CUNY Administration Declares War On Rebel English Department

It’s NOT the students who are smoking their breakfast.

Mina Shaughnessy would be horrified!

Hell, that’s just the English Department. If I read correctly at risk, poor,working class, immigrants,etc. The University of Arkansas has eliminated the entire core of Liberal Arts courses. You don’t have to take anything you don’t want. They want to graduate more students. Right. They’ll get a diploma alright. They can’t read the damn thing but they got it. This seems to be a national problem. Probably brought on by the belief that Romney/Ryan and other morons will be elected. Or something like that.

So what this really is – the English faculty don’t want to have the same course load as the rest of the faculty. It’s BS to say a 4 hour course takes more prep time, etc than a 3 hour course. Anyone who teaches knows this is a ridiculous argument. And if you don’t like it, go somewhere else – you’re teaching at a COMMUNITY College for pete’s sake. I mean really.

English composition courses should be worth more credicts because they are very time-intensive. Comp. professors don’t give alot of scantron multiple choice tests because they don’t evaluate people on how well they have memorized a fact. Unlike other applied skills such as calculus, there are few “answers” in English that can be marked as simply “right” or “wrong.” This is why comp courses are a ton of work for both the teacher and the student. They ought to be worth more credits.

You’re right, Dr. Proust (LOL funny name)! English teachers teaching at a community college dominated by English language learners are LAZY! That’s it! They’re lazy!
Lit classes at QCC are three credits. *It’s only the comp classes that are four credits.* And maybe that has something to do with teaching 25 students who turn in 25 papers a week.
The recommended course load for writing teachers — as already stated as 3/3 — is less than the 4/3 currently taught at QCC (making it less than in other disciplines) and 5/4 pretty much makes the idea that you are effectively teaching composition, particularly to English language learners, a joke. (And, it’s probably ineffective to mention to someone who thinks comp teachers are lazy, but tenure requirements at CUNY — if you’re lucky enough to get a tenure-track job — require a published book by year 7. I guess you do that during your summers “off”?)
Teaching conditions are learning conditions. The change at *all* CUNY community colleges to a 5/4 course load for comp teachers detrimentally impacts already disenfranchised populations.
But, you’re right! It’s because the teachers are LAZY.

Hey.. I teach at a private technical/professional college. Such administrative shenanigans are not unheard of in private universities, either. I teach technical writing, as well as statistics and some biochemistry/clinical applications courses. They are all three credit courses… but the writing-intensive courses are by faaaar more time-consuming to do well. Teaching students to write, and giving them the appropriate kind of feedback to make the learning experience optimally productive is much more time-consuming than the science and math – based learning. I’ve never suggested that my writing classes be changed from three credit to four credit… but if I did, I suspect the idea would not be summarily rejected.

I don’t see what’s wrong with this.
Either side feel they are ‘right’, and taking the course of action UNILATERALLY to assert their AUTHORTY.

It just so happens the admins can TRUMP the departments… since they decide to do things UNILATERALLY.

So why is the Power Play by the English Dept… less UNILATERAL than the Admins’ Power Play ?

Just because someone’s gotten Ph.Ds. and CEO status… doesn’t mean they can’t be self-righteous assholes…
:)

The test here is what the community serving this college wants. Has anyone asked that question to community association leaders? A similar situation occurred with an Ethnic Studies Program at the University of Hawaii. Association leaders — taxpayers, not students — led an occupation of the administration building, and guess what? Ethnic Studies is now a department at the University.

As a former faculty member at QCC I am HORRIFIED at the administration’s response to my colleagues in the English Department there. SHAME SHAME SHAME!! Even if Steele’s letter turns out to be an administrator’s way of bullying faculty into submission I am disgusted that this is taking place at such a fine school.

I find most “accelerated” programs are disguised “push ’em on through” policies, and emphatically do not support them.

