I do understand your problem with casual University appointments and it is a shocking indictment of what a University is supposed to be. The fault IMHO goes back to Dawkins amagamating the CAE sector with the Universities: teaching only positions were often very appropriate for the former but quite inappropriate for a "University". At least the Group of 8 must not throw the baby out with the bath water and try to keep some semblance of what a University is supposed to represent and that is not a vocationally oriented institution producing what the heads of industry say they want. The barbarians have long forced the gates but without people paid to reflect, analyse, write books, and carry out "blue sky research" (including especially sociopsychological), the nation will be the poorer.

Sorry Lucy but I think the NTEU is absolutely correct on this one. A teaching only position is not a bona fide academic position. A real academic engages in both teaching and research in equal measure. Research is about knowledge creation whilst teaching is about knowledge dissemination. So it would be a massive waste of resources to have only teaching only staff - they would be smart enough to create knowledge but they'd be precluded from it.

If the University bureaucrats got away with creating teaching only positions then soon these would be the majority of positions. They would squeeze out the research intensive staff and soon research would be the preserve of a privileged few at the elite universities.

You cannot denigrate research because of the dud measures imposed on it by the Australian Research Council. The ARC is made up of education bureaucrats and they don't know what they're doing. The journal ranking system is a joke. But academics are still producing quality research.

Its a shame about the casuals. But saving the casuals and wrecking academia is a dud choice.

Well, this is a surprise. I didn't give online opinion permission to reprint this post, and I hadn't a clue they wanted to until getting an email today saying it was published - though because I have a creative commons licence on my blog i guess they can do whatever they like in terms of republishing.

David, my point was that so called 'teaching only' positions already exist and in fact are necessary to the system, and furthermore, the vast majority of academics already employed on a teaching only basis - as sessionals or in short fixed term contracts - are in fact doing research, often they're doing more research than academics who have tenure. They're just not being paid for it. I agree the choice is a dud one, but that doesn't mean it can be evaded.

Sorry Lucy, if I'd realise you hadn't meant to post this I wouldn't have commented. I was actually a bit surprised when I clicked on some of the links and found that they were from April and May 2009.

For what its worth that "Excremental Theory of Post Grad" education is a bit too much of a conspiracy theory. I don't think the Universities deliberately set out to exploit post grad students but it has worked out that way.

This will sound cruel, but the sessionals are at the bottom of the market for a variety of reasons, and their exploitation actually allows the rest of academia to survive. That does sound horrible but its true. If all the tenured or tenurable staff had to teach heavy loads they wouldn't be able to research. Admittedly, some of the older staff don't research but it negatively affects their career so its their choice.

Some of those sessionals might look research active - but thats because they are doing a PhD - we don't know if they'll stay research active in the long run. A lot of the older tenured academics who don't research belong to a different generation. So the comparison doesn't really work. Even so, a lot of tenured and tenurable academics are actually research active.

What scares me is that if teaching only positions were formally approved then they might become the majority of the available jobs. That would be the end of academia. University bureaucrats are very short-sighted and they value teaching over research because teaching brings in money direct from the Government. So its a dangerous situation. I'm sorry but I see the plight of the casuals as a necessary sacrifice. My only advice would be don't be a casual staffer at a university unless you just want to earn some extra money.

I got the feeling when reading this article that it was a blog post so it was interesting to have that confirmed.

With regards to 'teaching only academics', in my experience with university as a student and watching my son's university study I ended up of the opinion that academics do not necessarily make the best teachers. In fact I got the impression that in the main, academics only teach because they have to in order to keep the position allowing them their research funding.

Now that teaching only positions are created perhaps the students will get a better commitment.

None of this is to suggest that there are not inspiring academics out there, many of whom both myself and my son were fortunate to have had- I'm just speaking generally.

After working as a sessional on/off for about 10 years I've just got my first academic position, its not full time and its fixed term (12 months) but it does have a research componant. I think its very important to have a research componant, just as I think its important to be dedicated and switched on to teaching. I know of people with teaching only contracts and it seems to me they are just being ripped off. They are expected to research too in their own time (ok maybe I am too) but there is so little time.

I enjoyed this post but I think its important we continue to fight for teaching/ research positions and stop exploiting the casuals...

KTLS,
to make a spelling error is something everyone does every now & then, but to make two in one post with the same word is something else. This is what I'm on about every time I rave on in a negative sense about australian academics & University.

teaching/ research positions..
KTLS,
As is rather obvious from my posts I'm nowhere near of academic persuasion hence my unflattering remarks re anything academia. That is not to say that I'm anti academic education, not by a long shot. Academic knowledge is vital to kick-off on life's journey. What is not needed & in fact hampers so much of what could be benevolent progress is those who have nothing more than academic education. No life experience or other acquired knowledge only what someone has taught them. i.e. they haven't come up with anything themselves & yet believe they're the ones who have the answers to society's everyday life. Academic education is not the be all & end all of knowledge & wisdom. It is merely one of the many links in the chain of life. We now have so many University graduates who, having satisfied an academic examiner, are dwiddling their thumbs because they're over qualified for menial tasks but too incompetent to perform a menial task. Trust me, I've seen this. So, why are they so incompetent ? Because they haven't been taught by competent lecturers. We need less incompetent lecturers & more competent ones, not simply more positions. More positions don't work or are things so bad already that we haven't enough proof yet.

