r/Professors

I just found out (with 3 weeks of the semester left) that my position has been cut by the administration. From my understanding, this is purely a business decision because of funding, not a reflection of my work. The head of my department is willing to keep me as an adjunct for this upcoming AY, but with my current workload, it will be $10,000 less than what I make. Therefore, I will have to take on even more classes into my workload to earn the same salary that I’m earning now.

I feel slighted. I’m upset. I’m scared of becoming even more burnt out than I am just to make a living wage. And I’m just devastated because I love my job, I love colleagues, I love my students, but now I have to weigh if it’s worth it to “stick it out” and hope my position comes back, or if I go somewhere else…

I just had to rant. If any of you have any advice for me, I’d really appreciate it. Sincerely, a young, passionate educator.

TLDR - My position for the upcoming AY was cut by administration 3 weeks before the semester ends. Remaining as adjunct in the fall; unsure on if I should stay or go.

I had an interesting morning. A student told me that he wasn’t aware there was a quiz today and I said well it’s in the syllabus and in the canvas modules and has been since the beginning of the semester. Then he said that the reading is not a priority for him so I replied, okay, well your grade will reflect that and he got pissed and walked out. I filed this under humor instead of rant or vent because the whole class heard him. I have witnesses and IDGAF.

Hello. I am a female instructor at a small university. I have noticed that when I go up to board and turn to the side or turn around completely, once I turn back around students are exchanging glances and snickering. It has happened for several years now and is fairly consistent. It makes me uncomfortable and I think it may be them making fun of my body in some way, maybe my backside? Or a picture someone took in class when I turned around? I try to ignore it but it makes me so uncomfortable sometimes it hard to refocus and it’s disruptive for me. I can’t tell of I’m venting or want advice or support. Any of that would be helpful probably.

I am a NTT in a STEM field at a public institution. Earlier this semester I was awarded an Excellence in Teaching award at the college level along with many others. Everyone who had a PhD, had that next to their name on the little plaques we got. That is, except for me. No big deal. Just a small mistake. It didn’t bother me too much. Then recently I was asked to join a grant proposal and a letter of commitment was drafter for me. And guess what? I was attributed the title MS, instead of PhD. Yes, I know it’s not a big deal if people don’t recognize your title or mix it up. But this is twice in the span of a couple of months and it is at an institution I’ve been at for 5 years. It really irks me that people assume that because I am a lecturer and female, that surely I must only have a master’s degree. It’s the assumptions being made that upset me the most. And don’t even get me started on students insisting on calling me Ms. or ma’am. Like wtaf?? If this happens to you, how do you deal with it?

Yes, I'm a total idiot. For the first time in my career, I gave the wrong lecture. I teach in the same room at the same time, one class M/W and one Tu/Th. I forgot what day it was and started giving the wrong lecture, which I realized about 30 minutes into a 50 minute class period.

This lecture was much more basic, and somewhat on the same topic, so I played it off as "review".

Has this ever happened to anyone else or am I the only idiot out there?

I just had several students ask me if they could take their exam another day because they didn’t study since they had to study for another class instead. It’s fine if my class isn’t your top priority, but that’s a legit insane ask. I know they think the worse I can say is no (and I definitely did), but it’s really annoying that I even have to say no.

I just taught my last class for the semester (undergrads, social science, r1). Nearly half the class lined up to say goodbye. I got hugged a dozen times. Students asked what else they could take with me. One very sweet student told me he would always be happy to recommend places to take my kids fishing (this would be even funnier if you could see me). They all told me how much they liked the class, and I’ve already received half a dozen emails.

There can be a lot of negativity about students on this sub. But this is actually my typical experience. My students give me so much joy and hope for the future.

Anyone else?

I've been an English professor for 25 years and have worked in publishing for over 30. In the 90s I ran a small press. A few years ago I started a new one as a hobby/passion project. I love it.

For about four years, I've been collaborating with a former colleague (someone I've known for 20+ years) producing and publishing chapbooks for poets she recruits. Honestly, it's been more complicated than it needed to be, but I hung in there.

Recently, a different former colleague approached me about publishing an anthology under my press. He knows a lot of writers, including some pros. He asked for my input and specifically asked me to assist him, which I took as a genuine vote of confidence. I was excited.

