This is part of my ongoing commentary about University of Phoenix (UOPX).  I have long known that University of Phoenix has been the subject of complaints but I never knew to the degree that University of Phoenix is hated.  Yes, I use the word “hate” because the hundreds of complaint comments are quite venomous.

To be sure, my comments will not win me any Good Samaritan awards but to see the number of unhappy students is quite sad. It is especially sad since they are on the hook for thousands of dollars in student loans and financial aid that cannot be swept away.

I get the feeling that Apollo Group Management (the folks who own UOPX) simply cannot get it under control.  They have been the subject of controversy after controversy for nearly 10 years. They keep claiming they are improving things but bad things keep happening.

As recently as August 2010, ABC News did an investigation on University of Phoenix and it wasn’t pretty. In May 2011, the Boston Globe reports that UOPX is a target of a Massachusetts probe.The number of lawsuits against UOPX are breath-taking and staggering.

Some of the employees seem semi-corrupt.  Some are simply bimbos, bureaucratic and dumb.

I have a couple of friends that work at University of Phoenix and I know them well. They try very hard to do their parts to do a good job. There are probably others who honestly want to do a good job and do right by the students and faculty. However, it will never be enough.  Too much damage has been done.

My advice to the good employees is to just continue doing a good job but just understand very few on the outside respect the University of Phoenix name. I originally thought it might be for my bio to be an instructor there but now I am convinced you are better just leaving it off your bio. And if it is on your resume, be prepared to have a good explanation to work there. I would tell people that the economy was bad the last 4-5 years, you needed a job but you did what you could to improve University of Phoenix.

One friend of mine enjoys teaching and making a positive impact on the students but I almost don’t want to tell him that in some circles, he really needs to hide his affiliation with University of Phoenix. To me, do a good job, earn the money, but don’t brag or even talk about being part of University of Phoenix.

I still haven’t written my complaint letter to Apollo Group Management because I think it is a waste of time and it wouldn’t do any good. I feel my time is actually better spent on this blog post to provide commentary to those people who might consider becoming a faculty member and teach University of Phoenix or those who are already in it but need to get the heck out while saving their professional reputations.

It really is sad. Students with degrees from UOPX will never get much respect academically. Faculty who work at UOPX will not get much respect professionally but at least they will get a paycheck.  That is ok but for gosh sake, don’t brag about it.  Just tell people you did it for the money and the recession motivated you to do it.

I think it is amusing how UOPX tries so desperately spams the search engines trying to bury complaints and all the negative stories that have been reported for nearly a decade. It only makes them more pathetic looking. Maybe they should think about Apollo Group Management should consider abandoning the University of Phoenix name altogether and start anew.

According to a University of Phoenix FAQ I received, the University of Phoenix Faculty Pay & Compensation Plan is as follows for the Columbus GA local campus. (I would be surprised if compensation does not vary from state to state or even city to city. I speculate compensation is higher in larger cities and high cost-of-living areas but the overall structure is likely to be the same.)

Payment is disbursed into two payments of 66% and 34% respectively. The first payment is issued after they have met the 1st week of attendance in class. The final payment is issued after the faculty has posted final grade upon completion of the course.

If you have a PhD, you will be on a different and higher compensation plan than if you “only” have a Masters degree.

For faculty with Masters degrees, the compensation schedule is listed below.

For undergraduate courses that have 5-week terms and 3 credits:

• Starting pay is: $1,015.
• After 1 year & 5 courses: You get a whopping $36 increase to $1,051.
• After 3 years & 7 courses: You get a whopping $74 increase to $1,125.

Each of those sessions meet for 4-hours each. That means a total of 20 classroom hours.

Assuming you put in an average of 4 hours of course prep, follow-up, and grading work per week, you will be putting in a total of 40 work-related hours during the term. Taking the math further out, it comes out to a little more than $25/hour starting out and a little more than $28/hour at the top of the scale. All of this is considered W-2 taxable income. If your travel time or outside class hours turns out to be unusually high, your calculated hourly rate goes down dramatically.

I asked Courtney Hopper, the faculty recruiter I dealt with, if faculty pay could be issued to my corporation (so I could deduct related business expenses, if any, and I had better control over my taxes). They said no. You cannot be an independent contractor, you have to be  classified as a part-time employee. That was a strike for me. I would rather be an independent contractor anytime. As a part-time employee, you can be let go for any reason anyway and you receive no meaningful benefits but you get penalized more heavily from an income tax point of view. Hence, my preference to be an independent contractor in these assignment-based, project-based situations.

For graduate courses that have 6-week terms and 3 credits:

• Starting pay is: $1,300
• After 1 year & 5 courses: You get a whopping $46 increase to $1,346.
• After 3 years & 7 courses: You get a whopping $95 increase to $1,441.

Each of those sessions meet for 4-hours each. That means a total of 24 classroom hours.

