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Why go to Wake for $62K?

People can get an education anywhere, ok? They come to Wake for the atmosphere and the attitude. That's what the insane tuition is about. It's about fun.
 
TownieDeac said:
I was careful to distinguish between business faculty and college faculty, for one. I based my (few educated) comments in the liberal arts on some very qualified tenure track professors not gaining tenure. But I do admit ignorance on the difference between short term non-tenure track faculty and adjunct labor.

ETA: What is the difference between adjunct professor and assistant teaching professor?
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Yes, you did distinguish B-School faculty and College faculty, but that doesn't mean that it isn't extremely misleading. It makes perfect sense for a professional school, even at the undergraduate level, to hire adjunct faculty with real-world teaching experience (and real world jobs). Social Work and Law schools do it too, for instance. And I am absolutely certain that this practice didn't begin in 2010 (I assume you were referring to the hiring freeze specifically with that reference). But in general, suggesting that "Wake" hires adjunct faculty is disingenuous because 1) the conversation in this thread was about adjunct labor as contingent faculty (which B-School professors are not) and 2) Wake's recent hiring trends, at least in the Liberal Arts, reflect a desire not to hire adjunct labor, but instead to hire on contract non-renewable one- and two-year non-tenure track instructors -- which is in some ways just as unhelpful to the academic workforce without permanent positions.

Also, what do you mean by "very qualified"? Had they finished their book? Was their research and teaching pretty sound? In most (humanities) departments, those are the standard qualifications for the department to put them forward for tenure. In many departments, the vote is usually unanimous. Tenure denial in those cases usually occurs at an administrative level -- deans or provost. They often have their own agendas and push them in that way.

I did have this pretty solid Shakespeare professor at Wake back in the day that was denied tenure after I left. I couldn't figure out why because I thought that she was a pretty good teacher, but turns out the faculty didn't like her research and she (apparently) had some pretty damning student evaluations.
 
By very qualified I mean book published, beloved teachers by both faculty and students. Like Henna getting rejected two years in a row before getting tenure or the two writing people getting offered that one year gig instead of tenure track. I still don't quite understand the distinction between adjunct and the non tenure track and would appreciate an explanation. Pardon my ignorance, this basically all stems from talks with EE on faculty and some former grad students.
 
wakephan09 said:
Yes, you did distinguish B-School faculty and College faculty, but that doesn't mean that it isn't extremely misleading. It makes perfect sense for a professional school, even at the undergraduate level, to hire adjunct faculty with real-world teaching experience (and real world jobs). Social Work and Law schools do it too, for instance. And I am absolutely certain that this practice didn't begin in 2010 (I assume you were referring to the hiring freeze specifically with that reference). But in general, suggesting that "Wake" hires adjunct faculty is disingenuous because 1) the conversation in this thread was about adjunct labor as contingent faculty (which B-School professors are not) and 2) Wake's recent hiring trends, at least in the Liberal Arts, reflect a desire not to hire adjunct labor, but instead to hire on contract non-renewable one- and two-year non-tenure track instructors -- which is in some ways just as unhelpful to the academic workforce without permanent positions.

Also, what do you mean by "very qualified"? Had they finished their book? Was their research and teaching pretty sound? In most (humanities) departments, those are the standard qualifications for the department to put them forward for tenure. In many departments, the vote is usually unanimous. Tenure denial in those cases usually occurs at an administrative level -- deans or provost. They often have their own agendas and push them in that way.

I did have this pretty solid Shakespeare professor at Wake back in the day that was denied tenure after I left. I couldn't figure out why because I thought that she was a pretty good teacher, but turns out the faculty didn't like her research and she (apparently) had some pretty damning student evaluations.
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Valbuena?
 
