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Seven Days

Wednesday, Feb. 13
Former TVA Chairman Craven Crowell relates how former Enron Chairman Ken Lay tried to use political leverage on him a couple of years ago to get an electric power transmission deal approved by TVA. Crowell says he rebuffed what amounted to a political threat. Wait a minute, when did Crowell not bow to a political threat?
Waylon's gone? Mercy.

Thursday, Feb. 14
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory come up with a carbon foam material that will revolutionize the transfer of heat to allow for more efficient cooling applications. The work was conducted on a contract with a group of Knox County citizens seeking a material to place between the school board and County Commission.
Wildly successful politico/developer Franklin Haney's son Frank says the Haney empire is about to put a few million dollars into the Holiday Inn Select next to the new convention center to turn the decrepit hotel into a four-star Crowne Plaza. Good luck, but remember, the elder Haney has said a lot of things.

Friday, Feb. 15
The principal of Maryville High School is arrested on charges he stole money from the school gym's concession stand. Was it peer pressure?

Saturday, Feb. 16
As the grotesque crematory scandal grows in North Georgia, it's revealed that the operator may have been justified in putting bodies out in the woods instead of cremating them. There's speculation he learned his mortuary practices from UT anthropologist William Bass' "body farm."

Monday, Feb. 18
Turns out the college kid (from a "good home," his lawyer assures us) who allegedly fired the rifle shot that wounded a West Virginia woman in a car on an I-275 in the city was only drunk and shooting holes in road signs from a moving vehicle—a time-honored East Tennessee sport—when a stray bullet hit the woman's jaw. Pure accident. Pure accident.

Tuesday, Feb. 19
Four of the candidates for governor of Tennessee learn they may be billed by the IRS for up to 35 percent of any campaign funds they raised before filing for tax-exempt status, a requirement of a two-year-old federal law. So, OK, maybe they were ignorant of the law. Try that excuse on one of them, U.S. Rep. Van Hilleary, who voted in favor of the requirement. Really.
UT's men's basketball team loses to Kentucky (for only the first time this season!) but is still playing .500 ball. Let's get the coach a raise.

Knoxville Found

(Click photo for larger image)

What is this? Every week in "Knoxville Found," we'll print the photo of a local curiosity. If you're the first person to correctly identify this oddity, you'll win a special prize plucked from the desk of the editor (keep in mind that the editor hasn't cleaned his desk in five years). E-mail your guesses, or send 'em to "Knoxville Found" c/o Metro Pulse, 505 Market St., Suite 300, Knoxville, TN 37902.

Last Week's Photo:
If you didn't know where to find these fine chapeaux (and you didn't—no one did), then you should hie thee hence to the Farragut Folklife Museum, wherein they reside. The closest anyone came was Judy Branch, who noted correctly that they are train conductor's hats. She added, "My grandfather, J. H. Johnson, was a Conductor on the L & N Railroad and I saw him wear these every time he left for work. The picture really brought back a lot of memories." We appreciate the thoughts. But since no one actually told us the location of the hats in question, we are left, for only the third time in two years, with no weekly winner. It's a shame, too, because the prize this week is a dandy—a brand new 2002 Nissan Altima (don't ask where we got it, it just showed up in the office one day). In the absence of any qualified claimants, the French and Russian judges have awarded the vehicle to the editor's fiancée. The decision is final. But don't worry, next week's prize will be almost as good—a Metro Pulse T-shirt!

Meet Your City
A calendar of upcoming public meetings you should attend

KNOX COUNTY COMMISSION
Monday Feb. 25
2 p.m.
City County Bldg., Large Assembly Room
400 Main Ave.
Regular monthly meeting.

PUBLIC FORUM ON CHARTER SCHOOLS
Tuesday Feb. 26
7:30 p.m.
West High School Mini-auditorium
3300 Sutherland Ave.
Moderated by Channel 6 anchor Gene Patterson, the forum will include state and national authorities on education reform. Sponsored by the Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership.

KNOXVILLE'S COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORP.
Thursday Feb. 28
11:30 a.m.
Isabella Towers
1515 Isabella Circle
Second of a series of 12 monthly board meetings to be held in neighborhoods and facilities throughout the community that are served by KCDC.

CENTRAL BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT
Thursday Feb. 28
5-7 p.m.
Fairbanks
607 Market St.
Listening session for public comment and sharing of ideas on downtown issues.

Contingency Plan

Is UT balancing its budget on the backs of non-tenure instructors?

Less than half of all credits offered at the University of Tennessee are being taught by tenured or tenure-tracked faculty.

This disturbing fact comes from a report by UT's Faculty Senate, which found that the university is increasingly relying on contingent faculty and graduate students to teach undergraduates.

In the fall of 2000, contingent faculty—those hired from semester to semester—taught 25 percent of credit hours, up from 11 percent in 1990. The graduate students' teaching load jumped from 22 to 33 percent of credit hours during that same period.

The increase owes to lack of state funding for the university system. But critics say it's eroding the tenure track system, degrading the quality of education, and creating a lower class of professors, who are easily exploited and have few rights.

"I don't think it's any kind of vast conspiracy by administrators to undo tenure," says Jon Coddington, an architecture professor who was on the senate committee that did the study. "It's a matter of making ends meet. I think the effect is to undermine tenure, but I don't think it's a conspiracy."

Contingent or adjunct professors vary greatly in experience and background. Some are distinguished scientists from Oak Ridge, others are experienced professionals teaching a class on the side, and some have recently earned doctorates and are looking for a tenure track position. It's important to have some number of contingent professors to meet fluctuating class loads and bring in people with experience outside academia, Coddington says. But an over-reliance on them causes problems.

