I am writing in response to Vincent Estes’ article (“Tenured faculty members dwindle,” SN 11/29). Estes’ report rightly identifies a very serious problem besetting higher education: the increased use of part-time, temporary and graduate student instructors.

It should be made clear that this university cost-cutting measure not only serves students and part-time and temporary faculty poorly, it also has a long-term function of degrading the increasingly limited and besieged position of tenure-stream faculty. Hard-won protective tenure standards are eroded as increased job insecurity breeds opportunism and depresses expectations among a new generation of university faculty.

Estes’ report, unfortunately, contributes to one of the most discouraging aspects of administration tactics in the heated debate on the use of part-time and temporary faculty. By following the misleading statements of Provost Lou Anna Simon, the report gives the impression that the principal “problem” in this growing university labor practice is the conduct and quality of instruction of part-time and temporary educators. Estes reports that “visiting and part-time faculty at MSU are required to learn the University’s Code of Teaching Responsibility” and sign a form that confirms their adherence to the code. This, says Simon, is “one way of avoiding the problems.”

Simon clearly implies that the problem is with the part-time and temporary faculty, not the hiring practices of the university. Further, the claim made by Simon and highlighted in the report that the advantage of such practices is in “having students exposed to different perspectives and approaches to education” is an absolute ruse. Temporary and part-time faculty are drawn from the same pool of labor as tenure-stream faculty - they just cost considerably less.

Steve Germic
visiting assistant professor, American Thought and Language