Being "full-time" means being able to shape my schedule with more-or-less a sense of impunity. I no longer have to grovel for courses, and I am at liberty (to a point) to grab courses that aren't already assigned to more senior staff. However, the one thing to which none of us has a defense is enrollment. Overall we're doing quite well. However, individual sections do suffer.
Such has been the fate of two of my classes. I was told yesterday that they had vanished. POOF! "But it's early in registration! Those classes will make!" But to little avail. I was able to retain my local history section on the grounds that it is a "required" course that is not taught every semester --and I'm the only instructor on-site who teaches it (heh...). That worked for that one section. Alas, however, I will be teaching the Dread 8AM lecture two days a week. At least it's not all the way across town, like the Dread 8AM from the fall.
I know that being in academia can spoil you: "Oh how horrible, Mojo, you have to be at work at 8AM and you only have three hours between sections to get to the gym and back again. Boo hoo hoo..." Why, yes, I can hear the World's Tiniest Violin playing just for me! But I do try to schedule things so that I can actually see my family in the morning and at night, and still have time to hit the gym. I do possess the right to jack adjuncts out of their sections, but being not so far removed from that place myself, I try hard not to do it.
It's a mantra of mine: Always Remember The Adjuncts. They carry the loads, they get squat for pay and recognition. Bless each and every one of 'em, they need it!
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