Working at Stevens-Henager College in Meridian, ID: 1 Employee Job Reviews by Real Employee working in Meridian, ID Area

"Stevens Henager College should be barred from recieving federal financial aid."

What do you like about working at Stevens-Henager College?

"The students wanted something to base a life career on. I wanted to give that to them but administrators did not want standards maintained. They had a few really good people when I was there but the really good people were not administrators. Program Chair had it together but was constantly blocked from making a difference."

Do you have any tips for others interviewing with this company?

"Be ready to loose your veracity, honor, respect, and dignity. Always be ready to feel dirty if you work for them.If a student failed you as an instructor must attend numerous meetings and discussions to prove why a student failed. This time commitment is long and tedious, plus it is scheduled by the student. The administrators were biased in support of the students position. Faculty that supported strong academic standards and presented college level instruction were mistreated. Adjunct Faculty had to attend meetings without compensation to prove the failure was due to student's inability or neglect. You would pressed by administrators to accept work outside the syllabus definitions. Faculty also often had to allow work to be made up even 8 weeks late. If you object to taking work late, retesting, or evaluated work modifications or If more than a reasonable percentage of students was unsuccessful the adjunct faculty was not asked to teach in the future. Meetings with administrators were arranged if the student failed. They could not take the next course of the series. Students often would dropout if they received a failing grade. The administrators would loose twice. The class size was smaller so the overhead and variable cost of the course increased and this increase was permanent. The other loss was the attrition of the dropout. Future revenues were lower. The administrators also got a performance warnings when the local college failed to meet financial expectations. The accreditation body and government track students that fail to pay back student loans or dropout. If your number defaults were high you could be barred from participation in subsidized student loans and Pell grants. If your dropout rate is high, the accreditation body could put the college on probation because colleges/universities have to have a minimum graduation rate, AKA success rate.The administrators also have you attend meetings in their presence with your aggrieving students in attendance. In the meeting students discuss their needs and expectations. The administrator listens to the students arguments and then you are berated by the students the administrator continues to support it. You can't say anything, because the student is always right...like a customer. You present your position and the need for what you have asked for. The administrator will then berate or chastise you with students present. You leave that discussion with little if any dignity. The administrator over 95% of the time supports the students So as an adjunct faculty you must substantially change your lesson plans, handouts, differentiated learning materials, tests, and deliverable deadlines so you can tailor the course materials for two or three students that can't adapt. The time involved with recreating the course materials could take 25 to 40 hours. These hours are uncompensated as usual. You are also expected on your personal uncompensated time you have to offer individualized tutoring. So the school pays you for 5 hours a week and works you 12 to 15 week. So if you want to live through the experience of teaching for SHC, you are socialized/indoctrinated to awarding all high grades regardless if they can do anything at all. I personally discovered academic dishonesty three times from the same student. One was copying a paper off of a website and submitting it as his own. The second was cheating on an exam. The third was copying another students work and submitting is as his own. I asked he be removed from the class and administrator would not do it. I learned it was bad for business to remove a student from a class even if it was for academic dishonesty. You will have absolutely no support if the same folks are administrators. I only know of the Boise/Meridian campus."

What don't you like about working at Stevens-Henager College?

"The Administrators are most concerned with the student packaging, maintaining cash flows, and cost containment. The faculty are mostly adjunct faculty to control/contain costs. No Benefits are paid to adjunct or part-timers. The students suffer because of so many adjuncts. Adjuncts typically are not willing to make things better in the long run. Adjuncts are like mercenaries they only do what they are paid for. Administrators are also not competent in technical education or the material coverage in between the bullet points the SME's suggest for job ready training. Administrators for Stevens Henager College are budget cutters or crisis/intervention managers. The senior management at corporate office are trying to camouflage a degree mill with mortar and brick university facade. The senior management are NOT concerned with student success but the feathering of their nests."

What suggestions do you have for management?

"Management should be raided by the Department of Education. The administrators indirectly suggest instructors should push grades. Push grades is closely related to falsification of records. The management has let this go so long that students later in programs, do not have a sound foundations of basics in their field of study. The management should focus on quality of education, student recruitment, and adequacy of training equipment. Quality is always a great incentive for people to attend your college. People don't like joining anything that everyone can join. SHC is known to have a fogging the mirror entrance exam. I had a student at SHC that was in his third quarter and could not read English. How did he pass English or any course If you cant read a language you can't write it. If he could not read how could he pass the entrance exam I had a student in computer networking course in her second year ask me What is TCP/IP A first quarter course called TCP/IP was the foundation for the series This was a third course in that series. How could she have made it this far and not failed. The reason for lack of knowledge is, the administration was systematically promoting academic falsification. If you as a teacher held the students to a standard with a rubric they would not pass at a reasonable percentage. A suggestion for management is to use standardized independent measure like ACT or SAT. The current test is similar to the fogging a mirror. It is sort of like saying we need students that have federal monies to attend. Take our test so we can say you passed an entrance exam.Another suggestion would be to discharge as many administrators as you can and start over with fresh people from outside the SHC. Issue directives and create materials that standardize the educational materials, tests, and student evaluation materials/measures. Issue a rubric for every evaluation measure. Audit the evaluations to the submitted work. Have students always maintain a course portfolio. The portfolio should have a substantial final grade weight and a committee should do a combined evaluation with a rubric. A second part of the evaluation would be a practical measure by a second independent committee. A committee composed of internal SMA/faculty. A sample of evaluations and portfolios should be taken and an audit performed by an SMA at corporate or an external SMA locally."