TownieDeac said:
By very qualified I mean book published, beloved teachers by both faculty and students. Like Henna getting rejected two years in a row before getting tenure or the two writing people getting offered that one year gig instead of tenure track. I still don't quite understand the distinction between adjunct and the non tenure track and would appreciate an explanation. Pardon my ignorance, this basically all stems from talks with EE on faculty and some former grad students.
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Non tenure track faculty are typically on contract but aren't earning time toward tenure. This could include instructor positions with no research responsibility or research faculty funded by grants. There are some primarily administrative faculty positions as well. In my experience, they're full-time faculty and full voting members of the department.

Adjuncts are part time teaching faculty paid by the course. Employment varies by need. Few have office space. They may teach at multiple institutions. An adjunct could teach the same course at State U. and at City CC but the credits cost much more at the former.
 
discdude said:
Valbuena?
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Nope: Valbuena is an excellent teacher. She was already well-tenured by the time I came through. I don't know anything about her research though.

This lady taught at Clemson after Wake and is now tenured at Georgia.
 
TownieDeac said:
By very qualified I mean book published, beloved teachers by both faculty and students. Like Henna getting rejected two years in a row before getting tenure or the two writing people getting offered that one year gig instead of tenure track. I still don't quite understand the distinction between adjunct and the non tenure track and would appreciate an explanation. Pardon my ignorance, this basically all stems from talks with EE on faculty and some former grad students.
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I didn't know that about Henna. But if what you say is true, and the department faculty put him forward three times for tenure, the rejections must have been coming from the administration (and the English department had to keep renewing his contract...very unusual when people are denied tenure. They usually leave for one reason or another). By "writing people" do you mean composition instructors or creative writers? Either way, I'm not at all surprised a school like Wake isn't committing tenure lines to writing faculty. Rhetoric and composition faculty tend to be, almost exclusively, the purview of land-grant universities. As for creative writing, it doesn't make much sense in a faculty and major the size of ours to tenure more than one (or maybe two). We don't have more than a couple faculty in any historical period, we don't as far as I know have an MFA program or creative concentration in the MA, and doesn't the department have a tradition of bringing in Irish writers as visiting assistants? They probably staff most of the creative courses on offer, right?

However I've not yet sat on any hiring or tenure committees, so PhDeac probably has more to say on that front.
 
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People can go up for tenure multiple times at Wake?
 
wakephan09 said:
Nope: Valbuena is an excellent teacher. She was already well-tenured by the time I came through. I don't know anything about her research though.

This lady taught at Clemson after Wake and is now tenured at Georgia.
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Yeah, I thought she had tenure.
 
wakephan09 said:
Nope: Valbuena is an excellent teacher. She was already well-tenured by the time I came through. I don't know anything about her research though.

This lady taught at Clemson after Wake and is now tenured at Georgia.
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I think I had her as well, couldn't give you a name though. Small claim to fame- read a Shakespeare scene with J-Gray. Not many people can claim that one.
 
PhDeac said:
People can go up for tenure multiple times at Wake?
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I was under the impression that you can in most places, but that most people that are denied initially take the hint, their pride and try again elsewhere.
 
It is a waste of capital for a department to support multiple tenure bids.

My university highly discourages departments from approving people for tenure who aren't likely to get approved at the university level.
 
That's interesting. Y'all don't lose people to other departments or anything? Seems like there are other potential wastes of capital involving junior scholar job trajectories.
 
Strickland33 said:
That's interesting. Y'all don't lose people to other departments or anything? Seems like there are other potential wastes of capital involving junior scholar job trajectories.
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The thought is that anybody who doesn't get tenure isn't worth keeping or may be more valuable to another institution.
 
Particularly at a small school like Wake, denial of tenure at the administration level may have nothing to do with the qualifications and fitness for tenure of the individual. It may be based on departmental balance, overall university needs etc. Wake has hundreds of profs, not thousands like various ginormous U's. Thus a department may keep someone who is denied tenure, sometimes with an unspoken thought that in a year or two things could change and the person will get tenure. There may be some "you are good enough for tenure, but there just isn't a tenure spot in your department this year" type of situation happening.
 
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