Number of hours required to develop a new course?

[hamburger]

Even I told them that the teaching materials are not good, they told me not to make any change. They just want have minimum change. Now, several weeks have passed and I have reminded them a few times, they still do not give me a contract but continue to ask me to meet them and do some work in those meetings. Sounds like they don't even want to pay the minimum now and expect me to do some charity work for the department.

[polly_mer]

Don't do any work without an acceptable contract!

[hamburger]

Don't do any work without an acceptable contract!

Still no contract. I reminded the department head. Now she told me that only small changes in the assessments are needed. She told me to call her. I am afraid that after deciding to give me the minimum hourly rate, they now decided not to pay me. Colleagues just told me that in this place, they just use people as much as they can with minimum pay. If somebody complain, then they just tell them that there is no teaching duty for them in the next semester.

[polly_mer]

How's that job search going?

[hamburger]

How's that job search going?

Still working on it.

Just talked with the chair. Now she wants students from to-be-two-separate courses to sit in the same classroom in the Fall. She calls it "cross-listing". As for January, I run a new course with a different course code for 2-year diploma students using the same teaching materials I am using now for 4-year degree students but I need to change the assessments a bit to make it easier for 2-year diploma students. She said that creating assessments is part of the job of professors (even for part-time professors). As a result, she is not going to pay me. The coordinator then suggested further meetings to work on this.

[downer]

How's that job search going?

Still working on it.

Just talked with the chair. Now she wants students from to-be-two-separate courses to sit in the same classroom in the Fall. She calls it "cross-listing". As for January, I run a new course with a different course code for 2-year diploma students using the same teaching materials I am using now for 4-year degree students but I need to change the assessments a bit to make it easier for 2-year diploma students. She said that creating assessments is part of the job of professors (even for part-time professors). As a result, she is not going to pay me. The coordinator then suggested further meetings to work on this.

To which you of course replied "Humbug!" and left. I hope. "Eat my shorts" would also be good.

The thing about "hamburger" is that the stories are credible enough, but it is the deadpan reporting of them and the total lack of appropriate response that makes one feel that they are products of the imagination.

[marshwiggle]

How's that job search going?

Still working on it.

Just talked with the chair. Now she wants students from to-be-two-separate courses to sit in the same classroom in the Fall. She calls it "cross-listing". As for January, I run a new course with a different course code for 2-year diploma students using the same teaching materials I am using now for 4-year degree students but I need to change the assessments a bit to make it easier for 2-year diploma students. She said that creating assessments is part of the job of professors (even for part-time professors). As a result, she is not going to pay me. The coordinator then suggested further meetings to work on this.

Did the chair require alternate assessments, or is that your own idea? If she didn't require it, then you don't have to do it. In that case it wouldn't be surprising that she doesn't intend to pay extra for something that she doesn't see as necessary.

[ciao_yall]

How's that job search going?

Still working on it.

Just talked with the chair. Now she wants students from to-be-two-separate courses to sit in the same classroom in the Fall. She calls it "cross-listing". As for January, I run a new course with a different course code for 2-year diploma students using the same teaching materials I am using now for 4-year degree students but I need to change the assessments a bit to make it easier for 2-year diploma students. She said that creating assessments is part of the job of professors (even for part-time professors). As a result, she is not going to pay me. The coordinator then suggested further meetings to work on this.

Did the chair require alternate assessments, or is that your own idea? If she didn't require it, then you don't have to do it. In that case it wouldn't be surprising that she doesn't intend to pay extra for something that she doesn't see as necessary.

Updating assessments seems like a reasonable part of any teaching assignment, IMHO.

[hamburger]

How's that job search going?

Still working on it.

Just talked with the chair. Now she wants students from to-be-two-separate courses to sit in the same classroom in the Fall. She calls it "cross-listing". As for January, I run a new course with a different course code for 2-year diploma students using the same teaching materials I am using now for 4-year degree students but I need to change the assessments a bit to make it easier for 2-year diploma students. She said that creating assessments is part of the job of professors (even for part-time professors). As a result, she is not going to pay me. The coordinator then suggested further meetings to work on this.

Did the chair require alternate assessments, or is that your own idea? If she didn't require it, then you don't have to do it. In that case it wouldn't be surprising that she doesn't intend to pay extra for something that she doesn't see as necessary.

The chair and the course coordinator require it. The thing is that first they wanted me to develop a new course based on an existing one. They asked me for the number of hours required to get the job done so they could create a contract. Then, after I quoted 60 hours and reminded them that HR said they could offer me 100% of my current teaching hourly rate or 1/3 of it, they changed the strategy to "cross-listing" the courses and decided not to give me a penny doing it.

Since I am not teaching that new course with a new course code until January, even it is a professor's job to create assessments, I don't really have to continue to waste my time to talk to them because it is for teaching in January that I have not received the job offer yet. Usually they ask me to sign a contract about a week after the term has started.

[downer]

Since I am not teaching that new course with a new course code until January, even it is a professor's job to create assessments, I don't really have to continue to waste my time to talk to them because it is for teaching in January that I have not received the job offer yet. Usually they ask me to sign a contract about a week after the term has started.

