coldhearted scientist وداد

I

Now we have discovered that the people who normally teach the multisection course I and one other colleague suffered through this semester have secretly rewritten the textbook, to make things more tolerable. They do not teach from it but from their rewritings. These are secret so that we can preserve the illusion of having a common program.

What I do not understand is why we did not simply choose another book in the first place. But the ones who have now rewritten this one are the ones who were wedded to it and clamored for it, especially after the charming representative of the publishing company took us all out to a very fancy dinner.

I am told that the reason we do not choose another book is that instructors without research degrees cannot be expected to tolerate change. In deference to exploited instructors and adjuncts I, too, am to undertake a rewriting, a project which will eat further into my research time.

This plan seems very impractical to me since many textbooks for this course already exist. And if it is true that instructors – whose salaries in comparison to the Southern Regional Average are better than ours, and whose responsibilities are far fewer – cannot be expected to tolerate change, that is only yet another reason to hire some professors.

II

When I moved here over fifteen years ago they were just transitioning out of the grammar and translation method of language teaching. They seemed to effect this transition, but now it seems to have returned to stay. High schools teach that way, students believe in it, student evaluations determine whether an instructor is rehired, so instructors do it. Instructors also believe in it.

One instructor does not believe in it. He believes in pattern drills and model texts – the methods I was taught with. This is considered too old fashioned. Students hate him and he never gets as high a merit raise as others do. But only his students are able to speak and write when they reach the upper level courses.

The other thing I find very retrograde is the way culture is taught. Students read texts written for students which repeat well worn generalizations and stereotypes. To read an actual cultural text is considered too hard for them but I think the meaning of that is that it would be too intellectually challenging for some faculty.

III

At work I am terribly diplomatic about all of these things, perhaps too much so. And I realize I am not being at all kind in these pages about instructors and adjuncts, and that this is not “politically correct.” But I think the current cult of kindness about instructors and adjuncts is part of the assault upon research lines, and I do not find that these M.A.’s from various local universities have the same kind of education, expertise and experience professors do.

They are also not as exploited as professors. They have never considered sacrificing as much as professors have for the sake of the profession, they are not now asked to sacrifice as much. Their responsibilities are far fewer and they only teach one more course than we do. Their actual (although not official) job security is far greater than that of an untenured assistant professor.

Many although not all their lines have as much money in them as beginning to mid level professor lines have. And when an assistant professor does make more than an instructor, it is only enough to pay for the professional travel and research expenses they, and not the instructors, must undertake, and which the university, especially since Katrina, does not fund.

IV

Still I would not be ranting and raving against the instructors if in order to compensate for their putative exploitation they had not been given full control of the lower division curriculum, and if I did not then at upper levels have to deal with the results of this.

Axé.