Governor’s Task Force on
Higher Education Institutional and Student Success
G.L.A. Harris, Ph.D, Associate Professor, Mark O. Hatfield School of Government
PSU-AAUP Appointee Interim Report
I am one of 17 members on the Task Force that emanated from House Bill 3418 which mandated the following:
• To explore best practices and models for achieving the Governor’s goals for Educational attainment: 20% of Oregonians with a just a high school diploma, 40% with an associate degree, and 40% with bachelor’s degree (or higher) by 2025.
• To examine the barriers that hinder student and institutional success
• To look at those methods that assist students in acquiring basic and career preparation skills
• To investigate alternative avenues as conduits for students and promote “best practices
• To review funding streams in other states toward student and institutional success
We’ve had two meetings and created an interim report for the legislature identifyng the overarching barriers or “Big Rocks” that are not only likely to have the greatest impact on student success and thus institutional success but have initially identified corresponding long-term actions or strategies for overcoming them as well. You can review the report yourself here, but I wanted to share the specific issues that I raised that would not have been broached had PSU-AAUP not secured my seat at the table.
• The state needs to return to its core mission of educating Oregonians by investing in more resources in education
• Educating the citizenry is an imperative of government because doing so will create public value which constitutes a public good, not a private good
• Administrative bloat greatly undermines the state’s core mission of educating its citizenry and more resources should be dedicated to classroom instruction instead of administrators’ salaries.
These issues, however, were omitted from the interim report. I have had to fight with OUS administrators, who support this committee, from including anything remotely negative about administration. Though they were not included in this first interim report, I was promised by those at the helm that these barriers will be revisited during future and more detail-oriented meetings where the barriers will be further refined.
The problem of administrative bloat was a particularly sensitive issue, so much so that I had to repeatedly hammer the point. Somebody listened… a legislative concept, LC 261, is proposed that will look at the demographics of administration, along with all other employee groups, and report back to the legislature. The term “administrative bloat” is conspicuously absent from the interim report though that was exactly how it was couched in task force discussions.
I was successful in getting the following documented in the interim report:
• Provide more targeted funding to specific student success strategies while seeking to reduce administrative costs
• Increase diversity of the faculty and create an inclusive environment to support their success
• Improve the professional development and mentoring for all faculty/instructors to ensure quality faculty, with emphasis on new and incoming faculty
• Focus on the results/outcomes, not on reports
• Limit tuition increases to make higher education for Oregonians not only accessible but affordable as well
• Ensure that faculty salaries are in alignment with industry and other institutions in order to draw candidates and retain them
• Increase advising and placement professionals
• Find ways of rewarding faculty for teaching success to avoid the uneven emphasis on research success
• Increase resources for instruction by reducing administrative costs in order to ensure that adequate resources are dedicated to classroom instruction and to eliminate any disproportionate costs for administrative functions or administrators
• Consider income based student debt repayment
• Where possible, redirect unrestricted funds to support instruction and advising
• Provide fixed term faculty with multiyear contracts instead of one year contracts to provide for greater stability and incentives. Doing so benefits both faculty and students
• Reduce the teaching load and class sizes for faculty to allow for greater interaction with students and ensure that the quality of education is not eroded
• Reduce the use of contingent/part-time faculty to ensure that students have access to both tenured and tenure track faculty. Doing so will result in greater stability for both faculty and students
• Eliminate redundancies and organizational silos that impede efficiency and use those resources for instruction; flatten all organizational silos wherever possible
Western Governors University (WGU) has recently surfaced as an option that the House Committee on Higher Education is taking very seriously. It presented this information on November 18, 2011. The committee, subsequently, created LC 287 to explore a potential partnership between Oregon and WGU- the creation of an 8th virtual OUS campus. WGU touts its accessibility and affordability for prospective students with the promise of the completion of a bachelor’s degree in 2.5 years without access to faculty. WGU claims to be accredited but will not release its accreditation information. With a graduation rate of 22%, what is at issue is the quality of instruction and hence the quality of education being offered by WGU. I plan to raise this issue at the upcoming Task Force meeting on February 3, 2012.
Should you have any questions and/or would like to make comments, please do not hesitate
to contact me at glah@pdx.edu. Thank you.
Vanguard Editorial: A Real Fixer Upper
by Vanguard Editorial Staff on October 27, 2011 in Opinion
If PSU can afford to invest in real estate, we can afford to invest in our faculty
The Portland State University chapter of the Association of American University Professors has been engaged in collective bargaining with the university since last April, in an effort to secure a contract agreement for the new biennium. With the current contract set to expire on Oct. 31, and university administrators and faculty union representatives at loggerheads, it appears that another deadline extension may be on the horizon. (continued)
President Wiewel might want to do something with that $54 million dollar surplus PSU has as of June 2011...
Lariviere defends University of Oregon Pay Raises
University of Oregon President Richard Lariviere is strongly defending his decision to grant raises to hundreds of faculty and administrators, saying the raises were necessary to hold on to top teachers and managers and that the UO could afford them.
