Hi Jude,
It's not been so much a matter of people acquiescing but of steady state
budget cuts, reduction of faculty by 20% over the past ten years (still
same number of students) and individual departments, faced with full-time
faculty reductions, deciding, I guess at some level, not to increase their
individual teaching workload but to let some courses go untaught---which
means backfilled with cheap labor. We faculty could solve the problem by
agreeing to teach 4-4 or 4-5 instead of our present 3-2. And we have not
done so. Certainly we have put all pressure available to us on our
legislature to increase funding, and on our administration to find more
funding for faculty positions.
A deep problem: writing has generally been taught by cheap labor. When we
move writing across the curriculum, the paradigm tends to follow, Wyoming
Resolutions notwithstanding.
Good question. And maybe not a satisfactory answer. Thanks!
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