It is possible to live yet better. I need a lot more exercise and a lot more sleep than I actually get, even though I get quite a lot of each. I also a lot more time in nature, a lot more time on the sidewalks, and a lot conviviality and art.
In any case, it is when I am working that I so regret the lost years. It is so obvious that had it been possible to really work the way people do, I would know more than I now do. Some people say they could have been stars, and are just talking; I however, think it is actually true of me, and that repressing this has been my issue.
Anyway, quest’é la mia vita, as I keep saying, and all I can do is point out frivolously that at least I did not decide to utterly ruin my looks for the sake of a really good professorship, as my neighbor did.
♦
In political news, part-time faculty without benefits make up 40%, not 76% of the corps teaching at colleges and universities today, per the AAUP report from which the 76% figure was lifted. I want to know how many of the 76%, and the 40%, have the Ph.D. (or, I suppose, the requisite terminal degree, by which I do not mean the M.A. in Ph.D. granting fields).
The other 26% are T.A.s and FTEs not on the tenure track. Tenure track and tenured faculty are still only teaching 24% of the courses. By turning the 40% and the 24% into FTEs off the tenure track, would we solve our problems? If pay cuts to the 24% are to pay for the 40% (who would no longer be 40%, since they would be FTEs and not part timers), how much will everyone be paid?
Note: I am only interested in the arithmetic here — I have a strong suspicion we would all be going to the beginning instructor rate and teaching 4/4. Later we can talk about what else would be gained and lost; I only want, for now, to know what the teaching load and salary would be if everything were averaged for everyone.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 