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[fosca]

I don't mean professors teaching for online-only colleges (or at least not the for-profit colleges I've heard about); I mean teaching for a SLAC or CC or whatever, but online only.  I'd like to hear from anyone else who's already blazed this path.  Particularly things about salary and duties and suchlike--how does it work when a person may not even be living in the same state as the school when it comes to committees and such?  Anybody done this?

Thanks!

[zuzu_]

My CC has a strong online program. We have one tenured prof who teaches 95% online. I think he might teach one course on campus every year or maybe even every other year. But he lives locally and holds at least 5-6 office hours on campus (it actually seems to me like he's around even more than that) and does some committee work. He is also required to attend in-service stuff and faculty meetings.

His salary is just like any other prof's, but he actually makes more because our negotiated contract pays an extra per-credit-hour stipend for teaching online.

I am a big proponent of online education when it's done right, and ideally I would eventually like to have <50% of my own (huge) courseload online, but even I am skeptical about how well this could possibly work if you live out of state--particularly in a teaching-focused institution like a CC or a SLAC.

[dept_geek]

Several people in my dept. (CC) teach 100% online. However, by contract, we are required to be on campus for office hours and meetings (the combination of the two could be as much as 20 hrs/week). In addition, no one can guarantee a 100% online schedule from term to term.  Salaries for 100% on campus and 100% online (or anywhere in between) are the same.   

FWIW, my load is 80% online this term.  My students still want to stop by my office even though their class is online. Office hours can't be virtual here.

The thing you seek is not possible at myCC. 

[onion]

At a former university, there was an associate prof who taught entirely online.  They taught in a largely professional grad program that offered a lot of classes on-site at night, and the prof made a convincing case that online would serve their students better.  Moreover, this prof was getting ready to go through some nasty cancer treatments, and the uni (which was an awful place and wouldn't give much medical leave or the prof would lose insurance) told them that if they developed the three main courses for the program for online delivery, and monitored the classes, and hired and supervised the adjuncts who taught them, that they could go on and have their chemo.  In any event, the program has flourished under this prof's leadership, and is nearly entirely online now.  This person, however, is on campus quite a bit (and doing fine now) as they served as the graduate program director and eventually became the unit chair for this program.  The adjuncts who teach the courses are hard to locate, but they are adjuncts, after all, and have no duty beyond the individual course.

I know of another university that allows its history profs to teach entirely online, but this is reserved for mostly full profs who are moving near retirement and they take away their offices (they have space issues) and these people are almost never on campus. 

At yet another uni with a horrible maternity leave policy (3 or 4 weeks), they would just shift pregnant profs to online course for the corresponding semester.

I *think* these are unique situations and not at all generalizable (but I could be totally wrong).  In my experience, at a brick-and-mortar university, it would be tough to get your whole teaching load online unless you had extenuating circumstances, and even then, you'd be expected to participate in the life of the dept and university.

[fosca]

Thank you for your input.  Actually, I can definitely be scheduled for all online, since I'm the person who makes up the schedule for my subject (which I can also do at a distance--about the only things I can't do from a distance are committees and all-hands meetings).  I do occasionally see my online students in office hours, but not often, and I can definitely keep a local phone number and hold "phone office hours", as well as answering online questions.

[sporosarcina]

I think you will find it difficult to get a tenured position of this type, though you might morph a position into it after achieving tenure.  There is typically an expectation of service to your college and community for tenure that will mean substantial f2f time on campus.

[mountainguy]

The only full-time tenured people I know who teach entirely online moved to such a system only long after getting tenure. It's much more common for people to teach mostly online, with a few interactive television classes or F2F grad seminars thrown in.

I do know of one or two non-TT lecturers who teach full-time online, but it is rare. They tend to work at universities that serve students in isolated areas. PM me if you want me to name institutions.

[spec2462]

They don't allow this on my campus. We have an unofficial rule that full-time instructors have to teach 3 on campus classes spread over 3 days per week (per semester), even if that means they teach overload to meet that requirement (case in point, I have 4 classes online and so must teach 3 classes on campus spread over three days even though 2 of them are above load). It makes no sense. Our college pushed and pushed for online classes, and then now have backed away from them and those of us who blazed the trail like we are second class citizens. I grew our online program to the point where I can no longer handle it by myself, got accolades, and now get the cold shoulder.

