The highly educated, badly paid, often abused adjunct professors

Charlotte Allen:

On Nov. 20, just two weeks before their final exam for the semester, students enrolled in a night class in political science at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga received a rude surprise. They were told by a dean that their professor, Stefan Veldhuis, who had been teaching at the public community college in San Bernardino County for nearly a decade, had been abruptly fired the day before.

The students don't know why they lost their instructor because Chaffey has refused to comment on the matter. Veldhuis told a reporter for the online trade paper Inside Higher Ed that a Chaffey administrator simply phoned him and told him he was no longer a "good fit." He speculates that the firing might be related to his informing the college that another Chaffey employee was having sex in a classroom, and that the employee might have retaliated by falsely accusing Veldhuis of something.

In any event, Veldhuis was a popular instructor at Chaffey, with a 4.8 (out of 5) rating on RateMyProfessor, and many of his students have rallied to his defense, setting up a support page for him on Facebook. The online magazine Slate took up the cry, declaring that "terminating professors midsemester with no reason and no due process is abhorrent."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 26, 2013 12:58 AM
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