mwilliams wrote:
>
> Petr Kuzmic wrote:
>
> > For you information, the base salary of a Lecturer at the University of
> > Wisconsin is about $33,000 per year with full benefits.
>
> That is a very low salary indeed! Do you mean that a person with a Ph.d who
> obtains a job as a lecturer (assistant professor?) in the University of
> Wisconsin will get a total salary of $33,000?! Lecturers are paid more than
> that in the UK and their 3rd class citizens here!
There seem to be a few important differences in terminology between UK
and US universities: Lecturer in the US is very different from Assistant
Professor. This reminds me that in the UK there is something called
"Reader" is it not? We don't have any Readers here [;)].
Assistant Professor in the US is on a (typically six-years-long) 'tenure
track', to become Associate Professor (and, hopefully a few years later,
a Full Professor) with *tenure*. *Tenure* in the US means, more or
less, that you get to keep your job no matter what, unless you (1)
molest your students in dark corners, (2) remain in a drunken stupor for
several years, (3) your entire department is abolished [I know of one
case where two Professors were fired by that mechanism], or (4) a
similar cataclysmic event occurs.
On the other hand, a Lecturer here is someone who does not have Faculty
status at all. Only a very small minority of Lecturers are *permanent*
[not in the sense of Tenure] employees who have an official status
denoted as Academic Staff. The majority of Lecturers have *temporary*
(sometimes strictly non-renewable) positions. This kind of academic
life-form ranks just above the graduate student Teaching Assistant,
although undergraduate students often call Lecturers "Professor
so-and-so", because (from their limited perspective) Lecturer does
everything Professors do: gives lectures, writes exams, and (!) assigns
them a final grade which, in the class I taught, in their minds decided
who goes to Medical School and who does not.
As far as the ontogenesis of a Lecturer, they are people in transition,
nomads, or vagabonds, who are hired to teach one class here and there.
Most typically, they would be folks who already defended their doctoral
thesis, but employers are not yet streaming to their doors to offer
six-figure salaries and/or tenured faculty positions.
As far as you question about salaries, it is very rare that a Lecturer
would make around $30,000 / year, no matter now many classes they are
teaching. I did post a salary listing relevant to the campus where I
happen to be geographically located:
http://www.ohr.wisc.edu/pvl/OHRPV1009.html
However, do not be deceived by seeing positions listed at $34,000 per
year. What this means is that at the University of Wisconsin, you get
appointed at 60% level for teaching one large class (300+ students plus
lab), and *then* your salary is pro-rated to (I think) 16+2 weeks per
semester. So that would be $34,000 x 0.6 x 18 / 52 = $7,100. The good
news (really) is that if you stick around for the whole year, including
an eight-week Summer Session, you can make $20,000 / year and more. I
know people who do.
---
Anyway, as you can see if you re-trace this message thread, there are
people who think that $5,000 per course for a Lecturer is a monumentally
good deal, because many (most?) universities actually pay something like
$1,200 - $1,500 per three credit 16-week course to a Lecturer. Does it
seem low to you? Well, the original poster in this thread explained:
"[...] we're advertising a part-time temporary
position that is meant to attract someone with a (mostly)
full-time job [...]"
That does make some sense, doesn't it. If you already have a "(mostly)
full time" job, than to add something like $3,750 (after taxes) or even
$1,000 on top of that, that would be a welcome addition. Heck, even a
couple hundred bucks is nice in that regard. However, you better not be
to much into teaching, because it could distract you from your "(mostly)
full time" job, which you need to pay for rent and groceries.
Hope that helps,
-- Petr
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