The semester officially began Jan. 10th, 2014, but I was working all through the Winter break preparing all classes with the new upgrade to Moodle 2.4. Our online Learning Management System received a GIGANTIC facelift which is much more amazing to utilize for teaching and learning. It did, however, cause a lot of tweaking from my end despite the amazing tech help from fellow colleagues and those staffed in our esteemed EdTech department at City College of San Francisco.
The semester began with a bang as the faculty, staff, and students have been repeatedly knocked upside the head by an administration hell-bent on downsizing the college based on the political bias of a rogue accrediting agency that has been planning our demise since its president decided years ago that our Mission Statement is entirely too broad: “City College of San Francisco belongs to the community and continually strives to
provide an accessible, affordable, and high quality education to all its students.” {This is but a tiny excerpt.}
A coup d’etat has taken place in my workplace that began in 2012 and continues to boil over with a mass hiring of administrators who are not from the San Francisco Bay Area who now earn more than the state average for their work while the faculty pay has been cut to 4% of it’s 2007-level pay, staff jobs and salaries cut, classes cut, and a war cry from the new VC of Academic Affairs that we have “productivity levels” to meet. With a sweeping mathematical formula that calculates Full-Time Equivalent Students (in seats) to Full-Time Equivalent Faculty (pay) – the school is experiencing something akin to The Reformation.
I have been working 80-90 hours a week not so much teaching, but in meetings on Institutional Effectiveness and Educational Master Planning and other broadly Orwellian topics that initiate change. Prior to this overthrow at the college, I worked 50 – 60 hours teaching that included classroom time, online time (for online courses as well as tech-enhanced, face-to-face courses), working outside of class with students on projects as I teach in a discipline that includes audio and video media production. This past year, I’ve added 30 more hours to my weekly work in an effort to upgrade the college and move it forward while keeping the total make-over brought on by the carpetbaggers to a minimum. I wish I could say that it’s working. Only time will tell.
At 90-hours a week with a 2007 salary that has been further reduced by 4%, I am earning far less than my collegiate peers across this nation. But that is only for a short time, as what happens here will be spreading like wildfire throughout the land as politicians provide sweeping education reform that halts affordable public education to put even more coin in their pockets thanks to the lobbying efforts of Lumina and the like.
I am trapped, thrashing about in the viscosity of the work bubble.
Woman floating in bubble over Paris
danajae33 