Times & Tenure

This story from the NYT about the diminishing prevalence of tenure in American colleges and universities in their top-stories feed. I think that they do a decent job presenting the basics, but—as is always the case&mdahs;miss some of the larger issues that are presented with diminishing tenure track positions.

While the story talks exclusively about public universities and all of the examples cited here are non-flagship public universities, the same trends can be seen in private universities as well. The number of tenure-track positions is drying up across the board. While the administrators may cite the lack of public funds and the inconsistency of public funding from states (or cities and counties for many community colleges), this trend is not entirely due to the the lack of funds. It is true that public higher education has suffered in recent years and often the non-flagship universities are hit harder than the flagship universities^[1], but if it is also happening at private and flagship universities there must be something larger. Furthermore, this trend is coming at a time when tuitions are so high that Congress is considering action and endowments of many universities are through the roof.

Much of the problem stems from the fact that many universities are employing WalMart-like management strategies. WalMart, the biggest private employer in this country and largest retailer in the world, perfected the art of "just-in-time" delivery of goods. Rather than paying for the manufacture, shipping, and storage of a huge inventory, they honed the method of supplying just enough product to meet demand with as little time as possible. No sense in those Christmas hats sitting on the shelves on Boxing Day when they couldn't be sold until the next year. Get just enough to meet demand, get more delivered next-day if you run out and constantly re-stock the shelves straight from the delivery truck. The same now works for professors teaching classes. Rather than having a full-time job with job security, professors are hired on semester contracts. Their pay, healthcare (if they have it), retirement benefits (again, if they have it), access to the library and university facilities lasts for those 17-weeks. If the department has enough enrollment, the professors receive a full course-load—if not, well...I hope that they planned on getting half the paycheck or less for those four months.

What ends up happening to many of these professors is that they try to line up a full-time teaching load by stringing together three or four jobs at three or four local institutions. In Michigan, as the NYT article mentions, professors would go from U-M Ann Arbor to U-M Dearborn to Wayne State to one of the several community college systems in the area. While they are teaching full time, they aren't getting full-time benefits because they technically have three to four different employers. The pay is bad, healthcare is either not offered or unaffordable and they are lucky if they have an office in one of the four campuses, nevermind all four.

Just-in-time operations for retailers may work^[2], but for educators it is a disaster. Professors, at their best, are supposed to be working with students to provide them the tools they need to understand the world, both for their future employment and as engaged citizens. They are not lawnmowers, lawn gnomes, cheap clothes or groceries or any of the other thousands of items available at WalMart. They are not a product on a shelf waiting to be taken home by a family paying the lowest price. When a professor is teaching four classes at four different campuses without an office, they aren't providing office hours, answering student's questions, contributing to the service functions on campus - all of the things that allow professors to have a real impact on students' lives. No, they are driving interstate highways rushing back an forth, trying to grade one exam in time to receive another that day. And, of course, forget term papers or semester projects that allow students to expand their knowledge to their own interests. In the ever-demanding just-in-time world, they give tests that can be answered by scantrons (if they are allowed to use the grading machine). Ultimately, education as a whole suffers and students who have the most tenuous grasp on a college education, first-generation college students, minorities, working mothers who are enrolled at community colleges and local state universities are the ones who are forced to deal with this the most.

It's a deplorable situation that needs to be fixed. If Congress, state legislators, education policy wonks and others are serious about fixing American higher education, then this is a problem that urgently needs to be addressed. Otherwise, no amount of fancy new tech center, student gym or other expenditures made possible by the egotistically exorbitant gifts by donors so that they can view their name a building are going to matter if the professors mandated with teaching the students can't teach.

Cross-posted at Free Exchange

^[1] In my experience, this is in no small part due to the fact that many state legislators are often alumni of the flagship universities and tend to be less so for the non-flagship local campuses. Supporting a local branch of the state university system is seen as garnering pork for your constituents but trying to get money for the state flagship universities as part of one's alumni obligations is seen as noble -- and is one of the few things that can cut across party lines.
^[2] Of course, there are also major problems for workers and communities for the just-in-time methods of corporations like WalMart as well.

