Star-Ledger Published: Thursday, July 21, 2011, 7:21 AM
By James A. Castiglione
President, Kean Federation of Teachers
The Star-Ledger’s recent article “Colleges threatened with loss of accreditation” raises questions about the stewardship of Kean University President Dawood Farahi. The accrediting agency cited the university as noncompliant in both institutional and student-outcomes assessment. Assessment is the responsibility of management, not faculty and staff.
For years, the teachers union has urged Farahi to respect the accreditation process, adhere to sound academic practice and provide faculty, staff and librarians the resources necessary to do our jobs, to avoid just this sort of outcome. Instead, Farahi eliminated regular program review — a key form of assessment, cut class time by 10 minutes per week and laid-off critical student advisors and support staff.
Faculty, staff and librarians are the experts in our disciplines, our programs, and our students and their needs. We have been serving and advocating for our students faithfully for decades and will continue to do so. We have worked collaboratively and productively with previous administrations.
But last year, faculty voted 83 percent no confidence in the leadership of Farahi for reasons that are now obvious to the public. If the board will not act, then the state must intervene to provide new leadership to secure the future of the institution.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Why the Third Party Report to Middle States is Legitimate, Necessary, and Justified
By mid 2009, a group of faculty decided we should submit a third-party report to Middle States. Middle States invites third-party reports when it publishes the list of institutions preparing for evaluation. Third-party reports can be submitted during any type of review--decennial, periodic, or follow up (Team Visits: Conducting and Hosting an Evaluation Visit, page 17; for more details see Third-party Comment. We did not invent third-party reports; they flow from Middle States' expectation that all constituencies participate in the institutional review process.
The authors of the third-party report served on previous reaccreditation processes, so they know Middle States' cardinal rule: If you can't document it you can't say it. We challenge you to find anything in our report that is not factual.
All costs of preparing the third-party report come from our personal pockets, not from the KFT. Because Middle States would not accept a report with undocumented assertions, we asked the KFT for some of the documents serving as documentary exhibits; to that extent, help from the KFT was indispensable.
Middle States does not accept unsigned reports; the hard copy we sent to Middle States last March had signatures from faculty, students, and alumni. Just days before the visiting team arrived, Middle States contacted us asking for our consent to have our signatures sent to the administration. Middle States contacted us again, this second time requiring we redact all names in S.O.S. Proposed Class Schedule.
The first request led us to collect a second set of signatures, on a sheet that also gave our consent to transmit them to the administration. We emailed that sheet to Middle States in PDF format. By accident or design, Middle States did not send that signature sheet to the university. In the short time we had, redacting names from the carefully formatted S.O.S. Proposed Class Schedule meant we had to cross names out and repaginate the volume manually. Following Middle States’ lead, we post these two documents online the same way Middle States sent them to the Farahi administration.
Our third-party report relies on the faculty's vote of no confidence in President Farahi's leadership. Why? Kean's Self-Study does not mention that vote. As Follow-Up Reports and Visits, page 4, asserts: "Omitting relevant information or being selective about evidence that is provided raises questions about the institution's compliance with Standard 6 (Integrity).”
We did not choose the title of our report lightly; it reflects reality. Kean first sought accreditation in 1960. This means that Kean has gone through five decennial reviews and five periodic reviews (periodic reviews occur every five years between their decennial counterparts). The present decennial review is the first time Kean is noncompliant with any standard; hence, this is the first time Kean has been warned that its accreditation is at risk. It is also the first time any of the nine New Jersey public sister colleges has been warned—what a dubious distinction.
President Farahi will try to minimize the embarrassment, describing us as alarmists with a vendetta. He will blame the third-party report, the KFT, and the faculty. But he is wrong! Middle States’ judgment comes from an independent professional agency, not from any of the entities Farahi will blame. Farahi should put Harry Truman’s sign on his desk: The buck stops here. His authoritarianism and incompetence put Kean’s accreditation at risk.
___________________
These and other Middle States publications we cite are available in Middle States' web site (www.msche.org). Team Visits is in the Publications tab, Third-party Comment in the Policies tab.
The authors of the third-party report served on previous reaccreditation processes, so they know Middle States' cardinal rule: If you can't document it you can't say it. We challenge you to find anything in our report that is not factual.
All costs of preparing the third-party report come from our personal pockets, not from the KFT. Because Middle States would not accept a report with undocumented assertions, we asked the KFT for some of the documents serving as documentary exhibits; to that extent, help from the KFT was indispensable.
Middle States does not accept unsigned reports; the hard copy we sent to Middle States last March had signatures from faculty, students, and alumni. Just days before the visiting team arrived, Middle States contacted us asking for our consent to have our signatures sent to the administration. Middle States contacted us again, this second time requiring we redact all names in S.O.S. Proposed Class Schedule.
