A Low-Tech Way to Lower Costs: Steve Trachtenberg’s Idea

October 18, 2011, 12:40 pm

“It makes … no sense to subordinate teaching to planting, cultivating, and harvesting when so few of us work on farms or live by agriculture … we do not need the summer off.” So spoke President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg of George Washington University in remarks to his faculty on November 11, 2002.

President Trachtenberg was not the first, nor will he be the last, to propose pushing universities to a real year-round calendar. Instead of two 14- to 15- week semesters, have three. Students, if they wish, could study hard and graduate in three years, saving considerable amounts (even if per-semester tuition charges remained unchanged) and gain one more year in the labor force. That option could become more appealing if we rationalized federal student financial assistance. With year-round schooling, buildings and equipment that lie idle for vast periods could be utilized far more efficiently, in the long run reducing capital-expenditure outlays (which many in the university community think are somehow provided by God, not requiring annual budgeting).

Indeed, a strong argument can be made that the Middle Ages ended when farmers abandoned the medieval system of letting land lie fallow at least one year in three (the three field system), and moved to constant cultivation, using in this case some new crops, new techniques, and alternative forms of land tenure. Agriculture benefited by abandoning the practice of letting land lie fallow after 1400, so wouldn’t universities benefit from stopping letting buildings lie fallow after 2011?

The faculty could teach two semesters annually as at present, still spending about 40 percent of the year not formally performing academic duties—or they could teach more and earn considerably more than at present, albeit at the expense of some leisure time and probably some time on research (some of which is of dubious value anyhow).

The savings to the university could allow it to educate more students with any given amount of resources. Trachtenberg estimated that, at GW, the school could easily add 1,000 students, but still reduce crowding on campus, alleviate housing pressures, etc. Arguably, the savings could allow some modest tuition reductions per semester, so even students attending school for only two semesters annually could still save a little money.

This sure sounds like win-win to me. Greater efficiency, lower costs to students, more teaching and compensation opportunities for faculty. Yet the faculty at GW studied, debated, stalled, and ultimately killed the idea. Why? People want their vacation in June, July and August (often to coincide with that of their children, a problem that could be alleviated by doing the same thing at the K-12 level). Some faculty, frankly, don’t want to work too hard. Students also have gotten used to working typically less than 900 hours (if time-use survey data are accurate) annually on academics (half as much as their parent work at their full-time jobs), and this scheme sounds too much like working in the Real World—or at least having vacations when the weather is not so nice.

Recently, however, the three-year degree is getting some renewed attention. It can be done by redefining downward the work required for a bachelor’s degree—sort of the academic equivalent of currency devaluation (which some argue European universities have done). Or, it could be achieved by adopting a scheme similar to the Trachtenberg trimester proposal.

Aside from the issue of improving facility and personnel utilization, I think we might study the academic and potential vocational gains associated with, say, the fourth year of college relative to the third one. Are there diminishing returns to learning as there is to almost everything else in life, from eating or making love to farming land? Of course, university faculty write well over 1,000 papers annually on Shakespeare, most of which are read by miniscule numbers of people, but probably less than one-tenth of 1 percent that amount on papers on issue of diminishing returns to learning. Why? Is it possible that the answer, in large part, is that the results of such research might not be too favorable to faculty members who either want job security or want to teach their favorite obscure senior course (that might be eliminated)?

A state that gives its universities $2,000 per semester for each undergraduate (a dumb but common way of distributing subsidies) might alter their formula to give schools only $1,500 for academic terms predominantly occurring in the months of September through May, and $3,000 per student attending in a term that is predominantly in June, July, or August. Schools might then offer lower tuition charges for the summer trimester. There are other ways to achieve the Trachtenberg idea, but, however done, it deserves greater attention.

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http://twitter.com/splendidmike Mike Nutt

Framing summers off as an antiquated agricultural-era phenomenon is a straw man argument in this debate. I don’t know about faculty, but it’s misleading at best to imply that if only students worked harder and didn’t want their vacations so much, they could graduate early and get on with their careers. In any economy, but especially in this one, a younger, less experienced graduate is not likely to just magically “gain one more year in the labor force.” That’s why so many of them spend their summers in the indentured servitude of internships: to compensate for their increasingly less valuable college educations with some real world experience. Those that don’t intern usually work full time to pay for their increasingly less valuable but more expensive college educations. This idea may deserve greater attention, but it needs to be addressed in the larger context of higher education’s failure to prepare students for the realities of the job market.
_perplexed_

“…the larger context of higher education’s failure to prepare students for the realities of the job market.”

