Breaking down Deputy News Editor Sammy Roth's comprehensive article in today's paper about ongoing staffing difficulties within the Core.
So what's the big deal? The Core is understaffed. More than a third of LitHum and CC classes were taught by graduate students last year, and only a quarter were taught by tenured or tenure-track faculty. Due to a student body growing faster than faculty as well as a lack of incentive for professors to teach Core classes, the problem doesn't seem to be getting better any time soon. Executive Vice President for Arts and Sciences Nicholas Dirks said, "We worry about Core teaching every year. It hasn't changed." And not only has the number of tenured professors teaching the Core decreased, it can also be a challenge to attract graduate and postdoc students to teach. This semester the combination of instructors dropping their UWriting sections and other factors caused Frontiers to be overenrolled as not enough freshmen were able to take the other required course.
How did things get this way? In many ways the nature of academia works against the idea of the Core. Teaching the Core can be just as demanding on faculty as it is academically on student. Remember, LitHum and CC instructors do all the same reading we're supposed to, as well as single-handedly grade our papers without the help of a teaching aide. The Core also asks many professors to teach outside their specialities, something Director of the Center for the Core Curriculum Roosevelt Montas, CC ’95, M.A. ’96, Ph.D ’04, said “no professor does willingly.”
For many younger faculty members, teaching the Core simply isn't a priority as they focus on their careers. East Asian Studies professor and former provost William Theodore de Bary, CC ’41, MA ’48, PhD ’53 explained, “If you haven’t published, you have a hard time getting a job at all, and you’re not going to get published unless you have something special to offer the publisher.”
