Three weeks ago we blogged about sessional teachers, the often underpaid, overworked “Roads Scholars” who teach individual classes (sometimes through multiple universities). Most of them hope to accumulate enough teaching experience to become tenured at a university. Some critics condemn the way they are used and how little they are paid.
This phrasing seems a little deceptive. Certainly, most lecturers would hope to become tenured but in the way most fast food workers would hope to win the lottery. Lecturers teach the majority of classes in the modern university and effectively have no chance of becoming tenured. It's not even that new a situation but it has worsened over time.
Further, I'm sure how much "breakout" is possible through the web. Considering the web gives a potential student much wider options, it is hard to see it as a way for teachers to attain a high wage in the long run even if the "middle man" is cut out.
Seriously, no one becomes tenured at a university by teaching a lot of classes. Not only is that not the "track" to become tenured (the way to do that is to get a tenure-track gig, see how that works?), it will likely detract from your chances because:
1. the longer you do it the more tarnished you'll become;
2. the more you rack up teaching gig after teaching gig, the harder it is to establish a research record, for various reasons: if you're adjuncting, it takes tons of time; if you aren't (if you have lots of visiting assistant professorships, for instance) you still potentially have to deal with annual moves, lots of class prep (you won't have much say over what you teach so you won't necessarily get to repeat classes), and less institutional support than your tenure-track colleagues.
I sincerely hope none of the people who were blogged about actually harbors the hope attributed to them, because if they do they were badly misinformed.
This phrasing seems a little deceptive. Certainly, most lecturers would hope to become tenured but in the way most fast food workers would hope to win the lottery. Lecturers teach the majority of classes in the modern university and effectively have no chance of becoming tenured. It's not even that new a situation but it has worsened over time.
Further, I'm sure how much "breakout" is possible through the web. Considering the web gives a potential student much wider options, it is hard to see it as a way for teachers to attain a high wage in the long run even if the "middle man" is cut out.