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.
badgersdaughtersays
Well… now I want to see a picture of you when you did. :)
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.
You can totally nail the cranky, cantankerous crackpot professor though PZ. Your big Hollywood role is just waiting for you!
numerobissays
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.
mykroftsays
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.
brettsays
@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.
Great American Satansays
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.
numerobissays
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.
wcorvisays
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.
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.
numerobissays
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.
Larrysays
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.
Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhDsays
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.
numerobissays
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).
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.
Well… now I want to see a picture of you when you did. :)
Me, too.
Especially if there was a bow tie.
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.
The oldish professor with the bad hip?
…arrow to the knee…
Bow ties are cool.
You can totally nail the cranky, cantankerous crackpot professor though PZ. Your big Hollywood role is just waiting for you!
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.
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.
@numerobis
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).