I have been at DeVry for eight years. And I still believe in the good of the company I work for. I have watched as the FTC has dragged us down. They are on a witch hunt. It is so profoundly sad. Devry is a fantastic company to work for. They DO believe in their people. They DO believe in the students' lives they impact. We change people's lives. We give them a chance. Something to believe in. DeVry is not a deceitful institution. We do still stand for CARE and TEACH. We live it and breathe it every day. And to all of those nay-sayers – I say you don't live within our walls. If you did, you would feel it. We do still believe in our students . And we do still come in every day hoping to help them better their lives. We do it for them.
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It's only a witch hunt if the allegations are false. The investigation will determine that. If they are found to have indeed broken laws....well, those that are left better have their resumes updated just in case.
It's okay to have loyalty to an organization - just make sure it is worthy of that loyalty. Remember, we are all expendable so that loyalty may not help you in the end. Unfortunately a lot of people have discovered this the hard way. To them, I hope they find a better job quickly and not look back.
@Faceless Former Staff, Devry made false statements about gainful employment. It was in their advertising and in their sales pitches. False claims are not a "witch hunt." As you may have read from other people on the layoff site, Devry has changed for the worse and it's paying for its unethical decisions. Some of these decisions were made at schools you were not in contact with--but the claims have been investigated. It's too bad that people who tried to do the right thing were not in charge. BTW: I witnessed the sales pitch and could not believe the BS I was hearing..........................................https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/devry-headed-wrong-direction-dahn-shaulis?trk=mp-author-card
I worked for DeVry most of my life in several areas and saw many different business and management cycles. In our culture, management always bent over backwards to adhere to the law. The graduation stats at my location were accurately reported, and the financial aid regulations were followed (even though it was stupid to refund students and then bill them. Regulations dictated this policy). If anything, DeVry has always erred on the side of conservative judgment. Cutbacks have been happening for awhile, and declining enrollments are a fact of today's economy for many schools. The latest staff RIFs are very serious. I don't know what the fate of this university is, but it would be a shame to go down in scandal after many years of painstaking care to always act ethically. If any maverick employee broke regulations, they were immediately dismissed, and the situation was rectified (information corrected, corrective policies enacted to prevent future infractions, etc.)
I'm not a home office spokesperson. I'm just one of many faceless longtime loyal employees who also took classes and graduated from this university. I was laid off this year, and could have reason to be disgruntled and share anonymous complaints. But I knew for a couple of years my position was being phased out. The company gave me several weeks' warning and an excellent severance package that included money, benefits, and assistance finding a new job when the inevitable finally happened. I think all of the severed staff are getting a similar package, showing the company still cares about what happens to the people they've had to let go. I now have an even better job thanks to the help I received.
Unfortunately, when businesses go into decline, they can either turn around or they fail. A lot of money-saving decisions are made at these critical times to save a company and are not indicative of the true nature of the way that company prefers to do business in better times. I don't pretend to have any ideas or suggestions about what they can do better right now. I am writing only because I feel an obligation to speak up and share my personal truth: I have only positive things about my education, the staff, and my work experience with this company. I think the FTC complaints are basically a witch hunt.
This is a forum to discuss layoffs, not to insult the hundreds of people who dedicated 30 to 40 years of their lives to helping students, and are now out of work. Your single month of service hardly qualifies you to be the judge of anything. I suggest you ask yourself if this is the gold standard of education, why don't you see thousands of students beating down the doors to get in? You were not around when entry-level class sizes were typically 120 students each (with two of those classes in the morning, and two in the afternoon), and some graduating classes had 100% placement before graduation directly in their field of study. Commencements were held three times a year with up to 1,000 students graduating at each one. That might have been what you want to call the gold standard. As attributed to Abraham Lincoln "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
I just started last month as an adjunct and I will tell you that this is the gold standard. Curriculum is flawless. Management is supportive. Students are engaged. I wonder if those posting negative comments here are more concerned with puncturing the bee's den than actually helping to change student lives? There is a mirror in every bathroom. Look up from the bowl once in a while.
There is a distinction. It is true that there are some at DeVry who care deeply for the students. The student support advisers and faculty at my location do and every day they show it. However the evidence is against any suggestion that the company cares as much. The past few years had lots of changes claiming to improve service that really only reduce costs. Last week's layoffs were another example with the way they explained that the new organizational structure will enhance our service to students. Yeah sure they can serve students better with fewer people to do it!
I agree with most of what the comment say but as Visiting Faculty I can look at the old and new. I taught full time for 12 years and retired 7 years ago. For the most part, it was the crazy crap that was being used by management that prompted my retirement. I like to think that I am helping my students but many times I have to resort to changing the mandated curriculum with things I know they need. The problem with local Management is they are being Micro Managed by home office. The classic example is scheduling of classes. We use to be able to select text books and offer classes that our students needed but now, the all seeing home office does the textbook selection and schedules classes for the hell of it and not what is needed locally, one size fits all is not the way to go. I use to have class sizes in the 20 to 30 range and now I see class sizes in the 3 to 10 ranges. Folks at home office have their heads up their assand only see what they want to see. If we had Corporate management that respected local management, we might have a chance to bring DeVry University up to the level of DeVry Institute of Technology. It all went south when DeVry started chasing Phoenix and that was because they hired all of the Phoenix rejects to run corporate. Get rid of Daniel CheeseBurger and wake up Dennis Keller.
"We live it and breathe it every day" sound what we hear from Chicago, You are selling your soul or$$$$$ and you work for DVU PR.
Cant wait for FTC and department of ED to force DVU to pay all the loans back and close .
When I left DV a few years ago our students would complain about everything, and for good reason. No classes offered, late payments from VA, getting billed after we had just refunded money from aid. It was a cluster f**k. The financial aid regulatory department was making everything way to difficult to manage. You can come up with Programs like TEACH and CARES, but they need to put adopted by everyone. At Devry they weren't. I fully expected Devry to be nothing more than a niche school with a few thousand students in about 4-5 years.
@HoxTjAe, apparently you are not aware of what Devry has been doing or you are a shill for management. Devry lied to people about its gainful employment rate. Why do you think there is a group now called "Deceived By Devry"?...................................................... https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/devry-headed-wrong-direction-dahn-shaulis?trk=mp-author-card
Daniel, please stop posting on this site.
Oh goodness, how much of the Koolaid have you been drinking? I left there 4 years ago because they were so wantonly greedy about taking students' money and delivering such a poor product! They are predators!
OP you sound like your brain got fried. Does Devry play its commercial in the office 24/7?
We do still believe in our students
And we still believe in their ability to take on massive amounts of debt that will burden them for decades while not providing them with knowledge needed to climb out of poverty