As if today’s unemployment rate would be around 5% if only those darn colleges and universities prepared students better…
unusedusername

A lot of it depends on the degree. Looking at Vedder’s institution, Ohio University, I saw that it takes 52 credit hours for a political science degree, but 94 credit hours for a BS in physics. A poly-sci degree would be easily doable in 3 years, even with 2 semesters a year. Physics not so much. Does it really make sense that both students have to go to college for the same length of time?

I would be willing to teach the 3rd summer semester, in exchange for a 50% raise.
_perplexed_

A wide array of courses are available at the R1 where I teach, and the per unit cost to students is a bit less than during the academic year. But summer enrollments are only about 10-15% of that obtained during the academic year, and a substantial portion of these are from students who attend other insitutions (or have just graduated high school) but live close to our campus. Most students could finish their degrees in three years if they utilized summer session– But most seem not to want to. My guess is that this is the situations at many R1′s across the country. What is being called for here is widely available.
midevilprof

I don’t know about other institutions, but here at my SLAC, we rent out campus space during the summers to various youth/high school groups and programs. We host sports camps for young athletes plus Free Enterprise Week (three one-week sessions) for high school students, and then a Home Show for various home-improvement contractors to set up booths to hawk their wares. That’s how our campus makes a little money while most students are away. Vedder’s notion of more efficient use of space does not apply here. Of course, we are a private college that receives far less state support than even the “state-supported” schools; maybe that makes a difference. But I also have to agree that many students seek internships or paying jobs during the summers. Not agriculture, but retail or something similar to put money in their pockets to spend during the school year. That’s what I did when I was their age!

Bottom line: sure, a three-year degree could work, and in fact is possible at many institutions already, but it faces difficulties in implementation beyond simple faculty reluctance.
aliceleebrown

As Perplexed indicated, summer courses are almost always available for college students, if not on their own campuses on others where they can take courses and transfer them to their main program. I finished college in 3 years in 1963 without even thinking much about doing so. One summer I stayed on campus and another summer I went home and took courses at a college nearby. Perhaps faculty and administrators need to promote the advantages of finishing college in three years and getting jobs or internships after graduation to make up for losing the chance to gain work experience (or fun time) during the summers. I will say, however, that when offered a teaching assistantship my final semester, I turned it down because I was tired of being a student. Being a student (or a teacher) for 12 months a year is not easy.
betterschool

This particular “innovation” is analogous to making aircraft designed in the 1930′s fly faster by strapping on bigger engines instead of opting for sleeker designs. Most “four year” degrees can be delivered in a three year agrarian calendar by employing the findings of modern learning and evaluation sciences in designing curriculum and instructional methods. Bringing college classrooms into the 21st century confers an additional benefit of improving the quality of learning outcomes. The same “four year” degree can be delivered in two years if an institution chooses the year round calendar proposed here.

Why does Mr. Vedder advocate only crudest change strategies while remaining silent on the treason of professors who ignore, to the disservice of their students, the very sciences that some of them teach.
proftowanda

At my huge campus, many more of us want to teach in summers than is justified by enrollments. Students work summers and/or want summers off more than we-the-faculty do. Many of us also would wish to take advantage of our state system’s flexibility in having us teach a summer semester instead of fall or spring semesters, but again, enrollments do not allow that. The economics of many of our locales do not allow that, as the tourism industry and others rely on our students. Do your research to see that this is a systemic situation far larger than our higher education systems.

So why not talk about a truly three-year degree, as is offered at many fine campuses across the world? I am familiar, for example, with the programs at Monash University and with the fine quality of its graduates. We could achieve the three-year degree, with work done primarily in fall and spring semesters, if our colleges and universities only had to teach college and university-level courses.

Too many of our courses must be remedial high-school work. And this is not so just now; it was so when I was a college student decades ago, required to spend much of my freshman year on courses that allowed many of my classmates to catch up. They were less fortunate than I was, as I had an excellent high school education.

