Comments on Rejected by U of P

• Comments on "Rejected by U of P"
• Posted by Tony Mitchell on February 8, 2010 at 6:30am EST

• I had applied for a on-line teaching position with the U of P system and was accepted. But I quit during the training process.

  It seemed to me that their training process was more directed towards getting the instructors to do it their way, rather than teach the subject material. I evaluated a hypothetical student's assignment and gave it a rather low grade. But the instructor in the training program said that it was really worth a high grade and provided a critique of the evaluation that basically had the instructor re-writing the student's paper.

  There were other factors involved as well. They make it clear that they will be monitoring the faculty member most of the time without letting the faculty member know this is happening. To me, that is unacceptable. I don't mind an administrator stepping into my classroom but I want to know that they are there, not hiding somewhere.

   

  My conclusion was that they were trying to find a way to turn teaching into an assembly line process and that's not something I want to be a part of

• Combo platter
• Posted by Barry on February 8, 2010 at 8:45am EST

• My first thoughts at the top of the article were exactly what you put into your two speculations. However. I think there might also be validity in Tony's thoughts about monitoring the faculty member. An experienced academic is far less likely to agree with the idea of their work being heavily scrutinized, whereas someone from business and industry is used to that as a normal operating procedure.
  Looking for less nefarious reasons - were you responding to an advert for open positions? If not, it could just be that they are currently fully staffed in your area of expertise. But I doubt it.

• Posted by Linda Aragoni at http://www.you-can-teach-writing.com on February 8, 2010 at 9:00am EST

• University of Phoenix hires for professional expertise as indicated by your pay stubs. UoP's entire marketing strategy is based on instruction by people "in the field" not by those "in the ivory towers." They do not regard teaching as professional experience except for those applying to teach education courses.

  I taught for UofP online for about 5 years and had some great students and many good experiences. That said, however, the UoP approach is a business model predicated on an inexhaustible supply of instructors.

• UoP instructors
• Posted by Rebecca Hedreen , Library Coordinator for Distance Learning at Southern CT State Univ on February 8, 2010 at 9:45am EST

• I got a degree (MAEd) from UoP and most of my instructors were "in the field" types. Principals, instructional designers, educational technologists, trainers of various types...a few community college professors. A few of the educational technology people were from 4 year colleges or universities, I think, but there were few traditional academics.

  It was a good program, and I had several excellent instructors, but I don't think it would be something most faculty would be happy doing. The only influence that the instructor has is supplement readings and personality. I dropped out of one course and took the next offering of the same course; it was exactly the same (except I wasn't moving and I enjoyed working with the second instructor much more.)

  I always suspected that the hiring process was more like adjunct work--the right specialty at the right time. Obviously the training process is more elaborate. Maybe they have enough of whatever category they decided you fit into--academics, learning technologists, or whatever.

• The U of P does not want academics
• Posted by Piss Poor Prof , www.burntoutadjunct.wordpress.com on February 8, 2010 at 10:15am EST

• The UofP is not interested in academics. They are a business and business succeeds on conformity, of following orders, of passing the item on down the line. Or at least that is one version of the business model, which is the one promulgated by the UofP.

  Don't feel poorly about not being let it--it is not a club you would much care for. They don't like free-thinking, will over-monitor your class, and, over time, suck your free-thinking spirit from you (watch Office Space for some pop-reference insight).

  The students at the UofP, at least the older ones (and there are a lot of non-trads) know the system, probably better than you, and a class can often twist into a management of policy (did I log in enough, did I write enough, my group didn't do any of the work...).

  Consider it a dodged bullet.

• Hiring practices at career institutions
• Posted by Stephen King on February 8, 2010 at 10:30am EST

• I've neither worked nor hired for UoP, but I have hired faculty for a similar institution before. "Assembly line" is a bit of a harsh way of describing it, but it is true that many educational institutions these days are trying to ensure the student's experience is a consistent one regardless of which section that student is enrolled into.

  That said, there are all sorts of reasons you may have been rejected. I've rejected some awfully well-qualified faculty applicants before, sometimes on the basis of lack of real world experience, and sometimes on the basis of tone. On the flip side, I vividly recall one case where I wished, after the fact, that I'd rejected the application...the "red flags" were there, tone-wise, but I ignored them in favor of the applicant's background and recommendations.

  I have no basis, of course, for saying anything about your application...all I'm doing is expressing how important the way you approach the institution is.

• I too have been rejected.
• Posted by Bryan , Assistant Vice President on February 8, 2010 at 2:00pm EST

• I have both the academic as well as business credentials in addition to significant experience in both areas and I too was rejected. At initital glance, it would seem your assertions were correct. They are the only ones to know what their staffing model looks like. Good luck in your search!!

  Have you tried Kaplan?

• I rejected them
• Posted by Daniel , Librarian and library science instructor on February 8, 2010 at 9:00pm EST

• I never even filled out the application when I saw the salary schedule was less than 25% of what I earned as an online instructor at another place. I did teach for another proprietary school for one course. The experience was awful. The administration was more concerned with happy customers than with student learning. Rehiring was based on student evaluations. If you made the cutoff point you were rehired for the next semester. That is a lot of power given to the students. That place is the only school I ever considered walking away in the middle of a term.

• university of phooey
• Posted by susan fisher , associate director student legal services at university of north texas on February 9, 2010 at 11:00am EST

• I was accepted, but chose to decline later on in the training process: transparency is just a bad idea at U. of P. I should have realized when their training sessions became something entirely different than described (each meeting fleshed out an additional committment component) that the experience for their students might be similar; in the name of "distance learning" U. of P. leaned on their students to supply necessary state requirments for "face time". The very people who needed online instruction the most found themselves enmeshed in classes which were largely "group" efforts necessitating, in North Texas, miles and miles of travel for students to meet up on their own time to fulfill class requirements.

  The night we listened to yet another round of "news" for instructors and finished off with a "trust circle" in which we threw a ball to each other was just too much for me: soviet nonsense comes at a high price for these students.

• Benefit?
• Posted by JustMe on February 9, 2010 at 4:30pm EST

• Based on the criticism of the University of Phoenix, I have to wonder what students at proprietary get out of their classes and how these credentials are received by employers, maybe it just depends on the field and the employer though.

• University of Phoenix's Faculty Hiring Process
• Posted by Manny Rivera , Director, Public Affairs at University of Phoenix on February 10, 2010 at 5:30pm EST

• Josh,
  
  In reading the above blog post, I wanted to provide you with some additional information regarding the hiring practices and requirements for faculty members at University of Phoenix.
  
  As you may know, University of Phoenix students are instructed primarily by practitioner faculty who hold advanced degrees and work in the field in which they teach in order to impart the most relevant, applicable and real-world education. The University employs a centrally-managed curriculum that is informed by outcomes aligned to professional standards and developed by content experts who are part of our cadre of more than 28,000 faculty.
  
  To qualify as a University of Phoenix faculty member, candidates must meet the following minimum criteria:

  -- Have a master's or doctoral degree from a regionally accredited U.S. institution (or the international equivalent) related to the subject the applicant wishes to teach. (Some courses require a doctoral degree.)

  -- Have work experience related to the subject the applicant wishes to teach. Requirements vary by course and program.
  
  In addition to regional accreditation, a number of programs at the University have a programmatic accreditation. The programmatic accrediting bodies often superimpose additional requirements such as a minimum number of credits earned in a particular content area.
  
  As with any organization, University of Phoenix open teaching positions are limited in number based on current instructional needs. In other words, there are generally more qualified applicants than there are open positions, and therefore, not all qualified applicants are offered a position.
  
  Once an applicant submits his/her information, the University reviews it to determine if the candidate may meet the University’s current instructional needs. Initially each candidate's stated experience and academic preparation are compared to the established regulatory requirements for each program and specific content area where new faculty members are needed.
  
  If an applicant’s qualifications do match with the content area requirements and the University’s instructional needs, the applicant may be contacted to continue the application process and be interviewed. If, following interviews, an applicant is selected to be a faculty candidate, he or she may receive more than two months of training and evaluation, including a “mentored" stage where the candidate is paired with a seasoned faculty member, called an instructional mentor, who will coach and evaluate the candidate while the candidate is teaching an actual course. Pending a positive recommendation from the instructional mentor and the Mentorship Team, a candidate is invited to become a faculty member of University of Phoenix. Only after a positive recommendation or a decline will the application process be considered complete.
  
  Thank you very much for your interest in teaching with us. Because University of Phoenix is constantly changing and growing, additional faculty positions may open in the future. For this reason I would encourage you to regularly visit our website where our current recruiting needs are listed.
  
  I hope this helps better explain our faculty application process.
  
  Best regards,
  
  Manny Rivera
  Director, Public Affairs

• I love UOP
• Posted by Mary Allbright , Doctoral Learner at University of Phoenix on March 1, 2010 at 8:15am EST

• I have to say that I love UOP. Without UOP I would never have had the opportunity to earn my bachelor's, master's, and now my doctorate degree. I have been attending UOP since 2002 and have had nothing but excellent instructors along my educational journey. I have learned from the best in their chosen professional fields and am glad that their credentials included real life work experience rather than just book knowledge.I have only had one or two negative experiences with instructors and once a complaint was filed by students the instructors were monitored and retrained to follow the very high standards that UOP sets for faculty and students. I just want to say that just because you were rejected by UOP that just means that the requirements of working in the field you want to teach about should be a thought provoking challenge to get that experience and reapply when you have the required time in experience to be a faculty member at UOP.

• Mysteriously Dropped by UOP Online
• Posted by Connie Graham on March 15, 2010 at 4:30pm EDT

• I was a graduate and undergraduate faculty member from 2000-2004, when the University changed its scheduling practices. Up until then, I was given ongoing multiple classes in several disciplines (GEN, MGT, Web Design and e-Business), I had good evaluations, and enjoyed my facilitating experience. After the change in faculty scheduling, (it was to a "don't call us, we'll contact you IF your profile is interesting" method), I never heard from anyone again, EVER, even though UOP needed faculty with my credentials (supply chain, e-business, etc). A contributory reason to being dropped from any schedule may have been that I had some UOP staff members who were difficult students in one class. I felt that they may have been able to put something negative in my faculty record or to put my name on the "do not call list" somehow, since I know that UOP will work with valued facilitators who need remedial training, and I never heard anything negative at all. My reasoning for this is that in a previous class, I was being set up for a shellacking by some UOP staff students who objected to not being given "A"s (I saw what they were saying in the team rooms), but I alerted the faculty advisors (I forget the exact title now) who saw what was happening and intervened.

• Creepy.
• Posted by William Dickie , Student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on June 14, 2010 at 3:45pm EDT

• Wanted to point out the response by the UOP representative and the "student" from UOP getting her PHD online..(questionable) sounded very contrived and programmed. Who has ever heard of a student being so one-sided about their college experience?
  "I have learned from the best in their chosen professional fields and am glad that their credentials included real life work experience rather than just book knowledge."Sounds like propaganda explaining why UOP doesn't accept people that were professors. Who the hell is to define "real life experience"? That sounds very creepy and "salesman"like. Who is to say what a valuable experience is? PHEW MY TEACHER DIDN'T JUST LEARN FROM A BOOK, LIKE THOSE CRAZY PROFESSORS AT COLLEGES. Presumptuous.
  "I have only had one or two negative experiences with instructors and once a complaint was filed by students the instructors were monitored and retrained to follow the very high standards that UOP sets for faculty and students."Monitored and retrained?? Is this the KGB?

• UOP vs. QU
• Posted by Dr. Kring on February 11, 2011 at 11:30am EST
• You obviously do not understand the mentality or lack thereof of administrators at online universities. Many of them lack a PhD or have an online degree themselves in some esoteric field like Education and an equally low salary to go with it. They obviously confused University of Quinipec [sp] with Miskatonic University and thought you might be dabbling in the supranatural.