Well, my unpopular suggestion (and this applies only to the more elite scholls) is that radicals support heavier teaching loads and smaller classes. Older professors just looking for an easy do-nothing sinecure will get the hell out. The basic problem of tenure among professors, compared to tenure among school teachers, is that a tenured prof can basically show up for as little in some cases as six hours of teaching per week using old lecture notes, dump all grading responsibilites on TAs, and then relax the rest of the time.
Of course, good professors spend much of their free time doing research and advising students, but there is no real control on those abusing the tenure system. And this does make adjuncts, paid almost solely for their time spent teaching (as opposed to profs being paid partly for expected research time) look like a bargain. In one sense, while the proliferation of adjuncts is an attack on academic workers, it is also a political statement that many states and schools prefer to spend a higher proportion of their money paying directly for teaching rather than research.
Higher teaching loads would mean tenured profs would spend more time on teaching, less on research, and this would make tenured profs better match the teaching-work ration that many of those paying the bills would rather see.
Let me reinterate that this proposal applies only to the more elite schools where teaching loads are light. My attitudes on this frankly data from the California budget crisis of the early 90s when I was pretty disgusted that tenured "left" professors at the University of California were quite willing to discuss slashing student services and classes, but wouldn't even consider adjusting their teaching loads to keep education costs affordable.
--Nathan Newman
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
> Sent: Sunday, September 12, 1999 12:16 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Cc: pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu
> Subject: Graying Professoriate (from the Chronicle of Higher Ed)
>
>
> Any thoughts on the Graying of the Professoriate from lbo & pen-l
> subscribers? I think that the Graying of the Professoriate is obviously a
> consequence of fewer tenure-track jobs and more dependence on adjuncts
> which have been a hiring trend for the last couple of decades.
> What should
> be the response of left-wingers in academia to this? Yoshie
>
> ***** from _the Chronicle of Higher Education_, available at
> <http://www.chronicle.com/colloquy/99/aging/aging.htm?promo>:
>
> A new survey of faculty members at U.S. colleges found that nearly a third
> of full-time faculty members are 55 or older, compared with about
> a quarter
> a decade ago. At the same time, the proportion of professors who
> are under
> 45 has dropped from 41 per cent to 34 per cent. Statistics like
> those have
> led some younger faculty members (and would-be faculty members)
> to complain
> that older scholars are staying in their jobs too long -- creating a tight
> job market and depriving academic departments of the vigor and new ideas
> that younger scholars bring. Other scholars say that these changes are
> simply a result of higher education's being covered by age-discrimination
> laws, and that colleges -- just like other employers -- should not assume
> that older employees are less capable. Is the aging of the professoriate
> creating problems for higher education in its impact on the job
> market? Or
> in the way classes are taught and research is conducted? Should
> colleges be
> allowed to have mandatory-retirement ages? What, if anything, should
> colleges do about their aging faculties?
>
> For further information, see this background story:
>
> The Graying Professoriate (9/3/99)
>
> 37 RESPONSES (New 9/6)
>
> JOIN THE DEBATE *****
>