Have the high schools offer those courses to their graduates who still are not ready for college work, then send them to us when they’re ready for college, and we will graduate them in three years — with time for them to spend summers working and saving for only three years of college. Imagine the reduction for them in financial aid debt as well, when not having to come up with college-level tuition for high school courses. I look forward to your next article on a truly three-year degree.
22266017

What bothers me in all of this talk about three-year degrees is that everyone ignores the outside-of-the-classroom development that occurs during this period in a person’s life. By rushing students through, we eliminate opportunities for exposure to an environment engineered to enhance their skills and their maturity in ways that book knowledge and classroom time simply cannot. It also reinforces what occurs in the classroom in real-world interpersonal situations. I’m always a little saddened when students take either tons of dual enrollment courses or overload with 20 or more credits each semester in an effort to graduate in three years. Why rush this valuable learning experience? Slow down and take advantage of all the opportunities available to you, many of which will never be offered again.
betterschool

“. . . the outside-of-the-classroom development that occurs during this period in a person’s life. ”

This is true. The period of 17 through the mid-20′s is often looked back upon as halcyon days. Additionally, I think we all see students whom we would advise to “slow down” if we thought they would (or could) listen to us.

However, it is self-centered of us to assume that being engaged in college courses at a leisurely pace — or even being in college classrooms at all — is a necessary condition to this phase of growing up.

Additionally, you and most who have an interest in this topic ignore the highly relevant fact that half of the nation’s college students are adults. Most of these people work and have families. So far as we have evidence in any direction, these adult students are no better or worse citizens in the aggregate than is the professoriate.

Finally, building upon your concern for pace, I think the gains are even better for students who “drop in and out” of college, perhaps completing their degree in their early 30′s (close to the median age of college students today). Taking a degree in this fashion facilitates a greater appreciation of knowledge and a closer relationship between learning and application — in work and in life at-large.

However much fun it was way back when, we need to climb out of the “old box” in which college students were 17 years old and needed our help to become enlightened citizens. This model is increasingly inappropriate even for today’s 17 year-olds.
22266017

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frankschmidt

This proposal is collateral damage from the economy.

The two most important experiences of my undergraduate career involved “fallow summers.” The first was in an industrial job – hot, boring work. Unfortunately, that’s not feasible these days, since there is so little industry.

The second was an undergraduate research program 1000 miles from home. I liked that one better, and not just because it had longer workdays. My university does the same thing with some hundreds of students per summer, and the faculty who take them into their labs do so without any increase in compensation. As many have pointed out, the fields are not really fallow in the summers.

All changes have tradeoffs – Vedder’s proposal is fine for “gas-station education” – fill the tank and send them on their way. Since the economy of the future will require people who can think and figure out stuff, we may lose important aspects of a small-l liberal undergraduate education if we adopt this model willy-nilly, and the consequences could be dire.
22280998

Summer is not a fallow season for faculty. Yes, we do take vacations. We also conduct research — writing papers, writing grants, and carrying out the bulk of actually doing the research. Oh, in light of our recent class experiences and keeping up with the literature, we also revise courses for the coming year.
betterschool

Indirectly, your point aligns with one I make frequently. We speak of higher education as if it had specific denotative meaning or at least a cluster of closely related denotations. In fact, it is a family resemblance construct with the full range of implications attached thereto. The Chronicle creates or at least facilitates this confusion in many of its headlines and narratives.

Separately, to your comment:

“Vedder’s proposal is fine for “gas-station education” – fill the tank and send them on their way. Since the economy of the future will require people who can think and figure out stuff, we may lose important aspects of a small-l liberal undergraduate education if we adopt this model willy-nilly, and the consequences could be dire.”

You imply two empirically unsupportable claims. There is no evidence that a liberal arts education (I had one myself and enjoyed it) is a necessary condition to the development of critical thinking skills (your “think and figure out stuff”). Likewise, there is no evidence to support your idea that a compressed educational program, especially one that exploits modern learning and evaluation sciences, will produce inferior results in the area of critical thinking.

First, the entire area of critical thinking is scientifically murky. Current evidence suggests that the small part of it that can be taught is likely to be context dependent. Additionally, the application of modern learning theory suggests that the most robust learning occurs in the direction practice to theory and not other way around as generally believed and chanted by some in the professoriate since the time of Dewey. If so, applied programs that extend over time and application have, assuming the right content, the best chance of developing highly generalizable knowledge and, as you say, the ability to figure out stuff. The general approach implied by your comments works best only for high IQ learners who, by the way, can figure out how to learn no matter how badly or inefficiently we teach.
arlee

A new, small liberal arts college in Louisville, Ky (Kentucky Southern College) enrolled its inaugural freshman class in 1962 on a “trimester” calendar which called for all-year teaching by the faculty and all-year learning by the students. The BA or BS could be earned in three calendar years, as my BA was by beginning in August, 1962 and graduating in August, 1965. There were no academic shortcuts or reductions in any of the degree programs. I faced and completed a very traditional set of requirements, including a research-based honors paper. It’s just that one’s time was used more fully.

