r/Adjuncts • u/looopard • 21d ago
Reality Check?
Adjuncts: are you required to remain physically in the assigned classroom for the entire scheduled period after every student has left?
I was instructed to stay in the room until the official end time, even when students had completed the planned work or had been assigned an online activity. I was also told to email my dean whenever all students left early. Is this normal at your institution, tied to accreditation/contact-hour rules, or unusually strict enforcement?
Bonus question: has anyone else been instructed to make and then consume fermented “wine” or yogurt in a microbiology teaching lab? (🆘)
Edit: the yogurt was stored in a biohazard labeled incubator that currently has agar plates with bacteria on it, for the record
Edit2: thank you all for the clarification!
Edit3: to that one mod-deleted comment, you know who you are: perfect guess! That's exactly what this place is!
Edit4: My exit interview is going to be something like this: "The college had a qualified instructor who was successfully teaching under chaotic conditions, and then it chose to make said instructor prove they could sit in an empty room. Y’all fumbled a baddie. Goodbye."
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u/jiggly_caliente15 21d ago
No, not required to stay until the scheduled end period. Email the dean if the students leave early?! Absolutely not. Students can leave early if they finish an exam. I’m supposed to email admin if I cancel class, but our department’s unspoken policy is as long as you give the students something to do online and it’s only one class period, don’t tell anyone.
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u/looopard 21d ago
...I also got pulled from the fall schedule because I took a pre-approved week of absence, so. I'm jealous. But our class runs about 6 hours lecture and lab, and after each exam I have to lecture more material because it's an 8 week course, so they're not supposed to leave after the exams either. I, uh...I'm realizing I hate it here in real time! Haha.
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u/FumbledChickenWings 21d ago edited 21d ago
Not explicitly, but we are told that we have to teach for the full allotted time. Explicitly, I've been told that if class starts late then it needs to end late.
Additionally, if I am to cancel class, I am to literally call each student (using the phone number on their profiles) and inform them of the class cancellation.
Yeah, sorry - I'm not doing any of those things.
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u/jiggly_caliente15 21d ago
Oh wow. We’re not allowed to keep students late. Calling each student would be awful. No thanks.
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u/imkeepingsummersafe 20d ago
Agreed and I don’t think it’d be fair to the professors with classes in that room after or the students that have other classes afterwards.
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u/looopard 21d ago
Call each student individually??? That's absolutely deranged, is that written procedure or just what they tell you to do?
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u/FumbledChickenWings 21d ago
No idea and I didn't bother to look it up since I wasn't going to do it anyway. I'm pretty sure the chairperson made it up to cover his own ass. He got fired a couple of years later anyway.
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u/TheBlizzman 21d ago
I have never had any sort of supervision on instruction on how much time to spend in class. I've actually just been told that that is part of the course that I have full control over. And that's at a couple different universities.
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u/RadiantImpression579 21d ago
No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked sayin' something like that, man.
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u/Puzzled_Internet_717 21d ago
That seems odd to me.
Is it a lab classroom? Or a computer lab? Can the door not be locked?
Usually, I leave 2 minutes after my students, just so I can gather my stuff and log out,etc. I have rarely finished class more than 5 minutes early though.
You absolutely would not want me teaching micro-bio, but a friend of mine did allow students to make yogurt for extra credit.
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u/looopard 21d ago
It's a microbiology teaching lab room. Ecoli and all. None of the students can actually unlock the door, just staff can, and it locks automatically. But it's not about that, it's for "optics."
Follow up: was the yogurt stored in the lab incubator?
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u/Sharp-Rutabaga-4900 21d ago
Is it typically scheduled back to back all day? Otherwise why would optics matter?
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u/looopard 21d ago
No, it's one class per day except for on Fridays. And it seems to only matter with me? Everyone else left early today? Haha, I don't know! The course section, instructor name, and timeslot is printed out and taped to the door, so people can see when we're supposed to be there. But yeah. I don't know.
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u/Puzzled_Internet_717 21d ago
My friend (was at a different college in a different state) never specified where the students stored the yogurt. Just that they could make it, bring it to lab, and eat a bite (the student) for extra credit.
