The most regarded right for university students would be the right to learn. Unlike at middle or high school, university requires a huge tuition fee, and thus university should use its tuition fee effectively, so that it can provide students with better quality and quantity classes. If not enough full-time teachers are hired, the professors' service quality can be nothing but reduced. The Department of Creative Writing at Chung-Ang University is suffering from this problem due to a lack of full-time professors. Let's take a closer look at what is really going on.
The Predicament of the Department of Creative Writing
The Department of Creative Writing was taught by seven full-time professors until 2007, but the number of professors has decreased, leaving only four full-time professors in the department. Meanwhile, after the first semester, Professor Park Cheol-hwa left the department, and another professor is facing retirement after reaching the age limit after the second semester. This would leave only two full-time professors in the department for the year 2015. Due to this poor situation, members of the Expansion Operations Committee of the Department of Creative Writing have claimed, "Since few professors take charge of many classes, not only does the lesson quality suffer, but also professors' attention and care for individual students can be much weaker compared to the time when there were seven full-time teachers." The committee added further that, "The right to learn has been seriously invaded." They also argued, "Replacing full-time teachers with part-time instructors cannot be a proper solution because there is a limitation of maintaining school curriculum due to the instability of instructor employment." Despite the concern and predicament of the Department of Creative Writing, the university is not giving any clear solution or explanation.
The Problems Caused by Lack of Full-time Teachers
“Full-time teachers” refers to professors hired into a permanent position by the university and include full-time lecturers, assistant professors, associate professors, and full professors. On the other hand, non full-time teachers refer to part-time lecturers who do not have permanent positions and go to university to university for classes. When only a few full-time professors are hired in relation to the number of students, the service quality of professor can only be reduced. Since professors take charge of student, career and employment counseling, research, and school administration work, it is beyond professors' capacity to take care of too many students. In addition, part-time lecturers tend to have a weaker attachment toward their students compared to full-time professors because the students are not their own, and they cannot continue instructing and teaching for a long and steady period, which is a minus from an academic perspective. A college admission media, Veritas