Upon graduation in 1965 with my BA I went to the University of Florida in August 1965 and completed a very traditional MA (complete with required graduate minor, proficiency in a second language–German in my case–and a research-based thesis) by August 1966–in one calendar year. UF was experimenting even then with the trimester calendar. As I masters degree student I was not in a position to know why UF decided to go back to a more traditional calendar. The trimester in graduate school at the University of Florida worked for me.

In August 1966 I enrolled in my doctoral program at a third university (Louisville). UL had not moved to a trimester calendar, but doctoral students in my program were “expected” to be fully enrolled in fall, spring, and summer sessions, so the practical result was that of a trimester calendar. Again, this program was very traditional–no shortcuts, no abbreviations. Doctoral students were required to have two languages besides English, were required to complete a graduate minor in addition to the doctoral “major,” and were required to write a formal research-based dissertation. Following the expection that I be enrolled full time throughout each year, I completed my doctoral requirements, including comp exams and defense of my dissertation by August, 1969 (in three years).

So I earned all three of my very traditional degrees, a BA, an MA, and a Ph.D., in seven years–in effect through the trimester calendar (officially at two institutions, de facto at the third). And having completed my doctorate in August, 1969, I took up a full time tenure track faculty position with the rank of Assistant Professor at the start of the 1969-1970 academic year in the University of Wisconsin System (which had been, was then, and still is on the historic semester calendar).

Do I recommend this approach for every student in every discipline? Not necessarily. It requires what can be a grinding set of years, but not necessarily a fatal set. And life can be what you want it to be meanwhile. In undergarduate school I was married, had one son, and managed a trade bookstore in an urban mall. I held a graduate fellowship at UF, and at UL I began as a teaching fellow and moved up during the doctoral years to full time Instructor at the university.

I have provided all of these details not to pat myself on the back but with full memories of many classmates who had similar experiences and academic achievements in those days. And I hope it helps to illustrate that a three-year BA/BS not only is a viable possibility but in fact has been done over the years by a good many successful professionals.
abby12

The first issue is whether there is educational research that shows that calendar arrangements make a difference in the overall learning of students. Yes, there is and it is quite convincing. Interestingly, opponents of modifying and balancing school calendars usually deny that there is such research and rarely are accepting of the available findings.
rebek56

At institutions like mine, with a five-course-per-semester teaching load, many full-time faculty are too exhausted to teach during the summer. In addition, the salary for a summer course is too low to make the work worthwhile, in many cases. We can make more money in a week as an AP exam reader than in eight weeks of teaching a class. Yet students want summer courses, and we manage to offer a decent array of them. A thought I have had for many years is that faculty contracts could be redesigned so that faculty are responsible for teaching ten courses per year, with those courses distributed in a way that makes sense to the faculty member and the department. People who want to teach more than ten courses per year would of course still be free to do so, while others could teach a 4-4-2 load or design some other configuration that meets everyone’s needs.
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squacky

Quite convincing of what? Might you have a reference or three to share? Really, I’m genuinely interested.
http://twitter.com/splendidmike Mike Nutt

I don’t believe that, but I do believe those darn colleges and universities should have better than 56% job placement rates for recent graduates. The burden is on people like Vedder and Trachtenberg to prove their ideas could improve that number and not make it worse. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/business/economy/19grads.html
goxewu

Lordy. No wonder great swaths of the public, and so many politicians, think academe is one big feather-bed.

Somebody with a great deal of experience in running a university comes along, makes an observation of the obvious, sees a problem with it, proposes a simple, common-sense solution, and is met (at least on this “Brainstorm” thread) with a chorus of whining, nitpicking, and digging in of self-interested heels.

a. Observation: Our traditional school year is based on an agricultural calendar when students needed to be free in the summer to work on farms. Today, however, a very small percentage of students work on farms in the summer.

b. Problem: Because of the traditional calendar, colleges and universities are semi-shut-down for about three months every year. And so are students.

c. Solution: If those three months could be used for an extra semester of normal academic operation, a good many undergraduates could complete their bachelor’s degree requirements in three, rather than four years. This would have the salutary effects of reducing student debt (although not by 25 percent), not having hundreds of thousands of students thrown into the market for temporary jobs every summer, and giving a boost to continuity in what’s learned (students do tend to lose momentum over the summer).

