I work pretty hard to be a good mentor, both inside and outside the classroom, and in
Why say no? For one it does eat up time. And just like writers and artists who want to draw a line at doing uncompensated work for “exposure”, free teaching strikes me as a way to devalue the very real work of teaching well..
Moreover, the “free teaching” requests that come out of USC benefit the institution. I love having pipeline programs and getting diverse students interested in things, but you know, I never have any grace or leeway granted to me regarding my teaching duties. One enrolled student short of the cutoff for a TA? Sucks to be you, no TA. By some weird
Given that institutional rigidity, why exactly should I teach for free as a service task? No matter how minor the actual teaching task?
I haven’t thought this all the way through, so I’m interested in opinions. Not ones that start out “Look,
Instead, happy to hear real ideas: should I do this as somebody who is institutionally protected as a means to say to administrators “dammit, teaching is our bread-and-butter and it deserves compensation” or does my stance somehow make things harder for adjuncts and contract faculty to do so as well? I 100 percent support them in setting the same limit.