Of course, as it usually happens, on the day when I’ve been fuming since early morning because of the hypocrisy, general stupidity and vapid uselessness of overpaid and corrupt college administrators, the universe is sending me one piece of proof after another of how horrible they are .
An idiot du jour who is also a college administrator published an article titled “Do College Professors Work Hard Enough?” in a conservative rag that loves to bash education and promote stupidity. I’m not going to address the completely bizarre text of the illiterate piece of garbage that this nasty administrator calls an article. I just want to mention the staggering hypocrisy of this arrant fool who at no point questions how much useful work overpaid and spoiled administrators like himself actually perform.
Once again, I have to point out that we, the academics, are to blame. We put up with atrocious treatment at the hands of these useless clowns. After the vile article like this one, the quack who dared to write it should become a pariah in the academic community. No self-respecting person should remain in the room when he enters it. Nobody should greet him or acknowledge him in any way. By participating in this willful and obviously completely corrupt effort to destroy the American system of higher education, this David C. Levy individual has lost his right to be respected by normal, honest, hard-working people.
Clarissa's Blog 
So according to this wacko, the only “work” faculty who teach do is stand in front of a classroom and pontificate? *groan* Besides the fact that most teaching faculty do more work than this man probably does in a month, what with creating teachable lessons, grading, advising students, and making the school tick…
Also, “faculty salaries make up the largest single cost in virtually all college and university budgets (39 percent at Montgomery College)” – only 39%?! And since obviously the author is probably picking extremes, I can assume that this is probably on the high end. So where does the other 61% go hm? Your pockets?
I also liked this gem: “The vacancies created by attrition would be filled by the existing faculty’s expanded teaching loads” – further increasing the number of unemployed, but fully capable enthusiastic young academics…
I once had a professor say “you should spend equal amounts of time doing and thinking. For the thinking is where all the ideas happen.” Obviously this man doesn’t believe that thinking is important for university professors. Oh wait… that sentence should cut off: “obviously this man doesn’t believe that thinking is important.” period.
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Exactly. This person is pretending that he doesn’t know that nobody can teach more than 3 courses and do that effectively. He wants to bamboozle students into shelling out money for subpar education. The question that parents need to ask before sending their kids to a university is how many courses each faculty member teaches. If the answer is more than 3 per semester, they need to know that they are flushing the tuition money down the toilet.
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Haha, 39% is supposed to be a shocking percentage for a university to spend on faculty?? That’s embarrassing. All universities should be spending way upwards of that. Oh yes, universities NEED deans, managers, bureaucrats, vice presidents, and a president who in my case makes shy of a million dollars a year.
I worked in IT around completely incompetent and unfortunately un-fireable administrators and managers, so I can indeed attest to how useless they are. Whose idea was it to start hiring people whose only purpose is to tell people how they can better perform in professions they themselves know nothing about?
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Oh how I would love a 40-hour work week that only consisted of five days of work per week. No going back to work at 9 once both my kids are in bed. No working every weekend. No grading until I’m blind. No five hours of research for one measily 50-minute class. That sure sounds like a great job.
What parallel universe does this dick head live in?
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So when does the research fit in?
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This guy is proceeding on the basis of a completely fictitious difference between “research institutions” and “teaching institutions.” He is completely disregarding the fact that the so-called “teaching institutions” (e.g. my university) still have research requirements and those research requirements grow every year.
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Agreed. If research isn’t actual work, then I must ask the author of the article what he thinks I’m doing over the summer.
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Obviously, he thinks that you’re lying on the couch eating bonbons and watching Dr. Phil. No one really knows what a teacher’s life is like except teachers — no matter what grade level one is teaching. It’s a very hard job — frequently very rewarding, but still hard. I estimate that I work about 50 hours a week when I have no grading to do. When I have grading, it’s closer to 70. During the summer, before I started my tenure-track job, I worked for two solid months prepping for classes without getting a single paycheck. I don’t know any other job where you work 30+ hours a week during your “vacation” for free.
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Yes, he begrudges the winter break to educators so much and doesn’t even stop to ask when the new courses are planned, the syllabi are designed and the research needed to teach courses is actually done. And then there is all the service work. Tomorrow, I will be at work from 8 am to 6 pm doing not only teaching but also service. And after that I read in a newspaper what a lazy bum I am. Seriously.
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I’ve been doing research, then planning my classes, then writing a conference proposal, and now grading since 8:30 am with three short breaks. But I guess that isn’t real work since I’m not actually in class.
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He’s thinking of a certain kind of studio art teacher who has their private business in art, then walks into art workshops on campus and just says hmmm. (This would have to be the type of person who wouldn’t be in a tenure track job, and also the kind of adjunct who says no to every responsibility … not the type who gets hired back, obviously.)
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Clarissa, I thought you might appreciate the following commentary by a botanist, professor, and researcher at a university about this crazy man’s delusions: http://phytophactor.fieldofscience.com/2012/03/college-faculty-compensation-rising.html
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Thank you, what a great post!!! This Levy character is, indeed, a complete and utter moron. And that’s the kind of person who gets invited to write for leading newspapers.
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College administrators, along with the whole ludicrous publish-or-perish mentality, are the reason I’ve decided to never go into academia even though I’m planning on getting a PhD.
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