Sunday, March 25, 2012

Someone Else Tells Us How Hard Proffies Don't Work.

This article proposes that college faculty are overpaid because we only teach 12 - 15 hour 30 weeks a year. That is all we do. Teach. Maybe, he says, we do some preparation but certainly not 15 hours a week worth.

The comments seem to be 2/3 against him. It is the other 1/3 I worry about. And what number of that 1/3 are my students, who are already unmotivated!

- Dr. Tivo

[+]

Do college professors work hard enough?

Cool, I've done my 15
hours of work.
Off to the baths.
by David Levy

No public expenditure has a more productive impact on a nation’s health than its investment in education. But college costs have risen faster than inflation for three decades and, at roughly 25 percent of the average household’s income, now strain the budgets of most middle-class families. They impose an unprecedented debt burden on graduates and place college out of reach for many. This makes President Obama’s recent statement that college is “an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford” an especially urgent message.

As a career-long academic and former university chancellor, I support this position. But I disagree with the next assumption, that the answer to rising college costs is to throw more public money into the system. In fact, increased public support has probably facilitated rising tuitions. Overlooked in the debate are reforms for outmoded employment policies that overcompensate faculty for inefficient teaching schedules.
Through the first half of the 20th century, faculties in academic institutions were generally underpaid relative to other comparably educated members of the workforce. Teaching was viewed as a “calling” in the tradition of tweed jackets, pipe tobacco and avuncular campus life. Trade-offs for modest salaries were found in the relaxed atmospheres of academic communities, often retreats from the pressures of the real world, and reflected in such benefits as tenure, light teaching loads, long vacations and sabbaticals.

With the 1970s advent of collective bargaining in higher education, this began to change. The result has been more equitable circumstances for college faculty, who deserve salaries comparable to those of other educated professionals. Happily, senior faculty at most state universities and colleges now earn $80,000 to $150,000, roughly in line with the average incomes of others with advanced degrees.

Not changed, however, are the accommodations designed to compensate for low pay in earlier times. Though faculty salaries now mirror those of most upper-middle-class Americans working 40 hours for 50 weeks, they continue to pay for teaching time of nine to 15 hours per week for 30 weeks, making possible a month-long winter break, a week off in the spring and a summer vacation from mid-May until September.

Rest of the Article.

37 comments:

  1. Where did he teach? I don't get any month-long "holiday" at Christmas or a summer vacation either. Christmas is spent marking and preparing for spring courses. Summer is when the research gets done. I gather he never bothered to publish?

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  2. Aha, I missed the bit at the bottom: "David C. Levy, president of the education group at Cambridge Information Group, was the president and director of the Corcoran Gallery and College of Art and Design from 1991 to 2005. He is also a former chancellor of the New School University."

    I don't know anything about either of these places. Do they expect faculty to publish as well as teach?

    In the UK they're under the impression that they can keep university costs down by starting a 2-year rather than a 3-year degree, by teaching through the summers. This would decrease the costs of the students, some, but it would not decrease the costs of running the universities at all (which was the actual point, since the new UK government doesn't care about the costs to students). What it would do, however, is place an impossible burden on the faculty of UK universities, who are far, far past burnout point already, because they have enormous publishing expectations as well as their (already very heavy) teaching commitments.

    This model doesn't work if you expect faculty to publish, and the point of having your teaching faculty publishing as well is because you want them to be actively engaged in their fields, partly because that filters back into their teaching. (And partly of course because it advances the field, which is not trivial either.)

    But perhaps Levy didn't ever have to do those things?

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  3. If I were limiting my work to 15 hours a week, students would get a really crap deal.

    Anyone who assumes that professors who are scheduled to spend 15 hours in the classroom only work 15 hours needs to then also assume that students who spend 15 hours in a classroom only spend 15 hours a week learning.

    If I spent 15 hours a week working, it would mean I'd never do anything to prepare for classes, wouldn't have time to grade homework and essays/projects, I'd never read up on anything new in my field, and would never write or publish anything. I'd simply show up, spout what I learned in grad school, and never grow as an academic. I'd be doing exactly what I hope my students don't do. I'd be deadwood.

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  4. I'll say it: I told you so.

    Not one person disagreeing in the comments bothered to give a breakdown of what they did all last week to get to 40 hours+ of work.

