오디오 자막 자동 생성
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Hi, my name is Jan and today I'll be discussing the state of adjunct faculty
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in Maine
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with the attention to shoring up our economy
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as main approaches its 10 year strategic
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development plans to rely heavily on education.
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Main intends to invest in education, but where should we direct our attention?
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We know that educational investment is valuable.
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Every dollar spent on the University of Maine System Returns seven.
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Strategic Development plan is focusing on
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expanding maine's educational offerings to make them
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more dynamic available at shorter notice,
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easier for people in the middle of their career to attain.
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It's important when we're looking at implementing these new measures
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to make sure that the systems that already exist are stable enough and in doing so,
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we must triage focus on the areas that are the least stable
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and one of these is our faculty.
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Especially
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adjuncts.
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Adjuncts have less academic freedom,
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lack job security
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and are not involved in governance compared to their peers.
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They also have higher rates of poverty with 25% needing public assistance,
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one in three below the poverty line and only 16% able to cover household expenses.
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This is, this has a wide scope of effects.
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40% of all
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instructional faculty across the United States are adjuncts and
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that number jumps to 75% at two year institutions,
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especially alarming when you consider that higher
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adjunct faculty means worse educational outcomes,
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students are less likely to stay in the field
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and are less likely to succeed on future
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courses after having an adjunct in structure,
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they have generally less support from these instructors as well.
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So
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how do we help our adjunct faculty?
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How do we help our students
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by helping our adjunct faculty as well?
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Well, there are three issue areas in improving the state of adjuncts.
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The first is academic freedom.
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The second is the inclusion in governance and the third is low pay.
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We will evaluate the following policy solutions on the basis of four main criteria.
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First is comprehensiveness, How many of those areas do they cover and how fully?
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The second is scope?
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How many adjuncts are covered by these policies? And the third is equity
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are the institutions that have more adjuncts helped
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proportionally?
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And how feasible
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are these solutions? Is everyone, is there the political will to enact them?
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Is the funding available to make it possible for everyone to access?
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The first solution
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is to target the University of Maine system
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to raise the number of tenure track lines
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to 75%.
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This
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From the currently existing 59%.
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This would be a very feasible solution as that's a pretty easy increase.
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It is comprehensive for the individual
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in that it removes the situation of there being
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a high level of adjuncts.
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However,
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it's not equitable and it's narrow in scope because
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it only focuses on the University of Maine system.
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It's important to note here as well that 75% is that generally agreed upon number
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that tenure track institutions should hold.
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Um the number of adjuncts should really only be around 25%.
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The second is a grant for private institutions to reach that 75% number.
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The improvement here is that it's wider in scope
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providing state funds to a wider range of institutions
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could be made especially equitable by targeting community colleges
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is comprehensive like the previous solution for the individual.
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But the problem was finding funding for private institutions on the state level.
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The third solution, unions and collective bargaining
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faces the problem that
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all the potential outcomes come from bargaining.
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It's impossible to know whether they will be positive or negative
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until the bargaining has already taken place.
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It's also true that there is no money going into the solution.
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So any bargaining in terms of higher pay is
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going to come out of the pockets of students,
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which is also
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not a desirable outcome.
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The best possible solution is to create a grant for private universities.
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There are, we can address the cons here, we can improve feasibility,
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make it disperse only the money that is available whenever it's available.
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That means that no matter how small the number,
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the amount of money we can give it to the people who need it on a triage basis.
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We can add stipulations that send it only to those
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institutions that have the highest levels of adjunct instruction.
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There are a couple of necessary steps in the execution.
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The first is to get funding promised by state legislature.
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Second is to write the grant,
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including those necessary stipulations and
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targeting two specific institutions.
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And the third is to use the already existing infrastructure
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that exists to disperse covid relief money
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to private institutions
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in this manner as well.
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I hope this has been an educational video. Have a wonderful day.