Then the first colleague found out. She created drama among the writers involved and essentially told people I wasn't qualified to have any editorial role in the project. Keep in mind: I have an MFA in Creative Writing, have taught literature and writing for decades, and have been in and around publishing my entire career.

Here's the twist: I had already decided I was going to stop working with her after our current project wraps up in a few weeks. She's been a drama magnet for years, always turning simple tasks into crises. But before I could say anything, she emailed me: "Our collaborations are done. We are done."

I'm mostly relieved, honestly. But I'm also weirdly stung. I feel like I got broken up with before I could do the breaking up, which is almost funny, except I can't stop ruminating about the part where she questioned my competence to people I want to work with in the future.

My press is still small and building its reputation. I'm genuinely worried she's going to quietly smear it to writers in the community. Are those fears realistic? Has anyone dealt with a situation where one bitter person had the potential to damage your reputation with a network you care about?

And more importantly, why has this shaken my confidence so much? I know I'm qualified. I know her motivations are probably more about ego or jealousy than reality. So why does it feel like her voice in my head is louder than 30 years of experience?

New TT asst prof in humanities (jan start moved across country) finishing my first semester! How long did it take you guys when you started to become friends with other profs? I came straight from my phd and it seems like the other asst profs think think im too young to be friends with. They all hang out with each other and their kids play together and they grade papers together and invite each other to parties and no one wants to invite me. They invite lecturers (only 2 yrs older than me with no kids either) and other non TT people, so it makes me feel really awkward that everyone under 40 hangs out except me. I feel like im in high school and no one wants to sit with me or invite me to group hangs! I got hired the same time as another asst prof in an adjacent dept and i thought we were friends until i realized she sees herself as my “mentor” bc this is her second TT job. For context—- i am a decent looking, relatively outgoing woman at a solid R1. I want to feel like i kicked ass this semester (bc I did) but instead i iust feel like ive been socially rejected. Words of wisdom appreciated!

"I am 15 minutes Late to the class.. Please explain the initial 15 minutes!
I do not understand what you are saying. Could you explain again?"

That was the students' demand after being 15 minutes late to the class. Suggest what you would do in this case?
How not to lose your temper? Would you re-explain the initial 15-minute lecture?

It is the last week of class and they want to withdraw because they have a B+ and don't want to do the final project.

This is a student I care about and I'm worried that a late withdrawal will look worse on their transcript than a B+ in a challenging course. And honestly, withdrawing because of a B or B+ is weak behavior. They want me to grade remaining assignments to see what their grade is and withdraw based on that.

How to tell students of this generation that a B or B+ is fine...just show up. Everything is not so grade dependent. A withdrawal looks worse and people would think they did not attain the skills from this class when they mostly did, just didn't get an A. It is also more work for me to grade all their work just for them to withdraw.

How would you approach this?

I adjunct and TA as a graduate student at an urban public university. Despite spelling this out in the syllabus (I literally have a checklist called "What does 'prepared for class' mean" with things like pen/pencil, paper, etc...) so so so many students show up in pajamas/sweats with nothing but their phones. Often they keep their airpods in unless I expressly tell them not to.

I've tried: a) classroom agreements b) classroom wide discussions and emails c) directing students to the supply closets if they simply need supplies for class and d) applying for a small grant to provide notebooks in the room and they still don't come prepared.

I worried at the start that I was asking a lot of students to purchase course materials....so I literally purchased them. And still, they don't come to class prepared.

I know it’s a nice day, but I had 12 out of 35 show up this morning at 9:30. Ugh.

At least the ones who did show up were engaged.

I had a student today who doesn’t understand why her exam grade went down. Their lowest exam score gets dropped. She had a D on her first exam, As on the next two exams and a C today. So it went from being an average of 2 As to being an average of two As and a C. She thought it should be a 91. I had a previous student wonder which of two grades were correct. One was how many points she got out of 80. The other was the percent grade. I explained that and her response was “but which one affects my grade?” The LMS also confuses them. They complain that their lowest grade was supposed to be dropped but they still see their lowest grade (because it’s still there, it just doesn’t affect their average).