That's true.

But it is not unusual to sign the contract after the start of the semester.

I spent an hour or so today working on the syllabus for a Spring course. I don't expect to sign a contract until January. But I am scheduled to teach it and I am confident that I will teach it.

[polly_mer]

"hamburger" is that the stories are credible enough, but it is the deadpan reporting of them and the total lack of appropriate response

This is exactly what death-marching as an interchangeable, warm body cog looks like.  This is why I use those particular terms to characterize the problems of adjuncting.  Why do administrators think they can continue to pay peanuts, treat people badly, and still have classes covered?  Because hamburger's situation is not rare down at resource-strapped institutions nor are hamburger's reactions to the situation rare.

People who are professional fellows or have a good enough part-time job don't have an adjunct problem, although they may desire more stability, better pay/benefits, and different working conditions.  A union or individual negotiations may help those folks get those better conditions.  The only solution to this kind of death-marching, even limited to just one institution, is quitting for the individual.

downer, you claim to have 7500 posts on the CHE fora.  I have to wonder how you missed threads like this every term where we had people who posted asking for advice in these situations (students who couldn't do the work, very low pay or even missing pay, and unsupportive administrators for student problems) and then claimed they couldn't leave or even were angry at us for pointing out the realities.

For years on the fora, we had the recurring discussions of these death-marching adjunct situations as being akin to domestic violence with people asking for advice on how to improve the situation and then not taking the one action that will fix it (i.e., leaving the individual situations).

This situation is not limited to academia.  I am a regular reader of the Dear Prudence column in Slate.  The commentariat there routinely roll their collective eyes over people who ask questions that can be summarized as "what are the magic words to make other people change so I can stay exactly the same, but my situation improves immensely?"

Dan Savage has written a blunt sex advice column for decades now in which DTMFA (Dump the Mother Fucker Already) is standard advice: (even cruder language in link) https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=30928

I believe that hamburger is a real person who is death-marching and feels trapped because the other options seem worse, just like the abused spouse who fears not being able to make a clean break and will end up worse off for trying.  However, while domestic abuse victims are right to worry about physical violence by the abuser for trying to escape, academics don't really care who stays or goes and won't chase anyone down (as long as grades are submitted on time and materials are left in the admin's office).  People can leave and improve their situation, but just deciding to leave won't immediately change anything. 

Getting a good professional job may take years if one is geographically constrained, death-marching for more than a term or so, and continues to have the mindset that good jobs are a matter of applying to job ads with the hopes of convincing someone that academic degrees is the same as job experience instead of networking and leveraging observed experience for one of the 70+% of jobs that are never advertised.

[marshwiggle]

This situation is not limited to academia.  I am a regular reader of the Dear Prudence column in Slate.  The commentariat there routinely roll their collective eyes over people who ask questions that can be summarized as "what are the magic words to make other people change so I can stay exactly the same, but my situation improves immensely?"

Dan Savage has written a blunt sex advice column for decades now in which DTMFA (Dump the Mother Fucker Already) is standard advice: (even cruder language in link) https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=30928

Those are great! I hadn't previously come across them, but they certainly reflect the attitude of waiting for the world to change rather than taking personal action to change one's situation. As Polly says, it's (sadly) not exclusive to academia.

[downer]

"hamburger" is that the stories are credible enough, but it is the deadpan reporting of them and the total lack of appropriate response

This is exactly what death-marching as an interchangeable, warm body cog looks like.  This is why I use those particular terms to characterize the problems of adjuncting.  Why do administrators think they can continue to pay peanuts, treat people badly, and still have classes covered?  Because hamburger's situation is not rare down at resource-strapped institutions nor are hamburger's reactions to the situation rare.

People who are professional fellows or have a good enough part-time job don't have an adjunct problem, although they may desire more stability, better pay/benefits, and different working conditions.  A union or individual negotiations may help those folks get those better conditions.  The only solution to this kind of death-marching, even limited to just one institution, is quitting for the individual.

downer, you claim to have 7500 posts on the CHE fora.  I have to wonder how you missed threads like this every term where we had people who posted asking for advice in these situations (students who couldn't do the work, very low pay or even missing pay, and unsupportive administrators for student problems) and then claimed they couldn't leave or even were angry at us for pointing out the realities.

For years on the fora, we had the recurring discussions of these death-marching adjunct situations as being akin to domestic violence with people asking for advice on how to improve the situation and then not taking the one action that will fix it (i.e., leaving the individual situations).

This situation is not limited to academia.  I am a regular reader of the Dear Prudence column in Slate.  The commentariat there routinely roll their collective eyes over people who ask questions that can be summarized as "what are the magic words to make other people change so I can stay exactly the same, but my situation improves immensely?"

