I read where, nationally, the average college professor teaches 1.8 class per semester, or less than 6 hours in the classroom per week.
And all that stuff about classroom prep is mostly hooey as well. I have the fortune/misfortune to be a community college administrator who came up the marketing/business ranks—not the academic side. My dealings with the instructional staff have often been revealing. Early in my tenure, I was told to coordinate anything needing academic approval before the end of the spring term, since 90% of the faculty was absent from campus during the summer, despite the fact they were supposed to maintain office hours and all the full-timers are on 12-month contracts.
Despite ample time off. I’ve heard several complain about their workload. But most only teach a couple of classes a term, using lesson plans and materials that require only minor updates. And their additional duty load is lower than the administrative staff, who actually work year-round.
The good news is that the days of hide-bound tenured faculty are drawing to a close. Lots of talented adjuncts and they are a lot less expensive. At my previous school, we eliminated full-time faculty from our on-line courses. Obviously, the part-timers saved us a lot of money, but the biggest reason was student feedback. Not surprisingly, the working professionals we hired as adjuncts always rated much higher in student surveys than the full-timers. To be fair, we have some excellent instructors at my school, but far too many slugs.
And all that stuff about classroom prep is mostly hooey as well. I have the fortune/misfortune to be a community college administrator who came up the marketing/business ranks—not the academic side. My dealings with the instructional staff have often been revealing. Early in my tenure, I was told to coordinate anything needing academic approval before the end of the spring term, since 90% of the faculty was absent from campus during the summer, despite the fact they were supposed to maintain office hours and all the full-timers are on 12-month contracts.
Despite ample time off. I’ve heard several complain about their workload. But most only teach a couple of classes a term, using lesson plans and materials that require only minor updates. And their additional duty load is lower than the administrative staff, who actually work year-round.
The good news is that the days of hide-bound tenured faculty are drawing to a close. Lots of talented adjuncts and they are a lot less expensive. At my previous school, we eliminated full-time faculty from our on-line courses. Obviously, the part-timers saved us a lot of money, but the biggest reason was student feedback. Not surprisingly, the working professionals we hired as adjuncts always rated much higher in student surveys than the full-timers. To be fair, we have some excellent instructors at my school, but far too many slugs.