I wish shouting at the TV would help.
I had the TV jabbering in the background with the evening news on, this fine first day of 2011. Apparently they were out looking for politicians to ask about what their plans were to solve the most pressing problems of the planet, and they found His Excellency the Secretary of Education in this Fine Square State available for an interview. He likes being on TV.
I heard that grating, raspy voice and dashed to the TV. He is smiling into the camera and announces that we will be welcoming in many more students this year because we have to educate many more people for the coming blah blah blah, and we will be doing that by extending regular instruction into the late evening hours and will utilize the break weeks when the universities stand otherwise empty.
I screamed at the TV. My husband told me I would get fired if I used those words in public.
What is he smoking??? Like, instruction only needs empty classrooms? No teachers, labs, libraries, cafeterias, administration, what have you? Oh, and my regular proffies will all hug me and smile when I ask them to teach an extra quickie course over the break? In addition to now taking on an extra night class. And those adjuncts will kiss my shoes and beg to teach another section for free, won't they?
I shot a letter to the president and my fellow deans, asking if any of them had a letter telling us how we are going to fund all this. Got an autoreply from the president that he's out of the country until the middle of January, and an immediate response from a fellow dean to just relax. (Actually, he said "lie back, close your eyes, and think of England").
Well, isn't this year just getting off to a grand start? Pass the scotch.
Oh, I hear you, loud and clear. My state made it into the NY Times today because the incoming administration is planning to dick with our pensions and will probably have us take another two years of "furloughs" which are actually just fucking pay cuts, because I HAVE to work on those days "off" because let's face it, I work 6 days a week anyway since in my discipline the only way to teach writing is to require copious amounts of it.
ReplyDeleteWell that was a bit of a run-on, but I'm on fucking vacation.
Suffice to say that I feel your pain, and then some. How these assholes expect to get quality education out of people pushed to the brink is beyond me. My state has been sliding sliding sliding over the past 10 years--other schools poach from us because our pay lags so far behind most other states (including Alabama, for Christ's sake)-- and it looks as though we're going to speed it up. I can't wait to see what bullshit Growth Agenda Initiative comes down the pike in the next year, because the one we've got now is basically unfunded.
Only empty classrooms? Not even that. We are going through what the crafts went through in the 1900s. We are being phased out. As an online adjunct, I already represent "progress." I demonstrate that there is little or no need for a classroom (or indeed any campus infrastructure), job security/tenure, anything like regular hours, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe next step is well under way. We've talked about much of it here on CM already. At many schools, the teaching part of our job will be done by an interactive CD ROM in the not-too-distant future. Standardize the content and the exams and the need for content expertise is already greatly reduced. Grade by scantron and you don't even need that.
The research aspects of our work will follow at some point as well, field by field, college by college.
Suzy, I know that sinking feeling all too well. It's a shame it had to happen so early in the year. If it's any consolation, our university system instituted "year-round operation," primarily as a cost-saving measure. It has proved to be a very expensive mistake.
ReplyDeleteThe important thing is that His Excellency the Secretary of Education will get reelected. Sorry, Suzy.
ReplyDeleteDean Suzy, I am sorry for you--for all of us. What your idiot secretary is saying, of course, is that academics don't work hard enough. If classrooms are empty, even evenings and breaks, then (clearly) teachers aren't working!
ReplyDeleteAdjunctSlave is right; we are living through a time when we are being phased out, as artisans were 100-150 years ago. We see how well that went, too.
(I'm sorry, too, that your blood pressure was pushed up by this idiot during what should have been some down time.)
Why are basic benefits seen as a great potential cut? It's not like a full-time state employee can get a parttime job at a coffee shop for the benefits if they are already putting 40 hours in to running the parks or making sure the electricity is running or delivering the mail. What do these idiots expect state employees to do without retirement money or health insurance?
ReplyDeleteNO ONE IS THINKING ANYTHING THROUGH!!!!!
I second everything posted previously.
ReplyDeleteWhat also bothers me is the inappropriate comment made by the other Dean. It is laden with sexual innuendo and condecension. Unless you know this person well enough to joke in this manner, I would be telling him/her to cut it out and treat my concerns and me with more respect.
