Untenured Gems

A German lecturer proves thai status Joes not always equal worth.

JOAN CAMPBELL, a small vibrant woman and a born teacher, has been teaching German 1,2, and 3 at the College for the last eight years. She works hard—very hard indeed. For one thing, during the week she is a single mother. Monday through Friday, the Campbell house in Lebanon contains nineyear-old Sara, seven-year-old Jonathan, and their teacher-mother. On weekends their physician-father, a graduate of the Dartmouth Medical School, races up from Massachusetts, where last year he became junior man in a group of dermatologists.

Another thing that keeps Joan busy is this: Most years she teaches more courses than anyone else in her department.

Sometimes I think Dartmouth doesn't realize what gems it has in many of these untenured and relatively low-paid lecturers. I have yet to meet one who doesn't give more than he or she is asked to. And I've met no more than a couple who I didn't think were first-rate teachers.

Lecturers are increasingly common at American colleges, for three excellent reasons. They come cheap. They can be dropped when not needed. They seldom get benefits. Naturally enough, many feel they're being exploited, and some take a sad and self-destructive sort of revenge by becoming bitter, disaffected, even skimping on their teaching.

But this seldom happens at the College—in fact I'd say almost never. The administration gets considerable credit for this. Our lecturers do get benefits, provided they're employed at least half-time. There's $300 available to them for special projects, and senior lecturers who have taught at least half time for five years are eligible for the dean of faculty's $5,000 distinguished lecturer award. Joan is the current winner.

Some of the departments get credit, too. Chemistry, for example, has a senior lecturer named Sally Hair. She has a three-year contract. Listen to John Winn, chair of chemistry, talk about her. "We treat her as a full fledged member of the department with all the voting rights (and committee assignments) the rest of us have. She is as full a member of the department as possible." All right, so maybe we do know we have gems.

But whoa! I'm using up all the space, and I wanted to let Joan speak for herself. From here on she is:

On the nine regular members of the Germandepartment: My colleagues support and respect what I do in the department. I always feel that I have people with whom I can discuss ideas.

On her getting the $5,000 award: I think it's a real affirmation of the value of teaching at Dartmouth. All my work and research have been in the area of foreign language pedagogy/applied linguistics/instructional technology—in other words, what happens in the classroom. The College acknowledges how important this is. I guess that's why I like being here so much.

On the lack of security: For '98-99 I'm only officially on the books for one course. That can and probably will increase, but then again it may not. With two kids and a mortgage, I obviously can't live off a one-course salary.

On being at the College: I absolutely LOVE teaching here.

I've loved it myself for 37 years, and it delights me when the young faculty feel the same way. Which they mostly do.