UOPHX Brush-off

Discussion in 'Online & DL Teaching' started by rmm0484, Apr 18, 2008.

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  1. rmm0484

    rmm0484 Member

    UOPHX Online revised its faculty scheduling process a little over a year ago. Basically, it was this: "don't call us, we'll call you." Faculty were supposed to keep their profiles current to enable the schedulers to search the profiles. Well, I am here to tell you that process did not work in my case!! I was recently placed in inactive status for not having taught any classes for over a year, but if you are not asked to teach a class, how can you comply with this requirement? I had been a UOPHX facilitator for seven years up to this point. I have 18 post master's levels course hours in e-commerce towards a PhD in e-commerce, I have passed my comps, and I have government experience in an allied area. I am of two minds on the reason for this: either they do not need my skill set, (however, I have also taught GEN 100, GEN 300, graduate management and intro web classes) or they want to focus on using new faculty members so that they can pay them less. I do not think that it is a performance issue on my part, since I have seen posts from other faculty members who were required to submit to performance improvement plans. Basically, I slid into oblivion, and can only speculate why......
     
  2. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    I believe a year or two ago they started to use an automated process for assigning instructors - maybe that's a reason? can you post a ticket with technical support or something?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 19, 2008
  3. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Disclosure: I work for UOP in application development. "My" team's project would have nothing to do with faculty scheduling.
     
  4. truckie270

    truckie270 New Member

    Sorry to hear of your troubles - but I am going to disagree with your "don't call us, we'll call you" applying to faculty scheduling. That was for getting approved for new courses under the revised process. You used to be able to turn in a course approval form, now they search the profiles for potential instructors for a course approval - not scheduling.

    I receive notice via email every quarter noting how I have to teach one time a year in order to stay active with UOP and if I was not getting offers to contact my faculty scheduler to make sure that happened. I have had three different schedulers in the past year, so it was on me to ensure they knew who I was and when I need classes to remain current.
     
  5. airtorn

    airtorn Moderator

    Gee whiz question - what is the current pay for an online instructor with UOP?
     
  6. truckie270

    truckie270 New Member

    For my rate at 2+ years:
    $1000 five week undergrad
    $1200 six week grad.

    The kicker for me is that I teach four plus courses per term and usually have a class size of five students, sometimes six. I teach the same couple of classes over and over so I have a pretty good economy of scale going with UOP.
     
  7. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Were you offered several courses which you turned down? I can't think of any reason why anyone wouldn't be offered a course at least once per year.

    IIRC, it's not a big deal to get moved from inactive to active status. Just contact your scheduler, and you may have to take the online faculty refresher course (three days - not bad, I just took it).
     
  8. buckwheat3

    buckwheat3 Master of the Obvious

    Well they are a for profit outfit.

    In the workaday world, the number of times I have seen a situation of what I call the 'Three-twenty' rule applied. That is, some management clown wants someone Twenty years old, at Twenty cents an hour, yet wanting Twenty years of experience.

    The number of the people I have seen let go in their late fifties would fill a football stadium. Nobody and I mean nobody in America's manufacturing has any respect each other! Management for employees or employees for management. The one world economy is driving this situation. This ol' boy is getting out before they eventually start sniping at him!

    You will find another school,find a list of all the community colleges ( they pay about the same as UOP) in the nation and methodically apply to them all.
    Hopefully I've found an adjunct postion this way, teaching history ( currently going through a three week training session)

    If you need a list, fire me a PM
    atb,
    Gavin
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 19, 2008
  9. rmm0484

    rmm0484 Member

    We may be in different colleges/programs. In the UOPHX Graduate Business Online programs, they told us not to contact the schedulers, period. We were not to submit course approvals for additional courses, either. We were to make sure that our profile was current, and that they would contact us using the information in the profile if they needed us to teach other courses. At no time did I ever see e-mails that stated "contact your scheduler" if you were not getting any classes, although there were warning e-mails sent about teaching one class per year minimum. It seemed like it had become a very one sided relationship to me! P.S., I never turned a course down, in recent memory.
     
  10. truckie270

    truckie270 New Member

    I also teach in the GBAM and I have regular two-way contact with my scheduler.
     
  11. 1virtualprof

    1virtualprof New Member

    I saw on another listserv that UoP is reducing pay to 950 per class until after you have (1) taught 6 classes and (2) PASSED the QA evaluation process.

    This means that after you teach six classes they have to say you're a great instructor for you to get more money.

    I don't know. I don't teach for them. I turned them down after I found out the already-low pay was going lower!!
    ~VP~
     
  12. mattbrent

    mattbrent Well-Known Member

    That's interesting. My wife just completed the 4 week orientation and they told her it was $1200 per 3 credit, 6 week course. That'd be a bit shoddy if they told people that and then go back on it.

