A Moving Read About the Adjunct Underclass
(Inside Higher Ed)
Thoughts on a new book by Herb Childress
By John Warner
Normally the only contingent faculty career that could bring me to tears was my own, but the latter stages of The Adjunct Underclass: How America’s Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission by Herb Childress had my eyes filling sometimes with sadness, sometimes tinged with anger.
In earlier times that anger might’ve been rage, and more plentiful than the sadness, but there is a passage in the latter third of the book that struck me as true and I could not muster the necessary emotional resistance to be angry, rather than sad:
Eventually, I came to realize that tenure was already dead. In fact, for most of us, it had never been alive…. (continue)
(Inside Higher Ed)
Thoughts on a new book by Herb Childress
By John Warner
In earlier times that anger might’ve been rage, and more plentiful than the sadness, but there is a passage in the latter third of the book that struck me as true and I could not muster the necessary emotional resistance to be angry, rather than sad:
“There will always be teachers, sure. But the idea of ‘the faculty’ is as dead as the idea of coal; it’ll carry on for a while because of sunk costs and the gasping demands of those still left in the industry – but really, it’s gone.”Looking back through my posts on this site I see a clear evolution in my own attitudes towards these issues. Early on I see someone eager to fight the trends, attempting to rally opinion around shared values and mutually beneficial goals.
Eventually, I came to realize that tenure was already dead. In fact, for most of us, it had never been alive…. (continue)
1 comment:
We hive lost a lot - which is not a surprise but I am losing hope because it seems so few care about what is gone. They are satisfied with mediocrity. I found this part of the article insightful:
Childress leaves us with a vision drawn from what he calls his “four guiding principles” of how higher education institutions should be oriented:
“A worthy college works to foster and to respect its web of relationships. It is a culture shaped and steered by its faculty. It places everyone into a place of continual learning. It asks for regular public demonstration of that learning.”
Sounds good to me.
Here is his description of life lived under the opposite of these four principles:
“A college should privilege content knowledge over the people who carry it. It is a business steered and shaped by its managers. It places people into fixed roles of fixed expertise. It examines and measures the proxies of learning, evaluated only be an internal disciplinary audience.”
That's where we are, isn't it?
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