Thursday, June 6, 2013

Has Lucy, Countess of Bedford Asked a Big Thirsty With No Right Answer?

My college has submitted itself to an accreditation process, hoping to complete it on time for a significant milestone. This timing requires some sacrifices. I’m one of those sacrifices.

My institutional elders informed me that my credentials do not help the process. According to them, my academic background (I’m a Hamsterologist in a Lizard College), research, and even my ongoing professional activities (as a Rodent-Reptile relations consultant) count for diddly-squat on the accreditation scorecard. (The scorecard has been a matter of concern, as very few of us have been given a clear idea of what counts as a score.) As a term proffie, I was strongly advised that if I went for renewal, I would not receive it. So, I didn’t.

The courses I taught begin with basics but eventually work through sophisticated ideas that challenge students to view their studies and goals in a broader perspective, to think critically about the work they will be doing. My colleague and I have devoted a lot of time and energy developing the course and the materials that will engage and challenge students to think about the impact of Lizard activities and their responsibilities as Lizards in a world full of other species.

So, I’m not coming back; neither is my teaching colleague. In our place, the elders have hired people who, while possessing Lizard credentials that will please the process, do not have ghost of a scent of a hint of a clue about the course material and concepts, much less how to deliver it.

We have already met with the replacement faculty (at their request) to discuss the courses. I discovered that they did not feel comfortable with some of the most basic concepts covered in the course. I suggested resources and readings for them to cover before the start of fall term. We have also shared our teaching materials with them. They have requested more meetings.

I’m really ambivalent about this relationship. On the one hand, I should be thinking about future students. On the other hand, I want to back off and show the silverbacks what they’re getting.

Q: Do I hang the newbies out to dry? Do I continure to hand over everything my partner and I worked so hard to create? Do I have a responsibility to help them be effective replacements?


27 comments:

  1. You're a caring, dedicated professional--in a world that doesn't seem to value teachers like you. In this world, you're "term," and as your term is done, your responsibilities are too. The silverbacks who decided not to "renew you" have the responsibilities. pardon me for seeming harsh, but it is not the duty of any one who is being unwillingly "replaced" to train the newbie. Future students aren't your students. But let me add that I think that your former students were likely very lucky to have you as a teacher.

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  2. Fuck them. Don't meet with the new guys unless your supervisors (certainly not your superiors) require it. I do think that they can make you share your basic teaching materials since they paid you, however insufficiently, to prepare them. However, don't do it voluntarily. They cannot make you share all the supplemental research that you've done for your own professional development outside of work.

    Frankly, I dislike faculty who come into a job and want to "borrow" my teaching materials. It's like a student asking to see my notes because he missed class but worse since faculty member should be capable of learning this material on their own.

    Let them sink. Screw the people who use the accreditation stick to beat up on faculty. That's the best outcome you can hope for.

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    1. Asking to see a syllabus is, I think, okay. I'm even happy to share assignments in most circumstances, since different student populations really do need different approaches in terms of pacing, degree of scaffolding/detail in assignments, etc., etc. (at least this is true in the humanities). It makes sense to at least start by conforming fairly closely to local norms, until one gets a better sense of what's going on. But requests should not go beyond what's necessary to get a sense of how things work at a new place, and people should still be creating the vast majority of their own course materials (and at least tweaking anything borrowed).

      This is, I think, a special case, with reason to be considerably less helpful than if, say, the course had been so successful that there was a need for additional sections, and new instructors (even ones the existing instructor thought were inadequately prepared/qualified) were being brought on board for that reason.

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  3. Ditto TubaPlayingProf.
    You owe these guys jack...

    In fact, there's a special circle of hell for bean-countery thinkers who put scorecards over scholars.

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  4. I'm thinking that someone broke into your car and stole all the materials from your courses......

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    1. Yes. And oops, your computer erased all the files as well.

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    2. I had the same idea. "I delete all my course materials at the end of the year and rewrite them over the summer. It keeps me up to date with the newest information in my field. I don't want my notes to get stale."

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  5. I think that if it were me (never won any "being nice" prizes) I would let the accreditation people know about this in some way....

