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

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

#21

Post by jltsiren »

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 the job market favors graduates from major universities. Research universities are doing what they are supposed to do, but their reputation attracts talented and ambitious students in general. When those students end up being successful in their careers, they maintain the reputation.

Some countries have tried establishing two parallel higher education systems. Universities provide research-based education, while the other system focuses more on skills that are relevant in the job market. And the job market still favors academic education over the more practical alternative.

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

#22

Post by RealityVoid »

tsumnia wrote: post #19
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 instructo…

> 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.

This is great, I only wish I could be more like that,putting more into the world that I know will be useful in the long term.

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

#24

Post by s1artibartfast »

epicureanideal wrote: post #14
xzel wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Start a GoFundMe

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

#25

Post by ta988 »

xmddmx wrote: post #17
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 sa…

It is not just about money it is about "flexibility" or else said, ability to kick people out to update curriculum and take younger ones more up to date with recent research.

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

#26

Post by plaguepilled »

Possibly controversial and happy to be swayed, but to me the fundamental problem at the core of grad student oversupply is a lack of investment training.

Degrees like the sciences and mathematics (and certainly arts too) are appealing to some because they are not tied to capital (or at least, less tied to capital than say business degrees). This means there are less chances to make money, sure, but also less chances for corruption. The problem is, that isn't a complete career plan. There needs to be an "and then" that reflects the current market.

I don't have a lot of hope for universities hiring enough people to satisfy the number of current t grads. But, we definitely need innovation. Universities should be teaching students how to intelligently take risks, while not sticking their neck out too far.

Governments can help here by offering cheaper loans to young investors, or offering partial protection to investors who do. Again, happy to be swayed here.

IMO, one thing that absolutely needs to be retired is the current academic reward pattern of "better = more papers at more high impact journals with more cool positions held". It's too easy to game and too hard to be creative under. Something where the financial risk is not held ENTIRELY by the post doc is a good start.

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

#28

Post by dhosek »

batman-farts wrote: post #20

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 cl…

I was one of those. California has a law that was intended to protect against exploitation of adjuncts that makes things worth where an adjunct is limited to 10 LHE (lecture hour equivalent) per district. In Orange County, it’s not too bad because there are a lot of districts in a smallish geographic area, but LACCD covers a huge geographic area which makes L.A. County much more challenging. Add in all the competition and the low wages (although, as I recall, the L.A. County districts paid more than the O.C. districts) and life is pretty painful for an adjunct.

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

#29

Post by dhosek »

ta988 wrote: post #25
xmddmx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sa…

It is not just about money it is about "flexibility" or else said, ability to kick people out to update curriculum and take younger ones more up to date with recent research.

No, it’s totally about the money. You can get the classroom coverage of a TT faculty member for a tiny fraction of the cost if you use adjuncts.

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

#30

Post by fjeifisjf »

plaguepilled wrote: post #26

Possibly controversial and happy to be swayed, but to me the fundamental problem at the core of grad student oversupply is a lack of investment training. Degrees like the sciences and mathematics (and certainly arts too) are appealing to some because they are not tied to capital (or at least, less tied to capital than say business degrees). This means there are less chances to make money, sure, but also less chances…

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