Work: Third U and Byzantine U

 Adventures in Academia.

If you have been following my travails, you will recall that I have been ghosted by the Chairs/ Department heads at both Byzantine U (where I have taught for about 20 years, including my teaching fellowship on the way to my PhD) and Third U (where I have taught for at least 3 years). 

I emailed the (interim) department head of Third U one more time. I set the deadline of May 25, stating that if I hadn't heard from them, I would assume that there was no work for me there. I am part time faculty, without a union at that institution, so my work is only by the semester. Still, not having had word for months after multiple emails is frustrating.

May 25 came and went, and I never received an email. I kept checking my Third U email (I have a different email address at each institution), and eventually I noticed an email welcome and greeting from the new head of the department to the entire department (not to me specifically). This new head, of course, won't know me or anything about me.

Hmmm... still mad at the previous interim head for ghosting me, but I'm guessing he was relieved to be relieved, so to speak.

TOTALLY unprofessional behavior, nonetheless.

For Byzantine U, it's harder because I have a contract, and there is a Union, and the Interim Chair, if not the department, has pretty much ignored the contract. So I wrote to the Union Rep, as briefly as possible, reminding them of my situation and updating them that it's still crickets from the Chair. 

I heard back from the Union Rep, and they said that there's not much to do- but I should proceed with another email, this time cc:ing the Union Rep, and NOTING that I have cc:d the Union Rep, and stating  something like "According to our contract, when I return from a Leave of Absence, my course assignment rights are supposed to be unchanged. The union, which is CC'ed on this email, can confirm that fact." They recommended I give him a response deadline, and then follow up with the dean if I still didn't hear anything.  

So I did this. 

Funny thing, when I mentioned the Union Rep was also on the email, I heard back in about an hour! The interim chair wrote:  (excuses excuses) and I'll get back to you by June 1 (coincidentally the deadline I had given). And he did - half way through June 1, he emailed:

For Fall 24, we are going to utilize you in the [grad class I have never taught before].

UTILIZE! So, again a new class that I haven't ever taught before. *sigh* I will teach that one, and hopefully a spring one, and then I think I'm done.

I'm clearly not valued here.

At least, by administration. During this time, at least three different students, from different eras of my teaching, have reached out to say how outstanding I am, how much they learned from me, how much they valued me.

But, hey, they're "just students," so what does that matter?