Broke-Ass Schools: Kean University, the school with no departments
"Schere" by Horst Frank (Creative Commons license)
You read the headline right: Kean University in New Jersey has a plan to cut 38 departments, consolidating them into 18 schools headed by “executive directors” who would replace typical chairs. And Kean is no podunk university, being the 3rd largest public univsersity in New Jersey with an enrollment of 15,000 or so. The plan to dispense with any sense of a conventional academic structure was done to save the school around $2 million, although the entire budget shortfall Kean is facing is $17.7 million, according to Inside Higher Ed. IHE reports that the plan could go into effect by July, although NJ.com claims that it will take two years to phase in the changes.
The drastic response was apparently conceived of by the school president and OK’d by the University Senate without input from the faculty at-large. Faculty critics who dispute the Kean admin’s numbers argue that costs could even go up by replacing dept chairs with another level of bureaucracy with directors. Per Inside Higher Ed:
“This new structure is adding an entirely new layer of administrators that never used to exist,” said James Castiglione, who teaches physics at Kean and is president of the Kean Federation of Teachers.
The union, which is part of the American Federation of Teachers, will challenge the plan on several grounds, Castiglione said. Most notably, union officials fear one of the plan’s chief goals is to convert department chairs into executive managers, who will then be removed from the bargaining unit, even though they’ll still carry some teaching duties.
More below the fold…
The Post Academic Resume Series: Do You Need a Resume Objective?
This post is the first in a series on putting your resume together. If you have had a CV, you might not remember the resume format and you might have trouble boiling your academic work into bullet points. We can help. Let’s start with the tricky Resume Objective.
The “resume objective” is a brief statement at the top of your resume in which you declare your intentions to a prospective employer. They usually read like this: “To work as an Algebra teacher at a public high school,” “To apply my skills as a Webmaster to a small nonprofit agency,” and “To convince people with low incomes to buy homes they can’t afford using adjustable-rate mortgages.” You get my drift.
But are resume objectives really necessary? They take up space, and they often sound like hot air because the real objective of most people is “To get a job. Any job.”
A resume objective is useful for only two types of people: those just out of college and those who are changing careers. Otherwise, your work experience will make clear why you are applying for a certain job.
More after the jump! Amelita Galli-Curci seated at desk using typewritter, dressed in fur coat and hat. From Wikimedia Commons with the following statement: “This is a press photograph from the George Grantham Bain collection, which was purchased by the Library of Congress in 1948. According to the library, there are no known restrictions on the use of these photos.” (more…)
Last week on Post Academic (5/23-5/29)
At the end of one week and the beginning of another, we catch our collective breath on the blog and gather up links to some of the posts that have either cycled off the home page or might have been lost in the shuffle. Enjoy the rest of your long weekend, and thanks for reading!
* Caroline covered last week’s New Yorker cover, which, understandably, may have hit too close (to the Post Academic parents’) home for some of us. Arnold wrote up a Post Academic take on The New Yorker‘s “Your New College Graduate: A Parent’s Guide” questionnaire between the covers–and vote in our poll on how best to care and feed your Ph.D.!
* Caroline addresses issues of job security–or more accurately, job insecurity–for hamster-wheeling academics and hamster worlders alike.
* Caroline discusses how teachers should be treated here and here, while Arnold delves into how we feel about the way we’re treated, especially adjuncts. A lot of this makes Arnold go Hulk!
Follow-Ups (Yes, with another Zizek/SNL update)
Hope you are all enjoying your Memorial Day weekends! We just wanted to follow up on a few stories we’ve covered here on the blog.
"UC logo" (Public Domain)
UC Budget Crisis: Earlier this month, we wrote about how the Governator was refusing to sign a state budget that did not include substantially more robust funding to the UCs, the Cal States, and community colleges, to the tune of replenishing $848 million of the $1.7 billion taken out the higher education systems. The go-to blog on issues related to the UC budget crisis, Remaking the University, offers a skeptical take on Gov. Ahnold’s talk about funding increases to higher ed. In particular, Michael Meranze points out that the tuition hikes for 2010-11 are still in place.
While we’re not exactly sure what’s happening on that front, the breaking news on the budget front from the UC–surprise, surprise–is all about further cuts and not about refilled coffers. The latest involves a streamlining of the UC system to maximize efficiencies by centralizing certain operations like payroll and purchasing (that’s my best approximation of admin speak), rather than letting each UC campus do its own thing. The LA Times has decided it likes this move, although Remaking the University that the news only obscures the fact that the “UC’s state funding remains destructively low”.
Middlesex U Philosophy: A lot has happened since we covered the impending shuttering of the Middlesex U Philosophy department. Four Middlesex Philosophy students and three faculty members were suspended by the university for participating in “occupation” events. This action has triggered a response from intellectuals from Europe and the U.S.–with Etienne Balibar first into the breach–rallying in support of their colleagues and decrying the decision of the Middlesex admin. The suspensions have only intensified efforts to defend the Philosophy dept, leading to another set of protests this past Thursday. For more info, check out the Save Middlesex Philosophy blog.
