Job Title: Senior Professor
Location: Kansas City, MO
Submitted on: 27-Feb-05
|
|
Job Title |
Workplace
Survey |
| Senior Professor |
DeVry is owned by two very sharp entrepreneurs. Ron Taylor and Dennis
Keller. They have made millions taking government guaranteed student
loan money to educate students in mostly "High Tech" programs. The
cost at DeVry is about 250% of a state university. In spite of the
high cost a well trained and numbers driven "admissions department"
sells students the dream. The dream of big money jobs, a compressed
completion schedule and a faculty that has "real world experience".
Until the dot com bust the job placement rate was very high (but any
graduate in electronics, computers, and t-com from any state school
also equivalent numbers). DeVry faculty are the real workhorses in the
system teaching abot 2-3 times as many credits per year as a
traditional for about the same pay. Many of the faculty did a very
good job but many more were so burned out or hired just to fill a slot
that the quality of teaching really disintegrated in the late 90's.
Assigned hours extended from 7am to 11pm and into Saturdays. The
administration was filled with mostly failed instructors or middle
management hack from local industry. They viewed the faculty as
factory workers that did not merit any input into the system.
Unfortunately this group of slaves could not only read but had Masters
Degrees. The support staff usually resented the faculty for their
cushy schedules (You only "work" 20 hours per week). The Deans were
simply a buffer to keep unhappy students from complaining too loudly.
If a large number of students got low grades in a class then the
instructor was called on the carpet for review. The sales force did
not openly lie about the programs but they did not always tell the
exact
truth. When the student enrolled under misleading pretenses and became
disgruntled... Complain to a dean and the faculty will be
reprimanded. The corporate culture was something from the 1950's.
Total Sloane pyramid structure with all decisions being made by the
local president (Marketing Mgr). I remember sitting in a staff meeting
and being lectured about the need for faculty to begin to participate
in local industry group meeting (on our own time and expense). The
idea was to spread the DeVry gospel to local hiring managers. We asked
for business cards so we could hand them out at the meetings. The Dean
looked puzzled and then suggested that we take some of his and write
our names on the back. The $15 outlay finally got approved a few
months later by the president but only after a requirement that we
document the meeting attended and who got the cards. In spite of the
250% teaching load Administration decided that faculty should begin to
become more involved in the recruiting process (on our own time for no
pay). The reward was a sandwich and a T-Shirt for a whole Saturday
spent shilling for the sales force. The second time around I asked for
a 2nd T-shirt and was told "Only one per faculty". It finally reached
the point that students were simply attending when they felt like it
and the instructor was expected to backtrack and reteach anything the
student missed 1 on 1 (again on faculty time, for no pay). Late night
phone calls at home just before a test were just part of being
concerned about student success. I actuall had a student tell me that
she would be gone for entire week because she had a chance to make some
money in a Quintiles Clinical Research project. Another student
stopped coming on Mondays and Fridays because the airline she worked
p/t for let her fly to Vegas for free. In the name of profit the tail
began to wag the dog. I understand that DeVry has recently purchased a
combination Medical School and Veterinary College some where in the
Carribean. I am not sure I would take myself or my dog to some
Rastifarian inspired graduate that got through a system that modulates
academic quality on the stock shares.
|
|
DeVry University Interview Surveys