So what’s wrong with this proposed new collegiate academic calendar?

* The no-longer-an-agricultural-society assertion is a “straw man.” (Really? We still mostly live on farms?)
* Three-year-degree students will graduate too young and inexperienced for the job market. (So they can afford to do discontinuous internships during separated summers, but not for whatever time required after graduation?)
* Bachelor’s degrees in different fields require different numbers of credits, so a one-size-fits-all three-year-degree won’t work. (But a one-size-fits-all four-year degrees does work?)
* Three-year degrees are already available, if only students would avail themselves of summer session. (As if the college isn’t semi-shut-down during the summer, as if summer session classes aren’t clearly inferior rush-jobs [otherwise, why isn't a summer-session schedule used during the traditional academic year?], as if summer session isn’t outside the norm ["What, you're going to both summer sessions?"], as if the atmosphere at the school isn’t desultory, and so on.)
* Colleges rent out their facilities for sports camps and other activities during the summer. (Tail, dog, wag, etc.)
* “Fun time” during the summer will be lost. (No comment. OK, one: There should be a couple of weeks’ breaks between semesters. Three 14-week semesters with a week of exams each, plus a two-week break after each is 51 weeks. That seems to leave a reasonable amount of “fun time.”)
* The proposal is “crude.” (If putting something to use that lies semi-dormant for a quarter of the year is “crude,” then I’m on the side of crudity. Moreover, the calendar change proposed by Mr. Trachtenberg doesn’t preclude other changes–e.g., online learning, changes in teaching methods, etc.)
* Many college courses are actually remedial high school courses, and speeding to a degree in three years would obviate that remediation. (Five [say] courses a semester over eight semesters over four years is 40 courses. 40 courses taken during three years–or less, actually–of year-’round semesters would allow the same opportunity for remediation.)
* Valuable outside-the-classroom experience would be lost in the conversion to three-year degrees. (So why can’t that outside-the-classroom-experience come during the six weeks of breaks during a three-semester academic year? Why can’t in come in between classes and in the dorms? And, if it’s so valuable, why not instead make undergraduate education a five- or six-year normality so that there would be that much more outside-the-class-room experience? What’s so just-right about four years?)
* Faculty would need extra compensation to teach year-round. (Yes they would. And the details of compensation, whether two-semesters-on-and-one-off is the outside limit of a full-time workload, whether different “off” semesters could be worked smoothly into the curriculum, etc., would have to be worked out. But if every obviously preponderantly beneficial major change were rejected because details had to be worked out, nothing would ever change for the better.)
* Faculty need summers off for research. (What’s so bad about a faculty member doing his or her research during the fall or spring semester, and teaching during the summer? What’s wrong with London being less cloggged with literature professors and Florence less overrun by art historians in the summer, and those cities being more populated with scholars during other times of the year?)
* Faculty who teach five(!) courses per semester would be too exhausted to teach three semesters without a summer break. (No professor of whatever rank should be required to teach five classes a semester. Nevertheless, if a full-time position still consisted of two semesters on and one off, the needed break could come during the fall or spring semester.)

And so on.

Jeez, from the comments on this thread, one would suspect that Mr. Trachtenberg had proposed something really radical, like it being the case that the Earth orbits the Sun, instead of vice-versa.
R117532

Right you are. Yet, in failing to mention one of the most obvious ways to achieve the gains discussed, you share an important attribute with the very crowd you criticize. Improving the quality of teaching will create discretionary choices in the content/time equation. If we were a real profession instead of a self-serving pre-scientific guild, this challenge would occupy at least some portion of our attention and its mention at various places in the this dialog would have been obligatory.
Erica_Blair

I’ve worked with many students who could graduate in three years even without attending in the summers, thanks to AP credit and college credit earned in high school. More frequently than not, they opt to stay for an extra year, sometimes adding another major, because they feel college is supposed to be four years. They rarely find the argument that they could enter the workforce or move on with their academic plans earlier more compelling than staying on campus.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=509757809 David Wilkins

There’s another issue not addressed here, and that is the 33% increase in faculty contract time (taking into consideration that most permanent faculty are on 9 month contracts). How will that be funded? Also missing is a discussion how faculty research will be impacted. Faculty don’t get summers “off” as portrayed here, but instead are not compensated by the institution during those months. For faculty in the sciences, that’s when we have the opportunity to earn supplemental funding that supports our research efforts. If we go 12 months, year round academic year, when are faculty supposed to work and get paid from their grants?

