[game_edu] placement rates (was Introduction - Sheri Rubin)

[baylor wetzel]

> I wonder if there will be a backlash from that in a few

> more years (for example, imagine a school with

> 25% adjuncts that suddenly found with an economic

> upturn that half of its adjuncts left for industry again


In our case, we went from ~18 full time/0 adjunct to 8 full time and some
number of adjunct (6-7 i think). We were already teaching 5-6
classes/quarter, so workloads increased and the chair always seems to be a
few seconds away from a heart attack, but he somehow manages it (we have a
really good chair). We've also managed it by increasing the number of
students we turn away (i think we've always turned away a fair number, but
it got a lot stricter this year)

We were told by our parent institution that we were out of sync with
comparable schools in the number of adjuncts (and therefore, cost). They had
let us skate by because our program was wildly successful in recruiting (in
~7 years we've grown from zero students to ~650, roughly half the school).
Now that we're ~50% adjunct, i wonder if we're at the average. i personally
thought it was a bad idea to lay off so many people - we could have really
hurt the school if those people hadn't come back as adjuncts. But the
administration felt the current staff would come back and they were correct,
so from their standpoint, it was a good move

Like most schools, we don't have a lot of game companies nearby. Most have
had layoffs, which is where a lot of our faculty came from. One recently
packed up and moved to North Carolina, leaving a lot of game developers
looking for jobs and willing to work (for now) for what we pay
(~$40k-$60k+benefits for full time, i think ~$2k per class for adjunct). We
haven't (in our area) lived through an upswing where everyone went away for
better jobs but i know at least half our faculty has side companies that, if
they take off, will probably leave

We have lost several of our senior faculty, but not to game companies. They
all went to normal businesses where they work less and get paid more (and
have happier wives and possibly kids). i saw the same thing in the game
industry for the same type of people at the same age (early to mid '30s,
first kid)

-baylor
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