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  6. You owe everybody a copy of your syllabus (if the accreditation process is anything like ours, they should have been gathering and archiving those each semester anyway, but it doesn't always happen).

    Beyond that, nothing. If you've got a set of materials that work well, maybe you should be in negotiations with a textbook/online course publisher (or selling the course yourself on Udemy or something like that?). At the very least, you might think about writing an article for an appropriate disciplinary and/or pedagogical journal (peer review still, I believe, is supposed to pay no attention to credentials, just the quality of the submitted manuscript. And besides, you *have* teaching credentials, otherwise known as experience).

    Middle-ground alternative: if asked for help beyond providing a syllabus, say that you're contemplating any or all of the above, and, in the meantime, are freelancing as a consultant. Now that your contract is over (June 1st, or perhaps when you turned in your last set of grades, right?), your services are available for a (substantial) hourly fee, and your (self-published) course materials can be purchased via Amazon (or wherever). And they're copyrighted, and you'll be monitoring carefully to make sure they aren't used/reused without appropriate fees being paid each time (if you go this far, you might want to check any relevant university documents for provisions about course materials and who owns them; on the other hand, if the university does try to claim your materials in this situation, I'm pretty sure the AAUP and several contingent faculty organizations would be delighted to publicize your case as an example of all that's wrong with the current system, though I'm not sure they'll actually pay your legal bills. The AAUP might; they actually have money. If you have a campus chapter, I'd talk to someone there about this situation; if not, I'd contact the national office.)

    Bottom line: you're a professional; if they want your labor or to use the products thereof, they need to pay for it/them. My guess is they won't, at least this semester, but they might be more interested in the future (once they see course evaluations, attrition rates, performance in other classes for which this one prepares students, etc., etc.). That's another good argument for publishing course materials and/or some reflection on what you've done. By the time they want you back, you might just be too busy with work elsewhere.

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    1. CC nailed it.
      If the college wants your skills, they need to pay you.

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  7. I agree with EC1. We just did accreditation, and the folks were very interested in feedback from all kinds of sources.

    This situation makes me really angry. I don't think you should share anything. I wish you could take back what you shared already.

    I think the best way to handle it is to just be unavailable. Don't return phone calls. Get really busy and never be home, as far as they know. In other words, don't say no outright. Just don't help.

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  8. And I'm sorry. While I hope that accreditation will be one of the weapons we can use to keep quality (of the courses our institutions offer to their/our students, and of our professional lives) from eroding even further, some accreditation requirements make no sense whatsoever. I have a colleague who can no longer teach at the local cc, because she has a Ph.D. from a(n) (nationally-known, extremely selective) interdisciplinary program, which means her Ph.D. involved taking graduate courses in 3 separate disciplines. Result: she doesn't have enough "credit hours" in any of the three to qualify to teach at the intro level in one of the disciplines. Never mind the 2 university-press books, the years of teaching the course, the ability to get snowflakes to engage with some really hard texts and concepts. Not qualified, says the sub-sub-dean checking the spreadsheet (and the accrediting agency).

    In my field, we've also got an MFA vs. M.A. problem: the MFA is a terminal degree (one our program confers, in fact, and one that several of our tenured professors hold, though it's probably their published works that really qualify them for their positions). However, the coursework for an MFA (reasonably enough) doesn't usually require research. The M.A. in our field almost invariably does, and the course I and many of my NTT colleagues teach also involves teaching students to do, or at least learn something about, research in their fields. We have several MFAs teaching the course, and they do it well (because they're smart, curious, people, and, at the level we teach, that's a pretty good substitute for formal training; besides, many of them have picked up at least a bit of formal training along the way). No problem there. But it does seem unfair (and illogical) that the couple of M.A.s who also teach the course are treated (in matters of title/rank and some other perks, most insubstantial, a few more substantial) as less qualified than the MFAs, because they don't have terminal degrees.

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    1. Unfortunately, I'm becoming more aware of accreditation processes. My understanding is that the organizations are open to exceptions but they must be thoroughly documented explained. When admins say, "accreditation won't let us do this," they mean "we don't want to put in the work to do this."

