> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Nathan, professors were supposedly granted sinecures to give them
> the freedom to find and express the truth regardless of the consequences.
Of
> course, a good number of progressives have been fired, often supposedly
for some
> other cause, but sometimes the authorities have admitted that politics
was the issue.
> You can give us more classes, and some might quit, but you know
> that teaching is such that you can just reduce the time that you put into
each
> class. To get rid of the deadwood, you must have teachers who feel a real
committment to
> education.
First, what I said does not apply to CSUs where teaching loads are often pretty high to begin with on most campuses I know.
But the broader point is to increase the emphasis on the value of teaching and decrease the emphasis on research. If teaching is valued, you will get more good teachers. You will no doubt lose a few good teachers also looking for time to do research, but you will probably lose even more deadwood that don't enjoy teaching and often don't do particularly great research either.
In the ideal world, I would support union organizing by faculty to raise wages and standards for adjuncts and lecturers, expand the number of tenured positions, and demand that teaching be a respected part of tenure decisions. But given the fact that so many tenured profs, even lefty ones like my old Sociology Dept at Berkeley, don't lift a hand for such causes, pragmatically, raising the teaching load seems like the only way to force change in the system presently developing.
To be honest, I might encourage progressives to raise the demand for higher teaching loads specifically to force faculty off their asses. Again, back in the budget crisis in California, it was only when undergrad activists began publicly discussing teaching loads as one part of the solution that faculty began panicking and you saw some start trekking up to Sacramento to lobby against the budget cuts.
I'm sorry; when I saw supposedly leftwing faculty discussing why they should kick all non-sociology majors out of their classes as a budget-cutting move, then add that they should allow business school majors in to keep alumni money support in the future, my respect for the ivory tower as an intellectual refuge dimmed considerably.
--Nathan