Work Life Imbalance
Working for higher education right now in the US is a bad idea, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who doesn't want to be stressed out of there mind, criminally under payed and lets not forget underappreciated.
The clown show that is the federal government is trying with all its might to kill all forms of education, it's so much easier to control a population who doesn't understand what's actually happening to them. Going to college was already a privilege but now even more so.
Who in there right mind wants to pay for a $80,000+ piece of paper and a line on there resume with everything that's happening right now?
The school I work for is smaller and the people in charge are short term thinkers, only making the quick easy decision that screws over everyone below them, they've been too busy lining there own pockets to notice how the school is suffering. They cut the things that look expensive on paper where the numbers don't look good enough for the share holders. They aren't talking to students, they aren't talking to the departments. What few good things where here are going away and the students aren't happy.
This is supposed to be an institution of learning and it feels like the people holding all the power are treating this place like a business that's supposed to be infinity scalable and always profitable. One of the problems with that is there isn't a product to sell; all there money comes from ever rising tuition fees and foreign exchange students who don't know how to look for apartments in this city or who can afford to live in the shit dorm rooms being fed to them for pent house prices.
The people who are still here (those who haven't been laid off yet, myself included) are still here because we're stubborn and love teaching or because they aren't willing or able to find a better position somewhere else. The students who don't transfer after there freshman year are here because they like the people there interacting with, or they don't think they have anywhere else to go. But every semester there seems to be less and less competent people teaching the classes. The list of complaints just gets longer and longer and the staff and faculty are more tired and more bitter about what's happening to them. The deans office passes out our marching orders and just like regular army were expected to follow without question.
How many highly educated people do you know that are willing to roll over and lick the boots that kick them? the only ones I've seen who do have lost there will to fight.
I got caught by the firing squads this round. My position was a 12 month position but got cut down to a 10 month position... How do you find a job for 2 months?? I'd love to know how I'm supposed to make up that lost income, there cutting my pay back too, the money there taking out of my pocket should be pocket change for an institution like this, it's damn near deviating for me.
Being younger and not coming from money, I'm not as well established as some of the people who've been working here for 20+ years.
The deans keep saying we're not going under but ever action they've taken feels like a last ditch effort of a dying company. Some of the best people where laid off. Whole departments are being kneecapped for nondescript "budget reasons". The school has been looking for any excuse to drop the liberal arts part of the school. This institution has always been law and business forward and it looks like it should have stayed that way.
What pisses me off the most about all of this is how much the students will suffer for others gain. They don't deserve to have less, to have a sub par education because the degree they want looks too expensive on paper or the teachers are more like subs then actual experts. The students are smart enough to know when an institution is failing them and this one hasn't done anything to hide that fact.
Colleges and universities shouldn't be profitable for anyone, in my mind there only a few steps above a volunteer organization, the one I work for calls itself a not-for-profit on the tax forms. But that's clearly not how it's run.
This job won't be forever, it can't be, for my own mental health it can't be.
I hope to go to grad school soon, maybe I can get a job there or really anywhere else would be great. I have so many skills and it's been made clear to be how this school feels about my position and my abilities.
Some battles you fight but others you just have to walk away from.
In the mean time I'll keep fighting in my own way.
-J