“It would have been egregious for the UO to have simply grown its reserves in an environment when our faculty and staff are being asked to do more,” Lariviere wrote. “The decision to invest some of these resources in our human infrastructure is appropriate, warranted, and good for the state.”
please read the full article here:
http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/26887795-41/raises-lariviere-state-university-faculty.html.csp
For a copy of the 8 page report, please click this link: Lariviere's Letter
Check out what's been going on in Bargaining!
click on the image below
PSU-AAUP 2011 Membership Campaign
100 By Halloween!
PSU-AAUP is launching our annual membership drive to recruit 100 new members by Halloween. As you know membership to PSU-AAUP gives us strength at the bargaining table and supports a vibrant and active faculty union. Recruiting your colleagues helps us all, but now could also benefit you!
Membership applications can be found here. When you get a colleague to sign up for membership write your name on the top right hand corner of the application. For each new member you recruit PSU-AAUP will give you a $10 gift card to one of the stores listed below.
• Powell’s Bookstore
• Starbucks
• Amazon
• PSU Bookstore
• Whole Foods
• Apple Store
New members have incentives to join now! The usual membership benefits such as regalia reimbursement, the right to vote, the right to serve on committees and elected positions, and membership to National AAUP still stand. There is also the fact that the dues deduction level will not change when an individual signs up for membership so there is no reason for our colleagues to sit out!
Finally, new members who join by Halloween will be entered into a raffle for an IPAD or one of five $20 Starbucks gift cards. The raffle will be held at a PSU-AAUP social event on Halloween afternoon at 4:00pm.
• Please utilize the attached talking points to help you in your recruitment efforts.
• If you would like a list of non-members in your department, or other area you are familiar with, please email Jonathan Uto at utoj@pdx.edu.
• If you need hard copies of member applications, talking points, or other material please email Tita Compere at tita@psuaaup.net and she can send them to you via campus mail.
We look forward to your help in building our membership and strength at the bargaining table over the coming months!
In Solidarity,
Jonathan Uto
PSU-AAUP President
P.S. – Are you a superstar membership recruiter? We can discuss a possible course release or 1/3 FTE reduction for you, paid for by PSU-AAUP to your department, to perform membership recruitment. Email Jonathan Uto at utoj@pdx.edu if you are interested.
If you would like to download a "PSU-AAUP Talking Points" flyer for recruitment assistance,
please click here!
Howard Bunsis PSU 2011 Budget Audit
Dear Colleagues,
You've heard the talk and seen the figures: State funding is down by a whopping 25 percent this year, and we're all going to have to tighten our belts.
Well, we're not having it.
Last Friday Howard Bunsis, of the national AAUP, presented a summary of an audit performed on PSU by PSU's very own auditing service. The result? PSU has posted profits for the past five years in a row. State funding has dropped, to be sure. But PSU coffers are overflowing with increased tuition dollars from an ever-expanding student body. Last year we added 30 million dollars to the 60 million we already had in reserves. Moreover, our profit rate has been increasing year by year. Last year's gains were up 7% over the year before. "Walmart would love to be able to post these kinds of figures," as Bunsis said.
During our last bargaining session, the union agreed to a furlough, with 95% member support. That very year, PSU realized 16.6 million dollars in tuition profit!
The most damning statistic of all: PSU is investing a smaller and smaller percentage of its overall budget into instructional costs. Every year, they put a smaller slice of those tuition dollars back in the classroom. You all know what that means for faculty: increased enrollments in your classes, a heavier workload. What it means for students: they're paying more for less.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
• Reject the logic of scarcity. At faculty meetings and at every level of faculty governance: demand that administration invest in the university's core mission: providing quality education to students.
• SUPPORT THE UNION! We have 99 more days until our contract runs out. We need a strong show of solidarity from our members. Attend collective bargaining sessions. Wear your union t-shirts; bring your mugs (we'll provide them if you don't have them). And check out our website to stay abreast of current events. We need to make our presence felt.
• Join the debate! We need your ideas, energy and creativity to make it clear that we won't sacrifice quality education to market logic. We meet on the first Thursday of every month at Paccini's, from 4 to 6.
As a union, we're only as strong as our members. Become active today!
If you we're unable to attend the Audit presentation, please look over the slides that Bunsis presented here:
FULL version
ABRIDGED version
Computer Lottery Results
Here's how we handled the computer lottery.
As you know, you turned in your form to the AAUP office. Tita, our AAUP Office Manager, numbered each one as they came in; there were a total of 280.
Then I used a random number generator on the web to draw 150 numbers from 280. Tita came to my office to witness this, and signed the printout of the numbers. Several of the 150 were repeats, so we ended up with 112.
The 112 people who put in computer requests whose numbers were pulled are in the excel sheet attached, with their number, unit, name and computer choice - in old excel, so hopefully everyone can open it. I have just sent this to Jahed Sukhun in OIT, and I expect that you'll be hearing from OIT once they've priced out people's choices.
It's not clear how far down this list we'll be able to go, since the different choices have different costs, ranging from about $500 for the iPads to nearly 3 times that for the PC laptops.
OIT will go as far down the list as it can with the money we have!
If by some remarkable circumstance there's money left by the time the end of the list is reached, we'll draw more names.
Best,
Mary King
Computer Lottery Winners List
