So you want to work as WGU faculty...
The following represents my opinions as a former WGU employee. I conducted over 150 interviews and hired at least 30 faculty in my role as a Department Head or Program Manager. Specifically, I worked in the General Education department but as you'll see, the names for many things at WGU are different; Gen Ed was never referred to much as a department or quasi-college. While I would look for a specific type of faculty member for General Education, I don't feel as though the list of qualifications would not apply to faculty within the four colleges as well. I'm writing about the course faculty, course mentor, academic mentor, or whatever title they give the people that work in the courses. I'm not referring to student mentors, progress mentors, graders, or assessment faculty.
As I used to say to my students who took online classes before; it's also true for faculty:
you've never experienced anything like WGU before.
The competency-based model takes a little time to get used to and, as a concept, is foggy to understand. My current best definition is that we taught to "first day on the job" understanding. How this plays out for faculty is that courses contain prescribed information for students to learn and there isn't much cognitive space for extra. You'll teach what you are told to teach, and nothing more.
The next item to learn is the disaggregated faculty model. In a traditional university, one faculty member usually designs the syllabus, teaches the course, and then makes and grades the assessments. At WGU, those roles are split into 3 separate departments (ah, there's where the word 'department' is appropriately used). So there is a product development department that designs what should be inside a course (and a series of courses; a program aka a major), picks the learning resources aka textbooks, and creates the assessments aka tests. Said another way, they make the syllabus. Mentoring is where the faculty are; they teach the course. Mentoring is the face, voice, and heart of the course. Course faculty write the emails, help struggling students, call the students, form relationships, and become the students' greatest ally as they complete the course. The assessment department creates, maintains, and grades the assessments whether they be multiple-choice type exams, written papers, or portfolios. So if you are considering being faculty, you will spend all your time teaching and with students. For faculty that love teaching as the "best part of the job", you'll be a good fit. However, if you have a hard time realizing that you will have almost no voice in the design and creation of courses (no, you will not eventually teach one section of your favorite niche course) and if you resent not being able to give out points for effort or resent not personally investigating plagiarism, you will not be a good fit. Many would-be faculty members are sorted out right at this early explanation of the disaggregated model because they don't understand how they would be faculty and not be in control of their courses. So this leads us to the next concept-- how time works at WGU.
In parallel with the understanding that semesters are called terms and are 6 months long, not 4 months, is the understanding that in competency-based education, it does not matter when Day One of a course is and when Day Final of a course is. Any student will be at any point of a course at all times. More specifically, 1/6 of the students will be starting during any given month, 1/6 will be finishing or trying to a course, and 4/6 or 2/3 will be somewhere in the middle of their learning. So during any given day, a faculty member could be welcoming new students, helping a student get ready for the final, or encouraging students to continue their learning path. If you are a faculty member that feels weak in an area of your own content expertise (rare in Gen Ed, but it can happen), you will not have the luxury of brushing up before you arrive at that point of the semester. From the day you join a course, you could be expected to teach any of the content from anywhere inside the course. It is very likely that you will serve in several courses, too.
WGU does operate as a business, not as a university. For faculty, that comes with some positives and negatives. Future faculty should seriously contemplate these as often resignations within the first year of employment come from these areas.
First, the negatives:
- No control over course content. It is true that at some point, you *may* be invited to be an SME in course development, but that is usually a set of duties ADDED to serving students first. Translation = more hours for difficult work. However, solving problems inside of courses is supremely satisfying because (in Gen Ed), when you solve a problem, you are literally helping thousands of students actively within the course.
- No faculty senate. As a matter of fact, no union support in any way. Faculty, as the human element within the system, are often blamed and are the easiest to change, so get ready to swim in policies.
- No down time. With 6 month terms that run overlapping, the university never closes. There is no need to. If a student can learn (online), the university is open. Looking forward to one month off at Christmas and three months for summer? Not happening for these faculty. Faculty that have worked in both elementary and secondary school seem to have the hardest problem here. I've seen many resignations in May as faculty realize that they are not getting the summer off. (See positive #2, tho!)
- You are responsible for your students and that means you will be rewarded or not for their behavior. Students are measured on their academic progress if you are course faculty. If your students struggle, that is considered to be on you for employment purposes. There is some limited acknowledgement that other departments carry some responsibility (rare to find at all in higher ed!) but for the most part, you will be measured in every way possible; phone time, amount of outreach, number of lectures given, quality lectures, etc. If you chafe at being held responsible for others, this is not the job for you. (See positive #3, tho!)