The senate's full report can be read on-line at web.utk.edu/~senate/ ContingentFaculty1-02.html. A round-table discussion of the issue is scheduled for Feb. 27, at 3:30 p.m. in Room 225 at the University Center.

Erik Bledsoe worked for the English Department as an adjunct, and now works for American Studies as an adjunct. "Many of the contingent faculty are teaching a full course load—double what some of the tenure track faculty teach," he says. "They had while I was [at the English Department] several tenure track folks retire, and they didn't get approval to replace them. Well, the students don't disappear."

It's not uncommon for contingent faculty to be teaching four or five classes, says Misty Anderson, an assistant English professor (a tenure-track position). "This is backbreaking labor. You're constantly grading papers in those sections. It's possible for people who aren't familiar with academic work to say, 'What's so bad about that?' But the scale of labor that goes into one class is very serious."

Anderson says she teaches two classes a semester, technically comparable to about 20 hours a week (although, she says it ends up being more than that.) The rest of her time is spent on research.

But for an adjunct professor to teach four or five classes a week, they'll have little time to devote to the research needed to earn a tenure track, she says.

Contingent professors have no formal protection or job security. "They live in terror of not getting classes," Bledsoe says. "[Department heads] might come to you and ask, 'Can you teach five classes?' You're afraid to say 'no,' or you might not get any classes next semester."

And, they get paid much less. Tenure-track professors will start at around $38,000 a year, Anderson says. But contingent faculty are paid from $2,800 to $3,600 a class. At two classes a semester, that adds up to less than $15,000 a year.

The math, English and foreign language departments rely on contingent faculty the most, because all undergrad students are required to take a certain number of basic credits in those areas, Anderson says.

The university might also be keeping graduate students in school longer by pushing so much of a teaching load onto them, Coddington says.

"There is a bit of complicity between senior faculty and administrators," Coddington says. "We hire these adjuncts to teach these freshmen-level classes, which means senior faculty do not have to do that. There's sort of a wink and an agreement on both sides. We really should have our senior faculty present in those first classes."

UT Provost Loren Crabtree could not be reached for comment this week. Anne Mayhew, associate dean and associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, says Crabtree will soon appoint a task force to look at the issue.

Mayhew says the university needs to get better statistics than those that the Faculty Senate used. However, she agreed adjunct hiring needs to be examined.

"Certainly contingent employment could erode [academic freedom]. The challenge for us is to find a way to protect academic freedom for contingent faculty and provide them with benefits, without offering tenure, because we do not have the funding," Mayhew says.

The Faculty Senate is currently looking at more clearly defining contingent faculty positions. Anderson worries this is a step toward institutionalizing them. Ultimately, the only thing that will help is more funding.

"It's easy to despair because it's very hard to see your way out of this," she says. "We don't have a lot of great options."

—Joe Tarr

Ka-Chung!

Where can old typewriters go?

They're not dead; they're just in hiding. Typewriters persist in our peripheral vision, from that office contraption used to address envelopes, to the Underwood 5 sitting on the desk of 60 Minutes curmudgeon Andy Rooney. And a dedicated group of collectors strives to keep these machines from slipping into obscurity.

Harry Elliott runs the Cherokee Typewriter Company on Sutherland Avenue, one of Knoxville's last refuges for those seeking to purchase typewriters, repair their current machines or simply buy ribbons. He also lays claim to a typewriter collection 50 strong. Elliott discovers used machines dating from the 1890s to the 1950s in flea markets and antique shops, buying some for as little as $5. After he restores them to a sparkling, working condition, some of his rarest and best-preserved machines are worth up to $1,000. He values the group at about $5,000.

One of Elliott's favorite machines is an Elliot Fisher bookwriter (no relation), invented in Athens, Tenn., in 1896 by bank clerk Robert Fisher. The entire typewriter slides over rails about two feet long, making it ideal for bookkeeping and billing.

Elliott says he'd like a museum to display his collection to the public, but none has yet accepted his offer. He won't consider breaking up the group, even though that would increase his chances of finding the typewriters new homes.

A member of the East Tennessee Historical Society's collection committee determined that only a few of Elliott's typewriters relate to local history. One belonged to a Maryville suffragette, and another is of the same model used at the Scopes monkey trial in Dayton, Tenn. Since the society's mission is to preserve items of regional interest, it could not accept the entire collection, director Kent Whitworth says.

There is no museum dedicated to typewriters, according to Chuck Ditts, co-editor of ETCetera, the newsletter of the Early Typewriter Collectors Association. Large historical museums such as the Smithsonian show only three or four typewriters at a time, if any. They may acquire many machines in order to increase their collections' value, but those specimens usually sit in storage, far from the public eye.

"The best collections in the world are in private hands, because they are most accessible," Ditts says.

Antique typewriters rest in about 400 pairs of hands, Ditts says, including his own. He and co-editor Rich Cincotta have collected more than 500 machines. They welcome visitors by appointment, but Ditts says he'd like the items on public display. A fellow collector in Connecticut who owns more than 600 machines has not succeeded in convincing corporations to sponsor a typewriter exhibit. In fact, IBM recently gave up its collection in Lexington, Ky.

Ditts says typewriters have played a more significant historical role than most people realize, bringing women into the workplace and speeding economic growth.

"Without the typewriter there wouldn't be history," Elliott agrees.

Typewriter enthusiasts do disagree over the best way to preserve their charges. Most collectors and museums favor conservation, clearing the machine of rust and grime to prevent future damage while letting the machine show its age. This technique maintains historical authenticity for future generations, Ditts says.

Elliott, on the other hand, prefers restoration. He replaces worn or missing parts so the machines clack, print and roll like new. For Elliot, these aren't mere show pieces; they're working business tools. And restoring them demonstrates his old-fashioned ethos.

"I'm not a throw-away person... because someday I'll need it," he says.

—Tamar Wilner