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Banking and Stacking

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Clarissa

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So after the enriching discussion on the evils of online learning with my students, I went to the meeting of the Faculty Congress of which I am a member. There I discovered that my colleagues are passionate, brilliant people with great insights into the problems plaguing our university. I also learned of two new practices that our administration is trying to impose on us. One practice is called “banking.” It means that if one of your courses doesn’t get the required number of students to enroll (say, you get 14 students instead of 15), you are forced to teach that course for free. Meaning, for no money. For free.

“Stacking” means that a 300 and a 400-level course are rolled into one with the goal of getting rid of professors.

Obviously, these news suck. But my colleagues rock. So that’s good.

Now, I will be celebrating by eating roast duck decorated with Buddha’s Hand and rambutan. (My husband have a tradition of celebratory dinners 2 or 3 times a week.)

All would be well if only I weren’t so damn exhausted. I feel like I’m walking through fog because of how tired I am. I’m so tired that I can’t even fall asleep. In the future, if anybody suggests that you go without a summer vacation, send those idiots to hell in a basket. I did it this year and now I’m completely useless. My classes are fantastic (the best course selection I’ve ever had), my research is exciting, I have so many fun things to do, a new house to decorate, a car to explore the area, but I can enjoy nothing because I feel completely dead.

Please don’t recommend vitamins. I’m already taking vitamins and supplements prescribed to me by my doctor. And when I ask the doctor why I feel so exhausted, he looks at me like I’m an idiot and asks in a very concerned voice, “But what did you expect after the year that you’ve had?”

32 responses to “Banking and Stacking”

  1. Pen Avatar
    Pen

    If you have to teach a course that didn’t reach its cap for free, does that mean that for every course that goes over the cap you get paid more money?

    I dearly hope neither of these policies goes into effect. They’re completely ridiculous.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Oh no, absolutely not. Nobody gets paid more for doing better.

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      1. Pen Avatar
        Pen

        Do administrators get off on trying to use teachers and professors like tools? You’re a bit of a finite resource–you’d think that would mean they would fear you guys enough to only suggest options which are somehow beneficial (if not outright detrimental) to the educators.

        P.S. – My book is coming tomorrow! So excited! 😀

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          Yay! Have fun with the project!!

          Expecting administrators to understand anything is too optimistic, in my opinion.

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  2. j. Avatar
    j.

    do you have a thing to read (an irate one hopefully) on the internet about ‘banking’ and ‘stacking’? knowledge of the apt phrases to search for (to hit on THIS ‘practice’) eludes me. (lotta ‘banking model of education’, ‘banking education’ ie education in the operation of money-banks, etc.) but it sounds horrifying.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I heard of this for the first time today. Bit knowing how timid and mousy academics are, this must certainly be going on massively and for a long time. And everybody is terrified of some imaginary threat and doesn’t say a word.

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    2. Jones Avatar
      Jones

      j: These phrases come to us via Paulo Freire, who wrote “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, which might actually have some bearing here in an oblique way …

      I somehow doubt the labour laws where Clarissa works allow coerced work without pay, so the “banking” phrase is probably a cynical statement by those who believe they’re in charge, believing they’ll make “bank” for the bonuses they crave.

      Of course, you could have fun with this by announcing courses you’d gleefully teach for “free”:

      “Intellectual Terrorism in an Age of Academic Dishonesty”
      “The Academic Intifada: Seizing Control of the Idea Refineries”
      “The Collegiate Suez Crisis: The Fall of Managerial Imperialism”

      [sinister grin] 🙂

      Actually, have you read Max Barry’s “Company”? Your university may actually be a cleverly cloaked “management study” … 🙂

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      1. j. Avatar
        j.

        yes, jones, i recognized those, which was why i was thinking there must be an unrelated technocratic/administrative reformist line on ‘banking’ etc somewhere out there, since managerial jargon is never found in the wild far from some effort to ‘strategize’ it after the manner of actual thinking. but i relish reading about this stuff, like a dumb masochist, and i’m surprised not to recall seeing this instance, using this jargon, before.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          The word banking means that you “bank” your courses until the time the combined enrollments get to some specific number, after which you get paid.

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  3. djiril Avatar
    djiril

    “It means that if one of your courses doesn’t get the required number of students to enroll (say, you get 14 students instead of 15), you are forced to teach that course for free. Meaning, for no money. For free.”
    So… Why do they expect that teachers will come in to work if they’re not getting paid?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Some of the teachers are doing it already. And they have a bizillion “good” reasons to do it. Of course, at first the administration targeted the most mousy, sheepish ones. The next step is to say to everybody else that this is an established practice since many people are doing it already, etc.

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  4. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    Just when I think that higher education cannot be more debased in the quest for monetization…

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      We are not-for-profit. The motivations here are a lot more pathetic. Have you ever seen a dog stare at its owner with its tongue sticking out and a posture that most people associate with extreme faithfulness? That’s what the participants in this scheme are doing. They are panting at their owner, trying to ingratiate. The problem, of course, that the owner in question is located solely in their heads.