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    1. @SS: it varies week by week, but, when planning, I keep this math in mind: I have c. 90 students. Every time I plan an activity that it will take me 5 out-of-class minutes to respond to, I've just created a full work day's worth of grading for myself (this is assuming that I'm allowed to spend 1/2 hour of an 8-hour work day eating, going to the bathroom, etc. I believe most office workers take at least that much). Yes, many things can be graded in less than 5 minutes (but even 2-minute assignments -- and not many things can be graded in under 2 minutes -- add up), and many, of course, take more; I'll be grading long final projects this month, which take an average of 30 minutes each. I'll also hold 15-minute conferences with each of my students to go over those projects. Some of those conferences are scheduled during class time (in part because it's the only time the students can come), but many aren't.

      Honestly, I'm not always sure myself where the time goes, but it does add up (and when I do keep records, in an attempt to plan the next semester better, I'm always amazed by how much time some of the most mundane but important things take).

      It's also worth remembering that much teaching labor (especially creating assignments and grading the papers that result from assignments designed to challenge students and elicit thinking, not just pre-determined "right" answers) is hard intellectual work, and can only be done for so many hours, or days, at a stretch without a break. Much of the thinking about academic labor makes the same mistake that the old time-motion studies made about physical labor: the fact that a worker can produce at a certain rate for 15-60 minutes does *not* mean that (s)he can keep up the same rate all day, without cost to the worker's well-being and/or the quality of the product. One of the good things about the traditional teaching/research/service triad is that is allows for some variety in academic labor. Teaching-only positions don't offer that, and there's a cost, to the individual teacher, to the students, and to the institution.

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    2. SS: no one who really teaches has to justify their hours. We all KNOW how many hours it takes to teach and it ain't 40.

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    3. Yet we engage this flaky provocateur (aka troll) who appears to have popped on to most every post in the last few weeks to say "I'm a super brilliant engineering student who knows more than you all do and I will make you jump through hoops just because."

      It is Sunday 20:21 and I just finished grading several dozen discussion answers, announced my "presence" on other discussion forums by posting "substantive" commentary, and now, because it is my "free time" I'm downloading some dissertation proposals to read on the couch.

      NO more feeding.
      Oh, because responding in a fashion popular with the youngsters nowadays might get through ... STFU!

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    4. "We all KNOW how many hours it takes to teach and it ain't 40."

      Research paper: "We all know that....". People like me and articles like the one posted aren't going to go away until there's some actual facts brought to the party (like Cassandra did). But why bother with facts when it would get in the way of a solid bitch fest?

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    5. God, SS, you are full of yourself. Lucky for you I keep a work journal. OK then, this past week (Mon-Sun):

      Mon: worked on writing scholarly piece for upcoming invited lecture, 2 hrs. Graded 9 undergrad papers of 6-8 pages apiece, 2 hrs. Finished up 2 syllabi for next quarter's classes (each representing, at some point, about 40 hours of work to rough out in the first place), 1 hr. Collated materials for course readers for next quarter's classes, 1 hr. Edited piece for scholarly journal I edit, 2 hrs. Answered 10-15 professional e-mails, 1 hr. Wrote 1 recommendation for fellowship and read/evaluated colleague file for promotion, 1 hr. Hours: 8 AM-3 PM, 7-10 PM. Total: 10. I have a kid so 6-8 AM and 4-7 PM are for childcare. I exercise and do housework from 3-4 pm.

      Tues: administered final exam, 2 hrs. Met with TA, .5 hr. Photocopied materials for course readers and delivered them to photocopy shop, 2 hrs. I commute 3 hours round trip so that shot that day. Total: 4.5 hours excluding commute.

      Weds: worked on writing scholarly piece for upcoming invited lecture, 2 hrs. Graded 37 final exams, 2 hrs. Graded 4 undergrad papers of 10-12 pp. each, 2 hrs. Answered 10-15 professional e-mails, 1 hr. Read 200-page book pertaining to piece for upcoming lecture, 2 hrs. Hours: 8 AM-3 PM, 7 PM-9 PM Total: 9

      Thurs: worked on writing scholarly piece for upcoming invited lecture, 2 hrs. Graded 5 undergrad papers of 10-12 pp. each, 2.5 hrs. Answered 10-15 professional e-mails, 1 hr. Edited piece for scholarly journal I edit, 2 hrs. Filled out survey for administration, .5 hr. Hours: 8 AM-3 PM, 7 PM-9 PM. Total: 9