OT, but what happened to the post about the American University of Iraq Sulaimani? I was looking for a link in one of the comments and noticed that the whole things seems to have disappeared.Are CM's archives abridged?
ReplyDelete@Prof&C: Oh, I know him well enough to appreciate the joke. And he's English. And what he basically said was - we are getting screwed, royally.
ReplyDelete@AdjunctSlave: We were actually experimenting with using online materials purchased somewhere else and giving the students a half-price discount with just an adjunct teaching the online course. What happened? The students assumed that possessing the link to the materials was the same as reading them and doing the exercises, and 70% failed the final. I got yelled at for diluting our Valuable Educational Goals, and it will be discontinued. I don't think online is good for everything (chemistry and physical education come to mind), but for certain groups who understand how to work online it can be a blessing.
@Surly, authors are allowed to remove their posts at will. While googling around to see if there was still a copy somewhere, I found this: http://exiledonline.com/neocon-like-me-how-i-spent-a-year-in-iraq-teaching-with-the-bush-cheney-crazies/. It takes a few minutes to read, but oh, my. I'll take His Excellency any day over this Provost.
Dean Suzy
@Surly Temple
ReplyDeleteI emailed Leslie K. and she wrote that the original poster had it taken down, which is bad because I posted that "Exiled Online" and another one from Counterpunch on what a scam the school actually is.
Thanks, Suzy and Strel. I didn't even think about the author taking it down, since it wasn't really controversial (in that it was just a re-post). Maybe the poster didn't like the comments? Oh, well.
ReplyDeleteToo bad about that deleted post - I really enjoyed reading those linked articles about the American University of Iraq Sulaimani (thanks for that, Strel).
ReplyDeleteI never ceased to be amazed at the disconnect when it comes to government (ie. department of education or similar unit) and universities - the two seem to rarely talk to one another when making major policy changes or (gasp!) when dealing with anything remotely contentious with regards to university governance and functioning. It gets even nastier when the disconnect is political in nature (e.g. McGill tuition fees and the gov't clawing back student funding in retaliation), rather than just from incompetence.
O.k. then, Suzy! I appreciate the humor, now. Sometimes I'm just too protective. One of my New Year's resolutions...
ReplyDelete@Suzy-
ReplyDeleteThe students assumed that possessing the link to the materials was the same as reading them and doing the exercises, and 70% failed the final.
Of course a 70% failure rate is a problem, primarily because it will anger the little beasts and lower retention. Sooner or later, however, your administration will discover how to use the automated online material and keep them from failing: The online, take-home exam. There are accredited institutions that use these exclusively.
The cool part is that having the link to the material really is almost the same as reading it. The test will not test overall absorption of content, but simply the willingness and the ability to click to the right answer. Many will fail even that test, of course, but enough will stay on board to keep the accountants happy.
I learned how to make a decent martini this weekend. (Gin, ice, say "vermouth," pour into a glass with olives.) Thank God, because this article suggests I'll need a few of 'em.
ReplyDeleteA decade or so ago, long about the time I was hired, my university had an initiative aimed at burning the candle at the other end: classes in the very early morning. I was hired in part to teach them (the early hours were explicitly mentioned in the ad to which I replied), and I taught a lot of them, for a good many years. They filled, okay, with a smattering of the older students, many with families and full-time jobs, they were meant to attract; a few athletes who had early-morning practices anyway; and a good many traditional students who simply needed the class and couldn't get into any other section. With the exception of the athletes, both attendance and pass rates were significantly lower than usual -- pretty much the same patterns we're seeing with online classes, which often have similar aims. The bottom line, I'm afraid, is that people who don't have time to come to campus for classes at the usual times don't have time to come to class at unusual times *and* somehow fit the necessary homework/studying time into the rest of their schedules.
ReplyDeleteThere are, of course, exceptions, but simply creating a lot more horse ponds is not going to significantly increase the number of well-hydrated horses if they never stop by the pond, or immediately scamper off in another direction the minute they get there. And a good many of those who stay a while, unfortunately, are going to wade in just far enough to get seriously stuck in the mud, leaving them worse off than if they hadn't even tried to take a drink.
I'm not much of a drinker, but, yeah, a martini sounds like as good a response as any to this bs. Cheers!