Reliance on temporary faculty positions jeopardizes strength of advising

Megan Fisher

I believe that when evaluating a college or university, one of the most important factors to consider is the quality of teaching and mentorship. Being a junior in college and having friends at many other schools, I wholeheartedly believe that The College of Wooster has some of the best professors. Whether they are a visiting or tenured faculty members, their commitment to teaching and invest- ment in the students is unmatched. However, how can we claim to be “America’s Premiere College for Mentored Undergraduate Research” when the administration does not invest in a stable source of mentors? Students assume this to be a money saving tactic, shuffling visiting professors in and out from year to year instead of offering tenure to even the most dedicated of visitors.

While my experience is primarily in the physics and music departments, I have heard from students of diverse disciplines that these isseus affect their time here. For example, students within the economics department claim that they are heavily affected by one year contacts for professors. My friends particularly complain about the teaching styles of visiting faculty, which students claim is very reliant on memorization and simple retention of textbook concepts, They feel that this method is incongruent with the classic Wooster style, which encourages critical thinking and real-world analysis. These faculty members may be capable of adjusting to the Wooster style, but are given no chance to transition before the contract ends.

In my experience as a physics major, the visiting physics faculty have been intrinsically important to my Wooster journey. Physics may be a smaller department — with about only 40 majors at any time — but the class sizes have been growing over the last couple years. However, the administration has nit expanded the amount if permanent faculty members to match the increase in students. Even when students have expressed strong interest in the research of the visiting faculty members, the administration refuses to support them. An issue that has been expressed across departments is the disconnect in visiting faculty members over I.S. advising. Again, as Wooster and thePrinceton Review claim, Wooster’s senior capstone experience is a unique experience for Wooster students, a culmination of four years of learn- ing. With the constant in-and-out of faculty members, two issues become apparent. Firstly, students are assigned first-year visiting faculty as I.S. advisors even if these visiting faculty members have no experience advising undergraduate students in experiences like I.S. I have seen amazing reports advised by first- year visiting professors, but I believe this process disadvantages both the students and the faculty members as they do not have time to build professional relationships before taking on I.S. The other issue that can arise is that visiting professors’ contract may end before their advisees have a chance to do I.S., meaning that students lose the advising relationship they had invested in.

I believe that none of these issues are the fault of visiting facul- ty members. Every visiting faculty member that I have met has been just as committed to Wooster as tenured professors, despite continually facing these challenges.

While I do not discount the need for visiting faculty members when tenured professors are on sabbatical, professors who have dedicated themselves to this community for over three years do not deserve to be thrown out the door. I have spoken with visiting faculty mem- bers who have absolutely fallen in love with Wooster, but were forced to leave because they were offered a tenure position somewhere else and had no hope of gaining tenure track while here or were simply not offered a contractual extension. It is absolutely mind-boggling to me that the College would let these amazing professors go.

These procedures decrease the quality of teaching and advising at the College, all for the sake of saving money.