To answer these questions, I started listing some of the differences that I have noticed between my workplaces. I have steadily grown this list over the past semester, and I now feel that it is complete enough and accurate enough to share.
I will rate and score each organization on each criterion. A score of 3 indicates that this organization is the best of the three in this aspect, while 1 indicates the worst.
| Criteria | Triton College | College of DuPage | DeVry | Category Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Communication to employees | 2 | 3 | 1 | COD's internal newsletters are excellent, and the emails regarding campus events are nonstop. |
| Social responsibility | 3 | 2 | 1 | Triton genuinely cares for the community they serve, they actively seek ways to better support it, and are constantly offering fun and educational events to the public. |
| Academic freedom | 2 | 3 | 1 | COD wins for two reasons. First, their course outlines are excellent, clearly and concisely enumerating the learning objectives without the unnecessary pages of assessment details and hourly breakdowns that Triton's contain. Second, they are not constrained by the same articulations that Triton is obligated to follow. Triton runs a close second, however, as faculty have loosely-monitored, godlike powers in their classrooms. Academic freedom is notoriously limited at DeVry, who prescribes the entire content of their courses. |
| Classroom facilities | 1 | 3 | 2 | COD's rooms may smell weird, but they're spacious, well lit, and have all of the technology to support all of their courses in every room. Whiteboard space is also plentiful (an understatement), as are markers, erasers, and printer paper. Triton loses here mostly because of the poor lighting design and lack of supplies, and DVU loses because of the limited whiteboard space (covered by the projection screen) and restrictions on what we can do with the classroom computers. |
| Faculty/staff lounge | 1 | 2 | 3 | DeVry has comfortable and lightly used staff lounges at most of their campuses. These lounges feature fridges, microwaves, plenty of tables, and soft, comfortable seating. I am unaware of whether COD has such a thing, but I know for certain that my building at Triton does not. |
| Campus | 3 | 2 | 1 | Triton has a spacious, well-landscaped, and beautiful campus. COD has amazing buildings, but their campus is almost entirely occupied by them and parking lots. DeVry's environment has been accurately described as "corporate" and "sterile". |
| External community events | 3 | 2 | 1 | Triton, as I mentioned above, has community events on campus for the public all the time -- nearly every day, in fact. |
| Internal community events | 2 | 3 | 1 | COD also has events going on constantly, but they're oriented more toward the internal campus community rather than the general public. They do have public events, but not on the continual daily basis that Triton does. |
| Faculty workload | 3 | 2 | 1 | Triton faculty are under the direction of a clear-cut, union-backed contract. Anything that we do outside of that contract potentially involves extra pay or some other perk. The only reason COD loses here is because their faculty are also expected to serve as official student advisors -- a good and reasonable thing, but it is extra work. DeVry tends to load faculty with as much work as possible. |
| Schedule planning | 2 | 3 | 1 | COD has their schedules determined several months in advance. Triton operates on the scale of weeks (a couple of months at best) in advance, while DeVry is still bumbling days in advance. |
| Course offerings | 2 | 3 | 1 | COD offers many sections of most classes, and wait lists still form. Triton offers multiple sections of a few, but many of their offerings rarely (if ever) run. DeVry offers relatively few onsite classes. |
| Commute from home | 2 | 3 | 1 | COD is around 30 to 40 minutes in normal traffic. Triton is usually around 50. With DeVry, it varies greatly based on which campus I'm going to, but my old office was well over an hour away in the lightest traffic; nearly two hours if weather, construction, or congestion interfered. |
| Electric vehicle friendliness | 3 | 2 | 1 | Triton has three conveniently located Chargepoint stations. COD has one station that has been out of service the entire time I've worked there. DeVry has none unless you can find a public one within walking distance, which is rare. |
| Technology support | 1 | 2 | 3 | DeVry wins this category in general because every campus has their own friendly and competent IT staff who are empowered to do whatever I need them to do at any time. COD is a close second simply because I have never needed IT support there due to their excellent classroom facilities as mentioned above. Triton loses here because their PCs are missing applications that I like to use in class, plus they wrap a lot of perplexing red tape around IT requests. |
| Textbook ordering process | 1 | 3 | 2 | COD makes this effortless. I remind my coordinator what I'm teaching and a textbook magically appears in my campus mailbox. DeVry is a close second because their textbooks are all electronic and appear automatically, but they're temporary and can't be kept. Triton requires us to contact the publishers ourselves to request books. |
| Classroom access | 2 | 3 | 1 | COD gives me an employee ID card that unlocks all of the classrooms with a swipe. Triton requires that I fill out paperwork to request physical keys from the campus police department every semester. DeVry makes us hunt down a security guard or IT personnel to open classrooms. |
| Snow days | 2 | 3 | 1 | COD tends to cancel classes due to weather at reasonable times and in a timely fashion. Triton waits until it's almost too late most of the time. DeVry rarely ever cancels at all, though they have recently shown a huge improvement in judgement on such matters. |
| Paperwork | 1 | 3 | 2 | COD wins easily because there is never a need for physical paper to ever be used for anything. Their technology infrastructure handles it all electronically. DeVry has an infrastructure that is nearly as good, but is mired by micromanagement regarding its use. Triton is the only one who relies on actual paper, and they rely on it for nearly EVERYTHING. It would be comical and quaint if it weren't so embarrassing and tragic. |
| Course shell setup | 2 | 3 | 1 | COD wins for reasons that are easy to see when compared to the other two. Like DeVry, COD's course shells are automatically created for every class. Like Triton (but unlike DeVry), we have complete control over the entire content of the shells. So, DeVry loses because faculty are not allowed to own their shells, and Triton loses because the shells must be explicitly requested individually for every class every semester. |
So, all in all, who wins?
Shall we choose the victor based on number of categories won? If so, the scores would be:
- Triton: 5
- COD: 12
- DeVry: 2
Or should we simply add up their point values?
- Triton: 38
- COD: 50
- DeVry: 26
No matter how you score it, it's easy to see that Triton College and College of DuPage are both excellent places to work. COD takes the lead mostly due to the cleanliness and simplicity of their well-defined processes, an area which appears to be a major weakness at Triton. (For instance, my on-boarding process at Triton was sloppy and confusing, and to this day I have not completed everything I was told to do.) Nevertheless, I love working at both places and hope to continue for many years to come.
So, I can say that College of DuPage is an outstanding place to work, Triton College is a great place to work, and DeVry University is another place to work.
Hopefully this satisfies the curiosity of my friends and colleagues who have wondered. If not, you all know how to reach me. (Better idea: Visit me on campus and see for yourself!)
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