Stephanie from UCR sort of suggested this at our recent Grievance Stewards meeting, and I just set it up as a blog. She suggested (no, demanded --- I love Stephanie, she's a pistol!) that we needed a discussion forum on the connections between politics and pedagogy. More specifically, between teaching Composition and working for labor justice at the salt mine, so here it is, friends. Here, some questions to start, some answers, and my usual rant. How many classes are fulltime appointment at each campus, and why? How many hours do Comp instructors (Lecturers) spend --- and what is the breakdown of duties? At UCI, where I teach, six Comp classes (75% appointment), we are currently disallowed per practice and "policy" from getting a fulltime appointment, on the amusingly Kafkaesque grounds that, yes, it's impossible to teach 3-3-2 in one year. (Which begs the question of what, in fact, 75% is if 100% doesn't, cannot by definitio, exist!) I teach a lower-division class called "Research and Argument" which has, by any reasonable person's evaluation, delivered a consistent and dramatic increase in instructor labor since I first taught it in 1993. No surprise, perhaps, what with email and internet and all the other online teaching and administrative (!) responsiblities. You and I and your department chair know that. But if we are spending more (much more) time online, then should we still even be doing office hours? Workload creep has been accomplished as a result of offering all the new work as necessary to the teaching of the class, which it probably is. But an odious, if again, predictable management strategy, that. So without changing any of the other elements (class size, appointment percentage, office hours, staff meetings) we work a lot more. I am this quarter keeping a log, very carefully, of all my hours, everything. Back in the day I used to basically prep for my classes, take roll (on a piece of paper in a nifty little book), evaluate drafts, grade final work, and meet with students in office hours. Now, in no particular order (but, yet, somehow, all the time, nearly 24/7), I do Turn it In, work on The Studio (Colorado State's web-based teaching tool), use a UCI account to manage listserve, gradebook and roll, answer questions from students on email, and of course do a lot of research myself toward checking theirs, in addition to prep and all of the above. And that doesn't include all the other voluntary opportunities like attending seminars on teaching, learning new web and computer stuff, writing student letters, judging contests, subbing for colleagues, working on committees, previewing possible books. A couple of changes, instituted after our UC-wide workload discussions, are improvements for sure: fewer papers and a caveat (unenforceable and weirdly discouraging to our mission) to students in syllabus about "respecting your instructor's time." Another change recently, on which the jury is out: the departments campus-wide seem to be moving toward electronic course/instructor evaluations. This is a wild card, as it's not clear whether students will take them seriously. As we know, Comp Lecturers (teaching a much-loathed required class) are evaluated by departments largely on student evals, MOU language and official declarations notwithstanding.
This week I am meeting with Dean of Undergrads and our new Composition Director. I am going to ask if they see the same problems, trend as I do. Maybe I am nuts. Maybe this is how hard we are supposed to be working? Or maybe Composition (and language teachers) are teaching more and performing more administrative work than we should be? Fulltime appointment at UCLA is 2-2-2. I'd love to read their appointment contract. Does it include office hours and all of the above?
