No Time For Anything Fun

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Work is overwhelming at this time of year.

Reading Is My Washpot!

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Literate Good Citizen You read to inform or entertain yourself, but you're not nerdy about it. You've read most major classics (in school) and you have a favorite genre or two.
Dedicated Reader
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Book Snob
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Non-Reader
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New Term

Here we go again. Health has not improved, which is a significant frustration, but at least I have the specialist's appointment in March (hey it's only been 11 months since symptoms, what else do I expect?) I have an interesting non-teaching assignment this term, and in addition am teaching only courses that I LOVE ... how great is that!

Wisdom from Almost a Century Ago -- Plus Ca Change

"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin
But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
I shot him dead because --
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although
He thought he'd 'list, perhaps
Off-hand-like -- just as I --
Was out of work -- had sold his traps -
No other reason why.
Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown."

Thomas Hardy, "The Man He Killed", published 1909

Check out the Bush Clock!

Thanks to my DD (darling daughter) ...

It's Been A Rough Few Months!

What Your Soul Really Looks Like

You are very passionate and quite temperamental. While you can be moody, you always crave comfort. You are a grounded person, but you also leave room for imagination and dreams. You feet may be on the ground, but you're head is in the clouds. You believe that people see you as a bit small and insignificant. People pay more attention to you than you think. Your near future is still unknown, and a little scary. You'll get through wild times - and you'll textually enjoy it. For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust.

Inside the Room of Your Soul

Arbitration is Finally Done

Here's the link to the arbitration award. Financially we got a reasonable settlement. From the workload we got exactly what we expected -- another "equivalent to Teplitski" award which now sets up a task force to study the issues.

In addition,(besides the $$$ and the fact that the annual increases will be effective on September 1 of each year and not "staged in" as 1% at Sept. 1.5% in Jan. etc. as per the last contract), there is a new step added to the contract effective next September. I can hardly wait to hear our "formal" management's response, given that we heard that if we got the kind of financial settlement we had asked for that there would be a number of people in the support staff out of a job. I will check with my "sources" to see what I can find out, but, as I have previously posted, I am sure that this was just an ill-thought-out angry comment kited out by management as a way to drive a wedge between faculty and support staff (which was a massive failure, by the way, as all it did was make the support staff more recognisant than ever of the lack of management sensitivity to ALL employee concerns). In addition we all got one more hour for out-of-class contact with students: our college already had a local agreement for this, and it is badly needed given the additional demands on our out-of-class time over the last several years thanks to email and so on.

I will be interested to hear the comments of other faculty on the results.

WMG Was Fine

I have no idea why I had to go to the WMG. Before the meeting started the main issue was conceded, and within 5 minutes so was the secondary issue. I got the feeling that I was only there to resolve an issue between the folks on the management side. Were they feuding over internal politics and needed someone to test it out? Was one of them simply intransigent?

From my perspective it was simply a total waste of time. I could have been doing other things. It's not as though either issue was a $$$ factor for the college as I had room in my workload assignment anyway. So much of this is farcical. I should not have had to refer this to the WMG anyway.

Technically I am on holidays, but as usual there is not enough time allotted to do what needs to be done re curriculum/course development. The technology demands are significant by themselves, but when you also have new editions of texts and new topics and standard updates and also have three less weeks than usual to do the work .... well everyone can figure that one out. I probably should just leave the courses incomplete. I just can't do that. For example ... only today did I get the updated teaching materials for one of my courses from the text publisher. But I was supposed to have finished all the course updates yesterday. Hmmmmm. Grrrrrrrrr. Such is life. But these are the kinds of things that our management fails to take into consideration.

Not a good month

So this has not been a good month ... for a number of (irrelevant to most folks) reasons, and the compexities of that, together with personal stuff, has made this a poor month. In addition to the regular stuff, tomorrow I go to the Workload Monitoring Group ... on principle. I will go there after a meeting with my Program Advisory Committee ... a group of industry advisors who are, fortunately, a lot more understanding of the educational needs of students and the role of teachers than many of the administrators in my college.

Re the WMG I am going because I don't know how I can honestly sign a contractual agreement when nobody can tell me what it is that I am expected to do. No job description, no list of duties, no list of responsibilities, no idea of what is expected ... but just "sign on the dotted line" ... ok sure!

I admit ... I have never been thrilled with my contract nor the fact that it is a province-wide agreement. I have never felt particularly comfortable with it. BUT ... since I understand that province-wide contracts have to cover a wide variety of situations, that's what I live with, and that is what is required by my conditions of employment. So I know I have to live within the confines of that contract. That is my responsibility.

But when I have to sign off personally on my individual situation based on the workload provisions in that contract, I want to know what it is that I am expected to do. When I sign any legal document, I want and I expect to know what my responsibilities are relative to that contract. I did not ask for this, but I am by law obligated to it. Is it too much to expect that, if I am asked to sign a contract for my services, I should know what work it is that I have contracted for? But I have been told that it does not matter, I should just sign it anyway? Would you agree to doing a job without knowing what duties and resposibiloities that job entailed? But that is what I am being asked to do.

I am not a happy camper.

I have no idea what will transpire, but I am sanguine in any case. In the negative environment in which we are currently surviving, I will consider it all as part of life's rich pageant and I am very grateful that I still have the option of retiring shortly. I do not want to ... but I still have it as an option.

