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Oct/Nov/Dec 2003 Vol. LVI No. 2 |
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President's Column
Shared Governance
Shared governance, wherein faculty must participate in governance of the university, is now state law. No, not in Texas, but in Arizona:
“...the faculty members of the universities, through their elected faculty representatives, shall share responsibility for academic and educational activities and matters related to faculty personnel. The faculty members of each university, through their elected faculty representatives, shall participate in the governance of their respective universities and shall actively participate in the development of university policy" (University of Arizona).
Isn't it time that we had such a law in Texas? Without shared governance, we will get more policies that damage tenure and academic freedom such as those enacted in the A&M System.
The integrity of our institutions and the degrees that students receive may be damaged without full faculty participation in the political process and shared governance. This threat arises from declining state funding for higher education and the legislature’s approval of a pilot program in which three community colleges will be given the authority to grant baccalaureate degrees in technical areas. Community colleges are funded locally and can already offer their degrees at a cost to students lower than that charged by state universities. With declining state support, many state universities may not survive if locally funded community colleges are allowed to offer baccalaureate degrees in all disciplines. One factor that differentiates four-year colleges from community colleges is that more faculty at four-year colleges have terminal degrees, but this factor may not be adequate to differentiate, as SACS accreditation criteria seem to shift with the political winds. Another argument is that four-year college faculty keep abreast of research by engaging in it, making them much more qualified to teach cutting-edge material, not to mention that subjecting faculty members’ ideas to blind review by peers is the best way to prevent them from lapsing into sophistic reasoning. Faculty need to get engaged politically and work with administrators to establish realistic, achievable research standards and realistic, achievable requirements for external funding that are appropriate to meet the dual threats of locally-funded community colleges and declines in state funding.
Along with the privilege of shared governance, of course, comes responsibility. In order to show administrators and legislators that faculty can handle shared governance responsibly, faculty need to police their own ranks. When faculty behave unethically or unprofessionally, we as faculty need to identify and counsel them, and if necessary, egregious or repeat offenders need to be shown the door. We need to be careful in judging faculty and administrators who make tough decisions as we are drawing conclusions from research data.
Faculty collectively comprise an awesome array of intelligence, talent, resourcefulness, expertise, experience, and wisdom. Faculty could design a bridge or a space station, develop an assessment instrument or a teaching method, devise a substance-abuse treatment program, run a corporation, develop a blueprint for a government, isolate a virus (biological or computational), or supply the expertise to feed a population. It is hard to imagine a group of people anywhere who are more qualified to engage in shared governance. Moreover, faculty have an important perspective, due to working daily on the front lines with students, so ignoring faculty input is inconsistent with sound management practice. Sound practice in shared governance is captured in the acronym POP, “public owns project,” and not DAD, “decide, announce, defend” (Walesh, 1999).
TACT is the only faculty organization that can lead the fight against locally-funded community colleges offering B.A. degrees, as we are the only faculty organization that is dedicated uniquely to the interests of state-funded universities, unhampered by commitments to community colleges or private universities. Help TACT stop the decline in state funding, maintain the integrity of B.A. degrees, and secure a shared governance law in Texas, by forwarding this e-mail, joining or renewing membership, and recruiting. Our futures are at stake.
“When I was at (XYZ Out-of-State University), a colleague was called into the Dean’s Office to be confronted by the Dean for “advocating positions of the devil.” What the professor had said in class, of course, was “I’m going to play devil’s advocate,” and an illiterate student took him literally. The Dean apparently also was not familiar with the metaphor.”
Who says higher ed’s humorless?!
On a more serious note, your TACT leadership has begun discussions of our next legislative agenda with full knowledge that the educational process of our public officials must begin now and must be effectively completed before the next regular session commences in little more than a year. The bad news of this interim is that it will soon be consumed by public school finance proposals, which will gobble up any new dollars which might be found. The good news is that the Joint Interim Committee on Higher Education is serious in its work and includes several friends of TACT, including co-Chair Senator Florence Shapiro.
The buzzword in the Interim Committee is “accountability,” which we hope to help define along the traditional TACT theme of “quality.” A primary concern is that as “Closing the Gaps” seeks to dramatically increase enrollment, no one save TACT and a few administrators seem to be talking about corresponding increases in faculty to at least maintain the current faculty/student ratios. Worsening ratios seem to be reducing the number of writing assignments, which we believe leads to graduates with less developed writing abilities, a condition that Texas employers should not stand for.
These issues and others are being drafted into policy statements for discussion at Spring TACT Regional Conferences as were successfully conducted two years ago. Already scheduled are meetings February 14 in Beaumont (10:00 AM until 2:00 PM, with State Representative Joe Deshotel scheduled as the luncheon speaker) and February 21 in Stephenville, with two others being developed for Kingsville and the Metroplex. Stay tuned for further details.
At our recent TACT meetings in Austin, we heard from a number of individuals who work in and with the legislature. Loud and clear came the message that higher education must begin being accountable. What was meant by “accountability” and to whom we were to be held accountable was not clear – no one could answer those questions. What did become very clear is that our Texas legislators as a group have little understanding of the real work that happens in the trenches in higher education.
Questions asked of us included, “Why are institutions of higher education spending time and money teaching remedial courses?” “Why aren’t more students graduating in the fields that Texas needs to employ?” “Why are students paying so much for higher education?” “Why do college professors only teach 12 hours a week?” “Why do college professors get paid extra to teach in the summer?”
All of us in higher education know the answers to these questions. Study after study and report after report have been written on the quality of students entering college campuses today, the types of majors being pursued (and why the graduates don’t stay in Texas), why higher education costs what is does, how many hours faculty work each week and why we get paid extra to teach summer school. Somehow that information is not getting to the public or to the legislature.