It wouldn’t be a big deal except that they come to me under the impression that some injustice has happened making their grade wrong. That and these are health science students. At some point they’re going to have to figure out medication dose conversions and how many ml to draw up from a bottle based on how many mg of medication the patient needs.

So for context, I teach online and in person versions of 2 different courses. The online versions of the courses are nearly identical to the in person, with I'd say about 90% overlap in questions on the exams. And of course, there is a huge disparity in exam scores where the online students usually do more than a full letter grade better on average. On top of that, the completion times for the exams in the online class are ridiculously fast, like less than 20 minutes for about half the class on an exam designed for a 75 minute block (and which the in person class takes about 50 minutes on average).

Blackboard Ultra provides question analysis, and I started to notice that the students taking the exam the quickest were also completing individual questions faster than they could read. 1, 2, or 3 seconds were fairly common, but there were even a few that said 0 seconds. It doesn't show milliseconds, but if it's rounding down to 0, that means the student is taking less than half a second to answer a question (and getting it correct). So either they're using some application that autofills the correct answer using AI or something, or they have the answer key and they're just clicking without reading.

The person at my university who handles academic dishonesty reports gave me approval to submit reports for this sort of thing. I decided to note every student that answered at least 10 questions in 3 seconds or less, which ended up being 6 students out of 120 across 2 online classes. There are probably a lot more, but they didn't meet the criteria.

Now, my department chair was also in this conversation about whether I could report this behavior, and he advised that I not tell students what criteria I used to report them. If they know they just need to spend a few seconds lingering on each question before answering it, they'll just cheat better next time. The problem is that now most of these students want to know the exact thing they're being reported for, because the notification they got was vague. One student wants to meet tomorrow. I guess I'll just have to be vague and leave it up to the next person up the chain to deal with.

Have you all had any experience with reporting for exam completion speed or individual questions?

An adjunct instructor of four years here at the same University.

Context: Earlier in the semester, the chair of my department left to take a promotion elsewhere when he left he went to the dean and referred me for a full-time position. I had a very positive meeting with the dean who expressed that right now there was not an opening, but used language to suggest that when an opening did come up for a full-time position that I would be considered for it.

Earlier this week, the university posted a full-time position in my department, and I also have a good working relationship with the new chair of the department.

My question here is it acceptable to put the chair person of the department as a reference here as they may be the person hiring or interviewing me? Would it make sense emailing them that I am interviewing for this position?

Hello! I am currently a full-time lecturer and about one year from graduating with my PhD. I want to get a tenure-track role soon after I graduate. I have strong teaching experience, service experience, and publishing records.

My question stems from the fact that my current university (that I love) probably will not have any TT position open when I graduate, so I am considering looking at other universities. But I have a really good gig so I want to know how what I could get elsewhere compares to what I have now.

Current situation:

• Lecturer position
• Business school
• Teaching institution
• 4/4 teaching requirement (Fall/Spring)
• $85,000 base salary
• Option to teach overload, which I take one class a semester (this pushes me to $105k annually)
• 15% retirement contribution on top of my salary (pushes me to about $120k annually)
• Complete control of my schedule and modality (what days, times, and modalities I teach)
• No service or scholarship expectation (but I do it anyway because I enjoy it)
• Medium COL area
• High job security despite annual contract (never had layoffs and only terminate contracts for poor performance)

So I guess my question is how likely would it be that I would find a TT position that is better than my current situation regarding pay, flexibility, and work life balance?

EDIT: I am currently in the US and would be open to looking anywhere in the US or Canada (I am als a Canadian citizen).

I have run this online course 21 times now, mostly asynchronous. The online exam averages have been steadily rising over the last few years, going from normally high-70s to a new record last semester of a 90% class average on the exam. My concern was that the tests were being done more and more by AI, so this semester I required the students to do the test live and In-Person. This means not only no AI, but also that it would be closed-book, which is a substantial change in itself. I would not previously have strictly required them to be closed book. My initial plan was to rewrite the test from scratch, in particular to ease up on it given that it would now be closed book. But I decided, for this one semester, to simply do the same test and see how it went. With no AI, no open book, pure evaluation of what they have learned, the test's class average (that was 90% last semester) was 46% this semester.