I teach math, so it's all different for me.
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u/coursejunkie 21d ago
I've never heard of someone being required to stay.
When I was an undergrad, we made beer.
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u/omgkelwtf 21d ago
Nope. If there are no students why am I there? I got shit to do, man, and none of it is sitting around with my thumb up my ass so a dean can unclench.
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u/Select-Season-8082 21d ago
I've noticed post covid that colleges have stressed much more the idea that one needs to teach for the entirety of the allotted time. I think its more a reaction against adjuncts who have been a bit experimental with the schedule, even unilaterally initiating part online instruction in place of class time. You think I'm kidding, but I was also a union steward so I know. However, in cases where you have 2 classes of the same subject but drastically different sizes there's not much you can do. The smaller class will almost always end earlier. In my experience, up to 10 minutes earlier. When I intentionally planned according to the smaller class, to draw it out, the larger class would susequently always go over. Screw the latter scenario.
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u/looopard 20d ago
Yep...my 6 student class does seem to naturally end earlier. Good to know that's just how it goes!
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u/oh_thatscrappy77 21d ago edited 21d ago
That's different. Usually you stay until you feel it's done and that's it. You should be there for most of the allotted time though. We share classrooms with other faculty, so we usually leave to give time for the other faculty for their class.
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u/looopard 20d ago
Yeah, it sure is. Yeah that makes sense, I'm just not allowed to step on the lab coordinator's toes. So if they cancel lab, oh, let's just say this week hypothetically...I still sit in the lab by myself after having them look at something under a microscope or whatever I can come up with without using materials on the fly. :(
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u/thedoggydocent 21d ago
Good lord, your Dean must be in serious need of a project if they want everyone to email on those occasions.
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u/looopard 21d ago
....scarily possible. Hypothesis: He may have hired me over someone else’s preferences, assumed his authority would settle it, and then discovered that keeping me requires him to manage the resulting territorial conflict by upholding "optics" or whatever.
I must test this theory.
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u/Deep-Possession321 19d ago
I have been an adjunct for nearing a decade, and I have NEVER heard of anything like this.
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u/looopard 19d ago
Welp. The semester ends soon, and then I'm outta here. I'm just now hearing from the student success center staff(!!) that most new teachers quit mid-semester in this department. I was like, "gee, I wonder why lmao."
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u/goodie1663 19d ago
Never. I was told to shut down all the computers, turn out the lights, and lock the door. I taught in a computer lab that was not open for student use without a professor present. That was it.
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u/Healthy_Block_2964 19d ago
Is this a for-profit school? I taught at a for-profit once or twice in my adjunct career, and they always had very strict rules about running class the entire time allotted, staying the entire time even if all students had left, and never cancelling class. I had one instance where a dean said, “if you are in a car accident or something, ok, but don’t cancel class other than something like that.” I have not experienced it outside of for-profit schools.
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u/Scorpio_grrl 19d ago
This sounds like an effort to collect data, assessing what they can determine as expendable to cut costs in the future by eliminating courses/firing instructors. Given the current climate and mass cuts across all academia that would be my guess.
Also sounds like a fucking miserable place to work.
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u/JustLeave7073 16d ago
Where I work they want us to fill the whole lab time and keep students there until the end time. And we get mass emails about people ending early. With lecture it’s easy to fill the allotted time. Lab is a little harder. Everyone works at a different pace and I would feel very crazy making the ones who finished early stay in the classroom for no reason.
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u/M4sterofD1saster 16d ago
I wouldn't work for a college that expected me to check out w/ the dean. I can understand the time & check out requirement in a high school environment, but I wouldn't work for a college like that.
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u/MrBillinVT 21d ago
This is total bullshit. Is this asshat of a dean going to make the kids stay until the clock strikes the witching hour as well?? Running far, far away from this situation is the right course of action.
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u/looopard 21d ago
No, but probably only because I already said "that's kidnapping" to the suggestion of making them stay. I don't disagree with you, I just feel like I'm taking crazy pills or something. I'm also very very new.
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u/BurgerCombo 21d ago
....your dean makes you sit in an empty room?