Having the university open its doors for 12 months and achieve higher utilization of its facilities is something worth discussing, but don’t discuss it without being aware of the full impact to faculty and, accordingly, university research productivity. Given the precipitous decline in state support (I can’t imagine our state increasing its support – they’d simply push more off on the students), universities are increasing reliant on extramural funding brought in from non-tuition, non-appropriated sources.
R117532

Jason,

One can argue that this topic falls squarely in the area of professional responsibility for anyone accepting an obligation to teach. While not all or even most empirical studies focused on the relations between brain sciences, learning sciences, and teaching examine calendars, many of them do, and many more do so indirectly. I did a quick search, taking not too much more time than it took you to read and post your reply, and came up with what looks like thousands of research references, including several metaanalyses that subsume from dozens to hundreds of individual studies that have been filtered for certain kinds of methodological rigor. You can find them too. (Hint: begin with AERA; even ED published a metaanalysis subsuming hundreds of individuals studies focusing on asynchronous learning and learning outcomes.) Your question, while innocent enough on its face, is tantamount to asking a physician if there have ever been any studies on the improvement of surgeries and asking that he be willing to share two or three.
goxewu

Reiterated from above, for Prof. Wilkins’s benefit:

* Faculty would need extra compensation to teach year-round. (Yes they
would. And the details of compensation, whether
two-semesters-on-and-one-off is the outside limit of a full-time
workload, whether different “off” semesters could be worked smoothly
into the curriculum, etc., would have to be worked out. But if every
obviously preponderantly beneficial major change were rejected because
details had to be worked out, nothing would ever change for the better.)

* Faculty need summers off for research. (What’s so bad about a faculty
member doing his or her research during the fall or spring semester, and
teaching during the summer? What’s wrong with London being less
cloggged with literature professors and Florence less overrun by art
historians in the summer, and those cities being more populated with
scholars during other times of the year?)

Yes, there would be some negotiating. But it wouldn’t be all that difficult, if the two-semesters-on-one-semester-off were maintained, to have faculty off-campus doing their research during semesters other than the summer. It might, in fact, make for more interesting (for the faculty) teaching duties, e.g., that senior professor who monopolizes the course you’d like to teach might be gone one semester when you’re around, so you’d get to teach it.

As for faculty “not compensated by the institution during those [summer] months,” my experience–both direct and indirect–is that professors get paychecks year-’round (i.e., their salaries are divided up into monthly or biweekly checks over the entire year), and only receive compensation from September through May exclusively if they deliberately opt for that.
R117532

I think one of Mr. Gox’s points is that this isn’t all about us. Significant benefits would accrue to students, parents (if they are among the half that are not adults or are adults whose parents are footing the bill), the economy, and in some measure society at large. It would be one thing if making these changes (for which there is considerable empirical support in terms of benefits including, if done right, learning) were to be destructive of the professoriate as we know it. However, they have already been made in several reputable contexts, with benefits and acceptance all around. What we are seeing is hidebound conservatism. Ironically, the model that produced the methods that are being defended was itself a somewhat radical innovation. Innovators innovate and conservatives cling.
squacky

I was curious about whether there were in fact studies examining atypical academic calendars at colleges/universities and their relationship with student learning. Put simply, I was wondering about any specific studies that abby12 might have at her/his fingertips. Innocent question, yes, and it remains so. I wasn’t expecting a response, just hoping for one. Instead, I got yours. I’m not naive, nor am I a jerk. Your post is tantamount to calling me one, the other, or both. In the time it took you to compose your message, you could have done, well, any number of things. Lucky me.
Fat_Man

My kids attended a fancy expensive private university. I noticed that there were no 8:00 am classes, and many courses did not have Friday classes. The hours of operation seemed to be 9 to 4 Mon-Thur. They could easily expand the University by 60% if they were to adopt ordinary business hours.
graddirector