      Fri: worked on writing scholarly piece for upcoming invited lecture, 2 hrs. Graded 5 undergrad papers of 10-12 pp. each, 2.5 hrs. Answered 10-15 professional e-mails, 1 hr. Began reading material for first week of next quarter's class, 2 hrs. Hours: 8 AM-3 PM, 7:30 PM-9 PM. Total: 8.5

      Sat: worked on writing scholarly piece for upcoming invited lecture, 2 hrs. Graded 4 undergrad papers of 10-12 pp. each, 2 hrs. Hours: 10 AM-12 PM, 1-3 PM. Total: 4. Unable to work full weekend days because of small child.

      Sun: Graded 4 undergrad papers of 10-12 pp. each, 2 hrs. Logged exam grades and paper grades, .5 hour. Checked each student in-class exercise grades in electronic grade book against hard copy exercises, 1 hr. Returned marked paper to each seminar student via e-mail, .5 hr. Hours: 7 AM-9 AM, 2 PM-4 PM. Total: 4

      Grand total: 48 hours. This a light week, in which I did not teach because it's exam period. Nor did I have the usual 2 hours of committee meetings this week for the same reason, nor did I *touch* the 2 fat dissertation chapters or the 6-8 more articles to edit that lie on my electronic desktop, because I was hurrying to get grades in tomorrow. And this is AFTER tenure and full professor promotions, down from 70 hours before tenure, 55-60 while associate.

      Stockstalker, when you are an actual grown-up, you will feel so incredibly stupid about the things you post here.

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    7. @SS: You seem to think this blog exists for all of us to somehow justify ourselves to you. I spend my days teaching, researching, etc. I justify myself constantly while working (using my expertise while teaching, data and argument during research). Like many others, I use this place to vent. It's an escape from the crap I run into on a daily basis. If you want numbers, go research them yourself.

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    8. "You seem to think this blog exists for all of us to somehow justify ourselves to you. I spend my days teaching, researching, etc. I justify myself constantly while working (using my expertise while teaching, data and argument during research)."

      Oh, stockstalker doesn't understand these concepts. This is too big-boy-big-girl for him. He still hasn't figured out the whole concept of intended audience--that is, that this blog is, yes, a "bitch fest," not a justify-your-existence blog. I run into students all the time who think that everything they read and think about should be specially tailored to their interests. It's just narcissistic entitlement.

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  5. Has he noticed, I wonder, just how much the ranks of "senior faculty" have shrunk, and just how much an administrative burden the remaining few must carry (to the point that, even leaving research out of the equation, they're effectively on a 12-month schedule, unless they want to work 60-80 hours a week during term time)? Yes, some of the senior faculty who remain are earning fairly decent salaries (though at least at my state R2 in an area with very high cost of living, the average, at least for a humanities proffie, is well at the low end of his $80,000-$150,00 range), but there are very few of them, and their numbers continue to dwindle. And they have to supervise growing ranks of low-paid contingent faculty who do most of the actual teaching -- and who, incidentally, collectively already are teaching, and have for some time been teaching, up to *120* contact hours a year/60 contact hours a semester for c. $80,000 (c. 2,000 per 3-credit course for an adjunct = c. $666/credit-contact hour). Yet, despite teaching labor being such a bargain these days, tuition costs have been rising. So maybe the cost of teaching labor isn't the problem?

    His premise that a 50/50 contact hour/prep&grading split is reasonable is also way off, at least in the writing-intensive classes I teach, and I suspect also in many other fields. And it's only going to get further off as we try to implement more and more active and online learning, which require a lot of design and redesign and writing instructions (and re-explaining instructions to students who don't understand, and answering emails from students who "didn't make it" to class but want to know "what they missed" -- that's probably another 15 minutes per contact hour right there).

    If somebody can figure out how to do my job in 24 hours a week (contact hours X 2), I really wish they'd tell me, since I could use the extra time to do research (or, since I *don't* make anything near $80,000, get a second job). I could certainly make headway in that direction if I had a secretary to answer student emails with obvious answers, do basic/mechanical updates to assignments and prompts (e.g. changing dates from semester to semester), maintain class LMS sites, etc. (and I'd guess that, when Levy did teach, he had such help, as well as, perhaps a grader, which probably helps explain his tendency to underestimate the time involved in teaching). Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that a competent secretary would cost more per hour than I do.