However, QCC English faculty needs to consider a few things:

1) Their 4 credit comp classes are out of whack with most of the academic world, most importantly, the SUNY system, which is 3 credits. That additional credit will do them no good if/when the transfer to the most likely suspect in this scenario, a SUNY school.

The answer to (1) is, “But these students need the extra attention!”

2) I won’t dispute that. However, if the QCC faculty are going to say that extra credit is because their students need extra attention, they need to demonstrate that ALL faculty teaching these courses are properly trained in ESL and developmental writing/learning. Otherwise, they’re just blowing smoke. Some, I’m sure, know how to do a great job working with such challenged students. Some, I’m equally sure, haven’t a clue. In any case, these developmental considerations are not a part of the course as it’s described, and should be left to the classes/instructors specifically designed/trained to teach them.

(Keep in mind the national community college standards keep students in class about 2 weeks extra compared to 4 year schools. In other words, the “extra need” of CC students is already included in the equation).

3) That oddball credit isn’t going to fix anything. Very few students challenged in the ways suggested aren’t going to be helped by one more hour/week in the classroom. They need something more in-depth. If the school doesn’t provide such classes, that’s appalling, but it’s equally appalling that the English dept thinks it can fix a systemic problem with an itty-bitty credit.

4) I find the “firing these faculty members punishes at risk students” to be disingenuous. If the faculty is so concerned about them, they’d continue to teach under the new system. THey’d also think about why they were asking students to pay for a credit that has no value, transfer-wise.

Finally, right or wrong, the “Pathway” initiative simply won’t pay for credits that don’t contribute directly to a student graduating. It may be BS, but no amount of outrage will change that. The QCC English department, certainly, can’t change it. This is not the right fight to pick. If faculty members are truly concerned about the students, they’d acknowledge the reality of the situation, move on, and work on where they can truly make a difference.

This is an interesting development. I teach out in California where we too have a large population of ESL, first generation, non-traditional students whose writing skills are not yet at the college level (i.e., 13th grade for the freshman composition course). Some are closer to a 7th grade level, sadly. Our freshman composition course, as well as all literature and advanced composition courses are 3 hour transferable courses (to any in or out of state university system). However, our basic writing/developmental/remedial composition courses are 4 hour courses and are not transferable except within the state wide CC system–however, at some CC’s they might have to be reviewed by the registrar or an adviser for approval, which is a fairly common practice everywhere and really not a big deal for the administrative side of education to address since the syllabi of comp instructors are really very much alike no matter where you teach).
Now, after reading this blog I did some digging to see if the information here was accurate–sorry Mr. Johnston, I’m just being a good scholar. What I found in just one newspaper article out of NY (see here http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/nyregion/college-english-dept-fights-class-time-cuts.html?_r=0), is that this credit hour dispute is over the Basic Writing courses, not the freshman transferable composition courses. There is a big difference between a dispute over the universal 3 credit hour “freshman comp” course and any 4 or more credit hour basic writing course. I’ve taught at a lot of colleges in my almost 20 years and every college offers an addition 1 hour per week of instruction for the basic/developmental writers–at four year institutes as well. This extra hour per week is not about what it does for the faculty’s load or paycheck. It is necessary instructional time for the basic/developmental/remedial/ESL student to help them develop their writing to the level of a 13th grade in-coming college freshman. When you have been teaching writing courses for even just 4 years, you know exactly what the difference is between a 13th grade level writer/reader and one who is not. Yes, assessing writing is not objective or quantifiable, but a good reader, and experienced writing instructor knows after just one paragraph of student writing, what “grade level” that student is at and what needs to be done to raise it to a college level–time, more experience with writing and more hand holding through the process. Hence, the experienced teachers of writing have established the 4 credit hour basic writing course. Period. Listen to the discipline experts when it comes to education, for pete’s sake. You wouldn’t tell a doctor not to perform a life saving surgery because “it is too cost prohibitive”–Oh, yeah, I guess our “corporate” health insurance “administrators” are doing that. So, who should we be listening to again?

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