    -Matt
     
  13. 1virtualprof

    1virtualprof New Member

    They are "demoting" people who are already making more or have been told they will make more. Apparently this was just announced in the last several days and will take effect soon. I have no idea when "soon" is but it is retroactive for people making more than 950. That's what I've heard from people who say their pay will decrease as a result of this.
     
  14. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    What are they going to do at this point if you do contact your scheduler? Move you to inactive status? ;)

    I've been with UoP for 3 years, and that's the first I've heard of anything regarding reduction in pay.
     
  15. 1virtualprof

    1virtualprof New Member

    Bruce, this is all I know and you probably aren't affected by it because you've been with them so long. Probably only the faculty involved (less than three years) got the announcement because those are the ones who will be affected by the pay cut.

    A letter was released to faculty last week. If you’ve taught six or less classes you will get paid in one pay band and more than six classes but less than three years are in a second pay band, and so on. Tier 1 WAS 950 but they’ve changed that with this next new class contract to Tier 2.

    So if you’re making 950 on Tier 1 now, you’ll take a pay cut until you are in Tier 2 when you will make 950. There are some UoP faculty who have taught less than six classes but have been making 950. The new contract for next week new class is for the NEW Tier 1 until they have taught six classes. SO they were making 950 and now they won't see that again until they reach Tier 2 (which is the new bar for making 950).

    I’ m not a math person at all (I teach writing) but that sure seems like a pay cut to me (and the UoP instructors who are on this listserv are not happy campers about this at all).
     
  16. 1virtualprof

    1virtualprof New Member

    I guess I'm a rebel at heart. Anytime someone tells me NOT to contact someone in admin, I do it anyway just because they told me I couldn't :) At two schools, they simply lost my info after I'd been teaching there a while. I told them I was not inactive as indicated and please find my stuff and assign me some classes as I really hated to have to leave. Oh and I attached files of all my student evaluations (which were excellent).

    They found my stuff, apologized profusely, and I was back on the schedule. Another school offered me a course and told me I needed to send transcripts asap. I informed them that I already had and should I send a copy of my registered and signed receipt showing that they did receive my transcripts on such-and-such date. Well they still couldn't find them but they sent me a check to cover the cost of the transcripts and to overnight the stupid things to them. I thought that was kind of nice, although aggravating for me. But if I hadn't documented sending them and if I hadn't asked, they would not have offered for sure.

    Bank on this - no one is going to look out for you except YOU. Just do it, like Bruce said, what are you going to lose? And you might get classes again. I sure would try. If it doesn't work out, you're no worse than you are without any classes to teach.

    That's what I would do (have done). Good luck!
    ~VP~
     
  17. truckie270

    truckie270 New Member

    My thoughts exactly.

    I have to ask which listserve are you referring to? I have been at UOP < 3 yrs., but have taught more than six courses and this is the first I have heard of it.

    There was recent pay scale restructuring as listed below effective 6/1/08:

    Category A
    This category applies to all new faculty members from course one through course five taught at any University of Phoenix campus.

    Category B
    This category applies to all faculty members from course six through three years of teaching at any University of Phoenix campus.

    Category C
    This category applies to all faculty members who have satisfied the Category B criteria and taught at least one course per year for three years at any University of Phoenix campus.

    Category D (effective June 1, 2008)
    This category applies to all faculty members who have taught at least one course per year for ten years at any University of Phoenix campus.

    To me it looks like it only applies to NEW faculty after 6/1/08. I cannot imagine if the intent was to reduce current faculty's salaries there would not be more discussion about it in the faculty lounges and forums.
     
  18. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    I saw that, but it has nothing to do with reduction of salary for current faculty.

    Exactly....if there was a reduction of pay, they would have received my resignation. I certainly don't do it for the money, but I do have my pride. ;)
     
  19. Content Area Request

    Don't know about on-line but on ground instituted a new course approval process.. I was told it came from on-line side.. That is the CAR "Content Area Request" We were told to keep our profiles current since it was the basis for content approval. It is up to the staff area chair to initiate a CAR . You then get an email notification. Once this happens, you go to the CAR link on your site page and activate the CAR response. Once you are "approved" you are then certified to teach in that specific area for scheduling. For instance, getting approved in Management will get you approved for all UG as well as MBA courses. I've been through two CAR area requests and approval only took a few days for each area. I was told that all schedules are supposed to come out of the CAR for the Version 21 MBA

    Good luck with the system :)

    Dick
    _______________________________________________________

     
  20. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member


    I had the same problem with Devry. Basically, you are authorized to teach some courses (E-commerce) but when these courses have no students, you are forgotten. In my case, I had to made so many calls and send many emails before I got courses in another areas. My argument was that they were posting positions in areas that I'm qualified to teach but because I was hired for other type of courses I was never considered for the new ones.

    My suggestion is to make some calls and let them know that you are qualified to teach something else than E-commerce. With so many adjunct, it is very easy to forget you so it is up to you to remind them that you are still available.
     

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