If you have not yet heard the story, faculty and academic professionals (people like me) will be taking one furlough day per pay period this semester. (We only get paid once a month so it’s not as bad as it sounds.) There has been a lot of debate about how this might affect students. I’m on the fence, what do you think?
The furloughs are due to the fact that the State of Illinois has not actually provided us with much of the money that was allocated to us in the state budget. I’m sure if my understanding is still accurate but we’re 50% of the way through the fiscal year and we’ve been given about 4% of our funding. If there is not impact on students why not do away with our funding altogether? Clearly we don’t need it if we can carry on without it.
On the other hand, I think most would agree with me that we have an obligation to do whatever possible to look out for students’ best interests. Whether I’m paid 100% or 95% of my salary, I don’t punch a clock. I work whatever hours I need in order to get my work done and I’m okay with this because I chose this job. I’m must rather be paid a bit less and work long hours from time to time if I can do the work I do rather than some other job that I don’t value.
So what do you think? Should furloughs be as invisible to you as possible or should we use these days to make a statement?
One way or another, the furloughs probably won’t be completely invisible. You may notice that furlough days are noted in your syllabi or that an email might result in an auto-response about that person taking a furlough day. The fact is that when I take a furlough day, I can’t read emails or return phone calls. (Of course I have free will and could do this but that would create legal/financial difficulties for the university so I won’t.) This is true of everyone else.
So, you may have a dire emergency that only one person can resolve. If that emergency happens on that person’s furlough day, it will not be addressed until the person returns and catches up on the lost work. Of course this is just a what-if. For example, I’m sure the health services and counseling offices aren’t going to completely abandon students. They’ll work to maintain coverage. Still, you may have an issue that seems dire to you. You may have an important question about an assignment and not being to move forward without an answer. In truth, these “emergencies” happen even without furlough days. (What is the saying?: one person’s emergency is another person’s lack of planning.)
Hopefully, these days will pass as painlessly as possible but do realize that a furlough day might result in a delayed response.
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3 comments:
I would think for anyone dedicated to his/her job, as you are, furloughs would be in one way kind of exasperating, when you are actually prohibited from engaging with people who depend on you for advice. But for the most part the online student is accustomed to the asynchronous nature of cyber learning, so not getting an answer for a day or so through e-mail or Blackboard is to be expected anyway. From what I've seen, the only really critical crunch-time is around the beginning of semester course registration when you might need quick answers to decide whether to keep or drop courses, etc. Otherwise, if a UI person was out sick with the flu or a family emergency or something, nobody would expect that person to answer immediately, so I think the best way to approach the furlough days is for everybody to regard them as if the UI faculty member or academic professional is taking a sick day off.
I agree with you, Dan. While it may sting a bit when an immediate answer is needed, it is much the same as if a staff or faculty member has taken a sick day or for some other reason, a particular department is short-staffed.
I think furlough days can negatively affect each person (the student as well as the staff member) depending upon the dilemma faced, but there is a bright side, which is that the staff member gets to take a day to relax and recoop.
I'm not horn tooting, just noting my thoughts. I have to be pretty sick that I don't continue to answer emails from home. That's not to say I'm super-duper just that there is a dynamic with online students that I want to maintain as much as possible so unless I'm feverish, it doesn't hurt to spend a few minutes keeping up to the moment on email. I'm not always good at doing this but it's better to send, "sorry, I'm sick today so I'll get back to you soon" than it is not to respond at all. Hopefully, students will receive my autoreply so they'll know I'll be a day late.
Hopefully, furloughs will not be noticed. My goal is to take them when I think I won't be busy but other people don't plan their emergencies around my schedule:)
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