Wednesday, November 28, 2007
First-Year Seminars: Professorial Dumping Ground
Here at Dartmouth freshman undergo the first year writing program to 'bring their writing up to par.' This includes Writing 5 for some and a First-Year Seminar for all. So what is the administration's attitude toward this latter program? Here's the official version:
The First-Year Seminar Program serves four purposes. First, by means of a uniform writing requirement, the seminar stresses the importance of written expression in all disciplines. Second, it provides an attractive and exciting supplement to the usual introductory survey. Third, it guarantees each first-year student at least one small course. Fourth, the program engages each first-year student in the research process, offering an early experience of the scholarhip that fuels Dartmouth's upper-level courses.
Why then, if this program is so important, would the administration recommend dumping problem professors into these classes? From today's Daily D:
She was then informed that she did not fit in with the “culture” of the department and that if she stayed on, she faced assignment to first-year seminar theater classes.
I should note that some really excellent professors teach First-Year Seminars; nonetheless, the majority seem to be on par with Sabinson—especially those who teach the Writing 5 classes.
Posted by A.S. Erickson at 9:48 AM
Comments
The article doesn't give much information on where that particular information comes from. I'd be interested in knowing if that line is true and if it represents the attitude of the College or the theater department toward first-year seminars.
Even if it does, though, I'm not exactly shocked. First, different professors have different preferences about which courses they teach. The line from the article could mean nothing more than that teaching the first-year seminars is regarded as something of a chore, at least in the theater department. Second, academia generally rewards publishing much more than teaching (if it rewards teaching at all). An academic interested in advancing her career would try to teach just enough to keep the department happy and no more. Third, whatever one thinks of first-year seminars, they often change from year to year and aren't part of the "core" offering of any of the departments. Thus, it's probably a thankless job to teach those courses.
This is mostly idle speculation (i.e. I don't have any information that you don't), and the point is just that it shouldn't be surprising that at least one professor might prefer other things over teaching a first-year seminar in her department.
Posted by — November 28, 2007 11:01 AM
The way academic economics are set up, this problem is unavoidable. If you have a required course (first year seminar) or one that many have to take (Writing 5), you have a place you can put your tenured burnout cases, spousal hires, and so forth. If they teach a course that's completely elective, it probably won't make enrollment and will be canceled at the last minute anyhow. (When I was a TA, the tenured profs whose upper-level courses didn't make enrollment were, in some cases, given freshman comp sections as a substitute, and the TAs were booted from those sections with no pay. This was economically dumb, since they were paying the associate profs much more to do the same work, but that was how it worked.)
This is a problem that Dartmouth should, if it's serious about providing a superior educational "experience", be working on. It will require a dual approach: much greater care in hiring, including much less use of spousal hires in courses like Writing 5, and finding a way to get around tenure. A burnout case or someone hired due to last decade's trendiness needs to be put somewhere other than a dumping ground. That's exactly what you get at Faber College or Podunk State, for a lot less money and rat race trying to get in.
This is the kind of thing that the Board and the President should be looking at. Frankly, if Zywicki is spending his time denouncing academic culture for not believing in God, that's not what I was expecting -- I asked both him and Smith, since they were both tenured, how they would feel about tenure reform if it came before the Board and got completely unsatisfactory responses.
This is part of what I'm finding is a disappointment in the petition movement -- though Charter and Alumni Council nominated Trustees are, if anything, likely to be worse.
Posted by — November 28, 2007 11:05 AM
Tenure is justified to insure unfettered intellectual exploration, so there are no repercussions from pursuing controversial ideas, whether political thoughts or scientific theories. It sadly burdens universities with providing lifetime employment guarantees.
For starters tenure should only be granted if one receives in return a long-term commitment from the faculty who are offered it. No tenure to people who feel free to depart in 2-3 years.
How about something radical... eliminate it. Dartmouth might not be able to attract some faculty, maybe even more than a few, but the best professors ("superstar" level) understand that they can be very controversial, yet retain their positions simply because of their calling-card value. If they have any self-confidence and are sold on the other positives of Dartmouth, they should not feel the need for this security blanket.
Universities are slowly finding out that they no longer operate in the medieval world where their resources, and freedom from accountability, came from a benevolent monarch. Today research is funded by corporations and taxpayers, and education is funded by taxpayers and private donors. Unlike the king, these groups are increasingly demanding accountability of individual institutions, which in turn drives increased competitiveness between them. That in turn will force improvements over ossification.
It is understandable that this new paradigm is frightening.
Undergraduate writing skills and education merits an entirely separate post.
Posted by — November 28, 2007 12:22 PM
How about something radical... eliminate it.
The idea isn't radical, just the notion that it would actually happen. Every now and then, some professor suggests it, it gets debated, and then the discussion ends.
The main reason it exists is to protect academic freedom.
Most people who suggest eliminating it seem to think that it's guaranteed lifetime employment. In fact, it means that a tenured faculty member can only be terminated "for cause" (unpopular scholarly viewpoints aren't cause). The solution to most of the objections people have to tenure is more firings "for cause" (or threats to fire for cause), not the elimination of tenure.