When my husband and I both defended our Ph.D.s, he was in the field with less employment opportunities but scored a great postdoc. Thus, I worked on getting a postdoc close to him (it was the DC area so no sacrifices for me really). Five years later, he has a permanent job and I start looking for TT jobs. While he was planning on giving up his job then if I got something, it turned out I scored a job within 2 hour drive of his and he could telecommute 1/2 time. Thus for the next ten years, he would live in a rented room 4 days every two weeks and be home for the next 10. We did this through my tenure track period (I would concur with the other posters that this was nice, I would work crazy hours while he was gone and then pay attention to him when he was home) and two post tenure babies (not so fun being a “single mother” during those times though). When the kids were entering school though, my husband’s job was losing its sparkle with some changes there, it was getting harder to do the single mother thing with the advent of after school “activities” and he really wanted to spend more time with the kids too. Thus, he quit that very high paying job five years ago and took a local one at 1/2 the salary located two blocks from my office. While he is bored in the job, he is having a ton of fun doing the dad thing and never had hard driving ambition in his career so I dont think there is much resentment in the end. So, while his former high salary would be nice, in the end, we are paying for a really great standard of living.
abcde1234

This: “never had hard driving ambition in his career”. I think that is the key-the asymmetries in ambition. My husband and I were pretty equally matched in our early career accomplishments and scholarly abilities. And since we were both in biomedical science we were lucky enough to be able to find postdocs and even faculty positions in the same city. But at some point it became clear to me (less clear to him, interestingly) that he was going to be able to sustain the insane level of ambition and competitiveness for long enough to propel himself to international stardom, and I was looking for a meaningful, enjoyable way to feel like I was having a positive impact on the people around me, contribute to the household income, and find the time to do other meaningful things outside of work. Having a kid helped clarify this. The realization has made my various career transitions and a relocation driven by his opportunities happen not only without resentment, but with a sense that we are a team, and new opportunities for him can mean new opportunities for me, so long as I maintain a broad definition of “opportunity”.

I know lots of two-career couples, and almost all of them are asymmetric in some way. This is especially true if there are kids. One is the super ambitions internationally famous scientist, and the other is just a regular academic who is good enough to get by. Sometimes the big shot is the woman, sometimes the guy (or sometimes it’s the other women-I don’t know too many male-male academic power couples, not sure why that is).

I like to say : I used to be a successful scientist. Now I just sleep with one.
withatwist

Well, I’m not sure what one could reasonably expect when two careerists — inherently a selfish and deceptively lonely existence, sorry — try to make a life for themselves, “together” …

Partner A: $60,000/year tenure-track with benefits
Partner B: $45,000/year post-doc for three years with “benefits”

If your relationship is truly important to you, you follow Partner A’s path. It’s not rocket science.

If your career is more important than your partner, then you probably shouldn’t be together in the first place. And before anyone gets upset: Please don’t try to rationalize love and human connections. You’ll either go to the ends of the earth (or Bugtussle, Idaho) for them, or you won’t. Lest we forget: We are HUMAN BEINGS FIRST, academics second. All the stellar scholarship and outside flattery in the world isn’t going to fulfill us as social beings. We shouldn’t be so wedded to our jobs that we sacrifice the fulfillment of a life spent with people who love us regardless of the criticism levelled at our scholarship. Who will take care of us when we retire if we constantly give the impression that our careers come first?

– Hopeless Romantic
900484393

I always enjoy your columns and this is exceptionally sound advice. After 20 years in management, I continue to be amazed by the number of people who are shocked to learn they’re being terminated. I’ve never seen a situation where the warning signs weren’t there for inclined observers to see. There are no guarantees in life; your advice – to always take the high road and have backup plans – is the only way to exit such situations with dignity.
joejoe1

“Unfortunately, I suspect my former student was too inexperienced to see what a more seasoned person would recognize as obvious signs that his days were numbered.”

I’d like to know what the advance signs of being fired are. Thanks.
joejoe1

Shocked? Really?

Sometimes people think they’re doing a good job and they get along with everyone. Then suddenly, boom.
queeracademic

I’ll second what elie_s_dad said in their comment and just add:
Unprofessional behavior is a no-no for sure. Also, this extends to social media/networking sites. Posting on Facebook about how awful your department and colleagues are is not exactly the best way to express your feelings about the situation. Word gets out, no matter how much you think it won’t, and this could impact getting a reference from a close colleague later.
lexalexander

Considering what passes for “feedback” and “evaluation” in most workplaces, I’m not shocked at all. Termination for chronic performance problems should *never* come as a surprise; it should be along the lines of “that stuff you’ve been nagging me about for six months.” (One-time events like an egregious act of sexual harassment, say, are another story entirely — but that shouldn’t be a surprise, either.)
echinoderms

Early in my career I quit a nonprofit job after seven months when it became clear that my verbally abusive boss had put me on her s##t list and that there was no way to get off it without losing my dignity as a human. Putting myself on the job market again in a tight economy terrified me, but now, a decade later, I am very glad that I did. Quit/fired…the subtleties of a mutually recognized bad match fade over time, but how you handle yourself in the separation is the critical bit for being able to move on well.

