Requiring college professors to actually earn their salaries!
A bill introduced in late March in the North Carolina General Assembly has set college faculty members across the state abuzz with a bold suggestion:Â Require all professors within the University of North Carolina system to teach at least eight courses each academic year.
Senate Bill 593, titled “Improve Professor Quality/UNC System,” would reduce the salary of any professor who fails to hit that annual mark. ..
The backlash from faculty across the state was immediate — and unsurprising. Professors expressed outrage. Many said a mandated 4/4 course load — four courses per semester — would make it impossible to focus on their research and other responsibilities.
They’ve built up a system where their TA’s “teach” most of the coursework and they pop in for a class or two a week. They see that disappearing and are shitting themselves.
And exactly what kind of useful research does a Gender or Race Studies professor do, anyway? Of course, keeping them out of the classroom might a better idea.
Now if they just do something about the bloated admin staffs.
From what a professor whom I respect has told me, 4 classes a semester is a bit much. For every hour taught, there are easily 2-3 hours of prep work, checking assignments, handling office hours, etc. Add on to that the extra crap like faculty governance, administrative overhead, the need to do research in the field, etc. and you’re a busy person.
Of course, a lot of that bloated admin staff is supposed to alleviate some of the non-class/non-research duties, but still, if you are teaching 4 classes a week, meeting for at least 3 hours a week each, that’s 12 hours in class, plus 24-36 hours of outside work for the class, and suddenly you’ve cleared 40 hours without blinking. Then you are expected to do substantive research in your field, which can be a considerable time commitment in any field (if you are doing actual research & not writing shit puff pieces for Slate or the NYT).
This was one of my biggest complaints at my college. Paying full bore price for a nice TA from a foreign country that doesn’t speak any English to try to teach a class. Many of them knew the material well, but were so unable to communicate it to the class that it would have been funny if it wasn’t so expensive.