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    1. Oh god, that is so true, GG. I worked on one of the campus offices part-time when I was a grad student. They would give me "projects" to work on that would take about a day to complete, tops. They'd be shocked at how "fast" I worked, as most people in the office spent *weeks* on the same sort of tasks. People just find ways to fuck around all day while "looking busy." The desk of the woman I had come in to replace was full of paperback romance novels.

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  7. Uh huh. If you work 40 hours a week with a two week vacation, I still work more total hours than you even if I do nothing over summer vacation but sit in my hammock napping and drooling. And I'm a high school teacher--I don't do any research.

    60 hours a week is a conservative estimate of how much I work. I almost never have weeknights to myself, and weekends are iffy. I usually spend part of the weekend grading or planning. I always tell people that we all work the same number of hours, I just cram them all into 9 months.

    Oh, and I'm not counting reading in my field into my work hours. I do that in my "free" time.

    I'm not saying I feel oppressed--I'm reasonably compensated and I love my work. I believe that what I do matters, and I'm willing to work hard at it. I'd rather stay up late working on something meaningful than clock out at 5 after going through the motions at some job I don't care about.

    But when people say teachers have it easy, well. That's when Surly gets surly.

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  8. Most professors I know work far more than 40 hours a week. I'm not a professor myself, just a lowly grad student, and I certainly don't take any vacations. I DO teach through the summers--uh, most universities stay open during that time.

    However, during my time away from the university, I worked in both the private and public sectors. Most employees (the "hard-working middle class" Levy talks about) probably spend only about 15-20 hours a week engaged in productive, meaningful work. The rest of that time is spent diddling on the internet, talking to coworkers, dicking around, dozing through meetings, sitting through "professional development" seminars, and dealing with other crap that routinely comes up.

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    1. The last part is probably true. When I interned I was working 13 hour days 6 days a week...partially because I was getting paid for all this and partially because I was bored if I wasn't working. The full timers kept saying I was making them look bad. At the time I thought they were joking...now I don't.

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  9. Well, what the precious ex-chancellor didn't factor in, is that the ranks of professors are by and large decreasing, that most profs at state universities don't make 88-150k a year, that the "upper middle class Americans" he compares professors with don't have terminal degrees ("advanced" does not equal "terminal"), that 12 hours in the classroom does not equal twelve hours spent working on that class, etc.

    I would riddle the ex-chancellor this: why is 12-15 credits considered "full time" for students? Because 12-15 credits translates to 36-45 hours spent on school, which is the equal of a full-time job. Students cannot take 40 hours of classes each semester. Because each class requires that the student spend two hours outside of class for each hour in it.

    Does this asshole really think professors spend LESS time on their classes than their students do? Does anyone think that? Anyone that thinks that is a stupid fucking moron.

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    1. That's EXACTLY the point I was trying to (less eloquently) make: that students signed up for 15 hours don't only spend 15 hours learning, so why assume faculty are doing the same.

      And if I were paid anywhere close to $80,000 (I make half that), I might feel less resentful about working 18-hour days (on weekends, too).

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    2. But ...

      There was a court case where a clinical psychology PhD who graduated from a distance delivered program sued when her license application was denied claiming that attending over 500 hours of face-to-face seminars met the state's requirement of a "year in residence."

      The suit was lost when the judge ruled ... not making this up ... that it was obvious that 500 hours did not equal ONE FULL YEAR of seat time. Apparently, the Honorable Judge Doofenshmirtz really believes a year of coursework means a student is present in class for 8.760 hours.

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    3. TCC, I'm so right there with you--as a tenured associate proffie, I make $45 k for a 4/4 load.

      When I worked in the private sector (investment banking as a researcher), I was paid overtime, and when I was called in to work on Saturdays, I got overtime *and* a free lunch!

      In the public sector, when I work on Saturday and Sunday (most weeks out of a 15-week semester), all I'm doing is dropping my salary per hour into the toilet. Hooray.

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  10. the ranks of professors are by and large decreasing, that most profs at state universities don't make 88-150k a year

    The article is cleverly misleading in that way. It states that "senior faculty" at "most state universities" make this kind of salary; what it fails to mention (and what it hopes that no casual reader notices) is that "senior faculty" make up such a small fraction of college teachers that this statistic is basically meaningless.

