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Visiting assistant professor’s late resignation brings light to issues regarding position

Miles Davis resigned from his position as visiting assistant professor.
Miles Davis resigned from his position as visiting assistant professor.

Walking into Williams Hall after his commute from Middletown one morning, Miles Davis, a visiting assistant professor in the Media, Journalism and Film (MJF) Department had a realization. 

He couldn’t do it anymore.

At around 10:44 p.m. on Nov. 17, students in Davis’ classes received an email reading, “I have tendered my resignation and will no longer be teaching this class. I do not know what that will mean for you all and your grades, but someone will take my place.”

The semester was nearing its end, so students were shocked to learn someone else would teach their classes for the last few weeks.

Winnie Wolf, a senior strategic communication and professional writing major, had Precision Language for News (JRN 102) with Davis before the resignation. For Wolf, the news was surprising.

“We all found out at once,” Wolf said. “There really weren’t any clues that led up to it that made anybody think he was going to resign.”

Wolf described Davis as an effective professor who successfully got across information in a class where the subject matter is not always the most interesting and tends to be more fundamental.

The day after he sent the email, Wolf said only a few students showed up to class, where Rosemary Pennington, chair of the MJF department, explained how the rest of the semester would go. Journalism professor James Tobin ended up taking over the class.

“It was pretty unexpected, but if it was what Dr. Davis needed to do, then I think us, as students, we all kind of just are respecting that, I suppose, and just making sure we do the last assignment we need so we can succeed in this class and just get through it,” Wolf said.

Chloe Masslow, a sophomore nursing student, took Introduction to Journalism (JRN 1o1) with Davis and said the week before she found out about his resignation, he canceled class on both Monday and Wednesday.

Masslow said Pennington took over the class for the rest of the semester and picked it up exactly where he had left off, so the resignation didn’t affect the class too much.

“[Pennington] basically just barely addressed the resignation,” Masslow said “She just said that in her 10 years being at Miami, she has never had someone resign the way that he did.”

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Joe Sampson, the journalism area coordinator, wrote in an email to The Student that because Davis was a visiting assistant professor, his position was not permanent and could only be renewed for up to five years. If he had not resigned, his contract could have either been terminated or renewed.

Davis said while he enjoyed working with his colleagues in the MJF department, different factors of the job were becoming too much for him. However, he said all of his colleagues supported his decision, and he even received words of encouragement from students.

Davis said this is a position that's growing increasingly more popular throughout the academic world to make up for factors like low enrollment rates following COVID-19.

“More and more universities are adopting the same model that Miami is, meaning relying on visiting assistant professors,” Davis said. “... The university wonders why they’re having a hard time keeping students enrolled, and it’s because if you’re a visiting assistant professor, you don’t have the resources you need from the university, like a salary.”

Davis said many issues with the visiting assistant professor position have to do with no upward mobility or real financial support, which he said is an issue in higher education as a whole. He said his salary is roughly $40,000 a year, and because of this, he said he was barely able to save enough money to make ends meet.

When it comes to his students and their education, Davis said he feels bad because it can affect students when the professor is struggling and that isn’t fair to anyone put in that situation.

“It’s hard to say that I’m giving my all when my mind is torn 100 different places all at once,” Davis said. “Basically, they’re putting on a cheap bandage to look out for their bottom line, and I believe in the long run, what they’re doing is actually hurting themselves.”

Following his resignation, Davis relocated to North Carolina for a change of scenery and is looking to go to Indianapolis to find work. He is also applying for a job with the government, a task that has been a year-and-a-half in the making.

Because of the issues Davis noted with his position and higher education, he started suffering both mentally and physically, leading to illnesses that he believed prevented him from doing his job well. Just driving his car to work was a source of anxiety for him due to its unreliability, and then teaching two classes while already feeling like “garbage” was taking a toll on him.

“The illnesses that I was beginning to have were becoming debilitating,” Davis said. “My stomach issues were just getting really, really bad ... I got to Williams and just got physically ill and said, ‘You know what, I can’t do this today.’ And so that was it. It was just a lot of compounding things.”

As Davis was a visiting assistant professor, there are currently no plans in place to replace him and his upcoming classes will be taught by other members of journalism faculty.

powers40@miamioh.edu

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