University Affairs

Interesting. Last week I asked if you thought the use of contract faculty in universities ultimately enriched or eroded university education. So far, nobody has selected ‘enriched’. Granted, this is hardly surprising given the options presented and the context in which the question was asked. Nonetheless, it does reveal a dilemma that has faced virtually every PhD that has graduated in the last generation.

Apparently many, if not most of you feel the (increasing) use of contract faculty is negatively changing what it means to be educated in a university. But do you feel strongly enough about this to draw the line in the sand and say ‘no’ I will not participate in destroying the quality of university education by actively, even enthusiastically pursuing whatever contract positions I can land?’ Will you take a stand against your administrators, as did the adjunct faculty at York earlier this year, and risk being passed over for a CLA (contractually limited appointed) or miss a shot at a coveted tenure-track position?

Probably not. Most revolutions are halted before they gain momentum by the sheer necessity of earning a living, preferably through meaningful work. And face it, in the scheme of things, except in particularly abhorrent cases, working in a university does has its rewards, and is satisfying at some level, which is what keeps so many adjuncts returning year after year, rather than leaving academe altogether. Besides, after spending years working towards a particular goal, it’s no small thing to walk away because of principles or ideologies.

The days of academic Camelot are over and show no sign of being resurrected in the foreseeable future. This sad reality is the new reality in the ivory tower. The global political economy, the evolution of capitalism and the rise computer technologies are forging tectonic changes around the planet on institutions and traditions that have endured relatively unchanged for millennia until now. What make us think universities alone should be impervious to these forces?

Where does that leave you? This is a time of revolution in the universities, and your role in that revolution is for you to decide. At least do not forge ahead blindly. If you don’t know what the labour issues are in your university, get the facts, talk to your more experienced colleagues – adjunct, tenured, and tenure-track. And pay attention to what you see happening around you.

When change happens, it is often the case that what is lost is initially more obvious than what is gained. I think academe is currently in that space. Each of you must decide where you will put your professional energies – protesting the losses, or creating the gains.  Or maybe there is a way to do both …

The Chronicle of Higher Education has been taking another look at the life of adjuncts. In one of the most balanced approaches to the subject I’ve ever seen, they have released a series of first person videos of adjunct faculty describing their experiences as adjuncts. If you have ever though about following this path, or fear you may not have any choice in the matter, you owe it to yourself to take a look at these. They are unabashedly frank stories. They are also beautifully filmed and edited – kudos to the production team! Here’s a summary clip – individual segments are on the site (text continues below).

Some of the speakers seem to be pretty happy with their positions. These folks generally have other sources of income which ‘adjuncting’ supplements, or several positions at different colleges. The rest would prefer tenure track positions, but for one reason or another aren’t able to land one – not surprising these days – so are trying to keep the doors to academe open. These folks form two sub-groups: the resigned and the bitter, and I do mean bitter.

All the speakers seem share several important characteristics. They all love to teach and put a great deal of (unpaid) time and effort in to ensuring their students’ learning experiences are positive. They all express a deep passion for their fields of research and they have all felt marginalized or ostracized by tenured or tenure track faculty for not being ‘real’ academics.

In Canada, some universities have experimented with multi-year contracts for full-time teaching associates, a trend covered in University Affairs last year. This strategy was intended to help university administrators meet the teaching demands of burgeoning enrollments without sacrificing the quality of their institutions’ research. Since one academic simply can’t keep up with both demands, they divided the expectations between two – one whose sole function was to teach, the other who taught but had increased time to research.

Not surprisingly, faculty associations, and indeed most people concerned about the universities growing reliance on cheap, undervalued contract faculty were considerably less enthusiastic. Undeniably, it provided a welcome respite from the annual uncertainty of most contract faculty, but I suspect wholesale adoption of such practices would bring the labour disputes felt so strongly in Ontario this past year across the country.

Where do I stand on this? Well, for the most part, I am in the camp of academics who are appalled by the working conditions of most contract faculty in Canada and believe that the percentage of faculty forced to work their entire careers in such circumstances is eroding the quality of university education in Canada.

Having said that, I do recognize there are probably hundreds of contract faculty, especially those truly working part-time in one institution by choice rather than trying to stitch a living together across multiple institutions, who are absolutely satisfied with their positions. In fact, I may end up joining those ranks myself. I believe strongly that there is an important role for contract faculty in academe, especially where they can bring the perspectives and experiences of non-academic contexts into the classroom. But contract faculty should never be used to replace tenure track faculty or as a an administrative solution to a budget crisis.

For those of you on the tenure track, or intending to go that route, please listen to the videos on the link above, and remember, should you actually realize your dreams, that contract faculty are your peers, your colleagues – perhaps even more skilled than you in some areas. Treat them with the respect that any highly trained professional deserves, that you hope to be treated with if that’s where your path ultimately leads you.

In the meantime, where do you stand on this?

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I’ve been attending a few sessions by various governmental departments recently, and I’m struck by the change a couple of years can make. One of the few employers that actually pay higher salaries to employees with higher education, the federal government seems to finally be acknowledging that graduate students, across a broad range of fields, have valuable contributions to make to Canadian society, and is developing programs and career paths to attract them to public service.

A few of these opportunities for graduate students in the government have crossed my desk, so I thought I’d pass them on to all of you.

The first one is the Fall 2009 Recruitment of Policy Leaders (RPL). This is open to Master’s and Doctoral level students who “want to make a contribution to public service after a proven record of success” while demonstrating ‘exceptional’ leadership skills in both academic and volunteer contexts.

