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California community colleges rely too much on part-time faculty; misspend funds

bakersfield.com

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Re: California community colleges rely too much on part-time faculty; misspend funds

#11

Post by epicureanideal »

jseliger wrote: post #2

I've taught a bit at Arizona community colleges, which also rely heavily on part-time faculty. There are many more people with grad degrees than demand for them from universities, resulting in the obvious when supply exceeds demand: https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/universities-treat-adjunc... . In the 1945 - 1975 period, demand for faculty exceeded supply: https://jakeseliger.com/2010/01/21/problems-in-the-academy…

> But it's probably not happening.

I really wish they’d allocate Covid-like money to R&D or prizes for solving various challenges like curing diseases, which would drive universities. However first remove the bloated administration and DEI/Woke Discrimination Industry.

Re: California community colleges rely too much on part-time faculty; misspend funds

#12

Post by the_jeremy »

jseliger wrote: post #2

I've taught a bit at Arizona community colleges, which also rely heavily on part-time faculty. There are many more people with grad degrees than demand for them from universities, resulting in the obvious when supply exceeds demand: https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/universities-treat-adjunc... . In the 1945 - 1975 period, demand for faculty exceeded supply: https://jakeseliger.com/2010/01/21/problems-in-the-academy…

> birthrates fell off a cliff in 2009

US births per thousand fell from 13.8 to 13.5 from 2008 to 2009, less than a 2% decrease. There wasn't a sudden cliff; US birth rates have decreased every year but 9 (1979-1988) from 1950 to 2019, going from 24 in 1950 to 12 today. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/birt....

Re: California community colleges rely too much on part-time faculty; misspend funds

#13

Post by xzel »

epicureanideal wrote: post #11
jseliger wrote: post #2

I've taught a bit at Arizona community colleges, which also rely heavily on part-time faculty. There are many more people with grad degrees than demand for them from universities, resulting in the obvious when supply exceeds demand: https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/universities-treat-adjunc... . In the 1945 - 1975 period, demand for faculty exceeded supply: https://jakeseliger.com/2010/01/21/problems-in-the-academy…

> But it's probably not happening. I really wish they’d allocate Covid-like money to R&D or prizes for solving various challenges like curing diseases, which would drive universities. However first remove the bloated administration and DEI/Woke Discrimination Industry.

> I really wish they’d allocate Covid-like money to R&D or prizes for solving various challenges like curing diseases, which would drive universities.

They already do via DARPA, NIH and medical patents. Making a drug and selling it is the prize for solving a challenge like curing diseases.

Re: California community colleges rely too much on part-time faculty; misspend funds

#14

Post by epicureanideal »

xzel wrote: post #13
epicureanideal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it's probably not happening. I really wish they’d allocate Covid-like money to R&D or prizes for solving various challenges like curing diseases, which would drive universities. However first remove the bloated administration and DEI/Woke Discrimination Industry.

> I really wish they’d allocate Covid-like money to R&D or prizes for solving various challenges like curing diseases, which would drive universities. They already do via DARPA, NIH and medical patents. Making a drug and selling it is the prize for solving a challenge like curing diseases.

Let’s add a zero to that (as a string).

And add things like adversarial research to try to disprove findings, etc.

Re: California community colleges rely too much on part-time faculty; misspend funds

#15

Post by SoftTalker »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #6
gedy wrote: post #3

In this case, I'd say I very much liked that the community colleges I attended in California had part-time faculty that were working in the industry. I feel the quality of education for some classes was better than what I received in university. (Thanks Mrs. Wong (Math) and Mr. Vedrin (EE)!)

The sad thing is that major universities are filled with researchers who are distracted by pushing on the frontiers. They often do a very basic job with teaching.

> The sad thing is that major universities are filled with researchers who are distracted by pushing on the frontiers.

Or simply writing enough grant proposals to cover their salary and lab expenses for another year

Re: California community colleges rely too much on part-time faculty; misspend funds

#16

Post by zpzapper »

The best professors I had at CCC's were part time and actually worked outside of the Academia bubble. Gave a lot of very relevant advice and information. Some were full time researchers at UC's or nearby schools on research as well instead of Tenured faculty paid to not care.

