Teaching 6 Courses @ 4 Institutions - Definitely Not Tenure Track

The growth in percentage of faculty who are adjunct (not tenure track) has been getting a lot of attention lately. This article by Alan Finder of The New York Times uses the daily travels of an adjunct faculty member who teaches six courses at four institutions, including the University of Michigan Dearborn and Oakland Community College:

“We have to contend with increasing public demands for accountability, increased financial scrutiny and declining state support,” said Charles F. Harrington, provost of the University of North Carolina, Pembroke. “One of the easiest, most convenient ways of dealing with these pressures is using part-time faculty,” he said, though he cautioned that colleges that rely too heavily on such faculty “are playing a really dangerous game.”

Mark B. Rosenberg, chancellor of the State University System of Florida, said that part-timers can provide real-world experience to students and fill gaps in nursing, math, accounting and other disciplines with a shortage of qualified faculty. He also said the shift could come with costs.

Adjuncts are less likely to have doctoral degrees, educators say. They also have less time to meet with students, and research suggests that students who take many courses with them are somewhat less likely to graduate.

“Really, we are offering less educational quality to the students who need it most,” said Ronald G. Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute, noting that the soaring number of adjunct faculty is most pronounced in community colleges and the less select public universities. The elite universities, both public and private, have the fewest adjuncts.

Creativity As a Student Learning Goal

This Project Kaleidoscope collection, of papers from the PKAL community of stakeholders - each with a summary and a "full document" or transcript - focuses on creativity as a student learning goal. Tori Haring-Smith, president of Washington and Jefferson College speaks about the relationship between "reflection" and creative ability. That's paired up with two PDFs from the US Military Academy: "Creativity: A Goal for Student Learning at West Point" and "Educating Future Army Officers for a Changing World."

From Haring Smith's transcript: "My senior staff is always dreading what they call the “shower memo.” They know when I shower and if the time accords with the end of the shower they know it’s a I was just thinking kind of memo. These moments are woefully rare in our fast
paced world of Blackberries and cell phones."

From "Creativity": "Uninformed observers probably would not describe our modern Army as a proponent of creative thinking. To the contrary, the GI stereotype might lead one to believe that Army service involves mechanical obedience to specific orders: e.g., dig the trench, refill the hole, and repeat. In contradistinction to this stereotype, Army leaders, who function in a world of rapid technological, social, political, and economic change, must be astute thinkers and innovators."