Assuming you put in an average of 4 hours of course prep, follow-up, and grading work per week, you will be putting in a total of 48 work-related hours during the term. Taking the math further out, it comes out to a little more than $27/hour starting out and a little more than $30/hour at the top of the scale. All of this is considered W-2 taxable income. If your travel time or outside class hours turns out to be unusually high, your calculated hourly rate goes down dramatically.

==========

For faculty with PhD or JD degrees, the compensation schedule is listed below.

For undergraduate courses that have 5-week terms and 3 credits:

• Starting pay is: $1,165.
• After 1 year & 5 courses: You get a whopping $36 increase to $1,201.
• After 3 years & 7 courses: You get a whopping $74 increase to $1,275.

Each of those sessions meet for 4-hours each. That means a total of 20 classroom hours.

Assuming you put in an average of 4 hours of course prep, follow-up, and grading work per week, you will be putting in a total of 40 work-related hours during the term. Taking the math further out, it comes out to a little more than $29/hour starting out and a little less than $32/hour at the top of the scale. All of this is considered W-2 taxable income. If your travel time or outside class hours turns out to be unusually high, your calculated hourly rate goes down dramatically.

For graduate courses that have 6-week terms and 3 credits:

• Starting pay is: $1,600
• After 1 year & 5 courses: You get a whopping $46 increase to $1,646.
• After 3 years & 7 courses: You get a whopping $95 increase to $1,741.

Each of those sessions meet for 4-hours each. That means a total of 24 classroom hours.

Assuming you put in an average of 4 hours of course prep, follow-up, and grading work per week, you will be putting in a total of 48 work-related hours during the term. Taking the math further out, it comes out to a little more than $33/hour starting out and a little more than $36/hour at the top of the scale. All of this is considered W-2 taxable income. If your travel time or outside class hours turns out to be unusually high, your calculated hourly rate goes down dramatically.

============

One of the reasons I lost interest quickly is that the compensation plan was very low to begin with compared to all the work and the lengthy indoctrination process to become UOPX faculty. The responsibilities involved was simply not commensurate with what I have been accustomed to in creating and receiving business income vs. actively working as a part-time employee under the heavily-taxed W-2 income structure.

While money was not my highest reason to pursue a part-time faculty position with University of Phoenix, the moment I lost enthusiasm for the idea of teaching for UOPX, it quickly became a no-brainer to simply leave it behind. I decided I could have more fun and make more money working on my own projects.

To read more of my commentaries about University of Phoenix (sorry, most of it is not good), click here.

My 1st experience with the University of Phoenix Faculty Recruiting & Application Process began in May 2011. A friend who was on the adjunct faculty encouraged me to apply to see if they were interested in my credentials for an adjunct instructor position.  I emailed my information into a local campus contact who, in turn, contacted a faculty recruiter at University of Phoenix.

I received an email from Courtney Hopper, Faculty Recruiter for University of Phoenix, asking for a copy of my resume and unofficial transcripts. I emailed in my resume and cover letter and that was the extent of my experience. Even when I sent an email follow-up, I got no reply. I was surprised that I didn’t even receive one email reply from her even when I asked. It wouldn’t have bothered me if they didn’t need me or they didn’t have a position available. However, it would have been nice to get a reply of any kind. That was my first sour experience of the faculty recruiting selection.

During mid-December 2011, the same friend had told me that they needed additional instructors for Marketing courses. Given my professional marketing background in recent years, he felt I might be a good fit. I agreed with him. I was open to the idea but cautious. He knew I didn’t much care of overly-bureaucratic policies and procedures, nor did I care to work with traditional employers. And because of my 1st experience went nowhere by going in blind, I told my friend I needed more information and an assessment of local needs before I began. If the local campus had no immediate needs, I saw no point in making any effort to apply once again. After all, I receive no reply whatsoever back in May 2011.

My friend contacted the Head of Business at the local campus on my behalf. Later that week, after my conversation with the Head of Business, most of my questions were answered. He needed marketing instructors and it was an area I was qualified and interested in. I was encouraged enough to move forward with application process again. This time around I redesigned and reformatted my resume to one that was a bit more “friendlier” and highlighted my marketing background vs. my managerial background. I emailed him my cover letter, resume and MBA transcript. It was quickly forwarded to University of Phoenix to the Faculty Recruiter. That faculty recruiter was once again, Courtney Hopper. I later found out through her Linked in profile she is in charge of faculty recruitment for Columbus GA, Savannah GA, and Little Rock AR campuses.

In that email, includes the UOPX Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). For some reason, there seems to be secrecy surrounding the faculty recruitment and application process. Despite my own Google searches, I found very little information.  Even on the University of Phoenix website itself, there really aren’t specifics like the information that I will present in this post.

I did not copy and paste the email I received because I have reason to believe that University of Phoenix patrols the Internet for such information and would attempt to have it removed. However, they cannot stop me from reporting in my own words the information I received. Why am I sharing this information?  Because I would have wanted it beforehand and I could not get most of it until I was well into the faculty recruitment process. I think people need to know what they are going to get themselves into BEFORE they waste any unnecessary time like I had going through it.

