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[jwormold]

I'm curious if any of you have had renewable, full-time non-tenure-track positions (VAP, Lecturer, however they're called), and your teaching load was changed in the second year? 

Were you paid more as a matter of course (as in, of course a higher load will be better compensated)? Or did they just laugh at you?  Or were you able to negotiate a raise? Did you just take the increased work, grateful to have a job? 

Yes, yes, I know these are tough times for all, etc etc. 

[georgiaprof]

I have not, but I worked at an institution that changed its workload policy for temp/non-tenure track faculty.  The increase was one class per year, but there was also a decision made that these faculty did not (could not?) serve on committees and did not advise.  So - there was a sort of a trade-off.

[kedves]

I haven't heard of it.  We are typically 4/4 here for the non-TT and no one has been asked to go beyond that (no service requirement).  Class size is increasing and unspecified furloughs are in the future.  We are still in the midst of across-the-board and program-specific faculty and staff cuts; my job was cut, then restored, but that's another story.

What is it changing from and to?   You can certainly try to negotiate.  I wouldn't assume anything as a matter of course this year.  Good luck.

[roadrunner_math]

Yup, this is exactly what happened to all the full-time lecturers at my (former) university last year. At least all the lecturers in the College of Science. We were told we were "supposed" to have been teaching 15 hrs/semester all along, and somehow, due to some mysterious oversight, we had only been teaching 12 hrs/semester for the past several years. So we pretty much had to suck it up.

[jwormold]

Thanks for your responses. 
I'm in the humanities.  They want to add an extra course (not an extra section, but a new course) per semester, and they are fairly large classes (capped at 60), new preps, obviously no TA or grading support.  So not cool. 

[onion]

My former department had 4 VAPs.  At the beginning of last year, they raised the teaching load on two VAPs but not on the other two, and then raised the salary for 3 of the VAPs, but not for the one.  They also raised the teaching load but not the salary on some untenured TT people.  Talk about s***ty.

In short, yes, I've seen it happen in many permutations at Craptacular State.  Sorry this is happening to you!

[jonesey]

That sucks.  At my institution, there is no tenure.  We have full time (annual contract) employees, and adjuncts.  FT = a 4/4 load, anything over that counts as "overtime" and I get paid additional money (not much, about what an adjunct makes for a single class, but better than nothing).

I would certainly try to negotiate a higher salary.  What does your faculty/employee manual say about FT teaching loads vs. overtime/overload courses?

[archman]

Heh, here at regional state uni, VAP's don't even get contracts.

[rekishi]

I was a VAP at a R1 for two years (several years ago). I got a token raise my second year without asking. The teaching load remained the same.

I saw the VAP position open two years later (the person they hired left after one year) for even more money.

[educator1]

I was hired as a FT Lecturer with a 4/4 load. When I taught 5 classes, I was given overload.
A few years back, when it may have been necessary to dismiss one or two lecturers, a few of us were asked to accept a FT load as 3/3 with a reduction in salary. I accepted but have frequently taught 4/4 but now it comes with overload and comes out more than before. I will be teaching 3 in Fall but will have FT benefits.

[new_bus_prof]

Here they have the contracts based on teaching so many semester hours, e.g. 12. Instead of changing contracts, admin has ingeniously come up with changing how many credit hours classes are. Class times still meet the same as before, but we teach more classes.

[boolos]

My load didn't change, but the lecturers went from 3/3 or 3/4 to 5/5 without a pay increase.  This is the trend that I hear about from friends elsewhere in the country as well.

[archman]

My load didn't change, but the lecturers went from 3/3 or 3/4 to 5/5 without a pay increase.  This is the trend that I hear about from friends elsewhere in the country as well.

Yeah, lecturers and adjuncts often don't get representation. At my uni, there is upper-level admin talk about not renewing lecturers after three years of employment. The argument given for this was that there would no longer be any long-duration lecturers around to organize the other lecturers as a unified body.

Some of the lecturers unified last semester and were very outspoken at formal university staff/faculty meetings. Apparently, the higher admin didn't appreciate this.

[peanuttyxx]

I work somewhere where I'm not on the TT. This year, we have all been required to take on another class for the same pay. People on the tt were not. I'm interested in knowing if you have seen a difference in teaching loads for TT and not TT.

[msparticularity]

They have done this at my old institution, also, which is in a state that has been particularly hard hit by economic downturn. Job descriptions and expectations for renewable positions can, of course, be rewritten each year, while faculty contracts require renegotiation.