Pros
If you love to teach and share knowledge there is opportunity to do so.... Then again standing on a corner and yelling at traffic about the end of days allows for an outlet as well. Depends on your perspective. I love teaching, and that's the only benefit this employer offers....unless you steal office supplies (bonus).
Cons
Where to start- how about the fact that a PhD can be paid less that 40K. Then perhaps the fact that the "leadership" is horrible; they run everything as though their only priority is to create metrics to justify that they aren't doing bad enough to shut down the university. Internally leadership only vies for trackable data collection that creates the illusion of success. Collecting enough surveys can skew the data enough that they create false outcomes. It's like the university is run by an evil Bond villain. Management essentially has to interviews and hire constantly, because they cant keep good faculty with the way they manage. They hemorrhage good instructors and then fill the gaps with adjuncts they keep just long enough to maintain classes. What's weird is they make it a secrete when instructors leave the university so they avoid addressing the question of why half a department quits. Even when that happens it simply spreads the responsibility around; this is when they make up meaningless titles to lull you you into accepting more and more responsibility without compensation. 1 less instructor doesn't mean there is an impact on the classes offered, it just means other instructors have to fill in to the detriment of the students. There has never been a more inappropriate approach to education- they think it's a marathon (and not the slow and steady type of approach), every 5 weeks without pause. No time between terms end and start to even know what classes your scheduled for come the next weeks start. Education isn't a race to the finish. Like others have commented, the staff and leadership celebrate the successes of the instructors without so much as nod to the efforts they contribute. They schedule classes without actually having the classroom space or instructors to run them, why? because they need to keep billing students. It is the mindset that any day a student misses class or needs a break from the 5 week term schedule, that it is an opportunity for them to lose that students and really it's about losing that tuition payment. In their view any instructor can teach any class regardless of whether they are qualified or even familiar with the course content. Campus leadership are micro-managers that are truly horrible autocratic monsters- the stuff* rolls downhill is literally their motto. It sound like an exaggeration, but it's not. It's not about quality to the university, it's about passing more students, faster, and with less. Instructors are forced to baby students, and if they don't pass because they violate attendance or don't submit work it is the instructors fault. If they miss a class they demand instructors call the student- when you might ask? In a class of 20-30 students that lasts 4.5 hours when and why should an instructor have to call a student who is an adult supposedly taking college courses? well the why is, as I've heard it, as soon as you have a 5 minute break (because breaks aren't for you! they're for the students), and the why is because maybe they over slept or forgot, which is not the fault or responsibility of a university instructor, but rather the student. The admissions departments cherry pick veterans for the ease of the GI bill regardless of whether they have the aptitude to succeed- just pass them is the mindset of several students and campus leaders. If you don't it's your fault as an instructor. The culture imparted by campus leadership is that of group shaming and micromanagement- they will send reports in mass emails to all faculty with details about individual instructors classes to create an environment of uncertainty and interpersonal shaming. They convince some that they are expected to work above 42 hrs per week as a standard, and as many others have noted, they throw any schedule at you that they need to charge students that term to keep them paying. It doesn't matter if that is back to back classes with no more than 10 minutes between 4.5 hr courses. It could be what they call a "split shift" that amounts to 15 hour days by assigning a morning class 7 am-12 pm followed by a 6 pm-10:30 pm course. you could be assigned to be the first one in and last out by assigning a night class immediately followed by a morning class, regardless of how this impacts the instructor- YOU DON'T MATTER, THEY WONT CARE, and the business model is designed as such so they can trick new hires to contribute to course development only to then burn them out and hire new ones yet again. Squeeze employees for all they can be used for and dispose of them. Someone they don't understand that supporting the instructors benefits the students. They would never offer a word of kindness or show an ounce of appreciation, but MAN if they don't use their instructors as a selling point to students! They tell students how dedicated and knowledgeable instructors are to get them admitted, then at every opportunity tell instructors they aren't doing enough, fast enough, and with less. Instructors do care about the students success, but are not facilitated or acknowledged for these efforts, in fact they essentially institutionalize the business model of never allowing an instructor to think they are ever doing a good job. Even if they have to make things up to do so they will accuse instructors of not having enough student engagement or not contributing/volunteering enough for events that do not benefit students and directly cause a detriment to students since these events often are at the expense of having time to grade or help them. This is a horrible university that creates a hostile work environment every day and invests nothing in their instructors, in fact they really believe you should feel fortunate to be employed at all, they're doing everyone a favor. Dedicated faculty are treated worse than adjuncts, who are part time and often have no experience educating and no motivation to waist the time. Granted many adjuncts are great, but many are hired simply to be a resource to throw in front of students under prepared and qualified. There in they find a shield; terminate an instructor if a student complains, or if outcomes aren't good enough, but don't bother considering that it is entirely their approach that creates the problem. DON"T WORK HERE, and if your hired as an adjunct you are merely a part of the problem, part of the reason they feel they have no responsibility for full time instructors. Adjuncts are provided better schedules than full time faculty and you would assume just the opposite- but no they rationalize it as them being part time and thereby having other responsibilities...as in not to the students! or the school! HELLO!? can people really be this ignorant-YES the answer is YES they are.