They seem to be most interested in folks graduating December 2010 with policy interests in economic, political, legal, social, or scientific fields.

The submission deadline is coming up fast – October 19^th, 2009. If you want to know more, check out the site: http://jobs-emplois.gc.ca/index-eng.htm.

Another rather interesting opportunity ties graduate-level research through a collaboration between the Public Service Commission and the Canada School of Public Service - the area that is responsible for the development of public servants. It’s called the Students Providing Aligned Research and Knowledge (SPARK) — I’m not kidding.

It provides a mechanism for connecting graduate-level research projects directly with government departments that would be interested in the research findings. Unlike most initiatives at the federal level, this one is available to both domestic and international students.

You conduct research at your home institution, although you may need to present your findings to the sponsoring organization, in which case all travel and associated costs would be covered. You must have a professor interested in supervising the research. And you will be paid throughout the project – the amount depends on the project. Projects currently available are posted on the Research Affiliate Program (RAP) – and as new projects become available they also will be posted. Look for those projects identified as SPARK program projects.

While you’re on the Public Service Commission site, look around. There’s a lot of information there that might be interesting for those of you looking for an alternative to a viable academic career. At least those years dealing with university bureaucracies will come in handy for something!

If you haven’t yet, take a few minutes and browse through the new batch of videotapes from Congress this year on Academic Blogging. Although this may seem like shameless self promotion since yours truly is one of the panelists, I do think that blogging presents an interesting variation of social networking for academics. It’s not unusual now for faculty to have a website outlining their research, publications and CVs, but apart from occasional updates, these are rather static affairs.

Academics blogs however offer a much more dynamic way to disseminate your thoughts and encourage dialogue and input, akin to the days of yore when academics had time to regularly discuss their research with colleagues, often over a brew in the local pub. Alas, those days rarely, if ever exist for today’s faculty. Blogging can be an alternative that may not be as satisfying socially, but nonetheless has the potential to fill an important gap left when academics can’t manage to meet face to face due to conflicting schedules, time zones or distance.

The most prolific academic blogger in my field, Henry Jenkins is a senior-level faculty whose blog is a cornerstone in the area of participatory culture, which he founded. However, blogging can also be a useful vehicle for emerging scholars. A well-designed blog with thoughtful posts can establish the value of your research in your area of expertise. And, it can also provide a ‘way in’ to your field for undergrads seeped in the culture of social networking for whom traditional academic journals may initially be too much to digest. By providing a link to your blog on your homepage and doing a little shameless self-promotion amongst your family, friends, colleagues and students, you will be able to establish a respectable following over time.

It’s not necessary to post daily, but to keep your blog interesting, try to post regularly. Providing an RSS feed will make it easier for people to follow your blog, as they will be notified whenever you post new content. If running your own blog seems like a huge commitment, consider starting a blog focused on a hot topic in your field with a couple of your colleagues. You can take turns composing posts, and the diversity of voices will add variety to the blog and prevent it from getting stale.

The blogging tool I am most familiar with is Wordpress. It is both accessible for the neophyte and freely downloadable from http://wordpress.org/. You can post text, graphics, audio and video content, as well as links to other sites. Wordpress also provides a neat app for adding polls and quizzes into your blog that can boost the interactivity of your readership. By inserting a range of media and resources, you will keep your blog stimulating and enjoyable to read – and hopefully one that others want to link to, as well.

While blogging will never be a substitute for scholarly publication, it can be a useful addition to your academic profile. It may come in handy during a job search or T&P process. If there is an academic blog that you think is well done, please post a link to it on Career Sense so we can take a look. It would be great to have a range of samples from various disciplines.

I recently had this article brought to my attention. It’s about the ‘problem’ of master’s students (specifically in sociology) going out on a job search. One of the issues raised by the author, Scott Jaschick (one that’s equally applicable to many liberal-arts disciplines)  is the difficulty non-academics have understanding the relevance of the discipline outside the university.

Interestingly, Jaschick cites economics as a field much more transparent to outsiders than sociology. That certainly has not been my experience in the 12 years or so I have worked in a career services centre.  He attributes to Roberta Spalter-Roth,  head of research for the American Sociological Association, the rather contentious claim that “part of the problem is one of semantics, combined with the reality that many career services offices don’t know as much as would be desirable about sociology.”

Unfortunately neither Jaschik nor Spalter-Roth seem inclined to back up this statement with proof.  Nor do they adequately acknowledge the logic that that if people outside the field don’t understand the career relevancy of what it takes to earn a degree in that field, then what we have is a failure to disseminate the information rather than failure to understand it.

Over the years I have spent advising graduates from sociology, economics and virtually everything else, one observation is excruciatingly clear:  students themselves are no more aware of the breadth and depth of the skills and knowledge they have acquired at university than anyone outside their discipline.  No wonder so many balk at the job search – it’s hard to argue that you are ready, willing and able to make a meaningful contribution to the world if you have no idea what you have to offer.

If, as Jaschik’s article seems to indicate, academe is moving to a two-pronged system, offering degree paths in both academic and non-academic tracks, then universities will have to change the way they talk about their programs.  Not only must they sufficiently articulate the value of the latter outside academic fields but also they need to disseminate this information aggressively – to the public that is funding their existence and to the thousands of graduate and undergraduate students who seem to be haplessly wandering through halls of academe with no clear understanding of what will be of significance once they leave.

This is something to keep in mind if you are considering a non-academic career path. If you don’t make the value of your abilities and aptitudes explicit in qualitative terms, it is unlikely any employer will a have an accurate idea of what contribution you can make because of your academic background, not in spite of it.