I went to Nashville Tuesday to attend a meeting with TBR
academic staff, including Chancellor Manning and Academic
VP Paula Short.
While technically not a SubCouncil meeting, SubCouncil
members were invited, along with presidents of AAUP
chapters. Every TBR school was represented by at least one
faculty member.
You know how hard this will be for me, but I will try to
keep it brief.
Chancellor Manning briefly explained that the Defining our
Future document (DoF) was intended to provide specific
actions TBR as a system could take to deal with
non-increasing, and possibly even decreasing funding. Dr
Manning's primary focus seems to be access, and he wants to
direct the changes as much as possible towards widening
access without requiring additional funds.
Almost immediately, a Tennessee State faculty member began
making inquiries regarding the language of a number of
"Project statements", these being the specific actions to
be taken. For example, Project No A-21 reads "Eliminate or
consolidate academic programs with unwarranted high net
costs or low number of graduates."
This TSU person's argument basically was this
i)How many teaching faculty members were directly
involved in the drafting of the document? A:"None"
ii)How many teaching faculty were involved in the
brainstorming that took place prior to having TBR draft the
document? A:"There were "Town Hall" meetings at all
campuses intended to allow faculty to participate." At this
point several faculty members piped in that it was not at
all clear that this was the purpose of the Town Hall
meetings, and that further, on at least three campuses, the
Town Hall meeting was announced in the afternoon of the
evening it was held. In fact, at these specific
institutions, many faculty members first read the
announcement for the meeting on the day after it was
actually held.
iii)Given that faculty were not involved in the
drafting of the DoF document, and referring specifically to
projext A-21 (quoted two or three paragraphs up), why is
there no corresponding set of Projects that call for an
examination of administrative structure at the
institutions? Why is it, in a document with 21 Projects,
that while at least half seem to indicate the possibility
of cutbacks in academic services, not a single one suggests
a cutback in administrative services?
This difficult question became the primary topic of the
rest of the three hour meeting. TBR staff were frankly
surprised, not necesarily that the question came up, but
instead with the intensity with which so many of the
attendees criticized what was seen as this fundamental
oversight in the DoF document. The Tennessee Tech AAUP
president seemed to sum up the feeling in the room when she
said that until the Board mandates examination of
administrative costs, it will not be dealt with, and
academic programs will do ALL of the suffering that arises
out of DoF implementation.
So, what was intended as a walkthrough of the document and
the implementaion process really turned into a lengthy
discussion of just how to insure that faculty input is
included from this point forward.
To that end, here is what I believe was agreed to. While
the legislature is free to do as it pleases, TBR policy
requires that any academic policy changes be approved by
all SubCouncils, including faculty SubCouncils. While
policy can be changed without this approval, it is
officially documented that SubCouncil approval for the
policy was not granted. With that in mind,
1)TBR Academic staff will remind all campus presidents and
academic officers that faculty must be involved in all
decisions concerning changes to academic policy. At any
campus failing to actively recruit and include teaching
faculty on such committees, it will be clearly stated that
the SubCouncil rep for that campus is free to vote against
approval of changes to policy, even simply on the basis
that faculty was not involved.
2)SubCouncil members will be responsible for informing
their faculty members that this top-down pressure is being
applied to allow for greater faculty involvement, and that
as a result faculty should take advantage of the
opportunity. For me, the implied message here is, "I am
telling you to get involved, and the academic officers are
being pressured to include you; if you don't get involved
now, don't whine about it next year."
3)Dr Short agreed (I never heard Dr Manning agree, but he
nodded a couple of times) to hold systemwide
tele-conferences open to all faculty. These would give
individual faculty members the opportunity to directly
question central office staff. In addition to serving as a
conduit for direct Q&A info, this would hopefully let
faculty throughout the state know that TBR academic staff
is dedicated to addressing faculty concerns.
So, I have about 10 pages of notes, if you want a more
complete listing of specifics arguments and statements, but
I think this about sums up the proceedings. Let me know if
you have any questions.
dave
694-6462
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DAVID VINSON
Email: dvinson@pstcc.cc.tn.us
"Pellissippi State Technical Community College"