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RE: Mathematics at Kaplan University
Posted:
Jan 28, 2009 3:59 PM
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I am not attacking your decision to teach at Kaplan; we all gotta eat.
I am not familir with Kaplan's program, but if the math department does not show up in the literature presented by or discussions abut Kaplan, I would guess the math department does not exist. Yes, they hire math teachers and those teachers teach courses kabelled"math"; but I would guess the courses consist of rubrics for solving the problems encountered in other courses. Not math, not even problem-solving, but solving problems somebody else has already solved. (And doesn't our society need more people trained to follow the paths of their predecessors!)
(1) Yes, you gotta eat; and i'm not judging you (I have done things I'm not proud of to get and keep a job that would feed my children, pay my mortgage, and let me find time to think about the things that really matter. (2) Keep looking, good luck to you, and think about posting some things on line, not because you will get paid, but because you might be able to reach someone and make a difference (yeah, that'll happen -- but I'm stil trying). (3) Don't kid yourself. Your bossess' eyes are on the bottom line; and if you succeed in altering their business model, you will almost certainly not be rehired for the next semester.
Please tell me I'm too cynical. I would really like to hear that from a reliable source.
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What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till your see their specks dispersing?---it's the too-huge world vaulting us in, and it's goodbye.
Jack Kerouac On the Road (the original scroll)
________________________________________
From: owner-mathedcc@mathforum.org [owner-mathedcc@mathforum.org] On Behalf Of Jonathan Groves [JGroves@Kaplan.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 1:09 PM
To: mathedcc@mathforum.org
Subject: Mathematics at Kaplan University
Dear All,
I am just wondering how many people here teach mathematics at Kaplan University. I was just hired by them last week, and I working on the training I need to get done before I get my first math class to teach.
I am also wondering how many people here who know about the mathematics department at Kaplan University, either because of current or past employment or because of a friend or colleague you know who works there. I get the idea that their mathematics department is probably good at serving the students who go to Kaplan, but I am not sure. Since Kaplan is a much different school than traditional schools and since Kaplan does not offer degrees in subjects with heavy math in them (like engineering and physics and chemistry), not a lot of people talk about their mathematics department. The only math departments most mathematicians in higher education talk about are ones in traditional schools that offer all the standard undergrad courses. And it is not surprising that Kaplan's graduates don't talk much about the math department. How often do graduates (or even those who attended and dropped out or transferred) from a school talk about specific departments other than the ones !
associated with their majors? Quite rarely, at least according to my experience.
In fact, their Kaplan's website says nothing about the mathematics department, so it seems like the department does not exist. I know it does since the one who approved of my hire is one of the chairs of mathematics there.
By the way, in case you are wondering that it might have been a bad idea for me to accept a math teaching job without knowing the quality of the math department at the school, I will say three things: (1). I cannot delay much longer in getting a job. (2). I am looking for an online teaching job right now, and most of the schools that have something open right now are schools like Kaplan; in fact, the only schools so far who have openings and have expressed any interest in hiring me are schools like Kaplan University. (3). If the math department is not as good as I think it should be, I can try to do whatever is necessary to raise their standards. Schools or individual departments whose standards are not as they should be cannot get their standards raised easily, if at all, if all potential professors who believe their standards are too low refuse to teach there because of those low standards. So it is not necessarily nonsense to accept a teaching job at a school whose !
standards are not as high as you would like.
Jonathan Groves
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