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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

#31

Post by lotsofpulp »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #18
the_jeremy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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-...

I would think even more important to universities should be the raw number of high schoolers and high schoolers’ parent that are questioning the ROI of universities, especially private universities.

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

#32

Post by eigenman »

dhosek wrote: post #29
ta988 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For reference, a typical adjunct (non tenure track instructor) will make $5000 per course per semester with no benefits. Tenured and tenure track faculty in STEM are typically paid around $60-120k per year with benefits and will teach, at most, six courses a year.

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

#33

Post by tsumnia »

RealityVoid wrote: post #22
tsumnia wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Without getting into it, I've had a number of "unfortunate events" in my life, many during college. As a result, I sort of recognize that "life happens" and it can suck at times. If its any consolation, the videos have saved me hours of time. They can be annoying to make, but I do always get a kick when I see a "thanks" notification from someone out there just trying to learn Microsoft Access.

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

#34

Post by bee_rider »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #18
the_jeremy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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-...

For the field as a whole I guess, the rate must matter, right? Like, if the birth rate increases, then a higher percentage of the population will be employed in teaching related jobs, because there are more kids per adult.

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

#35

Post by labster »

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 had a chemistry prof with the same story: a PhD who had to work in two different counties to scrape together a living while avoiding limits on hours. And the department chair was younger and only had a master’s degree in education.

The situation with adjuncts is terrible everywhere in the US, though. The situation at Hamline University could only have happened because the professor lacked tenure, otherwise academic freedom protections would have kicked in.

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

#37

Post by hdctambien »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #23

As someone in the profession for over a decade, what is the best way to offer yourself out as a guest lecturer for community college courses focused on software development?

It's a job like any other, so go to the school's careers page and find the listing for a job you're qualified for, and apply.

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

#38

Post by grog454 »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #23

As someone in the profession for over a decade, what is the best way to offer yourself out as a guest lecturer for community college courses focused on software development?

I'll give you my approach as someone in the profession for over a decade who started teaching part time at a private university last year. I enrolled (as a student) in a couple of classes at a local CC for fields that were just passive interests of mine. One lecturer was great and served as a model for in-class instruction.

After a semester of that I applied to various local community colleges and private universities (one my alma mater). Many of these universities didn't even have an official "adjunct lecturer" position posted, but I selected whatever sounded most appropriate and spent a lot of time on cover letters tailored to each university explaining what I had to offer to them and why I ought to be a good fit for whatever they valued in instructors.

It took over a month to hear back from the first which was pretty disappointing. 3 months later I heard back from the second, and I never heard back from a third private university or either of two local CCs. By the time I heard back from the second I had already been informally offered a position at the first.

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

#39

Post by twelvechairs »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #18
the_jeremy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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-...

US federal population projections don't foresee a big change in 18-24 year olds into the future [0]. Though generally there's a trend of a slight increase in foreign born populations over native born.

[0] see particularly table 2 https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/popproj/2017-su...

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

#40

Post by andrewmcwatters »

It sounds like they can afford to screw around and hoard the money.

I'm interested in a theoretical optimization problem where education becomes expensive without bound and as it grows over time how that affects both admissions and birth rates, eventually killing itself or reducing its own influence over society.

You know, because modern society has just become a min-max living simulation for people in power and leaders across all industries operate without moral values, substituting them with nietzscheistic organizational values instead.

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