Many of the first and second year subjects in an undergraduate degree do not require research acedemics, but rather good teaching staff to cover the basics which would be a waste of high level acedemics time.

A grade research acedemics are often not good educators, and are generally suited for those that have passed the first couple of years of more general study and have chosen to specialise.

Hiring large numbers of acedemics for the first year subjects is not only a waste of their time, but a poor service to the students and an inefficient use of the budget.

I hope the author is not researching or teaching English – or logic for that matter. She says:

“the website is the worst organised and slowest loading in the entire modern world”

How would she know that?

In the same sentence she says something is an “unbelievable fact”. As far as I know an “unbelievable fact” is an oxymoron.

Not satisfied with oxymora the author manages two tautologies in one short sentence.

“I think it's debatable that it is, personally, given the stupidity of many of the current measures of research activity now in use.”
She then repeats one of these tautologies in the sentence immediately following the one above.

This extravagant style tends to reduce credibility

Shadow Minister makes a valid point about first year and, to some extent, second year subjects. The Dawkins abolition of the CAEs was one of the most stupid things the Labor government did. David Jennings' argument is almost the same as that used to justify slavery in the Old South. Plantation agriculture was, supposedly, not viable without slavery, so the economy would be destroyed if the Abolitionists got their way. The exploitation of the black slaves was "a necessary sacrifice". A university obviously needs both teaching and research, but they don't need to be done by the same people, except at the higher levels.

First year University students need to be taught by people with minds trained to think critically and who are capable of evaluating advances in their discipline. There is in this thread a certain patronising attitude to first year students. When teaching such, it is necessary to be aware that an, admittedly small, number of students are very smart indeed – at times possessing minds sharper and more capable than one's own, albeit lacking the raw data and the experience.To draw out the best in these one needs to be very much on the cutting edge of one's own discipline and this IMHO implies a commitment to ongoing research.

Gorufus,

As there is a massive difference between high school and university, the first year is to some extent a bridging year. Even the brightest students require some transition.

To assume lower level post graduates cannot teach critical thinking is also condesending.

Gee Divergence ... exaggerate much?

All I was saying is that using sessionals to take heavy teaching loads frees up a lot of other academics to do research. How that morphs into a justification of slavery is beyond my comprehension.

I wouldn't want to be a sessional academic. I can see some of their problems and I'm kind of sympathetic. But in truth quite a few of them aren't any good. The sessionals that are very good tend to be the career changers who last about a year before moving onto something else or peope who work full-time in other jobs but just want to pick up some extra money by teaching evening classes.

If somebody has been a sessional for more than a year or is just employed on a succession of short term contracts, they probably aren't very good. You get what you pay for and when you pay little and provide poor conditions who do you get? You get people who aren't at the top tier of the academic market.

That might be cruel. But its not slavery. Remember that for every hour of face to face teaching there is at least an hour, if not two, of work required to prepare for teaching. So if you teach for six or eight hours a week you might really be devoting between 12-20 hours a week on teaching if not a lot more. Now if it weren't for sessionals the rest of academia would be teaching closer to 10 or 14 hours. Given the extra time required, more student contact etc, research would suffer.

So sessionals serve a useful purpose. They probably aren't the best teachers, but they are good enough. We'll keep using them because it make sense. They might moan about not getting that prized academic job. But lets face it a lot of highly capable people have on merit walked straight into tenurable academic jobs. You can't blame others for your own poor career strategy.

David,

I am not a sessional academic, but I do work at a university research institute and have a good idea of how they are treated. You yourself have admitted that they are exploited, although there is obviously no comparison with the degree of exploitation inflicted on the slaves. I was merely pointing out that your argument was essentially the same as that of the slave owners.

Before the Dawkins reforms, according to Barry Jones, the stupidest thing that the Labor government of the time ever did, there was a network of CAEs where academics worked on a teaching only basis, although some still did research on their own time. They had decent pay and conditions, along with reasonable job security. Many of them were excellent teachers. I did my first science degree as an external student at one and was then able to get first class honours at a university. Because they didn't have to fund research, the CAEs were much cheaper to run than universities. Having 38 or so universities in a country with the population of Australia is ridiculous. Of course research is underfunded. Turning the universities that were CAEs back into CAEs would be a far more equitable solution (and would lead to better teachers) than funding research on the backs of the people at the bottom, who are often led on with unrealistic expectations.

Divergence, my apologies for the delay in replying I've been out of town for a work thing.

Anyway, I worked with some CAE guys at one uni and they were very happy to be able to research. The Dawkins reforms weren't perfect - but they happened - and they've allowed a lot of kids from poorer backgrounds to get access to university degrees.

I don't think I'm using a slave owners logic on the sessionals. After all, I'm not planning to keep them! [Sorry, I couldn't resist.] What it is - is just basic capitalist logic. They are a cheap source of casual labour just like casual workers in supermarkets, fast food outlets etc. As I said it makes sense to use them because it frees up research time and I don't have great amounts of extra research money and "teaching relief" coming in from other areas.

I do feel a bit bad about promising some casuals that there will be a full-time position advertised soon. But I'm not responsible for their position in the market - they have to look after themselves. After all, it is really easy to see what the requirements are for an ongoing Level B or Level C job at any uni.

I have worked with some exceptional casuals. But in my experience they already have full time jobs and just want extra cash. Anyway, sorry if it sounds harsh, I'm just trying to work within the system without being crushed by it.