An Open Letter to Members of the 76th Texas Legislature: Please Invest in the Future of 1.1 Million Texas College Students!

Dear Mr. or Ms. Texas Legislator,

Please join with members of the Texas Association of College Teachers and me in our efforts to provide Texas college students with the best system for higher education in the nation. Toward that end, TACT proposes the following six-point program for lawmakers to support and enact during the 76th Texas Legislature.

• State Support of scholarships should be increased and the application process streamlined.
• Return academic decisions to the state institutions.
• Commit to a plan of faculty pay equity by the year 2003.
• Return to an appropriation of 8.5 percent of salary for all participants of the Optional Retirement Program.
• Increase the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) benefit multiplier from 2.0 to 2.5 percent.
• Remove personal liability from Directors and Officers of nonprofit organizations.

While the relevance of the above issues should be evident, I have firsthand knowledge of how crucial they are to the success of Texas higher education in serving the needs of the 1.1 million Texas college students projected for enrollment by the millennium. In my travels to 17 of the 34 senior public universities in Texas I have heard alarming stories of the crisis to come if our legislature does not take steps to solve the growing problems of higher education.

State support of student scholarships, for instance, is a high priority need on every state university campus in view of the recent Hopwood decision. I have been following the progress of former Lt. Governor Hobby in his student diversity committee, and I see student scholarship funding increases and the introduction of a single-system statewide application process as the means to dramatically increase the number and diversity of Texans able to afford higher education.

Returning academic decisions to the state institutions seems to be the most serious concern I am hearing from faculty members. They see the legislative trend toward micromanagement of our institutional policies such as core curriculum and fields of study as a threat to academic standards at public universities in Texas. Many faculty members are worried that national accreditations are at risk in several professional disciplines.

Committing to a plan of faculty pay equity by the year 2003 is also vitally important to Texas higher education. With average Texas faculty salaries the lowest among the eleven most populous states, our universities are hard pressed to compete for the best and brightest professors to teach our students. Our Texas college students deserve the best teachers, but below average salaries are making it extremely difficult to attract and retain them.

Returning to an appropriation of 8.5 percent of salary for all participants of the Optional Retirement Program is the only fair thing to do. I heard the best justification in the world for our legislature to "do the right thing" concerning the Optional Retirement Program. During a recent visit to a Texas A&M campus, I heard an exasperated undergraduate chairperson tell me of his struggle to hire an experienced professor from Pennsylvania who was very satisfied with every condition but one. When it came time to sign a contract, he saw the six percent ORP benefit paid by Texas, and his astonished question was, "Why should I accept a 33 1/3 percent cut in my retirement benefit? Pennsylvania pays nine percent!" Well, to make a long story short, he was hired with a salary adjustment to offset his loss of retirement income, and that immediately created a morale problem in the department. Consider that Oklahoma pays fifteen percent, and you can see how Texas is handicapped in hiring new faculty with the six percent contribution in effect for all hires after September 1, 1995. A startling example of how devastating this scenario could be to a newly hired professor based on a conservative first-year salary of $30,000 is that he or she would retire $107,000 poorer than colleagues receiving the 8.5 percent contribution to their Optional Retirement Program.

Increasing the Teacher Retirement System benefit multiplier from 2.0 to 2.25 percent is clearly needed when you consider that the Employees Retirement System is 2.25 percent. The difference between 2.0 and 2.25 percent multipliers at retirement age is truly a hardship borne by TRS participants. When I testified before the Interim Senate State Affairs Committee chaired by Senator Armbrister this spring, I received assurances that his committee would be recommending an increase of the TRS benefit multiplier to 2.1 percent, and that is certainly a progressive step toward equitable treatment.

Removing personal liability from Directors and Officers of nonprofit organizations is the simplest of our requests from the 76th Texas Legislative Session. University professors are often called upon to serve on nonprofit boards of several IRS 501(c) organizations. We are asking the legislature to pass a bill that goes beyond the federal Volunteer Protection Act of 1997. Individuals acting in good faith on behalf of IRS 501(c) organizations should not be at personal risk of liability for the actions and policies of the organizations for whom they serve.

In conclusion, Madam or Sir Legislator, allow me to say how grateful I am that there are women and men like you who are willing to serve their fellow citizens at great personal sacrifice. In the five years I have served as a state officer of TACT, I have had the opportunity to meet and communicate with more than sixty members of your honorable assembly. My experience has shown me that 99 percent of you are genuinely concerned with doing your best to lead Texas into the best possible future. You have a great deal in common with college professors in that you are certainly not following a political career for the untold wealth it brings you, and the great majority of you are not afraid of hard work and long hours spent on behalf of your fellow citizens. Now, I ask you to invest some of those long hours and that hard work in creating a great future for 1.1 million Texas college students at the beginning of the 21st Century. If you decide not to take a positive stand on these six issues, then, as one recent newspaper editorial stated, "clearly, higher education in this state is at risk of becoming mediocre." Texans have never before settled for being mediocre in anything! Please don't let us settle for it now.

I thank you in advance for your consideration of my request for assistance.

Dr. Hoffman is an Associate Professor of English at Midwestern State University