The first request led us to collect a second set of signatures, on a sheet that also gave our consent to transmit them to the administration. We emailed that sheet to Middle States in PDF format. By accident or design, Middle States did not send that signature sheet to the university. In the short time we had, redacting names from the carefully formatted S.O.S. Proposed Class Schedule meant we had to cross names out and repaginate the volume manually. Following Middle States’ lead, we post these two documents online the same way Middle States sent them to the Farahi administration.
Our third-party report relies on the faculty's vote of no confidence in President Farahi's leadership. Why? Kean's Self-Study does not mention that vote. As Follow-Up Reports and Visits, page 4, asserts: "Omitting relevant information or being selective about evidence that is provided raises questions about the institution's compliance with Standard 6 (Integrity).”
We did not choose the title of our report lightly; it reflects reality. Kean first sought accreditation in 1960. This means that Kean has gone through five decennial reviews and five periodic reviews (periodic reviews occur every five years between their decennial counterparts). The present decennial review is the first time Kean is noncompliant with any standard; hence, this is the first time Kean has been warned that its accreditation is at risk. It is also the first time any of the nine New Jersey public sister colleges has been warned—what a dubious distinction.
President Farahi will try to minimize the embarrassment, describing us as alarmists with a vendetta. He will blame the third-party report, the KFT, and the faculty. But he is wrong! Middle States’ judgment comes from an independent professional agency, not from any of the entities Farahi will blame. Farahi should put Harry Truman’s sign on his desk: The buck stops here. His authoritarianism and incompetence put Kean’s accreditation at risk.
___________________
These and other Middle States publications we cite are available in Middle States' web site (www.msche.org). Team Visits is in the Publications tab, Third-party Comment in the Policies tab.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Reorganization 2010
Kean University is in Phase Two of a major academic retrenchment in order to remain solvent. Where other universities have planned for reductions in state funding and are able to manage without drastic measures, Kean has been caught with its fiscal pants down. And who will pay for this gross mismanagement? Not the administrators who are responsible, nor the Board of Trustees who allowed this to happen. No, it’s you… the one paying more and getting less and less.
This is why 83% of Kean University faculty voted NO CONFIDENCE in President Dawood Farahi.
Should you go to Kean University?
Here’s a checklist to help you decide:
Item | Yes | No |
Percentage of full time faculty
| X | |
Graduation Rates
| X | |
No academic support
| X | |
Students pay the price
| X | |
Strong, thriving, attractive, academic majors
| X | |
Friday, September 5, 2008
More Frequently Asked Questions
Q - I heard the Dean of the School of Visual and Performing Arts was forced to resign her position. She was an excellent leader and a strong supporter of the arts and its programs.
A- You heard right. Newly appointed Vice-President for Academic Affairs, Mark Lender, went to her office and told her to resign as of August 15th. Dean Carole Shaffer-Koros had publicly resisted wholesale implementation of the Spring 2009 schedule, instead telling her faculty to do what is “best for the program, best for instruction, and best for the students.” This was part of a long history of retaliation against strong Deans who support their faculty. In Fall of 2003, shortly after the new President took office, ALL SIX of the academic Deans from EVERY college signed a letter to Dawood Farahi indicating no confidence in the Provost who had fired more than thirty faculty without apparent cause. Because they stood up to the President, ALL, and now including Dean Koros, no longer hold their positions. Consequently, there have been an endless number of expensive failed searches for new Deans and a reliance on interim Deans.
Q. - I heard that Dr. Bernard Weinstein, Professor of English, was removed as Director of the Master’s program in Holocaust and Genocide studies because he attended a protest rally and spoke against the Spring 2009 schedule to the Board of Trustees. I thought this was a university. How can faculty be punished for expressing their opinions?
A. - Again, you heard correctly. Dr. Weinstein created, wrote and shepherded that program through the curriculum process. The irony is that he is a victim of censorship, which goes against our constitutional rights of free speech and freedom to assemble without fear of consequences. It is the suppression of those right that the program is designed to study, examine, expose and condemn. We hope that others, particularly Governor Corzine, will be outraged enough to rally to his support and the many others who won’t or cannot speak out without fear.
Q. - Why did the University spend so much money for two failed attempts at administering faculty evaluations? Students think the faculty do a great job. They ought to ask us to evaluate the administration and its lack of service and response to students.