5. You will work a weekend day and weekday nights. Remember that if a student can learn, we need to be available to help. Most WGU students are full time employees, which means they are fitting college into *their* downtime, which becomes your on time (on shift). So be ready to work at least 6 hours on a Saturday or Sunday and then 2 weekday evenings, which I defined as at least 3 hours after 7 p.m. local time zone per week. I was always amazed to hear stories of new faculty in the shuttle between the hotel and the campus on the first day of training hearing *for the first time* that working a full weekend day will be considered a standard expectation. I tried to filter out applicants that clearly want what I call "pick up/put down" work. Those are the faculty that have taught online classes before and
just expect WGU to be "more" online classes-- how wonderful! Full time! Not adjunct! I get it. I understand the attraction.
Those are the ones that tell me *with pride* that they give out their cell phone number to students and are happy to "take a call from a student, even on a Sunday!" Uhm. No. I want you to work the shift I need (which might indeed be Sunday) and then not work when you are not on shift (i.e. Friday & Saturday, and don't check your email). More from me on the negatives of overworking, but that's for another day.
6. It's shift work. This one is a good bridge over to the positives because what I mean is that your job will *look* like a regular job in terms of shift work. You are expected to be one time. You are expected to be working when you are at work. You are expected to get yourself out of work at the end of your shift. (Overworking is on you. This is salaried, you are not paid more for overworking; you are paid less, get that?) You will not appear to be "stirring coffee with little tiny spoons in little tiny cups while wearing your corduroy jacket with the leather elbow patches" as I once hilariously heard a description of traditional faculty. If you want to do that in your home office, though, have at it!
OK, now the positives because heretofore, I've made this sound like a terrible job and that truth is that LOTS of wonderful faculty want to work here and some of them do! So what do they get?
- One of the strongest dedications to student learning you will ever find in higher education. WGU does a 'best places to work'-type of measurement every year or so and consistently, the consultants say that WGU has one of the highest connections to mission from the faculty and staff ever measured within higher ed. I believe that. Faculty that want teaching to be their highest mission LOVE working here. They find freedom in not having to constantly tweak courses, no publishing pressure, and no grading any papers or exams. Not one. No grading AT ALL. I call it: "you play for the student's team."
2. The freedom to utilize leave at *any* time. This is magical. True, while traditional faculty may be involved in a binge-fest at the end of May (<-what's up with that, trad higher ed? What are you doing to your faculty such that they must drink themselves into oblivion at the end of the semester?), you'll be able to jet to Europe for 2 weeks in October. Or February. Or if your child is sick on any given Tuesday, you can 'not work'. We'll cover for you. Good managers create teamwork-based coverage. It's gorgeous. At 5 years, you get 4 weeks of leave in addition to holidays (you do earn up to this along the way). Most consider that quite good. (Extra tip: Disney World in October is a dream.)
3.You are responsible for your students. OK, so there are a lot of complaints thrown at higher education or education in general and a lack of tying teacher performance to employment is one of those complaints. At WGU, problem solved. You either help your students get to graduation or you find yourself invited to be happy working somewhere else. You are part of the larger solution on this one.
4. If your manager is good, your schedule won't be onerous. I can't comment more about this, because just like in all jobs, it really matters who you are working for. Some schedules can be very difficult (i.e. working until 12 a.m. (midnight) local time and then being back on shift by 8 a.m.). While you are expected to work fully when you are on shift, you are not expected to work all of the time. You are not a robot.
5. You'll be part of a team. This one surprises some faculty that were used to being lone wolf teachers. And it dawns on faculty over their first 5 weeks. The best teams have been designed specifically by their managers to utilize the strengths and weaknesses of the team to survive. The pace of change is light-speed because there is little to no overhead of time (classes change overnight, not at semester breaks) or space (no buildings, no offices, no classrooms) to worry about. Just like Hogwarts, while you are at WGU, your team is your family. Teaching with colleagues right by your side has never been this good.
Summary: It will be one of the hardest jobs you will ever love. Even once a faculty member says "OK, I've taught before, I've even taught online. I think I can handle this," the rigor of the job will surprise you. You will *normally* work 43-45 hours a week, because hours 41, 42, 43, 44, and 45 will all have student names attached to them. You'll get to know your students to a deeper level than ever before. Personal wins will be few and due to FERPA, you can't crow about your student successes. Faculty from other institutions and States will try very hard to look down on your work (I'm looking at you, Washington State). However, you will know you are doing incredible work changing the lives of your students. Often in Gen Ed, we had the ability to instill study habits that were going to make students successful in all of the rest of their learning. Students discover with us that they are flashcard learners, or that they like audio notes, or that cramming doesn't work. Students discover that there is no such thing as a math person because we are all math people.
Faculty get to ride shotgun through students' college experiences. It can be the best ride.
Good Luck on your WGU faculty pursuits! Tell them Heather sent ya. ;)
P.S. This article represents my own opinions based on my experiences. I hope that Google collects this post and that job seekers find it because I wrote this for you.
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This article originally posted to LinkedIn on August 5, 2019.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/so-you-want-work-wgu-faculty-heather-dodds