Monday, May 30, 2016

From Fab.




8 comments:

  1. Hmmm.

    Curve? No.

    Tenure? No, but maybe in another fours years which makes me one of the lucky ones.

    Tweed? No. Nor leather elbow patches. But only because I haven't found the right twead yet.

    Teach? Well, I call it teaching; the question is are they learning?

    make so much? Hahahahaha. Tell another one. I mean, it's about enough for this hick town, but that's all it is.

    One-and-two-halves out of five isn't bad. Well, actually, it is bad. It won't even get you to "D is for done" territory in my classes (what did I say about curves?), but it could have been worse.

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  2. Curve? Modestly and not nearly enough to suit some of my students. When you use at least 4 letters in the grade distribution, that'll happen.

    Tenure? Non tenure-track

    Tweed? No.

    Teach? I teach because some of them actually want to learn, are willing to work to learn and actually end up learning. They keep me going.

    Make so much? To get paid the same salary as a rookie tenure-track colleague, I'll need about a 50% raise.

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    1. Oh, my. I'm with you on that last one (well, not quite 50% any more, but that just means that my salary has actually crept up a bit over the course of almost 20 years, and that my tenure-track colleagues' salaries have not kept up with inflation, let alone the local cost of living). I've got a pretty good contingent job, as contingent jobs go, but I'm still looking for an explanation of why the people whose work brings in most of the tuition revenue get paid less than those who teach half as much (and I'm not knocking the value of research or service, both of which I'd like to do, just wondering about the economics of it all, including the fact that I have more need to save for an uncertainly-timed retirement, or an unexpected layoff in middle/early old age, than my tenure-track colleagues).

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  3. I curve alarmingly.

    Beer is not no friend of the middle-aged waistline.

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    Replies
    1. Too true. And a twelve-unit a semester teaching load is not conducive to sufficiently regular gym session to allow a claim of "but it's mostly muscle" to be taken at face value.

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  4. Curve: Because we prefer not to keep smashing straight into the wall.

    Have tenure: mostly to piss off corporate types and their sympathizers who think that it shouldn't exist because stability in any educational system is best achieved by Thunderdome or Hunger Games-like "competition". (But their golden parachutes are obviously totally necessary.)

    Wear tweed: because all our vicuna and sharkskin suits are at the cleaner's, duh!

    Teach: to pass the time between meetings, strategic planning, faculty "development", team-building, etc.

    Make so much money: because we don't get paid enough for what we do, so we are justified in printing it ourselves.

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  5. Curve? Yes, as a result of hunching over my computer/students' horrible handwriting for 10-12 hours a day most of the year, whilst eating badly

    Tenure? Abolished in our system. I am 'continuing' which is about as good as it gets

    Tweed? No. It's not very forgiving - black, droopy, with added lycra is more my look.

    Teach? Because I can't help it. And occasionally, someone learns something about something that matters, and it's wonderful.

    make so much? Make so much WHAT? Hot air? Effort? I don't know why I make so much effort most of the time...

    --Grumpy Academic--

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    Replies
    1. ;-) Grumpy, you appear to have copied the template from your neighbour, Pumpkin, with the identical mismatched capitilisation and missed words. Always best to check the instructor's directions yourself ;-)

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