American Public University System Reviews

Pros

Full tuition costs are paid for by the university for Bachelor's and Master's courses, generous maternity leave, good company culture.

Cons

Management could be greatly improved, and there is prevalent micro-management as well. Specialists make so little, and the company should truly be ashamed that starting salaries are $15 an hour. $15 an hour is minimum wage in some states. No one can be expected to support their families when making so little.

Pros

The workload is manageable and repetitive.

Cons

Curriculum revisions by faculty who aren’t instructional designers but instructed to make changes by ill informed admin means constant updates and changes. That part of the job is tedious.

Pros

Health Care Benefits. 401K. Sick Leave. Flexible Hours. Students Are Military. 20 days Vacation. PD Opportunities. Good Colleagues.

Cons

Disorganization From The Top Through The Ranks. No Real Leadership. Comeplete Lack Of Communication. Labor/Workplace Issues. Pay Among Worst In Industry. Turnover Off The Charts. Pressure to Grade Inflate. No Support From Supervisors. Dog Eat Dog Climate.

Pros

Working remotely has been a blessing as my children have aged. I enjoy working with faculty and students.

Cons

It has become apparent over the last six months or so that Faculty and Directors are but mere tools in the eyes of Upper Level Administration. The bottom line is the money. Cap Labor spreadsheets are sent to us on a regular (usually with less than a day turnaround to complete them) and our OER Initiative and constant, circular examination of UFWI rates is indicative that the most important thing is KEEPING our students, not TEACHING them. Faculty are held to absurd standards in terms of being available 24-7-365, but supporting departments and senior management are not. And Directors have huge amounts of responsibility, but are not paid more than Full Time Faculty. Why?

Pros

Some really great people work here...or did. Many are leaving, with good reason. Yes, they have benefits. Really pretty good benefits.

Cons

No leadership. A tons of chiefs who are caught up in meeting after meeting and never get anything accomplished. After nearly a dozen years at this university, the same mistakes were made time after time. Start a project but never finish it. I don't remember how many departments and group teams I worked with, but every time I got to know a person, they were gone within months. Planning is not a word in the vocabulary of the administrators. "Fly by the seat of your pants" and "react" are key terms here. (But when they do try to plan, they plan the plan to death!) Proactive and results-oriented are not words they use....and when an employee tries, they are often "released". Great ideas within, but petty politics seem to override those ideas.

Pros

interesting variety of courses fascinating students

Cons

We work in the dark without much knowledge of what is going on throughout the university. Payment for adjuncts is so erratic that we can work for weeks without actually knowing what we are earning. So much turnover in middle management means that adjunct part timers can get heavily faulted because the new people coming in decide to change a lot of rules that those of us who have been working there longer than they have are accustomed to. Often little or no follow through on commitments made to faculty by middle management admin. If we trust things will be taken care of and then realize we have to persist to get promises kept, then we get faulted for asking too many people too many times for follow through that seemed to have been forgotten.