those working part time nearly 50 percent. As college budgets have tightened, part-time adjuncts have become an irresistible source of labor for many colleges and universities. Compared with tenure-track faculty members, they are much cheaper, easier to hire and fire, and use up much less space and other resources. But as the ranks of adjuncts have grown, organizations like the New Faculty Majority have made adjuncts' displeasure with their jobs a national cause. Higher-education associations wrestle with fixing the system. The Modern Language Association, for example, has suggested paying adjuncts nearly $7,000 per course, up from the $2,000 to $3,000 per course that most currently earn. But what if the academic work force were made up primarily of two types of faculty members? One, a small proportion of tenure-track professors--those who earn doctoral degrees, do research, train graduate students, teach advanced seminars, and help administrators run the university. And two, a larger portion of full-time instructors who teach undergraduates, help advise them, keep up with developments in the field by reading and attending conferences, but do no research. Instead of earning Ph.D.s, like those on the tenure track, instructors could stop with a master's degree, as many in the adjunct teaching pool already do. Creating a new graduate degree would allow people to train specifically to be college instructors. That's in contrast to what happens now. Everyone who wants to join the professoriate starts out training for a doctorate, but many end up dropping out and taking an adjunct post as a fallback, or do so even after they have earned a doctorate, because they cannot find a tenure-track job. People who studied specifically to be lecturers and were hired as full-time instructors would have both training and expectations that better met the reality of the job. And presumably that means they would be happier, more effective teachers. (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	Chronicle of Higher Education. 1255 23rd Street NW Suite 700, Washington, DC 20037. Tel: 800-728-2803; Tel: 202-466-1000; Fax: 202-452-1033; e-mail: circulation@chronicle.com; Web site: http://chronicle.com
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10