Who’s Doing the Teaching at Universities?

RST: Gordon, I will teach my last classes of the year today. I’m whupped.

EGG: You, dear Rachel (my Big Boss), do truly walk the talk. Unlike so many of us who opine on higher education, you do the work of being a faculty member. I am going to teach a class this fall for the first time in 10 years. I am already starting to prepare, because I feel really uncomfortable having to carry a whole class by myself after so many years in the wilderness of administration. That is the reason that I am so interested in further understanding what it means to be a faculty member and how we can make good teaching a central premise of our universities. Talk to me!

RST: Oh, exciting. Can’t wait to hear what you’re teaching. I’m sure this will provide plenty of fodder for our columns next fall. I think it matters for everyone to see how things have changed—or not—for those of us still in the job. Is there anything you’re worried about?

EGG: The course is about the future of the land-grant university. I know the material, but this is an undergraduate honors class. I have never taught undergraduates, and this Z Generation is so quirky that I have heartburn as to how I can best relate and make it a meaningful experience for both the students and me. So, I have the same anxiety as any newly minted faculty member. This I do know—to be a good teacher is extraordinarily time-consuming and never easy.

RST: OMG, tell me about it. It’s like writing books. It never gets easier, and you can never just coast and feel like you’ve got it. I’m a bit in despair because I’m not sure about anything anymore. How to teach current students? What in today’s world do they really need to learn? What the hell do we do about AI? This year, when people asked how teaching was going, I tended to lament that Generation P(andemic) is tough. It’s not their fault that they’re anxious and depressed, medicated, unsocialized, plugged-in and disconnected. That’s the world we’re all living in. In a way, I’m glad I’m as old as I am, because when I think about the future, it seems pretty bleak.

EGG: Rachel, get back on the bicycle! Hold those thoughts for another time and place and we can talk about them. To me what you have described is a real and daunting challenge, but it is also a chance to think carefully about how you can best reinvent yourself to meet the moment. This is not me trying to be your therapist.

RST: Gordon, we both know that you sometimes serve that role, like when I get nervous about having to speak in public, but carry on.

EGG: No problem. I always carry a stash of Valium with me. But seriously, it comes from a lesson that I have learned on numerous occasions. When I returned to Ohio State after 10 years, it was a much different place. But my inclination was to pull out the old playbook and use it. Bad mistake! I quickly learned that I needed to forget the Ohio State that I knew 10 years earlier by reinventing myself to meet the new realities. And that is the challenge of every faculty member: Change and reinvention are the only way that you are going to be able to make sense of the times.

RST: Yes, sir. I’m on my third, fourth or fifth career, depending on how you count, but it’s a good reminder that even in the same job, we need to be able to adapt and evolve. But here’s something I want to tackle: When you call on me to respond as “faculty,” I want to know who you have in mind. We have been accused by some readers of showing contempt for “faculty.”

EGG: I love faculty individually, but collectively they can be pains in the ass. And that has always been frustrating to me. It is the guild mentality that the loud voices speak for all because the other voices remain silent.

RST: Right. The group I call the Angry Eight, which is in reality a small minority. I do have contempt for those people who say, “Whatever it is, I’m against it.” That’s not critical thinking; it’s a reflexive “you’re not the boss of me.”

EGG: Yes. But also the third of faculty that go along with them quietly. I experienced that all the time. A quiet conversation on the Oval with a colleague or an email of agreement, yet no willingness to go against the herd. How can a place so chock-full of bright people who have so much to offer to the wider world become so silent? I know we are saying the same thing in different ways and places. Explain that, please.

RST: Because we are stuck with need to be able to get along with our colleagues for a long time, while administrators mostly come and go. But to be clear, what I represent is the dinosaureate, or maybe the mountain gorillas. We tenured professors are a vanishing species and comprise—what, a quarter?—of people who teach in higher ed. We suffered through grad school, paid our dues, eventually paid back our student loans, jumped through all the peer-review hoops, served on mind-numbing committees and enjoyed a zillion degrees of freedom to pursue the things that lit us up intellectually. But guess what? When you say “faculty,” we are not representative. We do tend, however, to like to serve in university senates and in the AAUP.

