Academic

Welcome Academic Condottieri!

By JA Hodnicki

During the Renaissance, Italian city states fielded armies made up of hired foreign mercenaries - the condottieri.  It strikes me that in times of academic belt tightening (though not exclusively during such times), law schools might want to think about the use of  condottieri. for increased class coverage.  There is a set group of professors at any given law school that are reluctant to teach large lecture classes (not me, I have over 100 students in my 8am corporations class) or classes that do not fit within their comfort level in terms of the material. 

Given the number of people who submit forms to the AALS, there exists a massive supply of entry level teachers.  Similarly, there is an increasing supply of seasoned law professors who under defined benefit plans can retire and double dip in salary by teaching at other schools.  There is also a large number of practitioners who are retiring from in house companies, law firms or government.  Why not have a separate non-tenure tack class of professors you teach 5-6 classes a year (no committee requirements, no writing requirements) who serve the role of teachers and just teachers.  Law schools could give such people 3 or 5 year contracts after a one year test drive period with a pay level below that of current tenure track faculty.     If you have three faculty lines for hiring, why hire a tenure track person when you instead could hire two condottieri instead and field a team of two tenure track professors and an additional two condottieri?

There are many candidates that will make great teachers but not great scholars.  If we care about the student learning experience, we should cultivate people who will be great teachers, particularly for areas that are "needs" based on student demand and high enrollment.  Moreover, if we believe that an overly large class size is detrimental to student learning, teaching faculty serve to reduce the class size and promote better leaning experiences.  A number of schools are reluctant to use adjuncts in large numbers because of one or more of : a. the adjuncts do not have enough face time at the school for student questions; (b) quality control issues; and (c) lots of sunk costs for the potential of a one time teaching gig.  The use of academic condottieri could solve these issues.

The picture above is Leonardo da Vinci's Il Condottiero.

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on November 13, 2008 (boomark / email).