Brown Mackie College Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Brown Mackie College as a contractor for more than a year

Pros – flexible schedules with adjunct professors,

Cons – lack of consistency in classes offered to adjunct professors, might teach one or two classes one month and then go months with out any

Advice to Senior Management – Structure the classes to offer classes to the adjunct professors at least one a month.

Former Employee – worked at Brown Mackie College full-time for more than a year

Pros – -Excellent growth opportunities if you stay within company (EDMC branches nationwide), easy to earn promotions
-Opportunities to earn bonuses

Cons – -Terrible base pay
-Unethical practices in career services and admissions (fudging numbers, "waiving" graduates in career services so they don't count in the statistics, enrolling unprepared and even HOMELESS students to meet admissions goals)
-High staff turnover, particularly in admissions
-Everything must be approved "by corporate," the individual colleges have little freedom
-Too profit-driven to be a fruitful academic environment for students

Advice to Senior Management – Focus more on education and less on profits

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Brown Mackie College as a contractor

Pros – BMC is a significant resource for students heading into tech fields out of high school, or for students who are employed and need realistic days/hours for classes. Most faculty are excellent human beings and solid teachers. They are the backbone to BMC's success stories.

Cons – High turnover of upper management, unrealistic expectations of adjuncts regarding class prep (especially if they are new to the for-profit environment or a specific class), students admitted that simply do not have the ability to complete their course of study, but have been sucked into admissions by greedy school reps.

Advice to Senior Management – Take your own courses that talk about leadership, organizational behavior, interpersonal communication, public speaking, intrapersonal growth, and, above all else, ethics. Seriously, if this is not a company of Yes men and women, I don't know what is. I understand the principles of unity and conformity to a common task/purpose, but the Deans and Presidents at this school have kissed all that good-bye for sake of a paycheck and possible promotion. It shows very clearly, ladies and gentlemen at the top of the org chart---and you should be ashamed of yourselves for pushing out department chairs, faculty, and staff that dare to share any ideas of improvement or correction.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Brown Mackie College part-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Instructors care about students very much.

Cons – Management above the department chair level typically have little to no formal education. Any education they do have is from for-profits (or EDMC itself), ensuring that they just don't know any better. Extreme favoritism to those who learn to parrot the company line. Promotions given to those who don't question the status quo. Employees who ask too many questions or try to make positive change are ganged up on and forced out.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't let titles like "dean" or "campus president" get to your head. You are site managers for a corporation. Look past the BS and critically think about what you're doing.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Brown Mackie College

Pros – Their are some really good benefits to working for Brown Mackie College. Health, Dental, Vision, 401 K, etc.

Cons – The work hours are horrible. We are the only school open until 8pm during the week.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Brown Mackie College

Pros – Helping students achieve their goals.

Cons – Unattanable goals and poor management.

Advice to Senior Management – Only hire management that know how to manage.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Brown Mackie College

Pros – A good starting point because the place is relatively easy to get into, but beware of all the BS you will have to put up with (see CONS section). After you get this type of experience, any other place will seem like a piece of cake.
The money is relatively good and you get paid "faster" since each class is only one month long and is three nights a week. It's like getting a semester paycheck in one month.
You can usually hang on to all of the teaching materials/books after the course is finished.

Cons – Where do I start?! Neither the faculty nor the students seemed to care about anything. I got no support whatsoever being a new adjunct. My meetings with my boss were limited to about 3 hours where he quickly showed me a few things, gave me the book and never followed up on the rest. Many things I simply wasn't told but was dinged on them later, and in a completely unprofessional way. I would be called into the Assistant Dean's office at the beginning of class while my students would be sitting and waiting on me to get started. I was reprimanded for things that were simply never communicated to me. One time I was asked to change the syllabus and adjust all of the scores 2 weeks into a 4 week class, even though my syllabus was submitted for review and approval by the faculty before classes started - clearly they never looked at it. Needless to say, I had a lot of extra work on my hands and my students were furious!

As far as reviews go, I was completely shocked to receive one on paper which consisted of pretty low marks claiming that someone sat in and observed my instruction, when in reality no one ever did! I was upset because throughout my 10+ year career working for fortune 500 companies I have always been a top performer.

About 90% of the students didn't care about class or learning - the assumption was that attending class was more than enough, and they should be getting a decent grade just for showing up. Attendance was terrible no matter what I tried. A lot of people had all kinds of personal issues that they would bring to class with them and try to get out of doing homework / exams / assignments. I would always have to give at least 1 make-up per exam/assignment which added up to a TON of extra work for me as instructor. The administration was always trying to accommodate students because BM is a for-profit school and they get subsidies based on how many students attend. They would do anything to keep a student in class and give them a passing grade, no matter how unfair it really is.

Overall, if you want to just get some experience, go for it. But make sure you get paired up with another experienced instructor who can give you the "insider" information and help with prep for the courses. Be very strict with the students, otherwise they will take advantage of you. Make sure to know all of the little rules that the administration has set in place.

Advice to Senior Management – Conduct detailed orientation for new adjuncts - in the evening, so people who work full-time can attend. Pair new adjuncts with an experienced person that they can go to, get copies of course materials and ask questions. Put together some documentation around logistics and rules that can be distributed to new instructors before they get into "trouble". Provide more support in terms of dealing with students-complainers, find out both sides of the story, not just the student's side.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend