University Administration promoting Inequality - You?

[tealady]

I just wondered if anyone else who teaches in a College/University setting has issues with administration.

The nursing faculty at our Community College has noted many times that there is an inequality in the way the College handles expectations of their faculty. For some reason, they believe that Health Sciences (ADN, RT, PT, OT) faculty should put in more hours, not questions decisions made, and are expected to handle larger class sizes "for the good of the students". This is not demanded of the other divisions on our campus. We are wondering if, because the faculty are predominately women, and nurses are thought of as "people pleasers willing to help anyone", they are taking advantage of that.

Anyone else experience this?

[lepew]

It's been that way at both colleges I have taught at. We always put in way more hours- with clinicals labs etc. you can't compare a math class to a nursing class or clinical. Not sure how to fix it. We have been trying though. Anyone else have suggestion or comments?

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

surely there are labs in computer science and other departments. May have to make a case for actual hours spent.

[Cheryl Louise]

Clinical hours are not loaded the same as classroom hours even though much more time is spent in clinical. Even clinical hours differ as the nursing instructor is with eight to ten students the entire time in the clinical setting and then has paperwork to correct each week. Other health sciences have preceptors with students and the instructor just makes rounds to see how things are going. I don't know how the loading for clinical came about but there is definitely an inequality and nursing instructors do much more work than any other instructor. Even trying to discuss this with administration has fallen on deaf ears. It is just expected that nursing instructors work harder and longer than other instructors.

[Whispera, MSN, RN]

Where I teach the opposite is true. People get credit for each hour they spend teaching. So, if a clinical is 6 hours, the instructor gets credit for 6 hours of teaching. If a theory class lasts 2 hours, the instructor gets credit for 2 hours. There's no allowance for time spent outside of clinical or class at all.

[jmqphd]

I teach at a proprietary school and there is a genuine equality in the sense that faculty in general ed are paid comparably to nursing faculty. It has to do with how many "face hours" you have, plus a factor for committee work, lecture prep and paper work (grading.) Across the entire company, there cannot be radical differences in the way employees are remunerated. AND, we are paid better than our university and community college colleagues.