Hire Lernin’ An Idealist’s Quest Through the Realm of for-Profit Education

“How many classes does each faculty member teach?”

“Usually five hours a day—five 55-minute classes, typically.”

“They teach five classes every day?” Dan queried, surprised.

“Yes. Remember, this is not a university where faculty have a typical load of two or three classes in research institutions or four to five classes at non-research teaching colleges for a total of roughly six to fifteen contact hours a week. The teaching load is just the tip of the iceberg for them—especially at research institutions where publish or perish is the rule and they spend countless hours in research, writing and editing publications for highly selective peer-reviewed journals. Then there are grant-related activities, department, school and university service commitments, advisement, and so on. For your faculty, 25 teaching hours a week and five hours on stand-by duty in free periods sounds like a heavy load, but that is all that they do. They have no publication or service requirements of any kind or student advisement to speak of either. We have counselors and Bob for that—or you, if academic or behavioral issues are involved. They prepare their lesson plans, teach their classes, give exams from time to time and go home free and clear at the end of their day.”

“Do faculty have office space on campus?”

“No. They can use the conference room which is seldom used for anything other than lunch and prep time. But they don’t need it. Again, no advisement is needed as the curriculum is fixed for every program and students don’t need to make choices other than the initial certificate program they want to enroll in.”

“But Howard Green will go over all of that with you on Monday,” Marvin added, smiling. “Don’t try to filter this through a university lens. This is more like a high school or even a middle school in terms of the faculty workload and credentialing—less in some cases, as we can hire teachers with just a baccalaureate degree for most classes.” That took Dan by surprise. He did not expect people with terminal degrees, but just baccalaureates? His smile began to fade.

“Let’s go meet your faculty,” Marvin cheerfully intoned while standing and motioning towards the door.” Dan rose, put down his now empty coffee cup on the side table, and walked behind Marvin a bit less sure about what he was about to get himself into than when he had walked into the office, but still optimistic despite the red flags popping up in the back of his mind.