Hope for Higher Ed?

A couple of weeks ago, I posted on the dismal state of higher rd and argued that, without changing the perception college as a commodity good, i.e. students show up, get "filled" with knowledge and leave -- with their A in hand -- to get a business-based job, then then higher education doesn't stand a chance of overcoming the crazies in this country.

Since then, several articles have come out about how higher education is becoming an issue for the 2008 campaign. Beyond that, the K-12 education system has gotten a lot of press about the renewal of the program that seems more destined to destroy our public school system than it is to substantially reduce any inequality in educational outcomes. So, it seems, my pessimistic portrayal of any lack of concern over education seems to be misplaced.

That is not to say, however, that just because education, "K-16 Education" as we liked to call it in Michigan, is getting attention means that anything substantive is necessarily going to come from the debate. Luckily, it seems that, too, is a waivering in my usual optimism and not true. The most public and detailed of these plans is that created by John Edwards called the College for Everyone initiative. Among the things that the plan does would be to create a program for the first year of college to be paid for any student who is willing to work ten hours a week during the year for students who have shown effort in their high school curriculum.

While I want to post on the relative costs and benefits of this plan in a separate post, what I am excited about is the prospect that (via Inside Higher Ed):

In the last week or so, higher education appears to have arrived as a 2008 campaign issue. Democratic candidates are vying to be the boldest defender of student loan borrowers and one in particular — John Edwards — has issued proposals that are unusually detailed for this early in a campaign. And in a sign that Edwards’s move was noticed, Barack Obama followed Tuesday with a plan of his own. [my emphasis]

It is nice to know three things. First, that higher education is a priority and Obama seems to feel the need to react to a major initiative put out by Edwards. Second, that this is one of those issues coming out at the beginning of an election cycle with the possibility of creating a major campaign issue. Also, it would be nice to see this become enough of an issue that the Republicans are asked about it to which all of them would probably look somewhat like a deer in middle of a highway with a Mack truck barrelling towards it. I also have to think that presenting something like this policy so early in the campaign shows that, despite my proclamations to the contrary, people really do care about higher education policy. Finally, it is also nice to know that Edwards has enough of a real shot that Obama and Clinton are scared of him. I have not entirely made up my mind on a candidate, but I am sick and tired of deciding who are "top-tiered" and "second-tiered" candidates based on how much money one has raised a full nine months before the primaries start (well, maybe), and it is, therefore, nice to see Edwards who is somewhere in between have enough of an impact to drive one of the "top-tiered" campaigns.

[Update: Forgot to add a title. Oops!]

Prioritizing Education from the Ground Up

In my quest to become an informed blogger in this new endeavor, I have been trying to read lots of blogs. Mostly a few articles from each and then move on... Except for the few blogs that inspired me to begin blogging myself (see Dave's, Wobblie's and DR's) I have found a few interesting posts, but nothing that really shook me. But then, I found the Education Policy Blog which looks fascinating.

These are people who believe that we should be "examining education from a social foundations perspective." It is really amazing. Among other posts on this blog are a five-part series titled Community Organizing and Urban Education and a summary of the AFT's report on the deteriorating conditions of schools in the United States (the summary can be found on the Education Policy Blog and also on teacher ken's DailyKos Diary. This looks like an amazing collection of people who are really commited to the endeavor of teaching from kindergarten through graduate degrees.

It brings up an interesting question for me as I have worked on various projects in the AFT-Michigan: how can we work together in this country to build an education system that is just and fair? It seems to me like it is always difficult to answer the working together part for me. For some reason higher education is often pitted against K-12 education ("More money for them is less money for you").

I think that the answer can come in focusing on the students. K-12 students become our students in higher education (not all, but many). I believe that any differences can be hammered out if we all agree to work from a common context and I believe that this frame gives us a common context that we can all commit to. It is obviously something that needs a lot more thought, and thinking through how to get groups to work together is more than a simple framing of the subject, but I believe that this can be a way to begin that conversation. If there is anyone out there interested in commenting on what they see as a way to possibly get this to work, please comment!