The Overload Is One of the Many Ways Higher Education Exploits Teachers

We are waiting on reforms that will probably never come.

Photo by Yontoy Photography via Unsplash

I was recently urged by a manager to consider the fact that 80% of my colleagues are teaching overloads, and I am always amazed by the administration’s brazenness on this subject.

Overloads are extra teaching work beyond the terms established by a contractual agreement. I have agreed in my current contract to teach a certain number of credit hours within a specific time frame. Any classes I agree to teach beyond my nine-month contract period or beyond the 24 credit hours specified by my contract would constitute an overload.

Overloads are usually presented to teachers as a way to make “extra money.” But that extra money requires extra work, and it is an extraordinarily shitty deal for teachers. We are already overworked and underpaid, and taking on extra work inevitably reduces the quality of instruction.

Some schools have been addicted to overloads for a long time, and they do not seem to be concerned about the impact of overloads on quality of instruction or faculty wellbeing. Several universities in Iowa were famously involved in a national debate about the practice in the first decade of the new millennium, and as far back as 2011, an Inside Higher Education article observes, “overloads are becoming the norm.” In a 2016 guest post to Academe Blog hosted by Academe Magazine, Jeff Baker states, “Overloads are part of an unfair system that seeks to exploit both full time and adjunct faculty by staffing classes at lower cost.” Baker adds, “It is a recipe for faculty burnout and a system that short changes students when overworked faculty are unable to respond to their needs.”

Overloads at my current school used to be paid at the adjunct rate, which varied according to one’s degree. I have a Ph.D., and if I recall correctly, my adjunct rate was $1800 for a three-credit-hour class, so $600 per credit hour. Since my school does not currently publish rates for adjunct pay or overload pay, and I stopped agreeing to teach overloads a long time ago, I cannot say for certain what they do now.

The following vague statement in policy governs how overloads are currently paid at my school…