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[alpha_bet]

I just signed a year-long contract to teach X hours per semester. Looked at my schedule the next week and discovered: X+Y hours.

It's not just me, though. Almost everyone in the department's in the same position.

Who do I contact? What do I say? Is this legal grounds for my slipping out a semester early and moving on?

[watermarkup]

I'd check first with whoever makes the schedule. Maybe you'll teach 14 hours this semester and 10 hours next semester, or something like that.

If you're being paid for 12, but they want you to teach 14 hours both semesters, that's a serious problem with legal implications.

If you're on a 1-year contract, nothing should stop you from slipping out a semester early if you find a better (long term or TT) job.

[rear_view_mirror]

I have had this experience often and it is maddening. If you tell them you can't do that many hours, they will need to hire someone else, and then they may give the new person some of the hours they had promised you. Except you have the number of hours in your contract, so I don't see a problem. Can't you just tell them you are prepared to do exactly what's in the contract?

[merce]

I had this problem at a school where I was a VAP.

I had 12 hours and then half way through the semester the new chair said I should have been teaching 15. I said, Au Contraire and when he wouldn't back down I had the dean's office call and write and showed him my contract. Still he said I was cheating the university!!!
And I held my ground though the following semester he was trying to get me to do 5 classes.
He ended up not being able to. Phew.
But I was heaped with ridiculous extra-curricular non-sense which I did because I'm an idiot push-over.
Hold your ground.
God am I glad I didn't "win" the TT job there! And though TT have 4/4 and VAPs 5/5 usually it is a university not a CC.

[duchess_of_malfi]

I would go to the chair with "I'm confused.  I got my schedule...But my contract says..." Pause.  And wait to see what the chair says about it.

Is there a union, and are part-time or full-time contingent faculty (whichever you are) in it?

[larryc]

I would go to the chair with "I'm confused.  I got my schedule...But my contract says..." Pause.  And wait to see what the chair says about it.

If you want you can follow up with, "What is the pay for an overload of this size, anyway?"

You have a contract so are on relatively firm ground. However--do you need a letter of recommendation for these people? Do you hope to have the contract extended? And exactly how many hours are represented by "Y?"