Being involved in liberal arts, I can tell you that most of the union stuff SJH mentioned would never fly at my school, at least within my discipline. Also, professors (in my experience) do their best to be completely devoid of politics in their teaching, unless the course specifically deals with it (i.e. political science). In fact many of my grad peers are conservative and intend on pursuing the academic life. I only had one professor have her politics show through, and it literally interrupted her teaching ability (if she even had any). She was a nutjob. I would be interested in hearing the differences between community colleges and FT universities - as SJH mentioned there are a lot of subcontractors who come in and teach a course or two rather than the FT professors of a uni, I imagine that makes a huge difference. As an aspiring academic I have come to expect 13+ hour days on a regular basis along with handling multiple research projects. The "40 weeks a year, 30 hours a week" doesn't apply to anyone who teaches graduate courses, believe me.

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TC
Current stable:
- 2004 Mazda RALLYWANKEL
- 2007 Saturn sky redline
- 2004 Explorer...under surgery.

Past: 135i, GTI, 300E, 300SD, 300SD, Stealth