The UOPX faculty recruitment process is a lengthy one with many hoops to jump through. From what I have been told, this has not always been the case. But the faculty recruiting process I outline below is what I went through. I thought I might be able to “go all the way” but I will tell you right now that I didn’t. The reasons why will be covered in another post.

1. Although not a requirement, from what I can tell, unless you have a local campus contact or know someone within University of Phoenix, to help sponsor or vouch for you, going through the “front door” using the UOPX website is going to be like applying blind to any large organization. Your information (along with thousands of other applicants) will simply be submitted into some large internal database. Unless you have a specialty field they need at the campus local to you, you will probably not get any kind of response. And even if you do, you will be in the very early stages.

2. The FAQ outlines the 4 stages to the faculty selection process. It states it could take up to 6 months to complete. This is definitely true once I reveal where the hang-ups are.

The preliminary evaluation includes: the written interview, phone interview, application materials review, and the Candidate file approval.

During my written interview, it took me well over 3 hours to complete simply because I wanted to be thorough. There were many professional experiences that I had to recall with dates and chronology. Because I did not have individual employers as most people do in their history, I had to clearly communicate and integrate the tapestry of my various experiences over the last 20+ years into paragraph format.

My telephone interview with Courtney Hopper was rushed. While she attempted to be pleasant and professional, she often sounded out of breath and blazed through her spiel. Because of the information that had already been emailed prior, it was relatively easy to follow along. But I could tell that she had conducted this interview and said her spiel at least a hundred times prior. And while she claimed to allow me to ask questions, I did not get the feeling extensive talk time was encouraged.  She wanted to spend her 20-30 minutes with me and get off the phone. However, I was encouraged when she said she would likely contact me within 48-hours to let me know if I would continue to the next stage.

3. In the new faculty assessment, there are two core assessment activities during what they call the “candidacy process”. First, you have to prepare a lesson with a presentation length of 5-20 minutes. The presentation is supposed to be related to the course or field you plan on teaching in. The local campus staff evaluates your presentation and instructional skills.  They call it your “facilitation skills”. They want to see how well you present and interact in front of a group. In my case, they wanted me to prepare a 10-minute lesson using a Powerpoint presentation and have it emailed in to them the Thursday prior  to the Saturday morning session when this is supposed to happen. I was told that I could bring visual aids to the assessment session. Although I never completed this step, I did not see creating a 10-minute lesson with a Powerpoint presentation as being difficult to do.

The other part of the new faculty assessment is participating in a group activity that simulates a learning team exercise.

4. If you make it past the prior steps, an employment verification background check, a criminal background check, and a credit check will be done. However, the information your provide for this is completed prior to the Faculty Assessment stage during the preliminary evaluation. The online application primarily consists of several disclaimers that gives UOPX (through a 3rd-party) permission to verify the information you provide but also to seek information about you.

5. If you make it past the background check, you will continue on to the New Faculty Certification process. Although the FAQ states that New Faculty Certification is one night (one night=4 hours) per week for 4 weeks, my schedule was supposed to be 4 Saturday mornings from 9:30am to 1:30pm. As a student of the New Faculty Certification course, you are expected to do outside class work and activities (homework/teamwork) of approximately 10-20 hours per week. The homework/teamwork include outside assignments, reading, and prep work.

6. Assuming you don’t miss any of the New Faculty Certification sessions and you receive a positive recommendation by the facilitator, you should be able to continue forward.

7. At this stage, Human Resources will require you to fill out various forms. Since I have not seen these forms, I assume they will be related to agreeing to UOPX rules and policies as well as standard government and payroll forms required of all U.S. employees.

8. Going into the Instructional Mentorship stage, you are expected to spend 2 weeks with a UOPX mentor to prepare for the first course. (UOPX makes a point to say that there is no pay for this prep time.) The instructor will be shadowed by the mentor (supposedly a “seasoned faculty member”. It’s the job of the mentor to provide supervision and feedback to the instructor. One week after completion of the course and final grades are posted, the mentor gives his final recommendation. If all goes well, the faculty candidate will be invited to become a faculty member and be eligible for course solicitations.

In closing, what I have written is a generalized overview of the University of Phoenix Faculty Recruiting and Selection process. I did not go through all the stages for reasons I will cover in another blog post but the mystery of what system University of Phoenix uses to recruit new faculty instructors has finally been satisfied. It is a very time intensive and lengthy process. Personally, I did not care enough nor was I inspired enough to continue on. I have no regrets having gone through what I did.  Would I recommend this to someone?  I would only recommend this to the desperate or highly motivated. The rewards vs. the returns of being a UOPX faculty instructor seemed insufficient to me for what they want and ask for within a faculty candidate.

UPDATE: Since I wrote this post, I have added much more commentary about University of Phoenix. Unfortunately, most of it is not good. The more I learn, the more depressing it gets. Get informed by someone who signs his name to the messages he posts.