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.