The Chronicle: Colloquy: Responses

What to do with the increasing percentage of aging full time faculty on American campuses? Cherish them, of course, for the wisdom they have garnered through life experience and academic study. So says this 64-year-old professor.

His accumulated wisdom also tells him you are foolishly raising an irrelevant issue. Obviously, the rising percentage of aging faculty is entirely due to the administration's recent discovery that the academic ranks can be filled on the cheap by adjunct staff.

Why aren't you asking about the fate of an institution which vigorously denies entry to the young men and women so ardently seeking a career in academia that they will accept the exploitative salaries and conditions being offered them?

The cane was a nice touch. The next time you run a colloquy concerning the competence of colloquy editors at The Chronicle, you should use a drawing of the old British naval salute: a curled hand against a forehead--knucklehead, that is.

: -- Arnold Asrelsky, Associate Professor, English, Queensborough Community College (posted 8/30, 11:35 a.m., E.D.T.)

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