A. - We agree. Over the past two years, Farahi has spent tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of man-hours trying to impose redundant student evaluations on all faculty, including adjuncts. There is already a mechanism in place for regular teaching evaluations in a variety of venues. All probationary faculty are reviewed annually, all faculty applying for promotion or range adjustment are evaluated, all tenured faculty are evaluated under the A-328 tenure review provision, and all adjunct faculty are evaluated regularly. So, why has the administration spent so much time and money on two failed student evaluation schemes when money is so critically tight? We can only assume it was so Farahi could find SOMEONE, ANYONE please! who is perceived to be a worse teacher or acts more inappropriately in a classroom setting than he. A look at the popular RateMyProfessors.com online student evaluations, suggests that he is clearly not the best person to be determining good teaching, unless he is the model for what not to do. Second only to his abysmal record, is the newly promoted Vice-President Kristie Reilly’s evaluations. Before they renew efforts to gear up for a third round of spurious, money draining, time-wasting evaluations, they should find a better target…like the administration.
Q. - President Farahi and Vice-President Connelly have repeatedly blamed faculty salaries for the University financial woes. Wouldn’t it make more sense to cut high paying administrative positions?
A. - Yes, but that’s their way of making the faculty the scapegoat and diverting attention away from the tremendous increase in debt and new administrative positions. According to a recent message from the faculty union, KFT President, James Castiglione:
Despite administrative attempts to blame faculty salaries and benefits for the University’s current budget difficulties, our investigations show that it is administrative bloat at the root of the problem. According to numbers from the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education, Montclair State University has 135 more full-time faculty (509 to our 374) than Kean University, but 52 fewer administrators (108 to our 160) to manage a student body that is 25% larger than ours. With nearly 50% more administrators than Montclair, it is clear that Kean is inordinately top-heavy. Montclair’s efficiencies have allowed it to cope with state funding cuts without resorting to the type of wrenching changes being implemented here. And the disparity in number of administrators is even greater now with the recent creation of a second Vice-President for Academic Affairs in the middle of our budget crisis.
We could do an awful lot of good with the money saved by cutting 52 administrative salaries, and could probably cut even more if we adjust for the 25% lower enrollment than Montclair.
Q. - It appears that the burden of the budget cuts is borne by the faculty and students. Have the administrators felt the same pinch?
A. - No way to know, since they have no oversight for things they want to do or spend money on, but here’s one example. Faculty travel has been severely curtailed with restrictions so cumbersome that faculty find it prohibitive to attend academic conferences necessary to keep up with or present research in their disciplines….an activity that they are required to perform! In addition, there is virtually no international travel allowed. Yet, a large number of top administrators have been on multiple international trips including China and Japan. One such group is in China at this moment. Administrators approve their own trips and do not have to justify them to taxpayers or tuition payers.
Q. - I heard Kean University plans to position itself as a “green” campus in the Fall. Isn’t that hypocritical considering that it now requires faculty and students to be on campus up to six days a week?
A. - Kean has done some good things in terms of its carbon footprint, but the stupidest has to be the new Spring 2009 schedule. Not only were there superior plans which would have created MORE teaching slots and thereby added more class sections, but they allowed for students to efficiently attend class meetings over far fewer days…a great step in reducing the carbon footprint. Despite the projected PR, Kean University is not environmentally friendly. The Spring 2009 schedule is the biggest sham created by the administration. The real lie was that it was going to help keep tuition and fees down. However, the Board of Trustees recently approved INCREASES in tuition and fees directly in line with every other state university.
Q. - I saw that Kean University has dropped the parking fee. That’s a savings?
A. - Yes, because you can’t park and you get what you pay for. Besides, the separate fee was probably just rolled
A- You heard right. Newly appointed Vice-President for Academic Affairs, Mark Lender, went to her office and told her to resign as of August 15th. Dean Carole Shaffer-Koros had publicly resisted wholesale implementation of the Spring 2009 schedule, instead telling her faculty to do what is “best for the program, best for instruction, and best for the students.” This was part of a long history of retaliation against strong Deans who support their faculty. In Fall of 2003, shortly after the new President took office, ALL SIX of the academic Deans from EVERY college signed a letter to Dawood Farahi indicating no confidence in the Provost who had fired more than thirty faculty without apparent cause. Because they stood up to the President, ALL, and now including Dean Koros, no longer hold their positions. Consequently, there have been an endless number of expensive failed searches for new Deans and a reliance on interim Deans.
Q. - I heard that Dr. Bernard Weinstein, Professor of English, was removed as Director of the Master’s program in Holocaust and Genocide studies because he attended a protest rally and spoke against the Spring 2009 schedule to the Board of Trustees. I thought this was a university. How can faculty be punished for expressing their opinions?
