Faculty positions in state college and university systems, considering the current mania for downsizing U.S. industry and government, the political mood, and the budgetary problems of many states, are not secure; the 1992 attempt at a mass layoff of 146 professors at San Diego State University might be a harbinger of things to come. The notion that professors could be expendable may be a consequence of the de-emphasis of human interactions in teaching the sciences by, for example, instructing hundreds of students in giant lecture sections while eliminating their laboratory sections-one of the few places students could interact with an instructor in a small classroom situation and the only place that most graduate students could receive experience and "training" in teaching undergraduates-in the name of "efficiency" and "economy."
Now, we professors are developing science course materials for delivery over the World Wide Web, an even more "efficient" means for one ...
