I really have to stop paying attention to Ann Coulter, but this quote that Steve highlights just shows her as the ignorant troll she really is:
Professors are the most cosseted, pussified, subsidized group of people in the U.S. workforce. They have concocted a system to preemptively protect themselves for not doing their jobs, known as "tenure." They make a lot of money, have health plans that would make New York City municipal workers' jaws drop, and work -- at most -- fifteen hours a week.
Were that it be true that I worked "at most" 15 hours a week! But there is a certain irony in this coming from someone who "earns" $25,000 per one hour speaking engagement in which she gets to spew the patented bile. Three nights work and she's already made more than most professors who, you know, teach. Sad, really.
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Oh how I loathe that woman.....
"... at most -- fifteen hours a week."
How dare that medusa say so?
My wife's a professor, and when the Chairman took all the easy times for classes in her subject (Physics) for himself, there were days where she was on campus (or commuting to and from it) for fifteen hours. Two such days each week, in fact.
There are "freeway fliers" in Southern California who are adjunct professors at 3 or even 4 colleges, and work or commute 15 hours a day every week day.
That disgusting cosseted creep!
And why does anyone applaud her? Or pay her?
I'm pretty much a First Amendment Absolutist, so I'm forced to defend her right to be hideous, without censorship. But can't her employers be persuaded to show some good taste and dump her skinny ass in the gutter, where her mouth is?
Coulter is wrong of course, but there are real problems in academia:
1) PhD glut: The overproduction of PhDs in certain fields that just can't support very many of them.
2) Serf system: Grossly underpaid instructors with PhDs who get paid less than grad students with no benefits or job security. Much of the actual teaching is done by these dirt poor instructors or by grad students. The PhD/grad student glut feeds this system.
3) Baby boomer deadwood: A logjam of aging tenured baby boomers makes it harder for Gens X and Y to get real positions (rather than the exploitative situation of 2).
4) Anti-teaching sentiment: In terms of career strategy, the most important thing for tenure track professors is to get research grants, the second most important is pubs, far down the list is teaching. Even talented and enthusiastic teachers are discouraged by peers from putting too much emphasis on teaching.
I'd say the group paid the most for doing the least is the Pundit--many, like Coulter, are highly paid to yak and gab without having done any research on the topic. Some, like Coulter, sometimes don't even bother to come up with their own words but "borrow" what others have said.
Excellent! I completed my 15 hours for this week yesterday. Can I go home now?
No Andrew, not you. You still need to put in the extra 3 hours to get tenure.