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    2. Beaker, you are generally correct. As someone who makes a living dealing with accreditation, there are *some* exceptions to credentialing rules. Within my regional slice of heaven, the basic standards are a minimum of a master’s degree and 18+ graduate hours within the discipline you are teaching. The more advanced courses you are teaching, the higher the expectations for education. That is to say, it would be very rare to see anyone teaching senior-level or grad courses without a terminal degree in the discipline.

      That said, you are allowed to justify someone who doesn’t seem to quite meet qualifications, usually through their professional experience. This is especially prevalent in professional programs where on-the-job experience often trumps the letters next to your name. An institution can present their best case for these types of faculty, and often the accreditors will give them the ok; although, there are some they still may say no to.

      Of course, the administration has to be willing to MAKE the case in the first place. And by administration, I mean your friendly department chair, dean, dean of faculty, etc. The accreditors (whom we all love to hate) are making their decisions based off what was given to them by the university. Also, don’t hate your local assessment office for this one (there is plenty of other stuff you can hate us for). Determining whether a faculty has appropriate credentials is NOT in our job description. We just pass along to the accreditors the information given to us by the departments and colleges.

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  9. As far as management is concerned the new hires know more than you do. Invite management types to the next meeting and start sentences with phrases such as "As you already know..." or "From your research you know that..."

    When they looked perplexed give them guidance clearly above their heads and walk out smiling.

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  10. I hate the question. On the outside of things I say, "Fuck 'em all."

    But I know if it were me, I'd want to help the newbies. I feel for you, though, that's for sure.

    Good luck!

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  11. There is just so much wrong with this whole situation! Reminds me of a colleague who breezed into a new position, shoved hir predecessor out of the way, refused to even look at copious files left behind by that predecessor, and then complained to administration about the lack of "training" for the position.

    There is, sadly, no way you can win in this situation so you have to do what will allow you to sleep at night....and know that others have been there before and sympathize!

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  12. Don't help any more unless they pay you.

    You are no longer being employed to work for that department.

    Fuck collegiality. It only ever seems to benefit adminicritters.

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  13. As several people have said, you had an obligation to turn over your syllabus. That's it. I would certainly go the "Oh, yes, I would be happy to help train my replacements. My fee as a independent consultant is $500 an hour plus expenses."

    I am sorry to hear this happened to you. When the fuckers whine about you not being "collegial," which as The_Myth says is just admin talk for "you didn't bend the hell over when we decided to screw you," smile sweetly and say "We are no longer colleagues. You're negotiating for the services of a highly trained professional to train a new teacher who lacks experience and is not up to date in this field."

    Remember: partial hours are billed as full hours. "Expenses" include lunch for you *and* the trainees (you'll win them over with free food; all academics are born scavengers). Expenses also includes travel time and gas.

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    1. I second PC. On this one. You've already been too nice. Be done with that, now. As the brilliant philosopher Leadbelly once sang, " You don't miss your water ~til the well run dry. " they will miss you, I guarantee it.

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  14. Talk about rubbing salt in a wound. You've done the basics. You are under no obligation to do more. Fuck THEM!

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  15. Love, love, love the "consultant" line. Do it!

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  16. anything you're obliged to turn over, turn over only in print form. Lets the newbies type it out if they want to copy it.

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  17. AAACKKK! I never post, leaving that up to his smarty-pantsness. You tell them to take their crappity-crap-crap CRAP and go fuck themselves. You've already done too much. If you are too polite for this, there's much to be said for being completely unavailable. Be on vacation. Somewhere they can't find you. Haiti, perhaps. Send out an email announcing this and refuse to engage. Administrators made this bed--make them wallow in it. Sure, it sucks to be scabs and it's not their fault but we have to start making consequences happen.

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  18. I see why you might want to help -- the newbies didn't know what they were getting into and the students may deserve a better course.

    With all of that, I'd refuse to "help"...i.e. GIVE them course materials you developed and that you know work -- if you aren't "qualified" to teach the course, then your materials aren't good enough either..

    I agree with the consultant bit -- and, I'd let the accreditation folks know what the administration told you, then that you were asked for materials etc -- the thing is, they need to see the implications of their rules. I'm guessing they don't want ineffective teaching, but that's exactly what their standards create.

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  19. Please keep us posted. I'd love to hear how this one comes out.

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