Many conservatives have noted the problems associated with unaccountable tenured professors, but equally pressing issues that result from employing part-time faculty often go unnoticed. Victor Davis Hanson wrote in last year’s education issue in NRODT:
Since expensive faculty members are often not replaced by similar permanent professors upon retirement, some 52 percent of the teaching faculty is not tenured or even on a tenure track. This trend, which is occurring not just at CSU but across the nation, is poorly reported — surprising, given its illiberal nature. The new horde of outsourced part-timers, many equipped with Ph.D.s, can be paid at a far cheaper per-course rate, often without benefits or employment protection. CSU has come to resemble ancient Sparta: absolute equality and privilege for the depopulated peers inside the system, rampant exploitation for the growing mass of helots outside it. Few worry that students cannot find their adjunct instructors for a meeting during office hours, or that those who increasingly do the teaching have no input in the governance of the university.
While part-timers with decent paying day-jobs can bring real-world experience and dedication to the classroom, it seems to me like most part-timers are struggling writers, artists, and graduate students, or professors who try to cobble together careers solely by teaching a large number of part-time classes.
My school, George Washington University, employs the lowest percentage of full-time faculty in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report. It’s baffling in my view that the average part-time English professor here is paid $2,600 to teach a semester-long course, when tuition is $1,260 per credit for entering freshmen.
I discuss these issues today in The GW Hatchet and argue that fiscal priorities should be focused on academic pursuits rather than frivolous items ranging from diversity training and STD testing to subsidized rock concerts and housekeeping for freshmen.
I’m also a big proponent of placing information such as student evaluations and course syllabi online, as sunlight is the best disinfectant and all that jazz. I realize that many cite student evaluations as a cause of grade inflation, but if universities published the grades of students alongside course syllabi and student comments (with names redacted of course), then at least employers would have a better idea of the rigor of college classes and be aware that B+ is the new C, as Stanley Kurtz noted in his recent piece on grade inflation.
I suspect there’s a wide range of opinion on the benefits or ills of hiring part-time professors, and I’d be delighted to hear some thoughts from other Phi Beta Cons.