Thread regarding ITT Educational Services Inc. layoffs

At our campus they wanted adjuncts to start attending something called in-service faculty (training) meetings. Of course these multi-hour meetings were unpaid! Not sure this is the case at all locations.

The Learning Resource Center manager called the absent students the first hour, at our campus -- but students never actually answered their phones. The idea was that any info gathered by her was passed on to faculty, and then they were supposed to put that into the gradebook under attendance comments. Then faculty were supposed to follow up some more as soon as possible, by calling or emailing students later that same night, and pumping them for why they were absent, and putting details into S3 program. And a couple times a quarter, we were supposed to pester the D and F students to raise their grades, and put that into the S3 program as well.

Plus there was an "attendance checklist" faculty were supposed to fill out after class, to make sure they remembered to do all this stuff! Fill that form out, plus print out an attendance report from the gradebook, and turn them both in.

Recently, we were also supposed to enter all the same info into an Excel spreadsheet on an instructor network, for the recruiters to access directly! This was after the chairs and dean were gone, so the part-time faculty were supposed to pick up the slack I think Hardly anyone ever actually did this, though. How many times do you really need to say "unable to contact student, left message."

At one point, faculty were encouraged by management to pump students for info about their absent classmates, at the start of class. I had one student get upset that another student was sharing about an absent classmate's wife's emergency c-section! Good point! That is when I decided to just stop probing my students entirely.

Oh, and also every faculty was required to get the students to enter at least one assignment per quarter in the eportfolio, and grade the assignment via the eportfolio. Faculty teaching core classes were supposed to be pushing SPE's. Eportfolio and SPE numbers were tracked by headquarters, and the campus director was "competing" with the other campuses in the district.

Does headquarters believe the faculty really have little to do, since they are provided with curriculum and handouts for students, and students can access the online lessons? In truth, the curriculum provided to me was pathetic, and I had to spend much time rewriting it.

Did you have to call absent students within the first hour to remind them to come to class? Did you have to record it in a computer to "prove" that you called them?

Did you have to set each student up with student professional experience (SPE)--like convincing a student to volunteer each week at some business.

My campus director told me employers really value problem solving skills from tech school graduates. At ITT-Tech, students are kept really busy trying to survive their scam education and get their bogus degree. But what value is this to employers?

Everything about ITT-Tech operation works against student acquiring problem solving skills in their technical fields. ITT-Tech headquarters is authoritarian and suppresses the truth. This seriously damages the college learning environment. Everyone has to work hard to follow rules and perform meaningless busy work. The one correct solution to any problem is, according to ITT-Tech headquarters, whatever solution they happen to be pushing.

For example, faculty are supposed to push students to use the ITT-Tech Virtual Library, via their Student Portal, to access online resources. Campuses are rated on how often the Virtual Library is accessed, and my director often emailed the faculty our standing in the district. Curriculum provided to instructors and students have links to Virtual Library resources, often involving many convoluted steps, even when much more direct access was available outside the Virtual Library. Does ITT-Tech headquarters wants to fool people into thinking this access to Khan Academy is paid for thru tuition dollars? Who knows!

Many examples exist of how ITT-Tech headquarters promotes doing stuff that doesn't make sense, wastes time, and is annoying. The last thing an employer wants is for a new employee to find the most tedious, annoying, time consuming, and ineffective method for performing a task.