[jon_margerumleys]

I teach entirely on line most semesters and have done so for several years.  I'm a tenured associate prof at a mid-sized Midwestern university, going up for full this year.  My record for being farthest "out of town" while teaching is Lima, Peru.  See http://people.emich.edu/jmargerum/Mariner/Mariner.html for pictures from that trip.  It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I cleared with my dean and department head first.  In semesters when I have a low service requirement, I commute much less as well.  Three years ago, just to see if I could do it, I went an entire month on one tank of gas, as I wasn't going to campus much that semester.  Teaching online takes more time than teaching face to face, but the flexibility more than makes up for it for me.

All that said, I live twenty miles west of campus and am careful to be on campus several days per week.  I wouldn't recommend trying to get tenure while living at a distance.  As others have mentioned, it is likely to be impossible to fulfill your service requirements without being on campus.

Another issue to consider (and this may be particular to me) is student evaluations.  Mine are very good, but not as high as they were when I taught face to face.  That may be related to my skill set--I'm a better talker than writer.  However, my sense is that on line students, because they don't know me, have less incentive to not bash me in their student evaluations.  A student who would have seen me twice a week in a face to face class and known me as a person might _never_ see me in an online class and might feel free to give a lower evaluation than she would have had she known me.

Bottom line?  You can get tenure and promotion while teaching all or nearly all online.  However, the service part of your work won't change just because you're teaching online and that is likely to mean that you'll need to live within commuting distance of campus.

Jon

[prytania3]

I teach at a cc and we have a couple of tenured folk who teach entirely online. They were not hired for this purpose, but there is no rule against it. They are in the minority, though.

[kshenko]

At most traditional universities, the admins appear to be pushing to offer more online courses because the "profit" margin is larger.

At my traditional slightly-above-average state university, we are encouraged to offer some of the pre-existing courses entirely online (of course, there are courses that just cannot effectively be offered strictly online right now--e.g., lab courses).  So, if you're assigned online-friendly courses and you choose to teach them online, you technically won't have to be on campus to teach.  So, like what prytania3 says, your position may not really be "online faculty" per se, but there are no rules preventing you from the possibility of teaching entirely online at my institution.

However, as TT/tenured professor, you are expected to attend all faculty and committee meetings, office hours, etc. physically.

[prytania3]

At most traditional universities, the admins appear to be pushing to offer more online courses because the "profit" margin is larger.

At my traditional slightly-above-average state university, we are encouraged to offer some of the pre-existing courses entirely online (of course, there are courses that just cannot effectively be offered strictly online right now--e.g., lab courses).  So, if you're assigned online-friendly courses and you choose to teach them online, you technically won't have to be on campus to teach.  So, like what prytania3 says, your position may not really be "online faculty" per se, but there are no rules preventing you from the possibility of teaching entirely online at my institution.

However, as TT/tenured professor, you are expected to attend all faculty and committee meetings, office hours, etc. physically.

Oh yes. You cannot do meetings on line. Hahaha.

[evelynting]

Georgia Perimeter College has over 50 full-time, fully online faculty who are either tenured or on a tenure track.

http://diverseeducation.com/article/11916/at-georgia-perimeter-college-online-teaching-has-its-benefits-tenure.html

http://www.gpc.edu

We are a two-year, academic college in the University System of Georgia, located in the metro Atlanta area.   Online faculty report to disciplinary deans and their scheduling is coordinated by a campus department chair. The online program is coordinated by an administrator working closely with the academics.

[larryc]

That is really interesting, but the article is from 2005 and seems to be describing something pretty new at the time. Does anyone know how this has worked out?

[wsr88d]

I don't mean professors teaching for online-only colleges (or at least not the for-profit colleges I've heard about); I mean teaching for a SLAC or CC or whatever, but online only.  I'd like to hear from anyone else who's already blazed this path.  Particularly things about salary and duties and suchlike--how does it work when a person may not even be living in the same state as the school when it comes to committees and such?  Anybody done this?

Thanks!

Yes - actually a Community College out in AZ just hired a series of FT online professors for their Distance Learning Program in various subject areas (Math/History/English/Science)...their only requirement was that the FT professor, as part of their hiring agreement was to relocate to AZ so they could partake in faculty meetings, conferences, etc.
I teach for them as an adjunct in the sciences... but was not notified of this position when posted, which sucks because I would have applied - but then found out that me, and two other adjuncts in the sciences were put on "as-needed" basis only from here on out due to the fact that the FT online prof gets the 5/5 teaching load first and if any leftover or additional classes exist - then we are called based on hiring date.