Dan Savage has written a blunt sex advice column for decades now in which DTMFA (Dump the Mother Fucker Already) is standard advice: (even cruder language in link) https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=30928

I believe that hamburger is a real person who is death-marching and feels trapped because the other options seem worse, just like the abused spouse who fears not being able to make a clean break and will end up worse off for trying.  However, while domestic abuse victims are right to worry about physical violence by the abuser for trying to escape, academics don't really care who stays or goes and won't chase anyone down (as long as grades are submitted on time and materials are left in the admin's office).  People can leave and improve their situation, but just deciding to leave won't immediately change anything. 

Getting a good professional job may take years if one is geographically constrained, death-marching for more than a term or so, and continues to have the mindset that good jobs are a matter of applying to job ads with the hopes of convincing someone that academic degrees is the same as job experience instead of networking and leveraging observed experience for one of the 70+% of jobs that are never advertised.

I have to confess I stopped reading a lot of threads of gloom of people with unrealistic expectations on the old CHE. I suspect that the people who on the "death march" are over represented on the fora. There are some people  at least where I am who seem to have been adjuncting for a couple of decades, but I've no reason to think that they have unrealistic expectations. They have their reasons for doing it. And while a bunch of gigs without benefits is never ideal, they seem to be ready to accept their situations. I did know one person who thought that being an adjunct would lead to a full time job, and he was a smart guy with multiple degrees, but he seemed to have some emotional deficits and personal issues that meant that he was not good at reading social cues or coping with problems. The last I heard of him, he was working as a doorman in an apartment building. If our OP in this thread is real, then I wonder if a similar fate is in store for them.

[hamburger]

"hamburger" is that the stories are credible enough, but it is the deadpan reporting of them and the total lack of appropriate response

This is exactly what death-marching as an interchangeable, warm body cog looks like.  This is why I use those particular terms to characterize the problems of adjuncting.  Why do administrators think they can continue to pay peanuts, treat people badly, and still have classes covered?  Because hamburger's situation is not rare down at resource-strapped institutions nor are hamburger's reactions to the situation rare.

People who are professional fellows or have a good enough part-time job don't have an adjunct problem, although they may desire more stability, better pay/benefits, and different working conditions.  A union or individual negotiations may help those folks get those better conditions.  The only solution to this kind of death-marching, even limited to just one institution, is quitting for the individual.

downer, you claim to have 7500 posts on the CHE fora.  I have to wonder how you missed threads like this every term where we had people who posted asking for advice in these situations (students who couldn't do the work, very low pay or even missing pay, and unsupportive administrators for student problems) and then claimed they couldn't leave or even were angry at us for pointing out the realities.

For years on the fora, we had the recurring discussions of these death-marching adjunct situations as being akin to domestic violence with people asking for advice on how to improve the situation and then not taking the one action that will fix it (i.e., leaving the individual situations).

This situation is not limited to academia.  I am a regular reader of the Dear Prudence column in Slate.  The commentariat there routinely roll their collective eyes over people who ask questions that can be summarized as "what are the magic words to make other people change so I can stay exactly the same, but my situation improves immensely?"

Dan Savage has written a blunt sex advice column for decades now in which DTMFA (Dump the Mother Fucker Already) is standard advice: (even cruder language in link) https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=30928

I believe that hamburger is a real person who is death-marching and feels trapped because the other options seem worse, just like the abused spouse who fears not being able to make a clean break and will end up worse off for trying.  However, while domestic abuse victims are right to worry about physical violence by the abuser for trying to escape, academics don't really care who stays or goes and won't chase anyone down (as long as grades are submitted on time and materials are left in the admin's office).  People can leave and improve their situation, but just deciding to leave won't immediately change anything. 

Getting a good professional job may take years if one is geographically constrained, death-marching for more than a term or so, and continues to have the mindset that good jobs are a matter of applying to job ads with the hopes of convincing someone that academic degrees is the same as job experience instead of networking and leveraging observed experience for one of the 70+% of jobs that are never advertised.

I have to confess I stopped reading a lot of threads of gloom of people with unrealistic expectations on the old CHE. I suspect that the people who on the "death march" are over represented on the fora. There are some people  at least where I am who seem to have been adjuncting for a couple of decades, but I've no reason to think that they have unrealistic expectations. They have their reasons for doing it. And while a bunch of gigs without benefits is never ideal, they seem to be ready to accept their situations. I did know one person who thought that being an adjunct would lead to a full time job, and he was a smart guy with multiple degrees, but he seemed to have some emotional deficits and personal issues that meant that he was not good at reading social cues or coping with problems. The last I heard of him, he was working as a doorman in an apartment building. If our OP in this thread is real, then I wonder if a similar fate is in store for them.

The strategy of the head uses is to let me teaches the new course next semester and using the idea that it is a professor's job to create new assessments, she does not have to pay me a penny besides the number of teaching hours in class.

I am the only one in the department in my area. Meanwhile, she has been advertising to the public about open part-tme position developing and teaching course in my area! Colleague said that the department does it to create competition and that once they have found somebody who can do the job, they will hire that person instead of me.

[polly_mer]

Colleague said that the department does it to create competition and that once they have found somebody who can do the job, they will hire that person instead of me.

Yes, that's likely to happen.  How's that job search going?