DeVry is currently advertising that they had 45+ locations, but how many are just "ghost campuses"?. I could take a look at the NCES data, but it only has numbers up to 2016-17.
https://www.devry.edu/about/campus-locations.html
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Super story about the ghost of DeVry (and career) Past. In reading it, I could actually hear the surreal hum of HVAC and ancient computers. In my mind's eye, in the distance, silhouetted against the Harvest moon, did I make out the Grim Reaper lumbering down that lonely road?
I never attended DeVry, but 40 years ago, I was a young student at another for-profit "nationally accredited" (read: horse manure) electronics institute type of school. I did alright there and graduated from the program and got a job with a technology firm in another state. Within the first two years on the job, however, I realized just how limited my education had been, and how the low value of which most companies appraised a degree from such institutions. Then I saw plainly my rash judgment and enrolled into the local community college, then going on to graduate from a bona fide state university.
Years later, I now caution young people to weigh their educational choices very carefully before committing to a post-secondary school. I am pleased to say that some of them took my advice to heart and stepped around the for-profit trade school trap. You did right to flee from that place. Best of luck to you.
Some of our adjuncts were grandfathered in at the higher rate, as long as they kept teaching. I did hire some new adjuncts who were desperate for money or to break into teaching and get experience. Onsite dried up anyway and those folks moved on to other jobs instead of going fully online.
DeVry co-opted the term "Visiting Professor," increased the hours of employment, required unpaid training, and expected a service component--still, without benefits--just more work and duty. I remember thinking at the time (I was FT), "who would want this gig for less money, no benefits, and an increased workload?" Does anyone else remember differently?
They are in no way “Visiting Professors”—they are adjuncts, plain and simple. An actual “Visiting Professor” is someone with a one year full-time appointment at other schools. She or he is typically on sabbatical from another college or university and does research. DeVry invented this use of the term for adjuncts a few years back when they drastically reduced adjunct salaries and tried to sell the idea of a more continuous relationship to them. Mandatory unpaid training was a “benefit” for adjuncts to make them more marketable, lol. That’s what we were told to sell them. The idea was that they would take lower pay if there was more steady employment, but of course that didn’t happen. It’s all contingent on hitting those numbers, and the only way to do it is to s--- up to students and shortcut the grading process. Adjuncts are disposable at DVU—just like full-time faculty and the “Visiting Professor” label is unethical because it implies a relationship between the employer and employee that just doesn’t exist. Funny thing—my phone tried to correct “faculty” to “factory”...now that’s really getting into the spirit of DeVry!
"Visiting Professor"??? There is absolutely no continuity of contact with Admin, Scheduling, etc. Course offerings mysteriously appear, are accepted, and prepared and then canceled due to low enrollment but no communication of this ever happens. The "visiting professor" finds out after asking because the roster is not being populated. WTF? Of course no compensation for the hours of course prep!
An example of "ghost campuses" (using NCES 2016-17 numbers):
Merrillville, IN: 86 students, 1 F/T and 5 P/T faculty
Nashville, TN: 99 students, 0 F/T and 7 P/T faculty
Henderson, NV: 171 students, 0 F/T and 11 P/T faculty
Kansas City, MO: 191 students, 2 F/T and 22 P/T faculty
Charlotte, NC: 197 students, 0 F/T and 30 F/T faulty
There are probably more, but because NCES does not break the headcount down to the location level, there may be several more. The question now is, what campuses are profitable?
DeVry defines "Campus" and "Center" differently. A Campus is a school. A Center is usually attached administratively to a campus.
"Location" is a whole nuther animal. I suspect they are baking the language to obscure facts: a campus and a center may have 2 locations in the geographic sense.
These are old numbers, (2016-17), but the only ones publicly available. Still, they can tell us where some of the ghost campuses are. How can Devry get away with claiming that there are 45+ campuses?
