Faculty Senate Chairs'
University Faculty Meeting
Speeches
Address to the Faculty - August 16,
1999
Dr. Stella Anderson, Senate Chair
Good morning. I want to take
this opportunity to talk about several key issues facing your faculty
senate.
1. Post-tenure review.
It's HERE! Some of you
have already had the dubious pleasure of being among the first
to suffer through this process.
As you likely recall, the Board
of Governors' mandate allowed each institution to develop its
own procedures and requirements for post-tenure review, under
general guidelines.
As it turns out, ASU put into place a system
considerably unlike most of the others: Ours is among the most stringent
and taxing on the affected faculty. There are only 2 others (at most)
- 1 for sure - that require what we require. To top it off, for some unknown
reason, ASU exempts department chairs from PTR.
The procedure now in place at ASU closely
resembles a process of reapplying for tenure. And let's be clear: post-tenure
review was never supposed to be a reapplication for tenure. Our process
needs simplifying, and the burden on faculty -- significantly reduced. The
Senate intends to accomplish both objectives.
2. Faculty Work Load.
As most faculty realize, there
are inequities in teaching loads across campuses in the North
Carolina system and within departments/colleges/schools at ASU.
There exists no clear, compelling
rationale for these inequities -- only longstanding memories
that things have always been like this - apparently, it's tradition.
In the September 1998 BOG's Plan for Rewarding
Faculty Teaching -- the standard for comprehensive universities is a 9-hour
teaching load per semester. Also, faculty who teach more than the standard
load are to be rewarded accordingly. Obviously, that is not the tradition
at ASU.
We in the Senate whole-heartedly agree with
this 9-hour standard, and we ask the administration to do something about
bringing ASU into line with that standard for comprehensive universities
in the state. Either this is the goal of the administration -- in which
case something ought to be done to achieve it -- or this isn't the goal of
our administration, which is what many faculty have reluctantly concluded
is in fact the truth of the matter.
3. Terms for Chairs
A new policy approved at the
May Board of Trustees meeting is now in place, and I encourage
you to read the policy statement in its entirety on the Senate's
web page. Go to the March 22 minutes. In a nutshell,
department chairs CAN serve an initial term of 5 years, with
subsequent 3-year terms. At the end of a term, the chair
position is open for nominations of others that would like to
serve. Also, there is a phase-in schedule for existing
department chairs.
The Senate pursued this issue
for two primary reasons:
a. We wanted
faculty to have far greater say in the appointment of their department chair. Now,
department members will establish any nominating committee.
b. We believe
that a department Chair is first a faculty member and second a faculty member
with a special set of administrative duties. As such, a chair may return
full-time to teaching, research, and service.
4. Mandatory Office Hours.
There is one, and only 1, other
campus in the system with mandatory office hours - and that mandate
is 5 hours per week. Because modern technology, specifically
email, has changed the ways we communicate with students, the
Senate has recommended a reduction in the number of mandatory
office hours. The old policy is simply out of step with
the ways in which faculty and students communicate.
5. Grievance Hearing Process.
As the system currently exists,
the administration is both prosecutor and judge. The administration
presents the case against a faculty member, and the Faculty Grievance
Hearing Committee makes its recommendation to the Chancellor,
who then decides the matter. Not surprisingly, (over the
course of 6 years) the Chancellor has always upheld the recommendation
of the Grievance Committee when the Committee has found in favor
of the administration. However, the Chancellor has always
rejected the Grievance Committee recommendations in every case
in which the Committee found in favor of the faculty member. Apparently,
the Grievance Committee is 'always right' as long as they agree
with the Administration - yet they are always 'wrong' when they
agree with the faculty member.
We believe that this very telling - there
are serious flaws in the current grievance system and we intend to push for
changes. Currently, the Faculty Assembly and the General Administration
are
both looking at the merit of outside binding arbitration as
an alternative means of resolving grievances. We will be following
developments closely and promise to keep the faculty informed.
6. Faculty Salaries.
Here is an interesting quote
from an article in the June 30th, 1999, Raleigh News & Observer:
(Quote) "The legislature has agreed to order the UNC system to
conduct an analysis of faculty salaries. The study will
compare the faculty salaries on the state's campuses with those
at peer institutions across the region and the United States. The
mandate says that the UNC system will report its findings by
December 1, along with recommendations for salary adjustments
to (quote)
"maintain and enhance academic excellence." (endquote)
We certainly look forward to this report. However,
we don't need to wait for a sign from above to tell us that there are massive
inequities in the system. When we compare ASU's average salaries for
Full, Associate, and Assistant professors to those at five other NC institutions
most comparable to us, the results are not pretty.
For UNC-Wilmington, UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Charlotte,
UNC-Asheville, Western Carolina, and ASU ... ASU salaries for Full and Associate
professors rank 6th out of six. And the difference is significant -
for Associate professsors, our average is about $2,000 below the average
of the other five comparable institutions. For Full professors, our
average is $5,000 below the average of the other five. You'll be glad
to know that for Assistant professors, our average is in line with the others.
I guess this means that the longer you stay
here, the worse you fare. If you're teaching faculty, that is. Administrators
take care of themselves somewhat differently.
In years when faculty at ASU received, on
average, 4% increases, our top-level administrators, over a 2-year period,
received 25 and 38% increases. Moreover, these increases were made
in spite of the fact that their salaries were already above their counterparts
from comprehensive universities nationwide.
Here is what this means in $ terms: Over
the same time period, while teaching faculty were lucky to get a $3-4,000
salary increase, these administrators got $27,000 and $52,000 increases. This
issue alone should swell the membership rolls of the AAUP.
This entire salary situation is demoralizing. Some
would say shameful. This yawning gulf between the teaching faculty
and the administration sends a clear message about what the people at the
top take care of first.
As faculty we hear from the administration
over and over again that we are among the best in the system. This
simply does not ring true as long as we rank dead last in pay.
Let's consider what we have here:
An overloaded PTR
system, an above standard teaching load, a flawed grievance process, and
pay that ranks dead last. Obviously the Senate has its work cut out. We
have to demand change - we simply can not afford to accept as 'tradition'
the way things have been done in the past.
The Senate will go to bat on these issues
- you can support us by staying informed, speaking up on the issues, and
bringing your concerns to the Senate.
Thank you.
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