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I too am a recovering community college instructor. Here they call them
"freeway flyers" or "Roads scholars" because in order to eke out a
living you have to piece together 3 to 5 jobs (2 to 4 hours each, etc).
When I realized that my sister who is a secretary and has no formal
education was doing better than I, who have 6 years formal education and
loads of experience, I asked myself why I had bothered going to the
university to live like this. I would be better off in many ways as a
secretary with one job, full benefits, paid time off, etc.
So that is why I left the community colleges, and that is why so many
community college profs leave. Then you end up with a reverse
meritocracy: The more competent ones are driven off and the ones that
remain tend to be more of the shall we say less competent ones (I didn't
say all, I am just speaking trends). So the quality of education goes
down, and the students ultimately suffer as well.
Even if you remain, how can you teach a class when you are flying back
and forth on the freeway, don't have decent office hours to see
students, you have papers flying all directions, and feel harried all
the time-?
It really is a shame. It really is sad.
Barbara Yanez
Integration Group
Mgr - Documentation
(626) 799-8090 x 419
byanez -at- cogentsystems -dot- com
www.cogentsystems.com
Diane Evans
Technical Writer, and recovering community college instructor writes:
For a good example of exploited permatemps, look at "part-time"
community
college instructors. Here in the state of Washington, a recent appeals
court ruling says that it is perfectly legal to pay these employees 60%
less
than full-time faculty, and perfectly legal to not pay for work done
"off
the clock".
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