Arizona (672 students)
Glendale Center
Mesa Center
Phoenix Campus
California (2,980 students)
Colton (Inland-Empire) Center
Folsom Campus
Fresno Campus
Long Beach Campus
Newark Campus
Pomona Campus
San Diego Campus
San Jose Center
Sherman Oaks Campus
Twentynine Palms Extension
Colorado (221 students)
Westminster (Denver) Campus
Florida (976 students)
Jacksonville Campus
Miramar Campus
Orlando Campus
Georgia (1,341 students)
Alpharetta Campus
Atlanta Cobb Galleria Center
Decatur Campus
Duluth Center
Stockbridge (Henry County) Center
Illinois (16,964 students, includes online)
Addison Campus
Chicago Campus
Chicago Loop Campus
Chicago O'Hare Center
Downers Grove Center
Gurnee Center
Naperville Center
Tinley Park Campus
Indiana (86 students)
Merrillville Center
Missouri (191 students)
Kansas City Campus
Nevada (171 students)
Henderson Campus
New Jersey (578 students)
North Brunswick Campus
Paramus Center
New York (1,528 students)
Brooklyn Extension
Midtown Manhattan Campus
Rego Park (Queens) Center
North Carolina (197 students)
Charlotte Campus
Raleigh Center
Ohio (1,096 students)
Cincinnati Campus
Columbus Campus
Seven Hills (Cleveland) Campus
Pennsylvania (401 students)
Ft. Washington Center
Philadelphia Center
Tennessee (99 students)
Nashville Campus
Texas (780 students)
Austin Campus
Irving Campus
San Antonio Campus
Virginia (436 students)
Arlington Campus
Chesapeake Campus
@All of Them, bravo.
"DeVry is nothing but ghost campuses and campfire tales of corporate greed and educational exploitative mismanagement to be told to scare us to the bone."
"Are you the ghost of my departed career?" I whispered back.
Lolz. Someone make this a NetFlix series
they are shutting one "center", laying off the staff and moving the enrollment people to a shared work/office space type place. RP is now triple-dipping at Ottawa U. That guy has some serious luck.
At this point leadership is just waiting to cash-in and move on. Campuses are for looks if you are still there it will end with-in year. Good luck
All of them.
I still recall my last days there, watching the sun set over the parking lot and knowing that at dusk, the ghosts of the dreams of those unable to comprehend the material would roll over the campus, like a fog. A chill would sink through my soul from the broken HVAC and the damp mist from the leaky ceilings would cut me to the bone. "Is this place haunted, Professor?" one of the students would invariably ask.
"It's best that we don't talk about it," I said. "They can hear you." The hum from the ancient computers would be a faint comfort as we worked our way through the lab material that I didn't write, but was made to perform by content developers who didn't understand the material as well as I did. No matter, the boss was always right...I was only a fool, or a peasant, a hired gun at best--but now I needed to survive the night, get through the labs, and rush out to my car before the hauntings made it impossible to leave.
"Professor...." a long-dead voice whispered in my ear, a skeletal clacking sound, and full of the stench of rot. "You were going to...make something out of your career....not just survive...." I wondered how long I could survive, actually. "Are you the ghost of my departed career?" I whispered back. "Who k--led you?"
"You did..." the voice moaned. Now my students could hear it, too, and they looked afraid. "You destroyed your career by staying too long....now you can never escape. Your students are trapped, too...by a dying educational brand that used to mean something...now it is a ghost as well...only to be mocked by HR goons at interviews." Outside the window, the full Autumn moon hung over the lonely road in the distance, and a stead wind picked at the falling leaves, whipping them into airborne swirls in the parking lot.
I shuddered at the thought for a moment, and I swear that I saw the ghost of the DeVry logo from the corner of my eye, like a forgotten dream, a half-heard mumble, or a figment of distant thunder. But maybe I was wrong. I led the students through the lab, huddled there in that graveyard of old technology, corridors empty, and the sinister, sad gurgling of the HVAC choking out its last days. I imaged tumbleweeds. I imagined the decaying rust ghosts of American industry. After class, I walked out to the empty parking lot. Then I knew.
DeVry was a Ghost of a Dream Past. It was once full of life, the sounds of WWII radio technicians, networking helpdesk folks, and those who enjoyed electronics. There was life, in those distant memories. Old Herman himself seemed to smile beyond this life at the joke of a scheduling system that they named after him. It was a sad, wistful smile, a knowing smile, a smile of Something Beyond. This was no longer a world for carrying around film projectors, nor soldering together capacitors on breadboards, writing or grading a million discussion posts, trying to learn electronics online, or even celebrating your friend Lee who made audio amplification a reality using vacuum tubes. It was no more alive than steamtrains, coal mines, or Vaudeville. I saw all of the faces of my laid-off colleagues, people I passed through decades of adult life with, as they said without voice...."Remember us, too." More ghosts.
By the hope and grace of God, I moved on. I drove away from my last class, away from that haunted place. All of the rot and bones pass in time, to only whispers and tales of dead dreams. It was a fading echo, a memory...a sound and a thought held on too long and only half-understood. I pray to this day that the exorcism on my resume holds true, and that the ghosts of the place can rest. DeVry is nothing but ghost campuses and campfire tales of corporate greed and educational exploitative mismanagement to be told to scare us to the bone.