Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Instructor Load



A couple of comments. First, in reference to George Spagna's
posting. Is "flexibility" really a "faulty business model?" It
seems to pay royal dividends in the one area which businesses seem to
count, namely the short-term bottom line. The appeal of hiring temps
has to be enormous. At the community college where I teach
part-time, we are paid 55% the rate of full-time faculty per contact
hour, receive no benefits to speak of, and our loads can be expanded
or contracted in response to needs. From an administrative
standpoint, we must represent the ideal book-balancing labor force.
If any administration has great concern for the creation of an
underclass, living paycheck-to-paycheck, and term-to-term, I'd be
very interested in hearing about them. In my (very limited)
experience, they are mainly trying to model themselves after the
business world.

In reference to Michael Bowen's posting, I don't know if the
applicant pool would be improved enormously for a permanent position.
The community college where I teach recently hired a new full-time
physics/astronomy instructor, and I heard complaints about the lack
of qualified applicants (they did find a couple, one of whom they
hired). This might, however, be a "California thing." We have
Sillycon Valley just over the hill, and the local cost of living has
recently jumped into the obscene range, driven mostly by an insane
housing market. I, for example, wouldn't have considered applying
for the position, because the salary was completely inadequate to
support a family.

I'm also interested in hearing how much flexibility people have in
assigning hours to faculty members. My impression was that most
places paid faculty based upon a certain number of contact hours per
week, ie. lecture/lab/office hours, and so you are required to teach
a certain number of courses. Everything else (committees, lab
equipment repair, prep time, etc.) seems to get piled on top of that.
================================
Stephen D. Murray
Physicist, A Division
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Email: sdmurray@llnl.gov
Phone: (925) 423-9382
FAX: (925) 423-0925
================================