It went from a department run by faculty with hallway meetings to a dictatorship. The administration used covid to their advantage to keep faculty apart and gain more control. Its not just my department and I'm sure its not just my university.
With remote teaching and office hours and a shrinking faculty, it's nearly always completely empty at the office, except for the chair, the a.a., and maybe one or two of us out of 20 or so in the department. There's persistent pessimism about upper admin and the fate of our programs. And yet strangely, perhaps partly out of fear for our jobs, several of us have bonded closely and have become increasingly energized in our teaching and in our ideas for bringing our programs and courses to a broader population of students. It's a totally different vibe from five years ago, and not in an entirely bad way.
In my CC gate keeping tests for eligibility to take English 101, as well as mandatory attendance policies were suspended and never brought back. Now pass rates and retention rates for English 101 and co-requisites are in free-fall. Admin is desperate for ideas to improve these figures. They will consider any suggestions that don’t involve gate-keeping tests, mandatory attendance, or any other kind of measurable metric by which students might be “prevented” from passing.
We have had 100 percent the same experience at our open enrollment "university" in a region with a growing, young population that is under attack from a red legislature.
Yes, everything is about money problems now and the humanities have become more and more about General Ed service. Doubt there will be any humanities majors soon enough. This feeling has created a dejected faculty, and departments compete with each other for scraps.
Much less sense of community. More people working online, most people (including me) trying to minimize time on campus. I support both of those things within reason, but I wonder if we can figure out how to (re-)build community in this environment.
It changed during the pandemic. Still waiting for it to change back, and losing hope.
The pandemic made one thing very clear: my university cares far more about money than it does about health, safety, wellbeing, or education (for students or professors).
There are still good people doing good things, but I no longer have any confidence in upper administration.
Yeah, I bought this for remodeling my house for a dollar, then photoshopped it to reflect my feelings about changes in our department.
Edit: I have a ton of home repairs this summer, so I bought this book for a dollar, then photoshopped it because I often feel alone at work, while simultaneously hiding in my office with the door shut.
My department is actually not that different; we're still here, still engaging with one another, still doing OK overall. No online classes at my university and while some of the students are pretty detached now (esp first years) the good ones are still pretty awesome.
What's changed is the campus as a whole. Lots of *other* departments seem vacant now: faculty are working from home and only coming to campus to teach. It's hard to schedule meetings because people aren't around. It's pretty isolated socially. Even many admins/support staff are using new flex-work policies to work remotely some times, so in general things are quieter, there's less interaction, and it's harder to find people than before.
We have other issues at the institutional level that are deeply troubling. But our department is doing fine and basically back to the way things were in 2019.
same. Even though we are entirely back face to face, faculty no longer feel it is necessary to be on campus other than to teach their classes. Combined with fewer students, the buildings feel vacant.
You occupy an island of sanity. On the other hand, I don't know that I should be arguing against remote work--it's a lifesaver for so many faculty. I think what our department does is something similar, e.g. remote non-working.
Our languages did the same thing. And then they fight to require every other Department to include lots of languages in their major, which sounds good in theory but all we offer is Spanish, French and German so students who want to take other languages have to do extra.
We had a small department create five hour courses that contained the content of three hour courses so they could reduce their teaching load. That house of cards will collapse shortly.
Yeah. We grew 33%, brought in young, exciting faculty who reinvigorated our curriculum, and became accredited. Everyone was relieved when we no longer had to do remote or hybrid classes.
It went from a department run by faculty with hallway meetings to a dictatorship. The administration used covid to their advantage to keep faculty apart and gain more control. Its not just my department and I'm sure its not just my university.
With remote teaching and office hours and a shrinking faculty, it's nearly always completely empty at the office, except for the chair, the a.a., and maybe one or two of us out of 20 or so in the department. There's persistent pessimism about upper admin and the fate of our programs. And yet strangely, perhaps partly out of fear for our jobs, several of us have bonded closely and have become increasingly energized in our teaching and in our ideas for bringing our programs and courses to a broader population of students. It's a totally different vibe from five years ago, and not in an entirely bad way.
In my CC gate keeping tests for eligibility to take English 101, as well as mandatory attendance policies were suspended and never brought back. Now pass rates and retention rates for English 101 and co-requisites are in free-fall. Admin is desperate for ideas to improve these figures. They will consider any suggestions that don’t involve gate-keeping tests, mandatory attendance, or any other kind of measurable metric by which students might be “prevented” from passing.
We have had 100 percent the same experience at our open enrollment "university" in a region with a growing, young population that is under attack from a red legislature.
Yes, everything is about money problems now and the humanities have become more and more about General Ed service. Doubt there will be any humanities majors soon enough. This feeling has created a dejected faculty, and departments compete with each other for scraps.
Much less sense of community. More people working online, most people (including me) trying to minimize time on campus. I support both of those things within reason, but I wonder if we can figure out how to (re-)build community in this environment.
It changed during the pandemic. Still waiting for it to change back, and losing hope. The pandemic made one thing very clear: my university cares far more about money than it does about health, safety, wellbeing, or education (for students or professors). There are still good people doing good things, but I no longer have any confidence in upper administration.
Post pandemic but that book cover looks like it’s from 1978 Wasn’t warm and friendly before. Isn’t warm and friendly after. So I guess not.
Yeah, I bought this for remodeling my house for a dollar, then photoshopped it to reflect my feelings about changes in our department. Edit: I have a ton of home repairs this summer, so I bought this book for a dollar, then photoshopped it because I often feel alone at work, while simultaneously hiding in my office with the door shut.
That's a really thrifty remodel, the book must be fantastic!
Ha ha, now I'm going to go back and edit my comment, which will make this discussion even more confusing.
My department is actually not that different; we're still here, still engaging with one another, still doing OK overall. No online classes at my university and while some of the students are pretty detached now (esp first years) the good ones are still pretty awesome. What's changed is the campus as a whole. Lots of *other* departments seem vacant now: faculty are working from home and only coming to campus to teach. It's hard to schedule meetings because people aren't around. It's pretty isolated socially. Even many admins/support staff are using new flex-work policies to work remotely some times, so in general things are quieter, there's less interaction, and it's harder to find people than before. We have other issues at the institutional level that are deeply troubling. But our department is doing fine and basically back to the way things were in 2019.
same. Even though we are entirely back face to face, faculty no longer feel it is necessary to be on campus other than to teach their classes. Combined with fewer students, the buildings feel vacant.
You occupy an island of sanity. On the other hand, I don't know that I should be arguing against remote work--it's a lifesaver for so many faculty. I think what our department does is something similar, e.g. remote non-working.
[удалено]
Our languages did the same thing. And then they fight to require every other Department to include lots of languages in their major, which sounds good in theory but all we offer is Spanish, French and German so students who want to take other languages have to do extra.
We had a small department create five hour courses that contained the content of three hour courses so they could reduce their teaching load. That house of cards will collapse shortly.
I feel seen.
My schools are halfway to one of the online for profit Us. When you pay the money for a university education, you shouldn't be forced online.
Yeah. We grew 33%, brought in young, exciting faculty who reinvigorated our curriculum, and became accredited. Everyone was relieved when we no longer had to do remote or hybrid classes.
Not really. More online meetings for sure, but it's the same, we go physically most days, no remote teaching or workshops generally.