Dear List Members,
In reply to Dr. Refling's comments, I thought that her urging the
importance of non-tenured faculty having a political voice in departmental
and university policy-making was very perceptive. Now in my fifth year
teaching as a "visiting," (at three different institutions) I am still
amazed that no one invites me to sit on departmental committees let alone
the fact that I have no voting voice in the faculty senates. Perhaps a
temporary employee might feel smug at not having to do the service that
tenured faculty does, but I for one really feel marginalized and inferior
by this lack of contact with the day-to-day issues of running a
department. "Proletariate" is the perfect description. With certain
industries now trying to emulate the Japanese model of including line
workers in management decisions, it is amazing to me that higher education
--where one would hope to find cutting edge thinking-- allows a huge mass
of its employees to remain in the dark about upper-level decisions. All
the better to control /exploit us, I suppose.
I have also observed (in an institution that shall remain unnamed)
dreadful exploitation of TENURED faculty who are denied pay raises and
promotions probably so that new hires can be given competitive salaries.
The phenomenon of "wage compression" as it is called: even full professors
who were good teachers, won research grants, attended conferences and
showed evidence of being "active" in the profession fell into this pit.
My point is that, to follow up on Dr. Refling's call for political voice
and unionization, even the tenured-level faculty should begin thinking in
these terms. As Refling states, quite correctly I believe, there is no
time-clock to punch and so we willing bow our backs, assigning ourselves
more and more tasks to accomplish to make ourselves better professionals
or perhaps to be more competitive or win promotions, but who is dictating
these long hours and personal sacrifices? Also, I would like to point out
one difference between a professional in the private sector putting in
60-hour workweeks and an academic doing so: the financial rewards are
much greater or much more likely to be forthcoming in the private sector
(I am speaking as a person with managerial experience on more than one
occasion).
In accademia, especially in the humanities, a grueling schedule of high
productivity does not net percent raises, profit-sharing, etc., but
results in scholarly publications or contributions to which no price tag
is attached. Ideally, publications/service help earn raises and
promotions, but since there is no clear formula on this, by doing more and
more are we not simply driving up the expectations of administrators and
hiring committees, increasing the amount it takes to be a player in the
game, without any guarantee of job security or financial reward.
Just some ruminations...
Gloria Allaire
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