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[sugaree]

Yes, I can. The adjunct is going to cancel class again tonight due to illness, but will give students an online assignment instead. This is not ideal, but I obviously can't force her to come in to teach if she is ill and there is no one who can substitute (both because it's short notice, and because this is a sabbatical replacement position, so the only person in the dept. who teaches in the field is not here). This is equivalent to the total of 6 missed 50 minute class periods (back to back cancellations) and she let students out early at least twice (and possibly more) in the first six weeks of the semester. So, if I'm estimating on the conservative side, this is 8 missed class meetings and the semester is only barely half over. I think this is unacceptable.

Like kedves, I too have taught 3-hour evening courses (and once, a 4-hour course) and have done so after teaching back-to-back 75 minute afternoon courses (and I did it as a VAP, so it wasn't a TT commitment that informed my work). I know it's exhausting and I realize the format of the evening block course isn't great for this level of survey course. The former Dean, who hired the adjunct, was trying to be accommodating (she has a 45-minute commute and felt once/week would be easier for her). None of us in the dept. were consulted on this decision when it happened, and I certainly would have counselled against it had I known. But that ship has sailed and now we have to complete the semester. We can't change the scheduling of the course now (and even if we tried, what about the students who arranged schedules according to a once/week meeting? How is it fair to try to switch that up now?).

I was trying to be cautious and fair and respect the autonomy of the instructor when I posted my initial query (and again, thanks to the fora for the good discussion - it was helpful to me). But I expected her to respond with the same sense of responsibility that I, and my colleagues here at a SLAC, share about teaching. My mistake. Now, I'm just trying to get through things.

[kedves]

What a difficult situation.  Wishing you serenity and a happier-than-usual last day of classes.

[sugaree]

What a difficult situation.  Wishing you serenity and a happier-than-usual last day of classes.

Thank you. I imagine bourbon will be involved.

[cgfunmathguy]

I realize that I'm coming to this late and that the situation is more fully known. However, I'd like to add a scenario for future consideration of this problem.

Scenario: FT faculty member, who is never on campus at night, complains that one of the adjuncts is letting his two-hour, twice-a-week class out early every night.

Reality: After staying and talking to said adjunct one night, I discovered that s/he would cover the material in the first half of class and would have the students do problems during the second half. This allowed the adjunct to make sure that there were no questions from students about the material. The students who left early (at the break) refused to do the problems (and were earning the lowest grades in the class). I checked several times after this and found it to be true. There were four or five every night who stuck around to do problems in case they needed help.

It turned out that the adjunct fully covered the material and that his/her students passed the exit exam for the course (this was in developmental mathematics) at the same rate as the students of the complaining FT faculty member. No problem existed, and complaining faculty member was shut down the next time s/he made the complaint.

[kedves]

In this case, it was the students who complained.

[cgfunmathguy]

In this case, it was the students who complained.

I do realize this. The FT faculty member in my scenario was acting on information she received (and fully misinterpreted) from students. Whether these were complaints is hard to say.

[rear_view_mirror]

"None of us in the dept. were consulted on this decision when it happened, and I certainly would have counselled against it had I known. But that ship has sailed and now we have to complete the semester. We can't change the scheduling of the course now (and even if we tried, what about the students who arranged schedules according to a once/week meeting? How is it fair to try to switch that up now?)."

I was not intending to suggest that the course meeting time could/should be changed now. Out of the question. And sorry if that's what was conveyed. I meant that starting next semester, the course could possibly meet for two 1 1/2 hour sessions weekly, making it easier on the next teacher and department chair?
It's well and good to say the students who don't want to stay for a full three hour evening class have the wrong attitude. But if you then say that you have sympathy for the teacher putting in a grueling workday (particularly an adjunct who may be older) then some amount of sympathy for the students may be warranted too.
Adversity builds character. But what does avoidable adversity build?
I guess I'm straying from the subject in that one of the questions that nags at me is why strange and unproductive policies that exist in academia get continued. And it seems that a picture has emerged of the problematic three hour evening course (arguably.)
That's not to deny that the teacher is taking advantage.

[gbrown]

I've only been a teaching chair for 1 year, but have been teaching at the postsecondary level for 10 years. The way our department deals with this sort of thing is to have the person who is supposed to observe and evaluate the adjunct faculty member schedule an (extra) visit to do that.

At my college, this is my job, but at others, it's a department chair or associate dean's job. In any case, that person should sit in on the adjunct's class for the entire time. I realize, of course, that if an adjunct knows they're being observed, they may not do what they usually do (let the students go early or whatever). But the good news is that this serves as a kind of write-up for what is going on. What I mean is that if an adjunct is letting students go an hour early, they may have other issues as well (not using varied teaching strategies, lack of assessment, poor classroom management skills), so the observation helps in addressing these areas.

After I observe, I sit with the adjunct instructor for a half hour or so and allow them to review my write up and ask questions... this gives me a time to state something like, "Oh, I taught a Tuesday night class last year... it was so hard to fill up the 3 hour session. How do you do it?" Often an adjunct will tell me that they use part of the class for a workshop style course... this lets me say something gentle like, "It sounds like you're using the class time well. I know when I taught xx class last year, it was so tempting to just let students go early, but I was careful not to do that. You know how our administration is..."

In a few cases, they've admitted outright that they let students go early; this gives me a way in to help them figure out what to do with all that time. And I always refer to them to meet with other instructors (and do other prof dev) so that they can get ideas of how other instructors pace their classroom time. I'm not sure why instructors fall to letting students go an hour early... but figuring out what might be behind it could help--is it people pleasing? Exhaustion from teaching too many courses with too many colleges? Laziness? A form of "reward" if students are doing well? In any case, a visit or two each semester usually slows this desire for the easy way out... and instructors often figure out what's behind increased visits... that someone has blown the whistle. If anything, this "stick" approach could be enough to make a change.

It's sort of depressing, but I hope a bit of what I've described gives you some ideas.

[der_gadfly]

I have a Saturday only class, meets three hours. I start on time, and usually keep them till the end. On a few occasions, I finished up early (15 minutes) and once, I had to hit the road to be somewhere 300 miles away, so I let them go an hour ahead BUT with a homework assignment.

I commute close to 75 minutes one way for this paltry job, and even went in after taking a seriously bad fall in a snowstorm. had a fever another day and went in.

Not a lot of sympathy here for the adjunct with the 45 minute commute and the headcold.

[bibliothecula]

I wonder if a partial solution would be to allow the adjunct to teach the remainder of the course as an online course. If she's assigning online exercises and so on when she's ill, maybe she'd be more comfortable teaching that way and have better ways of filling the time in a productive manner.

I also wonder if she has some sort of chronic or severe illness that she's trying to deal with this semester. She many not want to discuss it with the administration for fear of not being hired again, but might be having problems getting through a three-hour block physically.

Finally, if she's sending students to the library for work during class hours, it might be helpful to ask someone on the library staff or even a library work-study student who's available during her class time to partner with her to help students with assignments or library-centered tasks, allowing the adjunct to take a second short break during the time slot. This would help the adjunct if she's ill, and help the students no matter what the instructor's situation is.