January 14th 2008

Beevis and Calvin O. Butts (head) III

Can the Stupidity Police please visit Calvin Butts and put him under the hot lights for a bit?!? Calvin O. Butts III, president of SUNY Old Westbury, was quoted in an article in Newsday as saying,

"If you have adjuncts, you never know if you will get the same adjuncts from year to year."

Oh, really? And I wonder why that is, Cal. Reading your comment, one would think adjuncts are just a bunch of flakes who have no desire for job security. Yeah, some part-timers are flakey. They get hired because hiring processes for adjuncts at some schools are just ridiculously lax.

However, as president of SUNY Old Westbury, Butts could practically guarantee he'd have the same adjuncts from semester-to-semester. What would it take? Why, multi-year contracts, that's what! SUNY Old Westbury employs a small number of "visiting instructors" who, according to the president of their college, can't really be trusted to be reliable. (Yes. You should be rolling your eyes and making that pfffffff sound!)

Life as a college president just stinks sometimes, but not because it's impossible to know whether adjunct faculty will return from year-to-year. That problem, I'm afraid, is one that has a simple and easy solution.

And to all of you adjuncts reading this: can you please try to be less unreliable so that the president of your college can sleep soundly knowing which of you are going to teach from year-to-year?

Posted By Part-Time T. at 8:00 AM

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