In the Washington Post, some moron named David C. Levy opines:
An executive who works a 40-hour week for 50 weeks puts in a minimum of 2,000 hours yearly. But faculty members teaching 12 to 15 hours per week for 30 weeks spend only 360 to 450 hours per year in the classroom. Even in the unlikely event that they devote an equal amount of time to grading and class preparation, their workload is still only 36 to 45 percent of that of non-academic professionals. Yet they receive the same compensation.
This guy is the president of some education group? And a former Chancellor at the New School? He shouldn't even be allowed near a university.
Anyone who thinks that the time spent in a classroom dominates the activities of a university or college professor is a moron. For each hour that I teach, for example, I spend 2-4 hours preparing - and that's for a course I've taught many times. Add in constructing assignments & course web pages, marking, helping students during office hours, and a conservative estimate is that the work needed for a 3-hour class is something like 10-15 hours per week. Now, how about creating new courses or revising old ones? Teaching a course you haven't taught before takes something like 10-12 hours preparation per lecture, at a minimum.
Then there are all the other activities: advising students, serving on committees, giving public lectures, and so forth. And I haven't even mentioned research: believe it or not, even at small colleges some faculty do research.
Yet David C. Levy thinks faculty members' workload is "36 to 45 percent of that of non-academic professionals". Get real.
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5 comments:
Remember that he is trying to say why the cost of education has gone up compared with inflation.
So, the facts are: faculty salaries and faculty workload have been flat during this period.
Ergo, faculty salaries are not the culprit.
Your fans will remember this post: http://recursed.blogspot.com/2009/01/profscam-accurate-or-not.html
This man seems to know nothing. As an executive I can assure you that, no executive works 40 hrs per week. More like 70-80 in a nominal routine week and more when needed. Or else they would not be executives. I recall my advisor in Eng at UW-Madison. He taught, he wrote books, he did research, he became Dean of the College, etc. etc. I really do not know the mans hours but they were many. You just cannot succeed as an executive in any field - industry or academia without that amount of work.
David C. Levy IS a moron. Just wanted to get that on the internet one more time!
Yes, I agree, Daniel C. Levy is a complete moron, and he clearly has a hidden agenda.
He would like to see colleges turned into McColleges with McProfessors, run for his own profit (investments).
He is a very very bad man.
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