I remain deeply grateful that a colleague, who had watched the abuse I was absorbing and who knew that the boss had made an appointment to talk to me, took me aside, handed me a scrap of paper with a phone number, and told me to call her mentor for advice asap. That phone call was a sanity saver. After I described the situation, the borrowed mentor said, “Wow. Um, yes, I think you will get fired tomorrow, though it’s likely, given that organization, that she’ll offer a behavior modification plan first to prolong the process. You need to focus on maintaining your dignity. Stay calm. Tell yourself you are there to listen; let her talk. Wiggle your toes in your shoes as stress relief. Seek to understand thoroughly her perspective so that if there is anything you can learn from her critique, you can. If/when she outlines a plan for behavior change, say that you would like time to absorb all the information before responding and agree with her on what day you will get back to her. Above all, stay calm and breathe, and do not cry. After the meeting consider your options and whether you are likely to suffer more by prolonging the job or by moving on. I know this is awful but someday it will be a distant memory. My mentee says you are a great colleague, so keep that in mind. Given what you’ve described, this crisis may be a good thing in the long run. Don’t let this job experience or this one boss define you. Good luck.” I have never had further contact with this elder professional, other than the thank you card I sent the next morning, but I am indebted to his compassion and spontaneous coaching to a stranger in a tight spot.

That fateful Friday morning, I followed his advice, saw the boss and situation more clearly, and rather than accept further abuse, I quit the following Monday, in writing, very respectfully, giving the required amount of notice. Funny thing, the boss was shocked and flipped out that I was abandoning her.

I know I did the right thing, despite the challenge of finding another job. Explaining the short duration of that position on my resume has been surprisingly easy, because it’s sandwiched between longer commitments, and most people recognize that sometimes getting out of a bad fit is a respectable action. I have never bad-mouthed the crazy boss (other than this post). I did once meet someone else who had worked for her in a different era, and when I said that I’d only worked for her only 7 months, she revealed her own horrible, prolonged experience and that it had taken a two years of therapy to get past the abusive mindset she’d contorted herself into in order to suck up to the boss’s craziness and keep her job.

Ultimately the lesson I learned by quitting when I was about to be fired was that I must be honest and clear with myself about what I am willing and not willing to do in order to get a paycheck. I’m the only person who can control my behavior; it’s always a choice to be employed or not.
wilkenslibrary

Interesting article.
kgodwin

An associate’s degree should take a full-time student 2 years to complete, while a bachelor’s degree should take a full-time student 4 years to complete. 3 years for an AA/AS/AAS is 150% of “normal” and 6 years for a BA/BS is 150% of “normal”. It’s the standard IPEDS definition.

As for goals for students in WA – we do a pretty good job, given the constraints of the systems we work within. If you are in working in the CTC system in WA, you should check out the “intent” coding – there’s documentation for it here (http://www.sbctc.edu/college/it/Student_007.doc). Your institution may not be using all of the codes, but the data element itself is pretty thorough. The author’s husband, for example, would be coded “J” intent – although if he was looking for Fin. Aid we’d make him a F intent. As the article states, a lot of times, we “enroll” a student in a degree-seeking program so they can get Fin. Aid (at my institution anyway). Tracking these students’ “real” goals will hurt them (and us), so we (community colleges in general) usually just don’t.
wchristie

I always felt that the less I exercised my direct authority, the more real influence I had. As a CAO, I used to tell my faculty search committees that I reserved to myself the turkey veto. If they recommended a candidate whom I regarded as a real turkey, I reserved the right to exercise a veto. Otherwise, the choice of colleagues was theirs. The result of that posture was a real collaboration, as the committees consulted closely with me throughout the process. We exchanged views honestly, I never had to use the veto, and the faculty understood that they had real responsibility and control. Collaboration is always better.
stburnett

A wise administrator I worked for once described it in this way: ” Authority comes from above and power comes from below.”
watercat77

So by the logic of this article: at Castle Greyskull, it is Prince Adam possesses ”Authority” but it is HeMan who has the “Power” And all this despite only holding a Masters of the Universe.