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  5. el Avatar
    el

    \\ It means that if one of your courses doesn’t get the required number of students to enroll (say, you get 14 students instead of 15), you are forced to teach that course for free.

    If the number of college students becomes smaller in the near future, as some predict, will you teach half / all your courses for free?

    It sounds completely insane. A school teacher wouldn’t suffer that, why would university professor?

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  6. TomW Avatar
    TomW

    My university has had a variation on ‘banking’ for several years now, though I never heard that term used for it. Our target is 16 students per course. If one of your courses falls short of that, they look at the other courses you taught that academic year. If you also taught some courses well over the target with 25 or 30, then having a smaller course is OK. But if all of your courses are near or below the target, you are forced to teach an extra course for free in the next academic year.

    This policy has really hurt faculty in small programs and faculty who teach specialized upper-level undergraduate courses and graduate courses. My department now has to keep enrollments in mind when setting up the curriculum, making sure that everyone gets at least one course that usually gets strong enrollments. This concern sometimes overrides what people want to teach, what people are good at teaching, and what we ought to be offering to our majors. It also means that important but less popular topics (things like literature before 1800) are being squeezed out of undergraduate majors.

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    1. Luna Avatar
      Luna

      Same here. Our class sizes are generally much larger than 15, but if all the classes you teach in an academic have less than a target enrollment, the chair has a word with you. Usually this translates to an extra class or an extra service task.

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      1. TomW Avatar
        TomW

        I wish this were handled by chairs, they at least have a sense of how much service a person is doing and how the courses fit in with the rest of the major. We have someone in the dean’s office monitoring and enforcing this stuff, and they act as if each faculty member has complete freedom about which courses to offer and should be offering more popular courses even if that means courses in their specialty (which is why they were hired in the first place) goes untaught.

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      2. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        Extra class means unpaid?? And people just accept that?

        Nobody has approached me with suggestions that I teach for free. Because if they did, I would raise an enormous stink. Which is why nobody approaches me with these suggestions, I guess.

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      3. TomW Avatar
        TomW

        Yes, teaching an extra class means teaching one more class than the normal load with no additional pay. I know that one person in my department has done this. I know that another was asked to do this and refused. Though the one who refused has since volunteered to teach lots of lower level courses that tend to get good numbers.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          People are too chicken to write what they think about such administrators even on anonymous evaluations. It is too weird.

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  7. Avatar
    Anonymous

    It’s difficult for academics to bite the hand that feeds them, so they tend to bite the hands of those who do not feed them. But if they are expected to work without compensation, they may start biting their masters’ hands.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      The hand that feeds us are students. And nobody seems to have a problem with disregarding their interests. Administrators don’t feed anybody. They do the exact opposite.

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  8. J. Otto Pohl Avatar
    J. Otto Pohl

    We get paid the same here regardless of how many courses or students we teach. At City Campus were we are paid extra per class there is a minimum of ten students or the class is dissolved. If only nine enroll we don’t get paid for it. But, we don’t have to teach it either.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      A colleague shared today that he was told, “Of course you can refuse to teach 3 uncompensated courses but then we will shut down your entire program.”

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  9. el Avatar
    el

    \\ And now please tell me, when you let your administrators extort free labor out of you, what’s your excuse?

    What should one do if

    A colleague shared today that he was told, “Of course you can refuse to teach 3 uncompensated courses but then we will shut down your entire program.”

    ?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Read my post on fallen leaves where I explained what to do.

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  10. David P. Bellamy Avatar
    David P. Bellamy

    Now, I will be celebrating by eating roast duck decorated with Buddha’s Hand and rambutan.

    I had never heard of either Buddha’s Hand or rambutan. How were they?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Both are amazing. Buddha’s Hand is like lemon peel but more fragrant. I put it in salads and in my tea. It’s also great to chew on to feel refreshed.

      Rambutan tastes like lychee. Very sweet.

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  11. David P. Bellamy Avatar
    David P. Bellamy

    Please don’t recommend vitamins. I’m already taking vitamins and supplements prescribed to me by my doctor.

    According to my brother in law, who is a successful M. D. and surgeon, medical doctors receive no training whatsoever in nutrition. I have heard that at some medical schools they get a day or so, but dietitians or naturopaths are the reliable sources of vitamin recommendations.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Very true. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a naturopath in the area and the only dietitian I have found is very unqualified. Her main recommendation is to eat peanut butter, popcorn, and margarine. And she is quite insistent with these suggestions.

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  12. David P. Bellamy Avatar
    David P. Bellamy

    Her main recommendation is to eat peanut butter, popcorn, and margarine. And she is quite insistent with these suggestions.

    That is terrifying. The margarine part, especially.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I know!!! I believe that I already eat a lot more healthily than these recommendations.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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