From dtompkin@thunder.ocis.temple.edu Fri Jan 1 05:23:41 1999 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.1+UW98.09/8.9.1+UW98.09) with ESMTP id FAA22528 for ; Fri, 1 Jan 1999 05:23:41 -0800 Received: from voicenet.com (mail11.voicenet.com [207.103.0.37]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.1+UW98.09/8.9.1+UW98.09) with SMTP id FAA10791 for ; Fri, 1 Jan 1999 05:23:40 -0800 Message-Id: <199901011323.FAA10791@mxu2.u.washington.edu> Received: (qmail 24550 invoked from network); 1 Jan 1999 13:23:38 -0000 Received: from chill141-pri.nj.voicenet.com (HELO ?207.103.30.105?) (207.103.30.105) by mail11.voicenet.com with SMTP; 1 Jan 1999 13:23:38 -0000 Subject: part timers and adjuncts Date: Fri, 1 Jan 99 08:29:51 -0500 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 1.1 From: Dan Tompkins To: "classics" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Congratulations to the APA for devoting its presidential panel to the situation of part time and adjunct faculty in our field. Erich Gruen and Carla Antonaccio assembled a wonderful cast of speakers on this important topic, and folks who attended got a lot out of it. Unfortunately, too few folks attended: evidently the bright lights of our nation's capital had more allure. The audience seemed to consist mainly of part-timers and adjuncts, not of department chairs: it was like having a conference on the Inquisition and finding only Conversos in attendance: the Conversos surely would have an interest in the events under discussion, but they were not the decision-makers. One reason that is too bad is that the speakers touched on items like the benefits of maintaining a tenured faculty, which concerns all of us. It was hard to walk away without thinking that many universities are quite willing to give short shrift to freshman and sophomore courses--as if students at that level were not in particular need of good instruction. Dan Tompkins .