{"id":5717,"date":"2012-03-27T15:55:11","date_gmt":"2012-03-27T20:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=5717"},"modified":"2012-03-27T15:55:11","modified_gmt":"2012-03-27T20:55:11","slug":"just-slackin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2012\/03\/27\/just-slackin\/","title":{"rendered":"Just slackin’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The level of stupidity on display in David Levy’s Washington Post<\/em> article Do college professors work hard enough?<\/a> is astounding.<\/p>\n

While Levy portrays himself as a life-long educator and academic and a “former chancellor of the New School University,” his article only reflects the growing disconnect between those who educate and those who administer and sit on boards of educational institutions.<\/p>\n

(Oddly, a search for “”David Levy” AND chancellor” on the New School web site turns up zero results.<\/a> He was, apparently, a CEO of the Parsons New School of Design, one of the branches of the New School. Beyond that, I dunno.)<\/p>\n

Jill Kronstadt has saved us the trouble of deconstructing and rebutting Levy’s silly arguments in her astute piece on “The Shelf Life of Total B.S.”<\/a>\u00a0 For instance:<\/p>\n

His contention that full time faculty only spend 15 hours a week teaching is especially outrageous. Levy writes: \u201cEven in the unlikely event that they devote an equal amount of time to grading and class preparation [as they do to teaching], their workload is still only 36 to 45 percent of that of non-academic professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n

First of all, for most faculty, teaching \u201c15 hours a week\u201d means teaching 5 different classes, most of which have at least 25 students. In my department, we routinely spend 20-30 minutes commenting per student essay \u2013 and easily double that on the 8-10 page essays in transfer composition. We assign five essays a semester, minimum. Although I\u2019m not a math whiz, my calculator says it adds up to 200-325 hours per semester on grading alone. For a 15-week semester, that\u2019s an additional 13-20 hours a week just on grading. That\u2019s not counting office hours, meetings with students outside of office hours, or prepping. If Levy thinks he can do a good job teaching without spending at least a couple of hours outside of class for every hour in class, he has no business calling himself an educator \u2013 and, based on the inaccuracies this essay, it\u2019s clear that he needs to spend a little extra time fact-checking what he puts in print as well.<\/p>\n

As for the \u201ccurriculum development, service on committees and community outreach\u201d our faculty handbook \u201csuggests,\u201d Levy might not realize that these activities are not only part of our evaluations \u2013 in other words, that would-be slackers still have to participate \u2013 but are intrinsic parts of ensuring that our students learn. In an average week, most of us spend at least a few hours in committee meetings and a few more hours doing work for our committees. We engage in professional development so that we can be more effective in the classroom. And some of us, despite a lack of financial support from our institutions, still find time to engage in scholarship.<\/p>\n

Over here where I work, scholarship and service count for more than half the job. The last time I tried to count the actual hours I spend on work (i.e., on stuff that gets counted as part of my workload), it averaged between 50 and 60 hours a week. Granted, that was before parenthood came along, but it’s still higher than anyone in my family — some would say anyone in their right minds — would like.<\/p>\n

Barkley Rosser at Econospeak<\/a> sheds more light on the topic, as does this Inside Higher Ed piece<\/a>. But one of the more astute comments from among the 1,233 and counting that the Washington Post<\/em> article has generated<\/a> is this one:<\/p>\n

Using this logic, sports coaches should be paid based on the game time they are actually coaching, generally fewer than 150 hours a year.<\/p>\n

The ignorance shown in Levy’s argument that 15 hours in the classroom will not normally be accompanied by at least<\/em> an equal amount in preparation, grading, reading, meeting with students, and all the rest, is stunning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The level of stupidity on display in David Levy’s Washington Post article Do college professors work hard enough? is astounding. While Levy portrays himself as a life-long educator and academic and a “former chancellor of the New School University,” his article only reflects the growing disconnect between those who educate and those who administer and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[203],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-1ud","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1077,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/05\/28\/bicycle-diaries\/","url_meta":{"origin":5717,"position":0},"title":"bicycle diaries","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"As many of us (academics) set off for various travels, a glance at David Byrne's Journal can remind us of the value of the well-made observation. Byrne (yes, the Talking Head) has been posting his travel journals (to be published in the fall as Bicycle Diaries) alongside photographs, videos, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Blog stuff","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/blog_stuff\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"byrne1.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2009\/05\/byrne1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2582,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/02\/08\/integralism-climate-change\/","url_meta":{"origin":5717,"position":1},"title":"Climate change as a \u2018multiple object\u2019","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The \"integralists\" have waded into the climate change debate with an impressive looking article entitled An Ontology of Climate Change: Integral Pluralism and the Enactment of Multiple Objects (click for an excerpt). It's by Sean Esbjorn-Hargens, one half of the duo that authored the mammoth Integral Ecology. (The other half\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1079,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/05\/30\/between-continental-environmental-philosophy\/","url_meta":{"origin":5717,"position":2},"title":"between continental & environmental philosophy","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Responding to a post on this blog, Kvond, a little while ago, raised the question of the relationship between Arne Naess, originator of \u201cdeep ecology,\u201d and Spinoza \u2013 which made me think of the interesting if sporadic\/uneven\/episodic relationships between the main traditions of continental philosophy and environmental thought. A glance\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-theory"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-theory","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecophilosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11676,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2021\/03\/31\/posthumanist-redistributions-of-the-sensible\/","url_meta":{"origin":5717,"position":3},"title":"Posthumanist redistributions of the sensible","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 31, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Theory has a mobile army of metaphors that account for its own importance. The vanguardist notion of a \"cutting edge\" has long served as a paradigmatic metaphor for theoretical innovation, and it's one I take issue with in my article \"Is the Post- in Posthuman the Post- in Postmodern? Or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/03\/plant-pots-shape-human-faces-botanical-garden-group-potted-plants-158209688.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1196,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/02\/07\/25-random-things\/","url_meta":{"origin":5717,"position":4},"title":"25 random things","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"A couple of off-line conversations about the inspirational power of music and of SF (science\/speculative fiction) have gotten me to dig up this old Facebook piece and to share it here. See bottom for details. I dedicate it to Little Rinpoche. 1. My best friend in kindergarten used to mix\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Adrian Ivakhiv\"","block_context":{"text":"Adrian Ivakhiv","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/tag\/adrian-ivakhiv\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6175,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2012\/09\/18\/the-wound-of-eco-trauma\/","url_meta":{"origin":5717,"position":5},"title":"The wound of eco-trauma","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"My article \"The Wound of What Has Not Happened Yet: Cine-Semiotics of Eco-Trauma\" appeared in the trilingual (English-German-Czech) arts journal Umelec late last year. (It kicked off the issue, followed by Mark Fisher's wonderful \"Terminator vs. Avatar: Notes on Accelerationism.\") The editors illustrated it with photos from David Cronenberg's Crash,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cinema"","block_context":{"text":"Cinema","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cinema_zone\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5717"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5723,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5717\/revisions\/5723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}