AFT On Campus
September/October 2010

Feature Story

It didn't take long for Harriet Callier to grow uncomfortable with what she saw at High-Tech Institute, a for-profit career college in Brookfield, Wis., near Milwaukee. Hired in April 2009 to serve as an instructor in the Medical Billing and Coding program, she received a predesigned curriculum, some online training and was set to teach.

The first thing she noticed: Some of her students were capable and qualified to handle the four-week intensive course, but many were not. For example, in a class of seven, “I may have one or two who could benefit, but may have three others with mental disorders or who are inmates taking classes to qualify for parole.”

One of her students could not read—and said so to the admissions office when he applied. “They told me it would not be a prob-lem,” he informed Callier.

Another challenge was a lack of the proper textbooks. Last year, she had an old textbook but no billing and coding books, she says. “It took me a year to fight to get books released to students—books they had paid for!”

more...

Highlights from this Issue

Periodicals For:

About AFT On Campus

AFT On Campus is the newspaper of AFT’s higher education division. It covers issues of interest to full-time and part-time faculty and academic staff at colleges and universities, as well as topics such as the academic staffing crisis, academic freedom, funding, federal legislation, and the advocacy and professional work of members. AFT On Campus is published five times a year and is mailed to all higher education members of the AFT as a benefit of membership. Single copies are free on request. Questions, comments and inquiries about AFT On Campus should be sent to its managing editor Barbara McKenna.