Thread regarding DeVry Inc. layoffs

Post ID: @PQ2pGkW-6xuq

and as long as we're talking indiscretions...we must not forget the trouble the university got into many years ago when it allegedly steered students to banks for college loans, and the banks allegedly reciprocated in a show of gratitude.

Her, not his. ;). But thank you.

And let's not give mosh pits a bad name while we've at it. Armpits afr more like it

I second the previous poster on his point about the basic dysfunction created by the team of sleazeballs in the upper management like the former prez., the current prez and Lw by cutting onsite classes and feed those students into an online moshpit. A student signing up for an onsite program was effectively being trapped into online school indirectly since DV wasn't offering most of the advanced classes onsite. So a campus would run introductory classes onsite at first and then hand these students off to online. Several students complained for this double-dealing. Plus the student recruitment a**holes are really scraping the bottom to meet their "numbers" and signing many folks who are not ready for college.

So much is making sense now if you are actually looking at faculty evaluations. You would need to distinguish between on-campus faculty and online faculty. They are worlds apart. On-campus faculty are highly invested in the success of the students and that is reflected in the higher evaluation scores that on-campus faculty get. I have gotten extremely high evals. I'm sure that there are some online faculty who put the effort in but it's more common to hear stories about neglect and disinterest, particularly for online adjuncts. That might be where a lot of the negative perception of faculty comes from. Management wants to funnel the students online because it's more efficient to run much larger sections and much cheaper on real estate. We have to beg them to run classes onsite and get students to sign petitions to sign up for classes. And there are enough students to easily run a class. It's just not as profitable for management. We fight against that to try to save the onsite programs.

The onsite classes and teachers are leagues better in care and dedication to student learning. I can't make excuses for the online folks but more quality control would really help for online including gating students who aren't ready for online accelerated programs. More onsite classes is the real answer.

Dear @PQ2pGkW-7dyv

Well said...I don't think you can blame faculty for the mistakes of management, although to look at the faculty evaluations, those provided by students, and those provided by middle managers, that certainly seems to be the perception. And, speaking of perception, the sad truth is that even though the university admits no guilt, it did fork over $168 million to various regulatory agencies. That action suggests, real or not, a sense of culpability...and in these politically charged times, perception is reality.

@PQ2pGkW-6xuq Thank you for your honesty. A few comments: #1 DeVry has settled with the FTC instead of taking it to court; they have never admitted any wrongdoing. Expecting ex-employees to commit fraud because their company was accused of it is spurious reasoning at best. If so, please be sure to never hire anyone from Equifax--they just handed all of America's credit data to foreign terrorists. #2 yes the higher-up managers have continually made poor judgments that favored short-term gain over student welfare or long-term sustainability. No one will argue with you over that. But getting a job in academia is by no means fast. I have been trying to get out since 2014. I don't want to work here anymore but I can't just quit and go on welfare and default on my mortgage if I know no one will hire me afterwards. I am applying to community college jobs that pay half of my current salary. #3 the faculty do the best with students that they get. Many should never have been admitted...but do you blame remedial English teachers when their students don't turn out to be world-class novelists? Should those students. not get any help at all? It might be that you are still thinking of DeVry as a trade school that claims to confer mastery of subjects, rather than exposure to the concepts and practice working on them. Anyway, I honestly thank you because your perspective represents what I am up against in the job market. It seems like a no-win situation.

@PQ2pGkW-4xat there are three reasons that I would be very unlikely to hire anyone who admits they worked for DeVry. First, DeVry was fined more than $100 million for defrauding students. Employees who continued to work for this company when they knew fraud was being committed are too high of a risk as they are likely to commit fraud as employees of my company. Second, DeVry managers are known for their ineptitude, and remaining as part of an organization with bungling management reflects poorly on an individual’s professional judgment. Finally, Devry graduates are known to lack the basic skills required to function in the workplace. Any faculty member or manager who knowingly contributed to providing such a substandard skill set to the graduates is either ignorant, or incompetent, or both.

When you were laid off, how did you get the notification?

Light at the end of the tunnel, perhaps? http://www.chronicle.com/article/Amazon-Is-Hiring-PhDs-/241544

I was able to get a job after 6 months of being laid off. Took a bunch of resumes before someone mentioned not using DeVry. I changed my resume to Adtalem and I started getting calls. I interviewed at community colleges for staff positions, not faculty, and you could tell the disdain they have for Devry. My new job is outside academia, but I'm making more now at the start of this job than I was making after years at DeVry. Trust me, I haven't looked back.

