While probing why so many CUNY professors are popping up in embarrassing news stories, Melissa Klein in Sunday’s Post exposed a real reason to worry about the quality of education offered on City University campuses.
Klein flagged some real oddities: the prof who turned out to be a Russian spy; the dude who has sired 29 kids via sperm donations; the John Jay adjunct who bragged of teaching “future dead cops.” But the real worry should be the ones who never make the news but aren’t up to snuff.
That the city’s public colleges rely heavily on lower-paid, non-tenure-track adjunct faculty isn’t news though the fact that the system’s teaching staff of some 20,000 includes only 7,500 full-time faculty is an eye-opener.
Advocates will blame budget pressures for the hiring of 12,500 part-time adjuncts to help cover the load, including adjunct “lecturers” who may hold only a bachelor’s degree. But part of those pressures is the pay and perks won by the full-timers through their union, the Professional Staff Congress.
In any case, Klein noted that the hiring procedures for adjuncts have grown seriously problematic in recent years. The duty falls almost entirely on department heads, but with limits imposed by the bureaucracy.
All job candidates must be asked the same set of questions, and all reference checks must be done by the Human Resources Department. And the college’s diversity officer oversees all hiring, with a mandate to achieve the “right” racial, gender and ethnic mix.
With such clumsy constraints, it’s no surprise that jerks such as the “dead cops” guy slip through. (Though why did a school with a “tight budget” opt to put him on paid leave?)
But with adjuncts teaching half of all classes, the bigger question is whether CUNY has any eye on the quality of its peon-professors.