EGG: Well, my mountain gorilla, you are correct that senior tenured faculty are becoming the exception, which I mourn. We need leadership at all levels, and when we lose those with heft and memory, the university is diminished. But what’s the problem? Why did the buggy-whip guild go out of business, or why did Blockbuster implode? Because those in leadership positions refused to change. And that is what has happened with all the mountain gorillas. They were so busy pounding their chest that they failed to adapt. Is there a lesson here for universities and faculty?

RST: I think so, and I take to heart your reminder that I need to reinvent myself. And I know I need help doing that. But here’s the thing. While I have job security, the other species—the adjuncts, the lecturers, the groundskeepers, the advisers—are getting picked off like prey. For all our talk of diversity, equity and inclusion, faculty are, well, pretty darned elitist. We can talk all we want about fair labor practices and sticking it to the man, but the fact is, how many faculty are standing up for staff and contingent faculty?

EGG: Oh my goodness. Elitism and arrogance in universities? Preserving self and not the folks who work to help make it possible for the institution to operate? I have seen it many times and certainly experienced that faculty offer up others for the chopping block but only become agitated when their jobs are threatened. The lesson here is timeworn, but if you do not focus on the enterprise then the component parts will not survive in times of peril. Universities are enterprises, not a collection of colleges and departments connected by a heating plant.

RST: Here again, when you say “faculty,” what you mean is the tenured dinosaureate. Higher education is a caste system in many ways, and those who are doing the heavy lifting are often what I heard described by a Californian as “freeway fliers”—the lecturers and adjuncts who teach at three or four universities and still are barely able to buy food. Now, gas will be an impossibility. These are not the “faculty” you mean when you accuse us/them of arrogance. And yet they make up the majority of the labor force at most universities. I want you to acknowledge that. And believe me, next fall when you’re in the classroom again, you will see exactly how hard the work is.

EGG: Actually, I do appreciate what you just said. I readily admit that when I was on the presidential perch, I rarely thought about the many who are laboring in the academic fields who are living a limited existence. But let’s just not acknowledge this issue—let us put it on our radar screen for further discussion. In the meantime, I am suffering from hives thinking about facing those first-year undergraduates.

RST: Not so fast. I also want to talk about privilege in terms of how many members of the dinosaureate don’t value the professionalism of staff in marketing, advancement, development, advising, career centers and administrative roles. Especially the work of those in student affairs, who see all sorts of the worst, hardest stuff and are there as much-needed support.

EGG: To make a university run well, you need a cadre of smart professionals at all levels. And my experience is that these people not only make a huge difference but really have a clear understanding of the value of the university. My meetings with staff councils at each university I have served are very attuned to the challenges of the university and frequently seek global solutions. They know that if the university does well, so will they. Refreshing.

RST: I’ve said this to you before, but I know that when I landed on the tenure track, it felt like winning the lottery. Next September will mark my 20th year in the professoriate. Like you, I am a true believer in the mission and promise of higher ed. I’ll have a sabbatical in the fall (and spring quarter) to work on a book project tentatively titled, The Toughest Job in the Nation? Why the Future of Democracy Depends on Higher Education Leadership. I’m going to need your help on that as we hit the road. I plan to do profiles of the vast array of colleges and universities that make up the gorgeous mosaic of American higher ed to show that it’s not just the schools the NYT and WSJ think of as “college.” And to make the case that higher education is essential for the health of the republic.

EGG: So needed, and it will be important to fully recognize people who are working creatively and diligently in the fields but are only footnotes. As you know and as I have discovered now that we’ve been on this journey together, we are finding that so much of the energetic force in higher education is found in the unheralded.

RST: Exactly. We need to herald the hell of out them. It’s exciting that we, the Odd Couple, are being invited by presidents to come to campuses to chat with them and to speak to their boards. We just got invited to a gala! I know you have a whole closet full of tuxedos, but I have never been to one of these things and I’m not even sure how to pronounce the word. And who is going to answer the big question: How in the world am I, a professor, going to dress myself for that?

EGG: Wear your Birkenstocks. You will be the talk of the evening.

RST: I bet you don’t realize that those ugly shoes are now being worn by the cool kids, old man.