Re: California community colleges rely too much on part-time faculty; misspend funds

#17

Post by xmddmx »

jseliger wrote: post #2

I've taught a bit at Arizona community colleges, which also rely heavily on part-time faculty. There are many more people with grad degrees than demand for them from universities, resulting in the obvious when supply exceeds demand: https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/universities-treat-adjunc... . In the 1945 - 1975 period, demand for faculty exceeded supply: https://jakeseliger.com/2010/01/21/problems-in-the-academy…

Background: the California Master Plan for Higher Eduction (1960) essentially set up a system of free college education to all residents.

It was slowly chipped away until "free" became "not free".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Master_Plan_for_Hig...

The Adjunct job title makes sense in certain situations, but when a college system is relying on Adjuncts for the majority of credit hours taught, simply to save money, this becomes a problem.

Re: California community colleges rely too much on part-time faculty; misspend funds

#18

Post by thaumasiotes »

the_jeremy wrote: post #12
jseliger wrote: post #2

I've taught a bit at Arizona community colleges, which also rely heavily on part-time faculty. There are many more people with grad degrees than demand for them from universities, resulting in the obvious when supply exceeds demand: https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/universities-treat-adjunc... . In the 1945 - 1975 period, demand for faculty exceeded supply: https://jakeseliger.com/2010/01/21/problems-in-the-academy…

> birthrates fell off a cliff in 2009 US births per thousand fell from 13.8 to 13.5 from 2008 to 2009, less than a 2% decrease. There wasn't a sudden cliff; US birth rates have decreased every year but 9 (1979-1988) from 1950 to 2019, going from 24 in 1950 to 12 today. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/birt... .

The birth rate seems less important to the universities than the raw number of births. Though as with the birth rate, nothing in particular happened in 2009: https://www.statista.com/statistics/195908/number-of-births-...

Re: California community colleges rely too much on part-time faculty; misspend funds

#19

Post by tsumnia »

themodelplumber wrote: post #7

I used to be a PT teacher at my local California community college, in the art department (graphic design, illustration, Photoshop, Illustrator, web design, etc.). I definitely heard from other teachers that some things were off (that seem like they could be related), but who knows if they were really related to the use of funds described here. I taught for just a couple of years and I was told that my classes were a…

> Still, it was kind of annoying that some students only wanted that. When you have massively-high-achievers and middle-age homeless students with obvious struggles in the same class, the UMC people angling for their particular needs and also trying to min/max every class start to seem kind of off-putting. Not to blame anybody really, but it had a real feeling of inequity-upon-inequity to it.

As a former CC instructor and adjunct, I will say that these students have really helped my mindset as I continued through with my PhD. I had former forklift drivers, single mothers, etc. as students and it really made me think about activities like homework - the reality is that they did not have the same amount of time to work on homework like the traditional 18-25 demographic. Rather than shrugging my shoulders and saying "oh well", I would block out time in class so they could work with me available, started my YouTube channel to avoid minor emails, etc.

NC State is more a traditional 18-25 demo, but I've tried to carry on the same mindset. These are people with their own things going on in life. Since I allow attending lectures via the web stream, I've found out that I've had students attending while waiting to pick up their children from school.

Re: California community colleges rely too much on part-time faculty; misspend funds

#20

Post by batman-farts »

It's not always people with industry jobs taking these part-time positions; there's a whole subculture of "freeway flyers" who are teaching at multiple community colleges, and sometimes lower-division classes at private universities, while trying to break into a full-time position. A few years after I was in his class, one chemistry professor I really enjoyed burned out from doing this and disappeared from all his classes in the middle of the semester. The replacement professor apparently wasn't at all prepared to step in, and the students had to petition the dean to have their grades thrown out and retake the class.

That's obviously the worst-case scenario I encountered, but I heard other tales of people like a math professor shuttling back and forth between Merced and Contra Costa counties every week. A biology professor I had was making a go of it doing half the week at Contra Costa campuses and half the week at USF, and told me her situation was not at all uncommon, even in the Bay Area. There's definitely a precariat associated with keeping the community college system going, which is a damned shame because it's the most accessible rung on the ladder. Perhaps the state will be able to do something about this, but it's understandably wise to be skeptical of statewide education initiatives in California.

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