    Not to mention the fact that people don't become "senior faculty" by working 15 hours a week.

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  11. If this were a student paper, what grade would you give it?

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    1. Depends on the assignment. If it's a rhetoric or advertising class with a focus on serving clients' needs at all costs, inconvenient facts be damned, then it's a B, B+

      If the prompt had to do with actually improving educational access and quality, then a D for research, a C for writing, and an F for failure to reveal conflicts of interest and cite sources.

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  12. He keeps talking about "most state universities," but the institution he reserves particular scorn for is Montgomery, the community college. He seems to think that if teaching is the main focus of one's profession, all one does is teach. My college's expectation is that I will be equally engaged in teaching, college service, and professional development. That means extensive committee work, not just at the department but in the college and even the system (which means driving time). Many of these committees meet for half days or even full days, and few meet for less than two hours.

    It means attending all kinds of workshops on campus and maybe even getting to go to a local or regional conference a couple of times a year and present if I'm lucky. I'm not just supposed to know my field. I'm also expected to learn about whatever educational fad is out there this week, master the latest technology, get my students appropriate help for everything from being beaten by their boyfriends to not having food on the table to melting down in my class, and stay abreast of whatever new way the state legislature is going to screw us this year. Were I not already at PhD level, it would be expected that I'd take graduate classes to advance myself too.

    As well, we are not replacing academic advisers at the rate we're losing them to retirement because we have a new mission to make all faculty advisers. The advising department now handles brand new (as in "I've never attended college before anywhere") students. We're expected to handle the rest. If they have a technical major, I'm supposed to send them to the nursing department or welding or whatever; otherwise, all professors are supposed to be able to handle all arts and sciences advising. If an engineering or sociology major shows up, I have to handle that person.

    These people who "only" teach, grade a few papers, and engage in minimal prep exist, but they are either adjuncts who know better than to give too much service to us as we aren't hiring and won't be for the foreseeable future, or they are lazy proffies with lenient chairs. The former shouldn't even be a part of this as an $80K+ salary for an adjunct would require someone who doesn't sleep or eat, teaches at multiple institutions, and lives in a van down by the river. The latter might be there only if they're silverbacks with doctorates and over 30 years of service. They are a tiny minority of my colleagues. I usually finish my "15-hour work week" some time on Tuesday. Sometimes it even happens on Monday if a lot has piled up.

    As I'm in the South, the word "union" in any context elicits nothing more than contempt. We have no collective bargaining. It's written into policy that no engagement with any organization that does collective bargaining is legal. We get what our governing body gives us, and that's that.

    He gets an F for research and for conflating different types of institutions.

    Now if you'll excuse me, I have a report to write for my dean that I've been working on since January, four lecture files to revise for tomorrow, a set of committee data to analyze, and students who expect me to be online to answer their questions about those British hamster novels. I anticipate being up till at least midnight working.

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    1. But you have it so easy, with all those vacations and weekends.

      F, indeed!!!

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  13. Why do we engage this little stalking pisher? Just let him be. Please.

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    1. Given that the newest resident troll has admitted that he trolls other websites as well, I also vote for ignoring him. I've seen nothing of value from his posts.

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    2. See,this is what the "reply" button gets you -- I hit "reply" above. I keep thinking the idiot is educable, that maybe he doesn't know any better. I swear it's just stubborn stupidity on my part and I apologize.

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    3. Though I agree with Darla's sentiment, and will endeavor to keep my own figure off the "reply" button, I'm glad you posted your list, F&T. Since this is a public forum, and Levy's piece has been receiving a good deal of attention in the academic blogosphere (most of it, from what I've seen, negative), we probably have to consider that SS is not the only audience for that comment thread. And that was an impressive list.

      I also agree that he appears, currently, to be like the kid who occasionally does chores around the house, and can't figure out from that what his stay-at-home parent (who is not only doing many times the housework but also planning and keeping track of all the tasks involved) does all day. It's the difference between a managerial job (even if one is mostly managing oneself -- and, of course, one's students) and an hourly one where somebody else does most of the thinking.

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  14. Meh.

    I get my salary from two gigs that are easily painted with a broad "don't work very hard for their money" brush.