"Slavoj Zizek" by Mariusz Kubik (Creative Commons license)
The Slavoj Zizek/SNL Campaign: This wouldn’t be an end of the week follow up without an update on the Zizek/SNL Facebook campaign. The member roll of the Facebook fanpage has swelled to 4,760 and the effort has yielded write-ups in Inside Higher Ed and even Huffington Post. All the attention has swept up the campaign’s originator, Alexander Hanna, who sent an email to the Facebook fans urging them to spread the word to likeminded folks and ”actually make this happen”–so we’re doing out part! Don’t know if 4,760 viewers would exactly constitute a ratings bonanza for SNL, since it took at least (more than?) 500,000 fans to get Betty White on SNL–though, hey, 4,760 fans is nothing to sneeze at, especially when the Post Academic Facebook fanpage has been stuck on 58 members for a while now! Maybe a reality check is in order, but 4,760 fans could probably get Zizek on Carson Daly or something?
And get this: the man himself is speaking at UCI this coming Friday, June 4. What if we got a little hat with a “Press” tag stuck in the band and asked Zizek whether he knows about the campaign? That might make for a more memorable academic celeb sighting than the Homi Bhabha fiasco.
Holidays on an academic schedule (with poll!)
"Thanksgiving Postcard circa 1900" (Public Domain)
Watching some of the “news” about Memorial Day traffic got me thinking about academic schedules again, something we covered way, way back. For many, Memorial Day doesn’t really count as a day-off holiday, since those of you on semester schedules have already started your summer vacations–lucky you! I’ve only ever been in a quarter system as an undergrad and a grad student, so the last Monday of May has always been a day to look forward to, whether as a chance to tie up loose ends at the end of the term or catch up on school work right before finals week. The only thing to look out for with Memorial Day is that it can lull you into a false sense that summer’s already here and get in the way of finishing the school year on a strong note.
So maybe everyone in the Hamster World might think academics live in a state of arrested development, but you know they’ve gotta envy the nerds for having a few months of summer vacation and spring break. Then again, the academic’s flexible time also means you end up grading or writing or grading or researching or grading at times a lot of other folks aren’t in the office, since there’s no boundaries between work hours and after hours. Holiday days can magnify the academic’s inability to compartmentalize. Below the fold, I rank the holidays on an academic schedule, in reverse order…
How Does Getting Laid Off Really Feel?
A confession: I’ve always wondered why academics and future academics panic about job security since no other profession except maybe medicine has job security. A layoff is a worst-case scenario, but if you know what to expect, you’ll be less afraid of it if it happens to you in the Hamster World. Here are some tips:
Don’t assume you are a loser. Most people are laid off through no fault of their own. I’ve been laid off, and the decisions happened from way up the corporate food chain. Since the economy is so bad, hardly any hiring managers will assume you’re a failure because of a layoff. They’ll simply assume the company you were working for had a cash-flow hiccup.
Keep your resume up to date. Whenever you’ve had a big accomplishment at work, add it to the resume. You don’t want to forget it when you are out hunting for a job again. Once I found out I was laid off, I changed the end date of my job from “present” to “1/2010.” Since I didn’t have to write a resume from scratch, I was able to send resumes immediately.
Live within your means when times are good. Yeah, yeah, easier said than done, but especially true after the latest economic bust. But unemployment takes a while to kick in,* it doesn’t last long, and it makes up only a percentage of your past income, depending on the state where you live. Saving up for an emergency fund can give you some wiggle room, and living on a budget means you won’t have much of a culture shock if you need to stretch an unemployment check.
Don’t take any old job, unless you really need the cash. If at all possible, try to find a job that suits your skill set or teaches you something new. Otherwise, you might be stuck working for crazies who are taking advantage of desperate job-seekers, or you’ll look like a job-hopper if you move to something new too quickly. With an emergency fund, you can be choosier. Without one, you might need to get anything you can.
It is not the end of the world. When an academic doesn’t get tenure, it is assumed to be the end of the world because the academic thinks he or she doesn’t have any other marketable job skills. (That’s not true, by the way.) When we Hamster Worlders get laid off, we just keep chugging until we get a new job.
*Unless you’re an adjunct, which means you don’t get unemployment if you’re not renewed, which is flat-out ridiculous.
A Young Student at His Desk: Melancholy (1630-1633) by Pieter Codde Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, public domain on Wikimedia Commons.
Don’t let being an adjunct make you mad (Part 3 of a series)
"Lol cat angry" by Cro0016 (Creative Commons license)
So I promised I would end this series on what makes me mad about teaching by being more constructive and stepping outside the solipsistic navel gazing of my own experiences. That’s why I’m going into what makes me mad about being an Adjunct or Lecturer or Contingent Faculty or cheap labor or whatever they call it where you are. I should say in advance that I’m not an adjunct agitator myself or a future freeway flyer, though I’ve gained more and more respect for those folks over the years–and it’s not just because I’ve stepped into their shoes just a little bit. It takes a lot to stick with being an adjunct, considering how you have to persevere in underpaid jobs with pretty much no chance for a promotion and deal with the uncertainties of having classes assigned to you or cancelled at a moment’s notice. For a better sense of adjunct-oriented issues on a national scale, check out the New Faculty Majority website or read the piece Caroline has been linking on the matter, “Confessions of a Tenured Professor”.
