by Kim De Vries
Recently, I've written about what we ought to focus on in early writing classes, and about creating a stronger community of writers and scholars. Most of my discussion has been about what I might do in my own classroom or my own department, but I think one of the most useful strategies, though the most difficult, would be to expand Cal. State's mandate to include offering doctoral degrees. After spending almost fifteen years as a student and almost ten as a teacher in the higher education system, I have concluded that dividing faculty into those who teach and conduct research and those who only teach, is harmful to our student' education and to the faculty themselves. This manner of division cheats students who most need extra teaching of that, and cheats them of access to cultural capital as well. To explain my thoughts, I will use the California system of post secondary education as an example.
You may or may not be familiar with the manner in which our state schools are organized in California. Basically, the University of California (UC) was set up to mainly handle research and doctoral programs. The California State University (CSU or Cal State) was created to offer advanced undergraduate classes (junior and senior year) and master's programs. Finally, community colleges were to cover the first two years of college. Students would take two years of community college, then transfer to a branch of CSU and then, if they chose, transfer to a branch of the UC.
I'm not sure if the system ever actually worked this way, without any overlap or competition for students, but it certainly doesn't usually work this way now. Now several factors seem to mainly determine who attends which level: socio-economic status, grades/test scores, and indirectly, racial/ethnic background. I'm sure no one will be surprised to learn that schools in the UC system cost more than branches of the CSU, which in turn costs more than the junior colleges. Many studies over the years have also linked family income levels both to race/ethnicity and to educational attainment. These two linkages lead to unsurprising pattern. Students from racial or ethnic minorities are more likely to come from lower socio-economic backgrounds and much more likely to attend junior colleges. They are also more likely to enter the CSU, either as first year students or by transferring from a junior college. As I've mentioned before, many of these students are among the first in their families to attend college. The "best qualified" students, which often means those needing the least financial support and the predominantly white, often go directly into the UC system—a circumvention of the original plan that rarely arouses any complaint.
At the same time, teachers and programs also differ in significant ways between the three levels of post-secondary education. I will offer a detailed description of typical working conditions; while dry, understanding these will make my point clear, I hope! In the junior colleges, while some faculty may hold doctoral degrees, more will have terminal masters. Some will conduct research, but since there is next to no funding for them, and since most have extremely heavy teaching schedules (8-10 classes over two semesters), most will not. Many will also teach during the summer to supplement their incomes. None will teach graduate classes of any kind. These teachers may be hard put to stay connected with current research in their disciplines as neither research, travel to conferences, nor professional journals for the library get much financial support. As there are no graduate students, there will be no teaching assistants (TAs) or interns assisting these teachers.
At the CSU, nearly all tenured or tenurable (tenure-line) faculty will have doctoral degrees, but most of the adjunct staff (which is growing every year) will hold only a terminal MA. The teaching load for tenure-line faculty will still be heavy, typically 7-8 classes over two semesters. Most of these faculty will also be expected to conduct at least some research and to publish several articles or a book before being tenured, and then more for promotion. The adjunct faculty may teach anywhere from 1-5 classes per term but must teach 5 in order to receive full pay. Tenure-line faculty in the CSU may get some funding for conference travel and to request book purchases for the library, but this is by no means assured. Adjunct faculty are offered neither. Tenure-line faculty will probably teach graduate classes if the their department offers MA degrees, and they may occasionally have graduate student interns assisting them, but not often. Adjunct faculty will usually be restricted to teaching undergraduate classes; some of these classes may be taught by graduate TAs as well.
At UC schools, all tenure-line faculty will have doctoral degrees and many of the adjunct staff will as well. The adjunct staff is likely to be smaller because there are many more graduate students to serve as TAs. The tenure-line faculty will probably teach 3-6 classes over two terms with possible further course release, while adjunct faculty may teach 6-8, depending on whether they are considered adjunct or members of a fellowship program. Classes will also tend to be smaller than in the CSU, depending on the department. Faculty will be expected to publish one or more articles every year and one-two books every three-five years in order to receive tenure and be promoted. Members of fellowship programs may also be expected to publish as well. There will be considerable resources to support scholarship and publication, including funding for travel, for book purchases (both personal and library), a great deal of administrative support for grant applications, and most importantly, there will be release time. Finally, most of these faculty will have TAs assisting them if they teach large classes.
