Winter Money

The reason why I signed up to teach a winter course is because normally the money it makes goes directly to your department. Last year, we made enough in winter to buy everybody a printer and all the books and movies they could wish for. It was so nice! Membership fees, journal subscriptions, research materials, gadgets – I could pay for everything. We don’t get any money for any of it otherwise. And there’s always stuff you need. I have photocopy costs from the National Library of Spain. A colleague is in Film Studies and needs boatloads of movies. And so on.

But now we aren’t getting any of this money. Bupkes, zero dollars zero cents. These winter courses are hard to prepare and teach. We teach 7 days a week from December 20 to January 8. And of course we were only told that the money was being taken away after we signed our contracts and students registered, so it’s too late to get out of it.

I only have 10 students in the winter course but a colleague has 65. Imagine the grading and everything. He only took it on to help the department.

This is “free college.” Thank you, Governor Pritzker.