Teaching doesn't get any worse than this... - Instructor ECPI University Employee Review

1.0
May 19, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

None that I ever experienced

Cons

When you need your campus presidents to write good reviews of your "school" on this site...that should say it all. ECPI is all about the money and cares little about their students and even less about their faculty. Having left a year ago now and experienced what teaching at a real school is like, I cannot tell you how bad a mistake you are making if you try and get a job here. You will be paid quite poorly for starters, even if you have a terminal degree and you will NEVER get a raise. There are no job promotions and there is no opportunity for advancement. The "benefits" are expensive yet lousy and get worse every year. You will work 15-hour days at least twice, if not 4 days a week. You will have to work Saturdays and be compelled to lie to potential students the same way you were lied to when you applied for this job. You will be told by "management" how to teach and more importantly how to grade classes that you are the expert in. You will be lied to about management personnel changes and school name changes. You will have zero academic freedom but that doesn't really matter because you will have zero time between 5-week long, 5 hour-a-day courses to prepare anything because you aren't told what course you will be teaching until the day before it starts. You will get no breaks during said 5-hour courses because it is your duty to call absent adult students during your "break" and lie to them about the importance of coming to this school that only cares about getting their financial aid checks. What's really awesome is that you will have to teach a full course even if there are only 2 students enrolled in it. If there is only 1 student enrolled in a course then ECPI doesn't hold the course...WRONG! You get to teach that one student on your own time and we'll just call it "independent study". The greatest part of all is that the time and work you devote towards the "independent study" doesn't even count toward your courseload! You will have "sit downs" with so-called management if a student fails (they call it being "unsuccessful") your class and be reprimanded because you didn't give the adult student the tools they needed to be "successful". Now mind you, the student is a single mother with three small children who lives 50 miles from the school, does drugs, and lacks transportation. However, you will surely be told that you are at fault for why that student lacks the tools to be successful in your course. You will always be presumed wrong when matters of judgement arise because if a student walks, there goes the financial aid checks with them so it is better to blame the faculty. Every so often, accreditation visits come up and the manufacturing of lies REALLY starts then! Only those faculty who can be trusted to tell the accreditors what ECPI needs them to hear will be allowed near them and even then, your responses are scripted for you. I could go on and on after nearly 10 years of working there but ask yourself...do you really want to work like this? I don't think so... I would give zero stars for ratings if I could. Do yourself a favor and look elsewhere. It's so much better at a real school....

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ECPI University Response
9y
It is unfortunate you did not provide a positive review after more than eight years with the university. We stand by our 50 years of educating adult students and the success of having approximately 70,000 graduates at our locations. That is due to the commitment of our hard working and dedicated faculty. Your comments, unfortunately, are not factual and our misleading.

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1.0
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CEO approval
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Pros

Select coworkers and departmental peers were fantastic to work with, highly collaborative, resilient, and dedicated professionals doing their best under difficult circumstances. The core mission of supporting adult learners is incredibly fulfilling.

Cons

The organizational culture at corporate headquarters is highly political and intensely protective of the status quo. There is a pervasive tendency among long-term staff to actively resist modernization or the adoption of standard industry practices. Outdated, inefficient processes are deliberately preserved to safeguard individual roles, even when those workflows directly degrade the student experience. Furthermore, executive leadership focuses heavily on internal politics, insular dynamics, and hyper-monitoring granular KPIs rather than student outcomes. This has created a highly reactive and psychologically unsafe environment characterized by a systemic rejection of external expertise. Outside talent recruited to modernize operations is regularly alienated, targeted, or terminated if they do not completely file and rank within the insular corporate hierarchy. Talented professionals who champion necessary compliance or operational updates face retaliatory pushback from senior management, resulting in a notably high turnover rate among external hires. Compensation is also far less competitive for the level of administrative strain expected.

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