As educators we have certain responsibilities inherent to our profession: to stay current in our fields, to actively involve our students in the learning process, to grade fairly and impartially, to provide a positive, non-threatening learning environment for all our students, etc. I suggest that we have an additional responsibility to ourselves and the future of higher education: to educate the public and the legislature on the realities of higher education. To that end, I invited my local state representative and senator to spend a day “shadowing” me. As a theatre professor, much of the teaching that I do is “hands-on.” While some fields lend themselves more to teaching theory than to teaching practical techniques, my field is one in which the practical application is critical. Hands-on work is typical in most of the classes that I teach e.g., a student actually sews in a costume construction course. My students learn by experience. I can’t think of a better way to educate our legislature than by experience!
Both my senator and representative agreed to visit. My senator, Craig Estes, was only able to stay for a little over an hour. He sat in on a class during presentations. The class, an Introduction to Theatrical Design, was presenting designs for “Tartuffe.” He listened carefully to the presentations and asked several good questions. After the class, we had a few minutes to talk before my next class. We spoke about issues affecting higher education and he was supportive regarding concerns that state funding for higher education had been cut very close to the bone. He encouraged me to continue the dialogue by coming by his office here or in Austin and to continue to stay informed about issues regarding higher education.
My representative, David Farabee, was able to spend an entire morning with me. He arrived at 8:00 am, glad to see that I was already there (I’d arrived at 6:15am to ensure that I was already prepped for my day before he arrived!). We shared a cup of coffee and spent some time talking about higher education before my first class. He visited my Costume Construction course while 16 students were working on a project, each of them calling “Elizabeth, I need help!” repeatedly. He then sat in on a Voice & Diction class (one that he had taken as a student). After classes, we had some more time to speak before he left. He said what a good reminder this had been for him – seeing how much preparation is needed to teach classes, the importance of low student/faculty ratios (particularly in hands-on classes), and the changing face of today’s students. He was very supportive of the needs of higher education and reinforced the need for faculty to stay aware of activity in Austin regarding higher education and the correlated need for faculty to be in contact with their representatives and senators in Austin. [ A side note: Earlier this fall Representative Farabee agreed to coauthor a bill regarding higher education faculty salaries!]
With both Representative Farabee and Senator Estes, I discussed many issues. Both did not believe that the public perceives faculty as working very little for fat salaries but were surprised when I showed them my schedule and talked about a typical work week. Both were supportive of faculty concerns and protecting the future of higher education. Both are actively looking for solutions, especially regarding Closing the Gaps, including the possibility that some of the burden of lower level classes should be shifted to community classes. Both were receptive to the concerns of faculty regarding “efficiency,” “effectiveness,” and faculty/student ratios. Both stressed the importance of faculty members being aware of actions in Austin regarding higher education and the imperative that faculty be in regular contact with their representatives and senators.
While both Representative Farabee and Senator Estes were interested in the issues regarding faculty, it was clear that their exposure to faculty issues and concerns was limited. We, the faculty in their district, had not been doing our job in communicating with them.
I’m proposing that each TACT member contact their representative and senator. Invite them to “walk a day in your shoes.” While you may not get a whole day, even an hour can give you an invaluable chance to show them what we as faculty face in an average day – the classes, committee work, grading, interacting with students, doing research. Talk about salaries, concerns about how we are going to find seats in classrooms when facing “Closing the Gaps,” rising insurance costs and other pertinent issues. Read your latest TACT Alert and talk about that. I am confident that your elected officials are as interested as are mine. If we don’t communicate our thoughts to them, who will? Who will educate them about our concerns if we do not do it? Take the time to consider how you teach your students and use the same approach with your legislators – to borrow a phrase from another organization, each one teach one. After all, are we educators, or what?!?
Texas Retirement System – A Retirement Fund Update
Liz Reyna, TACT Marketing Director
Watson Wyatt Worldwide, the actuarial consultant for the Teacher Retirement System (TRS), reported December 3, on the actuarial valuation of the TRS.
Since the 78th Legislative Session created no funding or appropriations increase, the Fund is dependent solely on the market to increase the value. The TRS fund market value as of August 2003 was $89.0 billion, compared to $86.0 billion last year. The increase compensates the fund for losses in recent years since the TRS uses a “smoothing process,” used by most states, to analyze the return for a given year and recognizes 20% of the market’s change and defers recognizing 80% of the deficit. It takes five full years to integrate an investment return. In the next four years, $11.4 billion in deferred investment losses will be recognized.
The number of active members increased 1.2% and the payroll for all active members increased 3.8%. The number of retirees increased 8%, which has doubled in only three years. There are 3.5 active members for each retiree, producing an average annual retiree benefit of $21,252. The ratio of active members per retiree is slowly decreasing, as it was 4.2 active members per retiree. We can expect to continue to see this trend.
The System’s normal cost rate (12.46%) exceeds the contribution rate by 0.06% of pay. Currently, the system is under-funded by $5.2 billion, which will keep the system sustained as long as it can remain sufficiently funded. To do so, it needs to generate market gains to offset the $5.2 billion unfounded actuarial accrued liability and deferred losses. To offset the remaining deferred investment losses, TRS will need to average at least 12.7% for the next three years or 11.5% for the next four years.
How TACT Works For You
by Dr. James Puckett, TACT President
Reference
Walesh, S.G. 1999. Dad is out, pop is in. Journal of the American Water Resources
Association, 35:535-544.
Executive Director’s Report
by Chuck Hempstead
The Devil's in the Details
This is one of the funniest stories I’ve heard in years. As the TACT State and Chapter leaders have been discussing the potential impacts to academic freedom of student conservative groups creating lists of faculty who are too “political,” the following true story was shared.
Are We Educators or What?
by Elizabeth Lewandowski, Midwestern State University
A Proposed New Initiative
