Micromanaging to the extreme (from the college/university level). It seems like those in charge simply don’t trust their employees. As a full time lecturer with a PhD I have more oversight than I did as a graduate teaching assistant at my previous institution. Examples include, but are not limited to: people stopping by your classroom to make sure you’re teaching during your scheduled class (this is most common the day before Thanksgiving because you are not allowed to cancel class or schedule an out of class work day on that day), unable to cancel class or schedule online class/group work days in order to go to an academic conference...instead you must find a substitute, walking past your office during office hours to make sure you’re there, requiring a 24 hour email turnaround policy, and encouraging a customer approach to education where students are customers and teachers are there to serve them. Anytime I’ve asked why some of these rules are in place I’m told it’s because at some point in the past teachers were cancelling class too often, were not in their offices during office hours, or do not respond to email quickly. Okay, I get that that’s a problem, but plenty of other institutions have found ways to manage this without watching their employees like a parent tracking their teenager. These issues are unfortunate because they take away from the positives of this job.