I should begin by saying that the way I handled being mad about adjuncting is that I stopped being one. I am grateful that I got a chance to teach classes that were related to my research and that I found out a lot more about how I feel about teaching in general, but I couldn’t deal with a lot of the slights and anxieties full-time contingent faculty put up with much more admirably than I ever could. And I was definitely luckier than most, in that I had mentors, friends, and staff who looked out for me and offered me opportunities to help me hang on from one academic job cycle to the next when I couldn’t or refused see the writing on the wall.
Still, the precarious day-to-day condition and the perpetual mindtrip of being a Lecturer couldn’t help but make me mad, which I explain below the fold…
Is It the Big Lie of the Mind or the Big Lie of Job Security?
Post Academic shows up in many searches for “the big lie of the life of the mind,” which refers to William Pannapacker’s legendary article “Grad School: Just Don’t Go.”
While I prefer to defend the life of the mind, I have been thinking of another “big lie” lately that relates to academia in general, and that involves job security. Should job security or tenure be an expectation of anyone who goes to graduate school?
If you go into graduate school, the best approach is to assume that you won’t get a tenure-track job. And that’s okay. You might get a career, but it might not be the one you thought you would get. You might even find a career that you like better. Adventures in Gradland had a superb series on the types of careers that former academics have discovered, and it’s required reading whether you’re just starting grad school or you just got tenure.
It may sound harsh, but the real big lie related to academia doesn’t involve the life of the mind (or lack thereof). The real lie is that, academia is the fast track to job security, and the evidence is that non-tenure track faculty make up over 73 percent of those teaching in higher ed.
Academics must fight hard to keep the jobs that they have (see debate on why it seems that academics haven’t been fighting hard enough), but it’s also smart to start thinking of other career tracks while you’re in school or even while you’re teaching. You’re not being disloyal to your university or to academia if you think of a Plan B. You’re being smart, and you’ll be better prepared for economic upheavals than most of your peers.
Tomorrow, a glimpse of what it’s like going through a layoff, and why it’s better in the Hamster World.
Image of Mary Pickford from the Library of Congress, public domain on Wikimedia Commons.
Don’t let teaching mess with your head (Part 2 of a series)
"Barrio Juroca en Reus, Tarragona, España/Spain" by Estruch (Public Domain)
Yesterday, I covered some of the things that make me mad when I’m teaching, mostly how classroom interactions with students can make me go Hulk. Today, I discuss how a few bad classes–with a few bad apples–can really bring you down and make you feel awful about humanity, particularly yourself! It really is a vicious circle: You take a poorly executed lesson plan home with you, let it stew, then those bad vibes and that cloud over your head go back with you to the classroom, and so on and so on…Somehow, you’ve just got to break the cycle and take a deep breath.
Here’s some more stuff that I get worked up about teaching…
I’m angry when I feel like a grumpy old man: Do you ever chalk things up to “generational difference” as a defense mechanism to explain away you might not be doing a particularly great job of teaching? Or get in the mode of saying, “When I was in college, [fill in the blank]“, after teaching a class that you stayed up late to prepare, only to notice your students web surfing even more than normal? Or how the thought that, “These kids have no respect!”, go through your mind in the middle of executing your lesson plan, only to have the whole class go off the rails because you get too fixated on that students texting right in front of you, as if it didn’t matter whether you saw it or not? If you have, like me, take a step back, a deep breath, and tell yourself that you don’t need to let what’s left of your own youth go to waste becoming a grumpy old man before your time.
Continued, below the fold…
Treating Teachers Well, Part 2: The Slacker Professor Straw Man Problem
So why aren’t teachers treated well? The ghosts of the Slacker Professor and the Slacker Teacher have a little something to do with it. These straw men have been used as an excuse to make cuts in public education and slice and dice good teachers for far too long. Even if charter schools succeed and education (higher ed or otherwise) is privatized, the employees are still going to be there, and they still deserve to be treated well. Yet it seems that teachers are treated like crap and excessively punished for the few slackers in their ranks.
As I’ve written about before, treating teachers badly, slashing their budgets, and busting their unions is a continuation of the weird impulse to destroy a whole system to root out a few slackers. So you don’t like the fact that there’s a bad teacher who has been relegated to the “rubber room” and is still getting paid. C’mon. Haven’t you worked with someone who did a bad job but who was relegated to the hamster-world equivalent of a “rubber room” because the company was afraid of getting sued?
The simple fact of the matter is that, once you hire someone, whether you are union or not, it is difficult to fire them, and you better have a bloody good reason to fire them. It’s the law, and unions won’t make that go away. Yet politicians and parents seem to lash out at teachers when they don’t realize the exact same thing is happening in their own workplaces.
More after the jump! Image from the Bundesarchiv on Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons license. (more…)
