You and I had very different college experiences, I had maybe a handful of professors who were worthless but most of them actually knew wtf they were talking about and were experts in their fields (many of whom were still working in addition to teaching).
Edit: I guess what I’m trying to say is: teaching is easily the hardest part. Noone in academia except for some masochists want to teach more than the bare minimum. Everyone wants to do the “work in addition”.
Job negotiations revolve around how much of your life you have to spend in the classroom and how much you can do your other work. The other work can be academic research or industry collaborations or consulting, but that just depends on individual preferences. I prefer the academic option because I can do whatever I want, others prefer industry because it can pay better
Are you an academic? These job types are attempts by administration to precarize academic work.
Adjunct is a last resort option, you can still stay in the system but have very little prospect of ever getting a permanent job. It signals to others that the uni doesn’t really want you but takes your labour if you work hard and cheap enough, so it’s harder to apply elsewhere. Some universities try to pivot into this, so that most of their staff loses negotiation power and is easy to get rid of and replace.
Visiting is code for limited contract or unpaid locally with funding from somewhere else. The university doesn’t complain if they get free labour with no strings attached, but it’s not like the majority of people do this out of choice. Sure, if you’re full prof somewhere, your can also visit your bro in a nice city for a semester, but that’s the exception.
I’m not going to disclose my background for privacy reasons, but regardless of the reasons behind such positions, they exist and are fairly commonplace.
One thing I will say is that it’s been much more institution based. Usually the quality instructors are clustered.
And it’s not clustered in “perceived” quality of institutions. I’ve been to some community colleges and ‘backwoods’ universities, as well as research one, top tier schools. No correlation between institutional reputation and instruction quality. What I will say is that the schools where instructors are more empowered and in control, the instruction was far higher quality.
Agreed. I think it may be influenced by the degree in question. BSChE had some top level folks. One was prominent enough to figure out and have his own method.
I just checked again and he’s put out a ton of papers and been cited literally thousands of times. Probably explains why he forgot to come to class sometimes. Banging away on papers in the office.
Pretty neat considering how little I’ve accomplished.
You and I had very different college experiences, I had maybe a handful of professors who were worthless but most of them actually knew wtf they were talking about and were experts in their fields (many of whom were still working in addition to teaching).
As a teacher this made me chuckle
Edit: I guess what I’m trying to say is: teaching is easily the hardest part. Noone in academia except for some masochists want to teach more than the bare minimum. Everyone wants to do the “work in addition”.
Job negotiations revolve around how much of your life you have to spend in the classroom and how much you can do your other work. The other work can be academic research or industry collaborations or consulting, but that just depends on individual preferences. I prefer the academic option because I can do whatever I want, others prefer industry because it can pay better
Didn’t you have to go to college? If so, I am very surprised you’ve never heard of adjunct professors, professors of practice, or visiting lecturers.
Are you an academic? These job types are attempts by administration to precarize academic work.
Adjunct is a last resort option, you can still stay in the system but have very little prospect of ever getting a permanent job. It signals to others that the uni doesn’t really want you but takes your labour if you work hard and cheap enough, so it’s harder to apply elsewhere. Some universities try to pivot into this, so that most of their staff loses negotiation power and is easy to get rid of and replace.
Visiting is code for limited contract or unpaid locally with funding from somewhere else. The university doesn’t complain if they get free labour with no strings attached, but it’s not like the majority of people do this out of choice. Sure, if you’re full prof somewhere, your can also visit your bro in a nice city for a semester, but that’s the exception.
I’m not going to disclose my background for privacy reasons, but regardless of the reasons behind such positions, they exist and are fairly commonplace.
It’s a mixed bag. I’ve had both extremes.
That’s life in a nutshell.
One thing I will say is that it’s been much more institution based. Usually the quality instructors are clustered.
And it’s not clustered in “perceived” quality of institutions. I’ve been to some community colleges and ‘backwoods’ universities, as well as research one, top tier schools. No correlation between institutional reputation and instruction quality. What I will say is that the schools where instructors are more empowered and in control, the instruction was far higher quality.
Agreed. I think it may be influenced by the degree in question. BSChE had some top level folks. One was prominent enough to figure out and have his own method.
I just checked again and he’s put out a ton of papers and been cited literally thousands of times. Probably explains why he forgot to come to class sometimes. Banging away on papers in the office. Pretty neat considering how little I’ve accomplished.