Monday, February 4, 2013

Melvin from Melrose Does the Linked Article Thing Beautifully, Flava, Link, Comment. Man, It's Got It All! And the Angsty. Don't Forget To Have Some Angsty.

Here's some misery from the Chronicle for a Monday Morning.

First some flava:
Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and a longtime English professor, earned $82,022 in 2011 for teaching at Northern Virginia Community College. Her salary information came from the couple's most recent tax return.
Ms. Biden began teaching English at the college in the spring of 2009 as an adjunct faculty member. In the fall of 2009, Ms. Biden was hired to fill a full-time faculty position that had a two-year appointment, and then she became a full-time associate professor in the fall of 2011, said George Gabriel, vice president of the college's Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment. Mr. Gabriel said the college followed the normal search process, which included Ms. Biden having to apply for both full-time positions.
I work at a comparable state CC. I teach 5/5. I have the same rank. If I wanted to even get close to her salary, I would have to teach overloads and summer school. Teach a 3/3 at a CC? Really?

There is no tenure at NVCC, and as a VA state agency, there is no union allowed. So, those who are equal in rank and experience work 1/3 longer for roughly 1/3 less money. Wonder if the other candidates would have been offered this deal?

Politics are bad enough among academics. Now we have politics on politics.


17 comments:

  1. In the barnyard, some animals...

    get strafed by Strel!

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  2. I teach 3/3 at one CC and 2/2 at the other (so, 5/5 for the nonmathematically inclined)and I make less than $28,000 a year. Apparently what I need to do is marry a vice president and move to Virginia.

    Fuck this shit.

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  3. "The average pay for associate professors at the college is $67,100".

    So, basically she's making another 15K or so. Honestly? I think that's a pretty small amount for all the absolutely free publicity that Northern Virginia Community College gets in return.

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  4. that's actually in line for pay for a full professor with experience in the area. NOVA is a large school with a healthy budget and is probably better-regarded than most CCs academically. It's closer to being a "regular" 4 year state school than it is to most CCs. Give it a football team and a couple frat houses and it's the University of Fairfax.

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    Replies
    1. Do you work at NVCC?

      You must not.

      Because I can assure you that it is not even close to being a 4 year college. In any shape or form. Nor does it have a wish to become a 4 year college.

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    2. my apologies. I know some profs there and was judging by their comments as well as from some of my students who went there.

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  5. But check out her RMPs! Either she's good, or a WH intern is doing a great job...

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    Replies
    1. If I were married to Joe Biden I'd be getting good reviews too. Put anyone famous up in front of students and they will get good reviews. Kim Kardashian could spend a whole semester just hawking her own perfume and talking about Kanye and they'd think she was God's gift to the classroom.

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    2. Imagine the multimedia offerings!!

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  6. At least it's not a Republican this time. . . .

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  7. I wonder what Joe Biden would be paid to do the same job.

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  8. I ran into a colleague of hers at a conference once, who insists that she's a wonderful colleague, and also explained that the credit-hours thing for developmental English is a bit complicated at NVCC: apparently sections of developmental English have associated labs/tutorials that also count as credit hours/FTEs (but don't generate additional grading or much in the way of prep). So I suspect she's officially teaching a 5/5. Mind you, those lab/tutorial sections tend to go to the full-time faculty (or at least go to the full-time faculty before the adjuncts). So yes, for a CC, it's a pretty sweet gig, even when you take into account the local cost of living, which is pretty high (let's just say that Joe Biden's salary is far more typical for professionals in the area than Jill's).

    On the other hand, teaching developmental English is tough work, and the longstanding recommendation from the Association of Departments of English and the Conference on College Composition and Communication is that instructors of writing-intensive classes should be teaching a 3/3, 2-prep load at most. So maybe she's just teaching in decent conditions? If so, maybe we should be holding up her situation as an example of what should be the case for all college faculty, CC and up, rather than wondering why she's making out so well. I do think there's some privilege at work here -- both in how she landed the position, and how full-time continuing vs. adjunct positions are structured at NVCC -- but I'd hate to characterize her situation as somehow unreasonably luxurious. She's still spending a lot of time reading work by students who aren't ready for freshman English, even by today's pretty lax standards.

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    Replies
    1. "Developmental", that's it! Just yesterday I was trying to remember the current PC euphemism for "remedial" ...so thanks.

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    2. I'm glad she got a sweet deal because that's what she SHOULD be making. I teach 3/3/3 (quarter system), three of which are developmental courses, and make $30 less as a full professor at a SLAC in one of the most expensive counties on the West Coast (and by "most expensive" I mean cost of living). I'm going to ask that she lobby for all of us to be paid what we deserve.

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  9. I wonder how she deals with plagiarism?

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