I wonder what will happen if/when all of us (and there are a lot of us) who have that option decide to take advantage of it? I suspect the college would be very happy (more cheap part-timers or new hires) but I really do wonder if management has a real understanding of the fact that they have no succession planning. Why do I care? Well, maybe I care for the students. Maybe I care for the success of the program in which I teach. Or maybe I care for the employers, who need skilled workers. (Or maybe I am just selfish and want to spend time developing my own skills and interests.)

It may well be that many students don't care either. Maybe they would be happy just to get a diploma and a decent GPA, regardless of whether they learn anything that is relevant and current.

I suspect that many students and administrators have no idea what nor why we as faculty care about outside of class activity on curriculum development etc.

How many times do you hear students (and others) suggest that if a teacher isn't delivering content in a classrooom that the teacher is not "working". How many times have you heard (as I overheard in a local watering hole last week) that teachers get 6 months' "paid holidays" simply because they teach only 6 months (which is our case is not at all accurate anyway, since most of us teach 9 months, and given our contract -- and 44 hours per week,by the way, works out to a lot more than 9 months on the standard 37 hour work week)?

But I rant ... I need to shut down for the night and see what tomorrow will bring. I have to get up at 6 to get to that PAC meeting ... yeah I do have an easy life when not teaching! :-)

Courage ... A Link

I normally do not post OP's (other people's) stuff unless it pertains to the college issues, but here's one on "courage" that I thought was worthwhile. Check the "Heavy Mettle" entry ... dated 5.09.2006.

A university is what a college becomes ...

A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students"
John Ciardi

I sometimes wonder if this is not sadly true -- and also wonder why, given the above quote, that in the college system the administration wants to become a "degree-granting" institution (read university). Most faculty recognise the public perception of a college "diploma" is, sadly, much less prestigious as a credential than is a "degree". Yet -- how many degree-d students are unemployable because they do not have the skills set required to do a given job in the workplace? And how many students who already have a university degree are coming to college (because they can't get a job with their degree?)

Why are college "diplomas" so underrated by our management, our students, their parents, and some employers? Might it have something to do with the ways that the colleges have failed to position the value of the education we provide? Or the skills our courses develop? Or is it that our administrators (all university-educated) do not themselves appreciate what a college education can do for students?

Most of my students who have gone on to university over the last 25+ years have consistently achieved equivalent marks to their college marks in their university courses, and have consistently told me that their university courses were no more "difficult" than their college courses, and their grades in university were equivalent to those they received in college. So why are college diplomas, year for year, still seen as inferior to university programs?

On a somewhat different note -- why does our own college administration feel that they must invest an untoward (in my opinion) and exhorbitant amount of $$$ in creating "applied degree" programs, which are, at least at present, failing to attract enrolment -- perhaps for perception reasons as mentioned above -- and therefore are "loss-loser" programs. Also, why are we investing similar large $$$ in "research" areas which attract few, if any, sponsors of research? And as a result, the 2 and 3 year college diploma programs (which are and have always been the bread and butter programs for the colleges) are, like all proverbial cash cows in poorly-managed businesses, being starved to death by being underfunded and under-staffed?

Our latest investment in a new learning management system that insists on a "template" course which all professors will have to use is being sold to faculty as a great advance in a "collaborative" learning system. Sure, it's a nice system. However, those who understand the dynamics of the situation clearly are aware that the next step for the college is to simply take the template course that is now being forced on all faculty, and hire "instructors" (at a much lower pay scale than professors -- because the major difference under the contract is that professors design curriculum and evaluations, whereas instuctors "deliver" this material) and declare them to be instructors, not professors, because they are now provided with a prepared course of instruction ... according to prescribed instructional formats.

"The Instructor classification applies to those teaching positions where the duties and responsibilities of the incumbent are limited to that portion of the total spectrum of academic activities related to the provision of instruction to assigned groups of students through prepared courses of instruction and according to prescribed instructional formats..."

Now do you think that this will foster quality education? Yeah sure it will.

Granted this is a generalization. But it is a view of the future which is supported by a majority of both those managers and faculty that I have talked to who are aware of the budget situation. The move to a "template' course, and the current management move to assigning "lead teachers", to hiring of part-timers rather than full-timers, and to refusing to credit teachers for course development time all lead to the same conclusion. It does not take a genius to make the obvious connections here.

Template Woes, So I've Moved

I now know better than to try and change my template. Hey bloggers ... don't even TRY to change your template! Stick with what you got originally or be prepared to open a new blog. (If I get better info on how to do a change of template without blowing out the layout I'll let you know!)Meantime, I'm setting up shop here, so if you want the old posts try The Picket Fence. It's probably better that I start a new blog anyway, I want to expand beyond the original title to deal with all sorts of other issues that affect education in the colleges. For example, the technology issues that face us at our college.

In the last week I have been talking to (or listening to voicemails from!) people who are incredibly frustrated and angry at the way changes in the technology are impacting on the way we are able to do our jobs. Today I had an e-mail from a faculty member who has just heard informally of three changes that will make a significant impact on his/her ability to deliver a course ... but nobody formally told this professor about it. I got the e-mail but I cannot answer his/her questions as the email I got from this person was the first time I had heard of the issues. Talk about mushrooms (kept in the dark and fed *********!) And this is typical.