I'm a Tenured College Professor. I'm Quitting. Here's Why.
by Jessica Wildfire
"Most of my professor friends can't support themselves. That includes the fancy tenured professors, even at nice schools. They have sugar mamas & sugar daddies. They're married to lawyers and bankers, or IT managers. If they're like me, they've got a secret side hustle.
Here's an irony:
My university forces everyone to disclose outside income. So if you have a second job or a side hustle, you're technically supposed to report it. You're supposed to ask them for permission. They can say no.
2/ snip "It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out what's going on. I mean, we know where the money isn't going:
The money isn't going into classrooms. The money isn't going to faculty or staff, not even to reimburse us for all the professional development we pay for. The money isn't going to scholarships or financial aid. The money isn't going into better ventilation, even though the pandemic has taught us the importance of clean air. That would make a difference. That would actually attract students & give them something in return for their tuition.
We know where the money goes:
The money goes to hire new directors of athletics. It goes toward new athletic facilities. It pays for the Starbucks our vice-chancellors love so much. It pays for the sushi bars they think will attract a "high caliber" of student. It pays the inflated salaries of the upper administration, who make healthy six figures even when they're terrible at their jobs."
3/ snip "It's popular for universities to hire consultants to solve their problems. But the consultants can't solve their problems. The consultants can't tell them why they keep losing #students. The consultants can only give them the answers they want: Build another Starbucks, and so on...
It's collapsing because nobody really cares about it. As a tenured professor, I'm not supposed to say that.
It's true.
Nobody really wants to admit they don't care about education. Some people get angry when you point out this simple fact. Everyone wants to talk about how much they care about education. They want to watch movies about great teachers. They want to complain about the bad ones.
4/ snip "For a few years, part of my job was to do outreach with high school English teachers. So I drove around all over my state visiting high schools & observing classes. The rich kid schools had tablets & chrome carts. The poor kid schools had textbooks so old they were falling apart.
The rich kid schools had happy, well-rested teachers. The poor kid schools had tired, stressed, overworked teachers.
The same thing happens in higher education.
Hedge fund managers & CEOs have captured the boards of trustees of most public universities. They're funneling all the money to the top, away from smaller satellite schools like mine & away from the arts in general. They're directing all the cash & resources to business schools & STEM programs at their flagships, and they're letting everyone else wither & die. They don't want normal people to get an education, not anymore. They want normal people to do undesirable jobs, at least until the right robot comes along."
My employer (by German labor law) isn’t even allowed to forbid a second job, if that second job does not impede my work quality and does not directly compete with the employer.
I have to tell them about side jobs, and if they don’t have a good reason, they have to permit it.
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