    David Levy can come walk a mile in my shoes in either job (beginning with to and from the parking lot) and then talk about how overpaid I am.

    He can do this right after he bites my shiny metal ass.

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  15. One thing left out in this 'article' is the performance factor of teaching. Unlike lawyers and architects, who keep time logs and are paid in 15 min increments, we're paid for our expertise, which includes 'performance.'

    Teaching a group of students takes a great deal of energy and focus. The classroom part really takes more energy than the 75 minutes of actual time.

    Personally, I like to remind myself that acting guilds such as SAG limit the hours an actor can work, no matter if they are Julia Roberts or Betty Sue Smith. There is a 12 hour turnaround time, including commute to film set. I don't know about others, but there are plenty of terms when I don't get this 12 hour turn around! Frankly, there are too many days when I try to open my front door with my office key.

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    1. Another good point. It's also worth noting that many authors who support themselves mostly by their writing are quite candid about being able to work intensely for only 3-4 hours a day (or, alternatively, for very long periods every day for only a few months at a time). Intense intellectual work isn't easy, and often benefits from the worker walking away to do something else, preferably something relatively physical and mindless. It's true for research, but it's also true for teaching: if I can walk away from grading a set of papers while I still have a brain cell or two functioning, I'm far more likely to work out, as I'm doing dishes or taking a walk, what common problems the students are having, and perhaps even how I might redesign assignments, exercises, etc. to help them. One of the most frustrating things about my current grading load -- and the absence of any sort of committee work in my job description -- is that I rarely get a chance to reflect on what I'm doing, and how I might do it better.

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  16. David Levy is an assclown! I spend no less than/a minimum of 7-8 hours PREPARING for every 2 hour lecture - and quite often I'm hitting double digits. So that's an EASY 20 hours per week spent just on lectures for the two courses that I teach!

    Mind you, this is my first time teaching these two particular courses, but still. And as many you have alluded to - what about marking??? Assignments, tests, exams, and final projects. And what about the time it takes to develop/write these up? And what about office hours and the time spent responding to countless e-mails?

    I'm also involved in yet another hiring committee for my faculty AND working on my own research for the diss. So, suffice it to say, 9 - 15 hours per week AND loads of time off is nothing short of a fantasy, asshole!!!

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  17. Just what we need, another douchestain (I'm thinking of trademarking that)to feed the public fire about the overpaid teachers.

    At my CC, I have upwards of 100 writing students each semester (up to 120). I'm expected to give them each individual attention, and I do. The variety of skills among these students--and the transitory nature of their attendance--makes my job even more difficult. In addition to that, I am required to keep six office hours per week. Teaching, prep, grading, and office hours together is about 40-45 hours each week. I also share a 10-by-10 office with another full-timer, and there is zero way to get any work done during office hours, so I take it home all the time.

    That's just what's expected of me to teach. On top of that, I'm expected to engage in professional development regularly, serve on department, discipline, and college-wide committees (and the work for those varies), serve the college by volunteering my time for various events and programs, and each of the full-time faculty members in my discipline is expected to do more and more each semester because of an unofficial hiring freeze in our area. (When I was hired in, two people had retired and two others had been given re-assigned time. I was the last person hired in and that was four years ago--even though our enrollment increased by fifty percent a year later. Yes, five-oh percent.)

    I make a decent wage with good benefits, but nowhere near what Levy is citing. I can't remember a vacation that wasn't spent doing work for the college, somehow--either in terms of preparation, or responding to student complaints from the semester that just ended, to committee work, even while off the clock. From September through May, I'm utterly exhausted--and increasingly admonished to do more by the administration.

    I won't apologize for my middle-class salary. It took a lot of education (at my own expense) and nearly twenty years of teaching for me to get to this point. I'm tired of being attacked for living an allegedly cushy life.

    Where are the articles in the MSM countering douchestains (I really like that word) like Levy? It feels like we're fighting a losing battle on all fronts. Administrations push us to work more and become more like customer service reps every day. Students arrive in our classrooms increasingly under-prepared. (I still can't believe that I'm teaching people how to separate sentences with a period in a college-level composition class, on a regular basis. I won't even go into their critical thinking skills.) Students think that we're the enemy. The public thinks we're the enemy. The longer I'm in this business, the more demoralized I become.

    Then douchestains (three times!) like Levy come along and trash us, again.

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