Other than this one line from a D article and the Review's critique of Grantham, what evidence is there that first year seminars are some kind of "dumping ground"? Mine was awesome, and my professor was, afaik, well-liked within the department and well-respected in his field.
Posted by — November 28, 2007 12:32 PM
One thing that hasn't been done, as far as I know, is to go through the "worst" in the various student guides and see how many are tenured. (I simply don't know how many of the bad profs -- and there were many -- I had freshman year were contingent or tenure-track. It wasn't something I even knew about.) It might be enlightening.
"Cause" in firing a tenured prof is almost always nothing short of a felony conviction. It was a close run thing when Colorado got rid of Ward Churchill for plagiarism and misrepresenting sources (ignoring his various assaults and violent threats, as well as potential fraud in identifying himself as a Native American.)
The AAUP commented in the context of a case several years ago that there are actually so few tenured terminations that they are nearly always egregious cases, and the AAUP actually doesn't contest them. It appears that fewer than 10 tenured profs are terminated for "cause" in a given year.
The problem is that there are far more burnout cases, bad hires from the start (often due to corruption in the process), and general misfits hiding behind "academic freedom". A major change occurred when mandatory retirement ages became illegal, so that profs could hang onto physically undemanding jobs much longer. No adjustments were made in the system to compensate for this, with the result that tenure lines became more expensive, with no value added.
Another point is that "academic freedom" is very relative: the professoriate, protected as hardly any other occupation is from the effects of controversy, has become famously timid. Deviation from the standard academic politically correct line is in fact severely punished, and there are so many checkpoints for washing out candidates who don't knuckle under that only "acceptable" choices tend to reach the tenure decision in the first place.
Schools like Dartmouth should be at the forefront of needed reform.
Posted by — November 28, 2007 1:10 PM
One thing that hasn't been done, as far as I know, is to go through the "worst" in the various student guides and see how many are tenured.
Why don't you go for it. The only guide at Dartmouth is on the Review's website. The tenure/no tenure is probably available on the College's website. Keep in mind that the sample is biased (i.e. professors who teach classes that are (1)large and (2) in government or economics are more likely than other profs to attract the attention--for better or worse--of Reviewers).
You might also want to see if a similar pattern appears among the "best."
You certainly have the time on your hands.
Posted by — November 28, 2007 4:36 PM
Here's what puzzles me, anon. You turn up as often as I do here, assuming you're one of the regular supercilious types. So why are you assuming that because I post at a certain frequency, it means I have too much time on my hands, while if you post at the same frequency, as far as I can tell, it means you're somehow superior?
Posted by — November 28, 2007 5:31 PM
I am Spartacus
Posted by — November 28, 2007 5:42 PM
I think it's safe to assume that there are people than just one posting as anonymous John.
Posted by — November 28, 2007 7:35 PM
But it seems to me there are two conclusions you can draw from style. There does in fact seem to be an angry, supercilious Anonymous who's here quite frequently. Either there are many anons who share the same anger and superciliousness -- I'm prepared to believe that, given what I know about Dartmouth -- or it's one angry, supercilious individual. But even if it's many, the apparent lack of originality in style and material is telling.
Posted by — November 29, 2007 11:00 AM
Look everyone, John has a new favorite word. I bet you can't guess what it is?
Posted by — November 29, 2007 12:02 PM
When one talks out of his rear end as much as John Bruce does, one will encounter a lot of people who seem supercilious.
Sort of like how unattractive, aggressive guys "happen" to meet a lot of aloof, prudish women.
Posted by — November 29, 2007 12:41 PM
Ah, I'm starting to see. Being shot down by all those women is one reason you're so angry!
Posted by — November 29, 2007 1:07 PM
exhibit A in the case for cutting the alumni out of the governance process...
Posted by — November 29, 2007 1:39 PM
David, it's not that writing classes are a dumping ground so much as that they are classes most professors prefer not to teach, since they would rather teach classes that focus on their areas of expertise. Limiting a professor to teaching writing classes only would be a punishment, but that does not mean that there is necessarily anything wrong with the profs who teach some writing classes. If they are of a lower caliber, it is because they lack seniority -- which is how profs get out of teaching writing classes.
Posted by — November 29, 2007 2:35 PM
Supercilious John wrote:
"The way academic economics are set up, this problem is unavoidable. If you have a required course (first year seminar) or one that many have to take (Writing 5), you have a place you can put your tenured burnout cases, spousal hires, and so forth."
But any course will have to be taught by someone, won't it? Isn't that academic economics too? Required courses don't create or foster burnouts.
Posted by — November 29, 2007 2:37 PM
Who said they create burnouts? Burnouts happen. But if a department can't get rid of them, then they have to give them classes to teach. The classes they teach have to be required courses that students can't avoid - otherwise students won't take any courses from that prof. But if they have to take an intro course for their major, and that enrollment means n sections of that course, then y/n students will have to take a class from the burnout. My freshman writing class, by the way, was taught by one of the oldest incompetents in the English department. Seniority is no guarantee of quality.
Posted by — November 29, 2007 4:20 PM
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