@5uxl:

well LW is on record in last quarterly earnings report about commending the idea of increasing the class sizes for online sections to gain more "efficiency". so that's one example. at this point the higher-ups' idea of "efficiency" is inversely proportional to academic quality

well...there are a couple of things to consider which might lift the stigma of victimhood, which seems to be running rampant here. More symbolic than substantive, but if it makes you feel better...

someone said they had relinquished all their stock. Not sure you can do that if it's in some kind of 401k...but if it is, you can still exchange it for something else...another stock or even a bond fund. If word gets out that significant numbers of employees are reducing/eliminating their stock positions just as Lisa Wardell and Patrick Unziger report earnings earlier next month, it might have an effect.

Here's something else...if you're a stockholder, then you've probably received a proxy statement. Don't automatically rubber stamp the reelection of the directors. One might rightfully ask what Ms. Holland, Ms. Wardell, Mr. Taylor and Mr. White who serve on the Board's Academic Quality subcommittee have done to staunch the bleeding of the institution's reputation. Incidentally, with all due respect, Mr. Taylor has been on the board way too long, and should step down, as should Lyle Logan. Don't abstain. Vote no. You might also want to consider emailing Ann Weaver Hart, President Emeritus of the University of Arizona, and ask her to campaign for chairman of the board. Before Arizona, she was the president of Temple, University of New Hampshire and was provost and vice-president of academic affairs at Claremont University. It may be too late, but no one's going to take a seriously until we have a serious academic heavyweight as the face of this institution.

University teaching jobs? Those jobs require substantial amount of research and proven track record of publications. A Devry teaching gig is more akin to teaching at a community college. Devry teaching experience would never have made anyone fit to be hired for a tenure track position at a public or private university even if Devry had a good reputation.

and that the students he defrauded look him up and drop in for a visit

...each visitor gets a free sun visor, desk calendar, and a juice box.

If you're faculty, you're screwed. You won't get a teaching job at another school. Hiring decisions are seen as investments by a college or uni and the decisions aren't made by the hiring department entirely. There is always administrator input. Even if you get to the "well, we liked that gal from DeVry" part, the admins don't want to have their college or their own personal name associated with DeVry. There are usually a hundred or eighty candidates for a faculty job and there is always another finalist who is a safe bet. I've been close several times and I've been at this for several years.

So when they do lay me off, and they will lay everyone off, that will be the end for me. I don't want to have to live with the fact that even though I've spent decades helping students the world sees me as a piece of crap. What a shame that DeVry missed so many opportunities to take the high road. I always did right by them. What a shame Daniel Hamburger's personal greed is going to cost me my career in doing what I love--and probably a career in anything else as I don't think I'm going to be around after the layoff to pick myself up from it. I hope that his new company is happy with him as he destroys it, and that the students he defrauded look him up and drop in for a visit

Just want to say that it is not such an open and shut case that having Devry on your resume would mean certain rejection in job applications. I know quite a few folks teaching and non-teaching who found jobs and quit Devry.

@PQ2pGkW-4imp please tell us why you do suspect folks who have worked for the company. Be honest, I appreciate the candor because I need to know what I'm up against. How could I prove to you that I am an honest, hardworking person caught by bad circumstances? What would it take to convince you that I am worth talking to as a potential hire? Is it better to just leave a decades-wide hole on my resume? Thank you for any insight.

@PQ2pGkW-4imp just because we've worked for the organization does not mean that we were not dedicated employees who tried to help our students. The real people who are suspect because of working for DeVry are the higher ups in this organization who make decisions based on profit instead of student satisfaction.

If you leave DeVry on your resume you will be immediately rejected. I am a hiring manager and when I see a Devry graduate, I immediately implement skills testing or reject the application. It is a common opinion throughout industry, which has been supported by countless examples, that Devry graduates do not possess skills that enable them to function properly in a modern organization, such as being able to write complete sentences. Individuals who have worked for the organization are suspect also.

Every question has now one answer:

"It is up to you"

counting the days till we get laid off.

I'm leaving as well...and today I relinquished most of my stock

I'm leaving.