Tuesday, April 18, 2006

No Classes to Teach in the Fall

For the past 4 years I have taught classes at the local community college; one of the classes I have taught for the last 3 years.

Well, I noticed last night that someone was teaching MY class in the fall and I was quite upset by it. I called the dean I work under and left her a message asking to clear things up for me (like was this person a FT person & I got bumped or what.)

Well, turns out that the college had to cut out classes for the fall because of low enrollment numbers and with cutting out those classes it means that FT faculty (who pick first) can bump out people, then there are the PT people, and finally the adjunct faculty (which is where I fall). Within each of these groups there are seniority lists and the higher up you are the more choices you have. So, FT people are bumping lower seniority FT, PT & adjunct, PT are bumping lower seniority PT and adjunct, and higher seniority adjunct are bumping lower seniority adjunct.

So, somewhere in this domino effect I ended up getting bumped from my class. If enrollment goes up and they add more classes, things could shift again, or maybe someone won't want to teach it in the spring. Guess we'll see in at the end of September when final spring assignments are made.

I'm kinda bummed because I really liked teaching my night classes, although the time for my night class was moved up and we were uncertain how daycare would play out. I am also bummed because the money I earned from teaching went to pay for any vacations we took. So, now we have to look at everything (including the extra added expenses of having a baby) in our budget and we might not really be traveling too much at all, which makes me sad. Not that we travel a whole ton (we would have liked to have done more than we have), but traveling out of the country, like to Costa Rica, might not be as feasible next year for spring break.

1 comment:

Lame Shrill Owl said...

They may add another class to teach (of the ones I teach), and in that case I get to decide if I want to teach it -- but it would be at a campus further away, but the person teaching MY class could opt to switch to teach the other one, thus making MY class available for me.

But I won't hold my breath,