A look back to 2022 - Part V

This is Part V of V of a look back to 2022. The first part discussed peer review requests in 2022, and the second part discussed professional development more broadly.  The third part branched off a bit from the second part, discussing professional development a bit more from an academic development frame.  The fourth part reflected a bit on research and publishing. Concluding this look back at 2022, part V will explore some of my ponderings about...

Determining where teaching fits in for me...

This was an interesting point to ponder. My entry into teaching was about as predictable as my educational path: in other words, it really came out of nowhere! I was an average high school student and an average college student. It was during my first Master's when the change from average to academician began.  When thinking about my foray into teaching, looking back on it, I honestly think it was done on a dare! I was advocating for a couple of courses to be offered in the MEd program that I had just graduated from a few years prior.  After graduation, I kept in touch with the program folks and became a bit of an unofficial archivist trying to document the history of the program. After a bit of lobbying, I was asked if I wanted to design and teach that course.  I was a bit surprised that they would ask me, but I jumped at the opportunity.  That class (research methods for instructional designers) only ran once, but another course (the design and instruction of online courses) became available because the previous instructor decided to step down and pursue other opportunities. I jumped on that next opportunity and taught it every semester for a few years. Over the years, I jumped into teaching other courses, and I definitely spend more time designing, prepping, teaching, and grading than the 10 hours/week that I was contractually compensated for.  During the first few years putting in all the extra hours didn't even register.  I was high on excitement, and I wanted to try ALL THE THINGS.  As I was getting into the thick of my own doctoral studies, however, I started to get burned out and something needed to give.  For me, those two things were research & publishing (see previous blog post) and teaching.

I dubbed my break from teaching my sabbatical (even though I wasn't paid 😂), and once my dissertation was on a better path and I had recharged some of my batteries, I returned to teaching. I think my break was about a year. The thing I've noticed since my return (circa 2018) is that my excitement for teaching does wane precipitously the closer the semester is to starting.  I really like the subject matter that I teach, and I like the students, but teaching sometimes leaves me a bit m'eh. I am not really sure what it is.

In thinking about it, it seems like my feelings toward teaching seem to be related to how close my course is to cancelation, or sometimes how close a colleague's course is to cancelation, which invariably bumps me from my teaching spot. That level of uncertainty makes planning for course changes and updates an issue because you may end up sinking a lot of time into course updates and your course might get canceled, or reassigned.  If courses do end up running, and I am still teaching what I was scheduled to teach, then there really isn't much time left to do course updates, so the course ran as it ran in the previous term 🤷🏻‍♂️. This isn't optimal, but it is what it is. It feels like procrastination, but it isn't. Even developing a new course (or redeveloping an old derelict course) has been mired with bureaucracy these past few years due to university-wide re-orgs. The joy of creation feels snuffed out by heavy bureaucracies 😬.

Another thing that I started pondering in 2022 had to do with my teaching title.  Now, I'm a staff member and I teach as an adjunct, so I don't expect some crazy title at my teaching gig, but I came to the realization in late 2022 that no matter how long I've taught (since 2012) and/or been involved with the department in a voluntary capacity (member of the faculty committee since 2010) my rank (and thus pay per course) will always be Associate Lecturer, which is the same as someone who is just walking off the street teaching their first course.  I've been involved with this department since 2010 🤦‍♂️, and I am probably the second in seniority (as measured by continuous time in the department). I acknowledge that this is not the department's fault, but rather a result of a set of institutional processes, procedures, and norms that don't account for someone in my position, but the adjunct nature of academia does tend to wear you down over time. There really ought to be ways of recognizing the longevity of employees, even part-time ones, in ways that are both tangible (pay/benefits) and intangible (titles).

All these things considered, over the winter break I decided that I probably will only teach courses that are already developed by someone else, and will only probably take on graduate courses that are sort of guaranteed to run. While it's fun to design courses from scratch, it is time-consuming and I feel like institutions need to pay for that kind of work, in some way.  It seems like this kind of work is expected of tenure-stream faculty (which makes sense), but adjuncts seem to fall in between the cracks in a system that appears to be increasingly relying on contingent labor. Course creation, updates, and in some cases general department business can't rely on contingent labor. This is not good long term for anyone involved :-)

Thoughts? 🤓