Can you tell me more about what's happening for professors at DeVry? It sounds like you are being squeezed out.
"we’re now being maneuvered into an increasingly untenable position the way these courses are being packaged, monitored and evaluated."
https://www.thelayoff.com/t/YjSSfQ0#replies
As an adjunct I am refusing to take the training unless I am compensated. I draw the line at free labor when I am asked to commit 32+ hours of uncompensated time plus free development of materials like videos and handouts that DeVry owns.
2clr and 2xmu...for years this university has been trying to marginalize the professorial ranks...the fifteen to eight-week semesters forced faculty to make hard choices about content, which endangered students taking sequential courses. They would do well enough to pass the entry level course, but not be prepared to succeed at the next level. Blended courses proved to be a poor remedy...still insufficient content...but now faculty were assessed on how 'present' they were in the threaded discussions...how quickly they responded to student queries, and not whether they had command of their subject matter. And now, with all the 'nudges' or 'pokes' or whatever they're calling them, faculty have been reduced to glorified customer service reps. It's a sad state of affairs. Lions, led by donkeys.
Classes are up to 60 students, and growing. The push is to have most if not all assignments graded by computer and students will be able to take tests as often as they want.
I completely agree re: the trainings. I completed the first set, but I also work at another institution and April is a particularly busy month in my other position. I emailed the trainer to let him know that I would be "happy" to complete them at a different time but have not received a response, not even an IFF-type nudge. tear (sarcasm there) I simply don't have time for a bunch of unpaid nonsense right now. If my students wanted ANY of this, I would find a way to get it done, but all these changes serve to do is make their lives and my life more difficult.
That stupid training is so repetitive and takes so much time and feels so worthless. Especially when we have a hundred more important things to be doing. I am a department chair at another college and our faculty never have to go through such nonsense. We do professional development every month all year long but nobody minds it because we do it in a smart, humane, unobtrusive way.
Is anyone else thinking about just not doing it? If the only outcome is that we can't work for DeVry anymore, then it is a very tempting choice.
there are more trainings now on how to use video tools and compose handouts for assignments. all of it illegal since they are not paying for trainings to adjuncts.
No longer with the company, but still glued to this discussion...so, are classes still 40+ online? Still an 8-week gallop? Still lacking intellectual, academic rigor; but endless "executables"? Still soul-crushing apathy among students for topics like English, History, Literature? (Are these courses even offered?) Still an utter lack of administrative support? Still "what have you done for me lately?" Still using evaluations as a cause to fire faculty?
cvp...that's a lot of work...she doing this all by herself?
The result of LB and her ideas. We are forced to teach a certain way and take the training courses that she and her developers create. She monitors our live lectures and then reports us if we do something that she doesn't like.