Sunday, March 05, 2006
David Horowitz ... blah blah blah ... yadda yadda yadda ...
Oh, yawn. Once again, pathological nutbar David Horowitz is polluting the airwaves with claims of a massive, leftist academic conspiracy. Frankly, I'm too damned lazy to beat up on him one more time so I'll just leave you with a piece I wrote last year.
It's aged well, hasn't it?
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2 comments:
You quoted Horowitz as saying:
“Eighty percent of the school budget is salaries,” [Horowitz] said. “You make between $60,000 and $100,000 a year. You teach on average two courses and spend six hours a week in class. You work eight months out of the year and have four months paid vacation. And every seven years you get ten months paid vacation."
Where did he get this information? I mean is he a total wanker? (rhetorical question) As someone immersed in academia, I can personally attest (and in the States, except for there being more funding, it isn't much different) that Horowitz is making and UNEDUCATED statement.
First of all, for someone to be a University Professor in any scientific field, one must complete approximately 8-12 years of university. Thats 8-12 years of tuition. Some get paid for graduate school, some don't. Next, you have to do two more years of training at a post-doctoral level to even be considered mildly competitive for a position. This pay is 25,000-50,000$, without health and dental insurance. This is what we are paying people who are making medical and scientific breakthroughs. Then, if you are lucky, you can get a position as an assistant professor STARTING at anywhere from 35,000$-50,000$. At some institutions, professors with tenure still only make 60,000$. Then, you have to write grants (which takes countless hours and tonnes of stress) to fund your research programme, and in science specifically to have a good reserch program you need about 100,000 a year in grants. This is a continual thing throughout one's career. Until you reach tenure (which for some can be after 10-20 years), your JOB SECURITY is completely dependent on the number of publications you have and that is dependent on the number of grants you can get to pay students and technicians to do the bench work (with one technician and one graduate student you would be lucky to get one publication a year).
Then you have both teaching and administrative responsibilities, which can be a lot even with two courses (preparation time, marking etc). YOu also have graduate students who need guidance. You need to attend conferences to present your research, you need to write papers to get published.
You look upon summer as a time where you can GET MORE WORK DONE, since thats when you don't teach undergraduate courses. Eight months a year? As if. Then, every few years you get paid to take a SABBATICAL which is an opportunity to WORK somewhere else to get special training or to work on catching up on some publications.
Then you have people that say: "oh, PhD, you aren't a REAL doctor".
I am not sure there is the same pressure in arts as there is in science, but its not an easy job. Its stressfull and hard work, and its worth the money professors are being paid. Maybe its only the lefties who have the perserverence to do all the hard work it takes to get into academia.
So, I guess Horowitz, in the spirit of a right wing mentality that goes on and on about free speech, is trying to censor beliefs that are different from his own. You are right CC, he should ty academia for a day. He wouldn't last a minute.
Thought this would tickle ya:
http://section15.blogspot.com/2006/03/horowitz-calls-for-those-in-authority.html
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