In keeping with the Cougartown tradition of Administrative Communication breakdowns, the Human Resources Department and the VPAA's office did not communicate with each other and share names of all the 60++ new adjunct faculty who were hired for this Spring Semester to teach at Kean. The result, notices concerning the Orientation never went out to "all" new adjuncts.
This is the third continuous semester new adjuncts received absolutely no employer training. Just an email link to a handbook. The Union did negotiate with the Kean Management compensation for this meeting of $75.00 for each new adjunct's attendence, but one has to have a meeting to go to, to get compensated.
Yes, it is getting real old...., first the VPAA and HR fail to get notices out to new adjuncts about their orientation; then contracts are held up between HR and the Dean's Offices, with hundreds of adjuncts not yet knowing if they are in fact even working or not at Kean, one working day before classes resume on Tuesday.
Classes continue to get cancelled one day, restored the next, and then cancelled again. Adjuncts have contracts for courses which were canceled, and no contracts for the classess that we think are still running. We all know who is making these decisions, but no one dares utter the answer for fear of their jobs. (I can tell you it is not the Dean's, Chairs, Coordinators or ED's).
If you feel frustrated imagine the frustration our students are going through. They leave in the spring with their advisement and schedules in place, and come back finding their schedule is useless, and now they are not able to get into all the courses they need.
We know of one parent who actually went to the department early last week to complain as to why the course their son wanted and needed for his career pursuits, was cancelled before the semester even began. Thinking that with two merged sections into one, the class would run. Not at Kean......There had been two sections of a particular course in the Spring scheduled for the fall, and, now there are none. Anyone ever hear of the the word "consolidation"..... not "cancellation"?
Then, we have HR making the managerial decision not to send out invitations to all 1,100+ adjuncts from the University President, which they sent to all the other faculty, staff and students, inviting them to the campus wide Opening Day Events. The excuse we were given was that HR did not have all the adjuncts names and addresses. Hey, this is Kean!!!! Forget the fact that 27% of the entire adjunct population has been teaching at Kean for more than 10 years, or the fact that an additional 30% have been teaching at Kean for more than 5-9 years.
Add to that, the fact that no mention of the Opening Day event was posted on the Kean Website Homepage, and with a top notch media and technology department, no one bothered to use the technology and expertise the taxpayer dollars pay for, to provide Kean Live, or Kean Radio to stream the President's Opening Day speech, not even for the many off site campuses we have, like Kean-Wenzhou (China)......Anyone see a recurring pattern here????