Tenure-line faculty in the UC system have much lower teaching loads than in the CSU and in junior colleges because they are expected to spend more time on research. However, if you look closely at the numbers and at class sizes and use of TAs or not, it seems that not only do teachers in the CSU and junior colleges have less time for research, they have less time for teaching as well. In this system, the students in the most need of extra help are paired with teachers with the least time to provide it. To solve this problem, the CSU and junior colleges essentially would need a lot more money to hire more teachers. I would argue that we should not only be given more time to spend on teaching, but also on research. Because in this system, not only are time and money unfairly shared, but cultural capital is unfairly shared as well.
Given less time and money for research, and without doctoral (or any graduate) programs to necessitate faculty staying current with advances in their disciplines, undergraduates and MA students lose. I wasn't sure at first why this should be, but after observing several different English departments over the years, and talking to colleagues in other disciplines, I have an initial theory. Doctoral students typically need anywhere from six to ten years to complete their degrees and usually have about three years worth of required classes. The remaining time would be spent on electives and independent research, including their dissertations. Doctoral students are good investments because they provide constituents in a wide variety of classes beyond the basics, they are around long enough to be involved in the campus academic community, and once trained, they are usually able and enthusiastic teachers for introductory undergraduate classes. Their presence allows faculty to teach classes about their own specialties and current research, along with teaching the required classes. When teaching about their own work, faculty end up with more time for both teaching and research. Doctoral students almost all aim to become professors or researchers, and so come to be treated as colleagues rather than students, which helps them to develop a professional identity.
Terminal MA students however, are usually in quite a different situation. Most take two to three years to complete their degrees, and many do so while continuing to work a full-time job. Because their programs are so short, they are made up almost entirely of required classes. Further, they have little time or opportunity to join the academic community on campus, or to develop a professional identity by being treated like colleagues in the latter years of their program. At the same time, faculty have far fewer chances to teach about their specialty or their current research, and thus often lose the pragmatic and emotional benefit of combining teaching with scholarship. While some MA students may go on to PhD programs elsewhere, most are planning to teach high school, or in junior colleges, or to enhance their position in another kind of job.
Faculty at schools with no graduate programs may either have lighter teaching loads and lots of support for research – say at an exclusive private college, or they may be in the situation I described as typical of the California junior college, or somewhere in between. But, without graduate students, they will still have far fewer chances to teach about their own research, which over time I think makes burnout far more likely, especially when coupled with a heavy teaching load.
Now, faculty not getting to teach your own research, having a heavy teaching load, and departments being able to offer only a narrow range of courses leads to a variety of negative consequences. The most obvious is the burnout I mention above, but far more insidious is the way this system closes off students' access to current research. Going back to my original points about who attends which schools in California, we can see the following pattern emerge:
Minority and lower class students are most likely to attend junior colleges and the CSU
These students are not likely to go beyond a terminal MA, at best.
Faculty at junior colleges and in the CSU have much heavier teaching loads than in the UC
Lacking doctoral programs, these faculty teach a narrow range of basic undergraduate and graduate courses.
Thus, in California, the students which often need more help, generally get less. Students who have potential and are serious about their educations have far fewer courses to choose from, and little chance to confront the most current research or to see their professors modeling scholarship. In the CSU at least, many students aim to teach at junior colleges or in public schools, to which they will bring the legacy of not getting needed help and not having the opportunities available to students in the UC system. While this pattern is complex and certainly needs research to confirm or disprove my theory, I think we have enough evidence to seriously question our current system and to look for ways we can improve support for research and its linkages to teaching for CSU and junior college faculty. Most importantly, we can resist those who simply say that only the UC, or only these schools can grant that kind of degree, because that's just the way it is. If we find a system is not working as planned, is leaving some members at a disadvantage purely through the way the system is arranged, then we should change the system.