Luxurious living must have come from faculty budget
I FOUND it ironic to read about college students' expectations of designer common spaces and upscale comfort on campus, and about the administrators who concur with these expectations ("The new campus crib," Page A1, April 27), and then to read the next day in the Modern Language Association's newsletter that "across all fields of study and types of degree-granting institutions between 1995 and 2005 . . . the number of part-time faculty rose by 62 percent." Meanwhile full-time, tenured faculty, the newsletter reports, constitute a mere 32.2 percent of the total faculty.
In a clear case of caveat emptor, parents would do well to quiz administrators on who will be teaching their offspring before they write those $40,000 checks or re-mortgage their homes to cover college costs. While many part-time college instructors are well qualified, they are often juggling two or three part-time teaching gigs just to earn poverty-level wages. What this means for students is overtaxed faculty who are unavailable to act as advisers, serve on committees, or meet for regular office hours.
A significant number of undergraduates at colleges and universities are being taught by inexperienced master's and doctoral degree students. The question then becomes, what are these hefty tuitions paying for? Designer couches? Plasma televisions? Six-figure-salary administrators? Parents would be wise to find out.
LAUREL KORNHISER
Barnstable
My suggestion would be that they seek living spaces more suited to their needs immediately. If they require any adjunct educational service, such as a library, laboratories, or the occasional word from a professor, I'm sure a little more money would cover it.
MARCIA WOOD
Winchester
