I was dissatisfied for years before I quit, and there were many reasons that I did end up quitting DV faculty. Some of the lesser reasons included increased medical benefit costs, poor raises and lack of faculty development money, not to mention endless reorgs and layoffs creating constant anxiety. But looking back on it, the number one thing is this: when you treat students like customers, academic integrity is compromised. Plain and simple.
What's that, you say? That message was only for Admissions, Advisors, etc.? Not true. It always got passed to faculty, albeit with caveats. And it created a culture where students thought that they were in charge of their grades and submissions, and to abuse faculty on course evals. Admins treated the course eval numbers like gold, not understanding that having students rate faculty is like asking the inmates to rate the asylum. To assume that a student knows how to adequately assess faculty performance is absurd, and to insist on super-high ratings drives faculty performance toward things that students want: easy assignments, lax deadlines, and instant grading. They want a quick checklist of "A"s and will ask for you to be fired on the evals if they don't get what they want. To be fair, students were promised onsite courses and then largely driven online, so it's understandable that they were already upset with the whole process.
Minimal selectivity and accelerated formats created an environment where non-traditional students had opportunities, but were unable to compete effectively at college-level work. Instead of changing the 8-week format, the faculty expectations were changed to match the needs of students. Back when we had 15 weeks onsite courses, I could do miracles in the classroom with unprepared folks. It's much less effective when you have 8 weeks of web conference lectures instead. I had enough. I have a freakin' doctorate, folks. I should honestly be working as a high-paid business consultant but instead gave my life over to educatin' DV students. No more. I had enough. DV students don't respect teachers, who are expected to be tutors (awkward for all parties involved, at best). DV admins don't respect teachers, who are replaceable, like cattle, with low paid adjuncts who get an even shorter end of the same short stick. Adjunct pay dropped quite a bit while I was there, and for the record, some of the best adjuncts quit because of that and the excessive time demands. Full-time faculty were left to wander the almost-empty buildings, like ghost towns, waiting for the few onsite classes that were left. And when the tumbleweeds did clear past the computer lab, the few remaining onsite students met the faculty warily, like old West adversaries--one emboldened by the knowledge that faculty were their servants, because the CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT, and they needed that 'A', gosh darn it, for non-academic reasons....and the other, bitter and jaded by a collapsing system, ready to quit, tired of assigning "points for completion", wary of getting slammed on evals. It's why I got on my horse and rode away from this stinkin' Western folks. It's not a battle worth fighting--here. No one would remember the victory or defeat at the faculty/student showdown of the DV Corral. The sun is setting, the wind is blowing off the plains, and there are grander adventures ahead.