The 10-Hour-A-Week Commitment: Giving More for Less

The 10-Hour-a-Week Commitment: Giving More for Less Ed Nagelhout – University of Nevada, Las Vegas

In tough economic times, when more is demanded from less, the most vulnerable contingent of any Technical and Scientific Communication program remains adjuncts and part-time instructors (PTIs). They are the first to be cut, the first to take a pay cut, and the first forced to give more. But every program administrator must meet an ethical responsibility to these teachers. This position statement argues for a commitment to adjuncts and PTIs through support that provides more and privileges “less,” a more humane, practical approach to our non-tenure track brethren.

Most TSC programs, especially larger programs, turn to adjuncts and PTIs to teach their courses. And while everyone agrees that supporting these teachers is imperative, discussions of how we support them focus primarily on miscast ideals of indoctrination and surveillance promoted by position statements from such bodies as CCCC and TYCA. These documents, though well-intentioned and not without merit, generally fail to consider the reality of teaching as an adjunct or a PTI.

For TSC programs, all administrative support must begin from a “10-hour-a-week” perspective. This means that if four courses are considered “full-time,” then a trained and fully supported teacher should not be expected to spend more than ten hours per week on any one section. This includes time spent in class, time spent in office hours, time spent preparing for class, and time spent responding to and evaluating student writing. All administrative support should be designed to assist trained teachers in meeting this expectation. A commitment to this ideal privileges “less”: more efficient teachers.

The term “trained teacher” assumes that all TSC programs provide an appropriate mentor program or preparation for anyone teaching a particular course for the first time. However, once the teachers have been trained, they still need “more”: significant support to assist them to be more effective and more efficient. Support includes workshops, program-specific course and classroom materials, background readings, pedagogical materials, classroom activities, assessment and evaluation materials, as well as any processes or procedures necessary for success in a particular program.

This support, however, should always be designed help them meet the “10-hour-a-week” expectation without adding to their workload. In other words, teachers should not have to do “overtime” unless there is a significant payoff. For example, any professional development workshop should be considered a part of their normal workload, or should provide them with significant time savings over the course of the semester.

More importantly, support should be designed to reduce the workload of teachers. Traditionally support has been designed to enhance the quality of the course and the quality of the teaching. While these certainly remain important considerations, ethical administrators must also consider all development activities in terms of expected workload. Too often in the past, an overenthusiastic administrator would construct workshops and create policy without considering workload, forcing adjuncts and PTIs, in particular, to take on unmanageable burdens.

Our job as program administrators is to make their job easier, to provide them with “more” while privileging (doing) “less.”