[Englecturers] fall schedules

[skay at ucr.edu]

Dear John:

I hate to start the quarter off speaking as the grievance steward, especially since we haven't even started classes, but I'm afraid I must.  I'm confused about what's happening with the new fall schedule.  It was my understanding that lecturers were given their class assignments in the spring.  That being the case, syllabi, text selection, and the like, have already been done by lecturers, and new course schedules that change classes and, therefore, syllabi constitute an increased work load. In those classes, where classes have yet to be assigned, this is very short order indeed in which to begin planning classes. In the past, the Union filed a grievance, and won (I believe), over precisely this issue:  the lateness of scheduling and the difficulties it presented for lecturers.  However attractive the notion of "fluidity" is to the administration, it is not so attractive to lecturers, who now must what - scramble - to be ready to teach their classes in a little over two weeks?!
!
  If you need fluidity, ask for volunteers.

Further, I don't understand why these additional classes present a new problem.  Why can't they be worked around the existing schedule?  I didn't understand it in the past, and I certainly don't understand it now.  This isn't the first time that enrollment has increased.  Must the wheel be re-invented every quarter year after year?

Negotiations between the University and the lecturers in Composition and Comp. lit over how many courses we teach and the work entailed therein, have not been resolved.  Frankly, being told that our schedules are now "fluid", does not bode well for  an auspicious new year, particularly since lecturers in Composition have been told by the powers that be that they do not work hard enough to merit a course reduction.  The fact that we actually think about our classes and what and how we teach them, doesn't seem to enter into the "fluidity" equation.  Should we now embrace "fluidity" as the reigning trope of the new University Writing Program?  If so,I can see its many uses.

Perhaps I am mistaken,though, and I've interpreted all of this in the worst possible light - when in fact, there is no problem, and it is the best of all possible worlds. 

Best,

Stephanie Kay
UC-AFT Grievance Steward