--- Forwarded Message from "Jean-Jacques d'Aquin" <[log in to unmask]> --- >Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 16:20:54 -0600 (Central Standard Time) >From: "Jean-Jacques d'Aquin" <[log in to unmask]> >To: LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Re: Teaching loads >In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]> >Organization: University of South Alabama There is no such thing as an "average lab administrator". You need to set categories based on such factors as: # of students served type of setting/equipment used lab/learning center mission statement and objectives chain of command and relationship with "clients" funding and responsibilities for same Our campus is that of a state 4 yr research university with 12,000 students. Approximately 700 students attend our Foreign Language Department first year courses each term because they have a foreign language requirement for graduation. About 50 more go beyond into a minor or major. We are presently in the very first steps of changing from an audio-cassette analog console type to a digital, computer based multimedia language learning center. The present lab serves as a "library"; no classes are taught in the lab. The projected learning center would include small seminar rooms that are "smart" (wired and equiped for multimedia) for upper division class meetings. The lab has no budget for student assistantships, upkeep/maintenance, or any short or long-term upgrading The original "lab director" position was based on a one third course reduction load as compensation for the time/effort required to administrate the facility. In reality it was more like 20-25% than 33%. With the change to "learning center", more technology knowhow, more time and effort involving Instructional Design/pedagogy issues along with inservice faculty training, will require a full time, dedicated position, with NO additional classroom obligations beyond the faculty & assistant training that will be necessarily on-going. I doubt that this will happen, and that the present release-time situation will be in use until the "slave labor" situation blows up and there is a resignation, a "letting go", or a descent into less than mediocre productivity. By the way, the operating budget for the institution and each of its divisions is at the 1985 level, there have been no salary raises in the last three years, approximately 15% of the faculty lines have been frozen so that what would have been someone's salary when a position opened up, now goes to shore up departmental budgetary deficits. Now, how does the terrain look from where you are sitting? :) Cheers! Jean-Jacques d'Aquin, Language Lab Director University of South Alabama, HUMB-322, Mobile, AL 36688 VOX 334-460-6291 FAX 334-460-7123