> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Nathan Newman wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> Who does this "raising the teaching load"? And what are the values
> that that "someone" will embody in the actual bureaucratic procedures
> by which teaching loads are raised?... Proposed reforms that suggest
> a change without changing the sources
> of power are my definition of really naive utopianism. (The same
> principle applies to supporting Australian troops in East Timor.)
Ah, Carroll breaks his rule about not responding to my posts.
The question is what progressives should be fighting for, not the exact method. If we assume total powerlessness among progressive forces, of course there is no reform that can accomplish anything useful. Which is wonderful for those who think denouncing other activists is the main point of political discussions.
The idea, though, that the University is a site of power where progressives have no power is as silly as those conservatives who claim Marxists are running the whole show. Student activists are located within spitting distance, employee unions exist on many campuses and progressive faculty have a voice, if not control of the pursestrings. Since we are not discussing socialist revolution but an arena of pure moderate reform- ie. clearing out deadwood older faculty and improving equity WITHIN the professoriat class - the stance of political powerlessness is just rhetoric.
It is hardly a radical idea that many professors teach too little, research banal useless topics at the expense of students, and stay on too long in positions long after they should have retired. Some progressives defend this system because out of all that waste, an eyedropper of useful progressive research is produced.
I had little desire to become an academic, so the squeeze in academic jobs bothered me personally not at all. But it pains me greatly that fellow grad students dedicated to their students are giving up on academia because it is so impossible to get a permanent job. If teaching loads were increased, those good grad student teachers would still go into the academy and the next generation of students would benefit from their skills.
Most voters - the working class folks paying the bills with the regressive sales taxes that fund most state universities - expect their money to pay for teaching their kids. Sure, some research is needed to keep ideas flowing and curriculum advancing, but most research time goes to esoteric dreck that no one other than tenure review boards have any interest in. But there are plenty of allies in the world for making teaching a far higher priority on campuses than it is today.
--Nathan Newman