Perhaps my time is better spent learning the New Math, which somehow allows for me to have life when I am teaching 20 hours a week, preparing for another 40 hours ( new classes, papers to grade, different classes eat up time), doing admin stuff for another 15, and professional development to equal teaching time. 95 /7= 13.57 hours a day or 95/5=19 hours a day. The last time I worked 5 days a week was...never.
My solution is to default to those around me: teach using PPT slides and material from a textbook, give scantron tests, avoid admin work, and go to True Believer types teaching conferences as professional development.
But if I ever want out, then I need to have decent teaching abilities, papers and presentations and, oh I forgot, I work in a field where doing creative public presentations is a given expectation, and not part of my teaching or admin load, but expected. That is about 15- 20 hours a week to do that.
So, 105/7=15 hours a day. Work, eat, drive to work, work, ..work...
...quit.
ReplyDeleteThen the work falls onto the rest of us
Delete...and who pays for her rent, health insurance, food, electricity, and so on? ...am sure Amelia would leave IF there was time to job hunt, and jobs to hunt for.
DeleteF&T,
DeleteRe-read Dana's post from a few days ago. She was talking to you.
Oh for godsake, people, can I just be a little deadpan? See Stella and Cassandra below for more complex versions of the same answer.
DeleteAlso, when I say quit, I mean quit academe, not "do another job hunt." I was ready to quit my $2.50/hr, 50-hr-week "half-time" job--and leave the profession--when I got the job I have now, by sheer bloody luck and not by my so-called merit. Notwithstanding that good luck, the academy does not own me, and it does not own Amelia.
@Amelia: you're singing my song!
ReplyDeleteFuck.
ReplyDeleteAt least you're in Abilene.
better than Oxford!
DeleteHow can administration assign an "uncompensated" "extra class or two"?
ReplyDelete"other duties as assigned"
Delete"Other duties as assigned" certainly does NOT include teaching two additional classes without pay. I'm assuming Amelia and the faculty where she works don't have a union, but even without one, management doesn't have carte blanche to do whatever it wants.
DeleteIsn't that essentially what's happening at CUNY, where I very strongly suspect faculty are unionized (though I'm not sure)? Much as I'd like unions to be the answer, at least in non-right-to-work states, I'm just not sure they've got the power to protect their members they once did.
DeleteYour math sounds like mine!!! Hang in there.
ReplyDeleteI agree with F&T. You can't get out. Give up.
ReplyDeleteComing at this from the perspective of a fellow-contingent, I'm with F&T and Stella: maybe not just up and quit (though I'm not sure that's what F&T meant), but you definitely need an exit plan, one that, at the very least, treats another academic job as just one (probably quite remote) option. In the meantime, you need to protect what time you can. What kind of renewal cycle is your contract on -- or, in other words, how long can you get away with *not* doing at least some of this, and still have a job? Do you have sick leave, formal or informal, that you could deploy strategically to get out of some of the most ridiculous busywork? Can you just nod and smile and say you'll try to do more professional development but never have time? Is there any kind of procedure you can use to protest the additional requirements, and at least string out the present job long enough to find another one (of whatever sort your talents prepare you for)?
ReplyDeleteI could write a whole additional rant about "professional development," and how it so rarely seems to involve the sorts of things real academic professionals do: i.e. publish and/or present. It nearly always seems to involve listening to other people talk, often ad nauseum, and often after someone pays a pretty penny for that person's services.
Speaking of which, if you've got practice giving "creative public presentations," maybe you could be some sort of trainer/consultant/paid speaker? Whatever you do, don't stay in the current job until you really *are* sick, or just so exhausted and depressed that you have no energy or will to find another job.
I just want to echo what Cassandra said: "don't stay in the current job until you really *are* sick, or just so exhausted and depressed that you have no energy or will to find another job". She speaks the truth. Been there, done that, not good, now I have two permanent illnesses caused by stress. I got out before they got worse.
ReplyDelete