Come teach without pay!

https://futurism.com/the-byte/university-professor-unpaid

“UCLA seeks applications for an Assistant Adjunct Professor on a without salary basis,” the job description on the university’s website states. “Applicants must understand there will be no compensation for this position.”

 

That's a really tough go! Don't they even give vouchers for the food bank? And I thought the pay was bad here at DI! UCLA must have felt the heat. The posting appears to have been removed. Or, perhaps there was a huge surge of applicants and the vacancy was quickly filled.

Talk about chutzpah! I can't imagine what they were thinking. They have done themselves real damage - at least I hope so. Learn from it, UCLA!

 

I’m sure they would have gotten someone. UCLA has enough name recognition they’d have had several people willing to suffer to add that experience to their CVs.

 

Right. And to take advantage and inflict such suffering in the name of avarice is immoral. Screw them!

 

I hope they go bankrupt!

 

It’s the Goodwill approach to education. Get your product donated (a PhD holding instructor working for free) and then charge the consumer for the product (in this case, the courses taught). Like someone else said, there may be someone desperate enough for the experience and putting that you taught at UCLA would certainly be a resume/CV booster when searching for a full-time professorship.

 

Not quite, Josh. It's Goodwill without the good will.

Goodwill = donated goods, sold at low prices, funds used for charitable purposes. (... they are, aren't they?)
UCLA = donated work sold at full retail whack. (Tuition). Many purchases financed by lifelong debt.

Sorry, Josh. This stinks. Can't say enough bad things about it. Must go now, think up some new ones.

 

If they did fill the position, I seriously doubt that anyone would stick around working for free for more than a semester. But, if it is for taking the place of a tenured professor on sabbatical, that's probably all they wanted.

 

I thought this kind of thing was illegal in the US - at least since 1865.

 

I saw two possible explanations for this on Reddit.

1. This is a union-busting attempt, and there will be compensation. There just won't be an advertised salary.

2. They're looking to hire someone who will be funded by research grants or who already has a position as a research scientist.

 

I notice they didn't include any sort of response or rebuttal from UCLA in the article which smacks of laziness. The school's response:

https://twitter.com/uclachem/status/1505299498410467329

It sounds like the candidate will be given a UCLA affiliation and then will be paid out of grant funds. Exploitative? Maybe. But at least we have a complete picture.

 

No we don't. At least not according to the responses to UCLA's "clarification?" Here are the first three:

(1) "THIS is the statement that's supposed to clear things UP???"

(2) "Allow me to translate, "This isn't exploitation it is just out normal graft and corruption. We are sorry that everyone saw us avoiding the spirit of laws meant to protect the integrity of the UC system. Please continue to look the other way."

(3) "Fckn exactly"

I'll take Door number 3.

 

Fair, I should have said "more complete picture." My overarching point was more that it's irresponsible of Futurism to run the story without doing any due-diligence to clarify the situation with the people involved. Their response was not very helpful, but it's more information than we started with.

 

I'm not at all in judgment regarding the ethics here. No one is being coerced into the situation, fooled about it, scammed, etc. Reading UCLA's response, it sounds like they're not paying the person, but the person is being paid. But even without that, UCLA is a not-for-profit public institution. If someone, hypothetically, wanted to donate their services, and did so knowingly, there is no harm in that. It's done all the time with other not-for-profits, where people volunteer their services because they believe in what they're doing, they want the association, etc. But it appears the incumbent would be paid, so it's moot.

 

In 1789, Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat cake." Her response was not very helpful, but it's more information than the starving French populace started with. ..write your own ending.

 

I don't follow. They wrote a story alleging something (that they're hiring an unpaid professor) without ever talking to the school to find out if there was a reasonable explanation for what they saw. I'm not saying what the school is doing was right, I'm saying that what the media outlet did was wrong.

 

Sorry, Dustin. I was so mad I got my wires crossed. My apologies ...yet again, for my mental confusion. Happens when I get riled up. Good exercise, though!

 

It's all good. I also used "they" and "their" while switching back and forth between referring to the school and the outlet without being clear so I can see how that is confusing.

 

It sounds like people are being awarded grants before being affiliated with an institution, but they'll need to become affiliated with one to fulfill the criteria for the grant. As a public university, UCLA is probably taking advantage of this when they don't have the funding for another teaching position.

Before Texas changed its law, people's peace officer licenses would expire after a period of time if they were not employed in a law enforcement position by a state or local agency. So, people would work as reserve officers without pay to keep their licenses active. This allowed police departments to add officers when they couldn't afford to hire more.