A calling sans benefits

...At my community college, which has 27,000-plus students, the communications department has 47 full-timers and 122 part-timers, many of whom want full-time work My second job, at a local university, appears to have the same ratio of full-timers to part-timers When I was a teaching assistant (1990-92), most of the sections of Comp I and II were taught by people making about $7,600 a year (This figure did not include roughly $2,500-worth of free tuition each semester) Nationwide, I would be surprised if there were much deviance from these figures The real story is that at least half of all college classes are being taught by people working over fifty hours per week for less than $15,000 per year with no benefits Higher education is rife with problems the ridiculous emphasis placed on publishing tangledjargon in obscure journals, the view that teaching impedes research, the PC debacle, the high costs and diminishing returns But a huge question, currently unaddressed, remains When are we going to send the message to students that teaching is a noble profession7 I'm convinced that part of the reason students don't learn (aside from broken families, drugs, and other social calamities) is that America is telling them—via their teachers' paychecks—that educators—and thus education—really aren't worth much In all honesty, my life is a good one Money aside, I have a great family, wonderful friends, and a B A in math that will help me find a more remunerative career For me, money is only a means to an end I'd like to marry some day and not subject my future family to poverty But the real problem is a larger one and it belongs to the whole country A recent government study indicated that almost 50 percent of adults have poor reading and math skills How will America be able to compete in the global economy with such a deficient work force7 The citizenry won't get any smarter if low teacher salaries continue to drive our brightest and most ambitious teachers into other professions My wonderful jobs, with their high psychic rewards, are lux6 unes for me But there are other avenues for volunteer work, and I may be forced to make my contribution in another way To be competitive in the information age, however, the United States will need expert teachers The prospects for encouraging and retaining them look less bright all the time TIM WUEBKER Tim Wuebker lives in Mission, Kansas He is working on a novel and a play...

...It's embarrassing to discuss one's finances, I do it only for the larger good Let's look at some numbers According to the Kansas City Star (September 13, 1993), local high-school and elementary teachers make about $32,587 a year They receive health insurance and other benefits Some must dodge bullets, it's true, but you can't have everything Their college counterparts do well, also According to the Chronicle of Higher Education (August 25, 1993), the average pay of a full-time professor at a four-year school is $56,658, at a two-year school it runs $45,412, associate professors get $47,432 and $38,040 respectively, assistant professors, $35,511 and $32,671, and instructors, $26,129 and $28,637 I know what you are thinking "Toblazes with MTV The real money's in college teaching'" But this happy tale has a dark side Consider part-time college English instructors They want full-time work They teach four to six classes per semester, which means they work anywhere from forty to sixty to eighty hours per week (Many of their full-time colleagues teach zero to three classes) Part-timers teach 33 to 66 percent of all classes offered, more on this later Before taxes, part-timers makebetween$ll,568and$17,352 peryear (One of my schools pays $ 1,446 per class per semester If a part-timer teaches eight classes a year, he or she receives $11,568, twelve classes equals $17, 352) I teach four classes per semester, work about fifty hours a week, and can expect to make around $13,014 this year Financially, I'm in the median among my area counterparts While an undergraduate at a "teaching" college in Iowa, I found that most of my instructors set fire to my passion to learn and demonstrated how to be a devoted teacher Now I find I am aggravated by tenured, PC professors who supposedly adore fairness and compassion but sock away the dough and perks without a thought of those who are carrying the daily load As Economics 101 will tell you, low, part-time salaries help pay for full-timers' health insurance (But that information may be biased, Econ 101 is probably taught by a part-timer) Everyone knows that America's schools are in serious trouble Everyone, it seems, but those tenured professors who absorb high salaries while doing little teaching Who knows7 Perhaps college students would learn more if their teachers in their basic courses (Composition I and II, Algebra, U S History, etc) were more fairly compensated Such compensation might help part-timers quit their secondjobs and allow them to spend more time grading papers and making creative lesson plans How many part-timers are there...

...REPORT FROM KANSAS A CALLING SANS BENEFITS ALL WORK & NO PAY Let's talk cash It's not that I don't like my job, I do I teach' I conduct college English courses of many descriptions for everyone from freshmen to seniors I get to read books for a living and help students compose clear prose' Every semester, my students amaze me with their diligence, creativity, and kindness And my evaluations are positive, one school put me in the top 10 percent of all composition instructors I'mahappytwenty-five-year-old Give me a studio apartment and some pizza and I'm all right So I feel sheepish about mentioning this, especially in tough times, but Could I Please Have a Raise...