Liberal arts professors at a low prestige urban commuter university: Experiencing the contradictions of human service organization work.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

An ethnographic and participant observer methodology was used to examine the social construction of work for liberal arts professors teaching at low prestige urban commuter universities. Instructors and professors teaching in such “discount universities” find themselves working under conditions that conflict with their professional socialization. The structural strain encountered is best explained using the human service organizations model. The professors feel frustrated by the student body, which tends to be diverse in many respects, with a substantial proportion of students considered to be inadequately prepared for college work. The professors are also stymied by administrations perceived to be acutely inefficient bureaucracies. The arts faculty, as a group, operate under a condition of technological indeterminacy, where viable teaching strategies and techniques are unclear. Their adaptations to this structural strain further exacerbate the dysfunctional nature of these types of organizations. Over time, they gradually lose connection to the personal teaching orientations they had when they arrived at the discount university, as their professional socialization is inappropriate for this kind of work setting. The professors tend to adopt one of three patterned teaching policy orientations, and these different policy orientations are at odds with each other.