Topic: Bang Your Head on Your Desk - the thread of teaching despair!

[kaysixteen]

"learned helplessness' and 'sunk cost fallacy' are two different things, but both may well be at play for many adjuncts.   Still, my point is different, namely, that, however much 'agency' one assumes an adjunct has, he cannot just get that great non-academic job-- this is true for the vast majority of PhD possessing folks, esp those outside of STEM and those over 40.   Really, they cannot.   Learned helplessness and the sunk cost fallacy do not come into play here-- to assume that an adjunct failing to obtain such a job is sufffering from/ guilty of either of these, without evidence, is insulting.

[marshwiggle]

"learned helplessness' and 'sunk cost fallacy' are two different things, but both may well be at play for many adjuncts.   Still, my point is different, namely, that, however much 'agency' one assumes an adjunct has, he cannot just get that great non-academic job

So are all of the great jobs that people with humanities BAs are supposed to be easily able to get much worse than the kind of jobs people with humanities PhDs should get?

If a BA gives a person lots of decent career options, and a PhD eliminates most of those while opening a very narrow sliver of others, (i.e. academia), then it seems that mostly the PhD raises expectations, while actually reducing  possibilities.

[AmLitHist]

New rule from upper administration:
All full time faculty (NTT and TT) are expected to have 10 hours per week of in-person (in your campus office) office hours starting summer semester in which you are available for students to drop in.  Office hours will be posted in some type of centralized website TBD.

10 hours? Who has a schedule that allows 10 hours of office hours per week? I currently have 4 posted in-person office hours. No one comes to them. They send questions by email, or I meet with them virtually, but not always at my posted times.

Our CC requires 10 office hours per week, plus an additional hour for each overload section taught.  Except for those of us teaching English courses--we get a 4/4 (rather than 5/5) load, but have to do an additional 3 office hours per week (so, 13).

Of course, CCs are much different than R1/"big" schools, but at 10 or 13, we're even on the high end of what I hear people at other CCs have to do.  The thinking seems to be that CC students need more hand holding/face time, but even at that, I can count on one hand the number of students who have come to my office hours over each semester of the past five years. At least the requirement gives me some structured grading time.

[the_geneticist]

I'm physically IN my office most of the time I'm on campus since my job is mostly administrative and project management.  But I am busy!  And my office door is by a main entrance to the building.  I often close my door and act like I'm not here so that I don't get an endless stream of folks looking for bathrooms, classrooms, other faculty, etc. 
I don't have 10 hours a week to be "on call" for questions.  No one has that time!  And 99% of the questions I get from students are about the things I mentioned above, not about course materials.

[kaysixteen]

Marshwiggle is also correct to note that, for many non-academic or academic-adjacent employers, that humanities BA is a much better choice than the humanities PhD (unless said PhD has experience specific to the job in question).    These people just aren't up for hiring that career-changing PhD, at least, not for the most part.   There are of course a wide variety of reasons why this is the case, some more significant than others, but that it is, is without question.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Stu lied about attending a talk (wrote a bs summary about topics not discussed) for an extra credit assignment. How do I know? I was at the talk. Sigh. Why do they waste my time?

[kaysixteen]

Since this was an extra credit assignment, what do you plan to do about this?

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I plan to talk to the student to see if stu will 'fess up.

[Langue_doc]

Stu lied about attending a talk (wrote a bs summary about topics not discussed) for an extra credit assignment. How do I know? I was at the talk. Sigh. Why do they waste my time?

I've stopped being surprised about the blatant lies.

Stu missed the deadline for an assignment and claimed that the assignment was complete. The following day I advised Stu that I would extend the deadline. A day passes; crickets. I once again remind Stu that the deadline has been extended. Stu emails me to let me know that Stu needs several hours to complete the assignment, and later emails me the assignment as a file attachment. Course policies? All assignments must be uploaded in the assignment folders; no emailed attachment.

[kaysixteen]

And if he doth not fess up?   What kinds of punishments can be imposed for such misconduct on extra credit assignments?

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

And if he doth not fess up?   What kinds of punishments can be imposed for such misconduct on extra credit assignments?

Zero credit.

[downer]

And if he doth not fess up?   What kinds of punishments can be imposed for such misconduct on extra credit assignments?

Students who cheat on any assignment can be reported to the appropriate dean. Policies vary from place to place. At some places, students could given a failing grade for the course and a note in their transcript.

[the_geneticist]

I don't want to say "I told you so" to a new instructor, but if you don't specify that students have to attend class to get participation points and use an online system that students can log into from anywhere, you are basically allowing students to earn credit for, you know, NOT participating.  All they need is a reminder on their phone or a friend on Discord.  It's not even cheating if you didn't make it clear that they could only earn points if they were physically in the room.

[Anon1787]

This is similar to cheating on the extra credit assignment. Students were required to write a brief proposal (which did not have strict formal requirements) for their term papers and Stu plagiarized from the fountain of all knowledge, Wikipedia. What to do?

[mamselle]

Zero for the assignment, minimally.

Call them into the office and ask them to explain the W'pedia similarities (did they, perchance, write the W'pedia article?....ahem).

If they can't explain, it's to the ethics committee they go.

M.