A. - Again, you heard correctly. Dr. Weinstein created, wrote and shepherded that program through the curriculum process. The irony is that he is a victim of censorship, which goes against our constitutional rights of free speech and freedom to assemble without fear of consequences. It is the suppression of those right that the program is designed to study, examine, expose and condemn. We hope that others, particularly Governor Corzine, will be outraged enough to rally to his support and the many others who won’t or cannot speak out without fear.
Q. - Why did the University spend so much money for two failed attempts at administering faculty evaluations? Students think the faculty do a great job. They ought to ask us to evaluate the administration and its lack of service and response to students.
A. - We agree. Over the past two years, Farahi has spent tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of man-hours trying to impose redundant student evaluations on all faculty, including adjuncts. There is already a mechanism in place for regular teaching evaluations in a variety of venues. All probationary faculty are reviewed annually, all faculty applying for promotion or range adjustment are evaluated, all tenured faculty are evaluated under the A-328 tenure review provision, and all adjunct faculty are evaluated regularly. So, why has the administration spent so much time and money on two failed student evaluation schemes when money is so critically tight? We can only assume it was so Farahi could find SOMEONE, ANYONE please! who is perceived to be a worse teacher or acts more inappropriately in a classroom setting than he. A look at the popular RateMyProfessors.com online student evaluations, suggests that he is clearly not the best person to be determining good teaching, unless he is the model for what not to do. Second only to his abysmal record, is the newly promoted Vice-President Kristie Reilly’s evaluations. Before they renew efforts to gear up for a third round of spurious, money draining, time-wasting evaluations, they should find a better target…like the administration.
Q. - President Farahi and Vice-President Connelly have repeatedly blamed faculty salaries for the University financial woes. Wouldn’t it make more sense to cut high paying administrative positions?
A. - Yes, but that’s their way of making the faculty the scapegoat and diverting attention away from the tremendous increase in debt and new administrative positions. According to a recent message from the faculty union, KFT President, James Castiglione:
Despite administrative attempts to blame faculty salaries and benefits for the University’s current budget difficulties, our investigations show that it is administrative bloat at the root of the problem. According to numbers from the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education, Montclair State University has 135 more full-time faculty (509 to our 374) than Kean University, but 52 fewer administrators (108 to our 160) to manage a student body that is 25% larger than ours. With nearly 50% more administrators than Montclair, it is clear that Kean is inordinately top-heavy. Montclair’s efficiencies have allowed it to cope with state funding cuts without resorting to the type of wrenching changes being implemented here. And the disparity in number of administrators is even greater now with the recent creation of a second Vice-President for Academic Affairs in the middle of our budget crisis.
We could do an awful lot of good with the money saved by cutting 52 administrative salaries, and could probably cut even more if we adjust for the 25% lower enrollment than Montclair.
Q. - It appears that the burden of the budget cuts is borne by the faculty and students. Have the administrators felt the same pinch?
A. - No way to know, since they have no oversight for things they want to do or spend money on, but here’s one example. Faculty travel has been severely curtailed with restrictions so cumbersome that faculty find it prohibitive to attend academic conferences necessary to keep up with or present research in their disciplines….an activity that they are required to perform! In addition, there is virtually no international travel allowed. Yet, a large number of top administrators have been on multiple international trips including China and Japan. One such group is in China at this moment. Administrators approve their own trips and do not have to justify them to taxpayers or tuition payers.
Q. - I heard Kean University plans to position itself as a “green” campus in the Fall. Isn’t that hypocritical considering that it now requires faculty and students to be on campus up to six days a week?
A. - Kean has done some good things in terms of its carbon footprint, but the stupidest has to be the new Spring 2009 schedule. Not only were there superior plans which would have created MORE teaching slots and thereby added more class sections, but they allowed for students to efficiently attend class meetings over far fewer days…a great step in reducing the carbon footprint. Despite the projected PR, Kean University is not environmentally friendly. The Spring 2009 schedule is the biggest sham created by the administration. The real lie was that it was going to help keep tuition and fees down. However, the Board of Trustees recently approved INCREASES in tuition and fees directly in line with every other state university.
Q. - I saw that Kean University has dropped the parking fee. That’s a savings?
A. - Yes, because you can’t park and you get what you pay for. Besides, the separate fee was probably just rolled
Frequently asked questions about the Spring 2009 Schedule
Q - Should I trust the information in Cougar’s Byte on the new schedule?
A - No, under the guise of being a “student” newspaper, it was created by the administration who objected to negative or critical stories written in the independent paper, The Tower, so that it could control information distributed to students. You will never find anything critical of the administration in the Cougar’s Byte. Its purpose is public relations, not news.
Q - Is anyone really in favor of this new schedule?
A - No one has had the opportunity to voice an honest opinion or participate in an impartial vote. Even though there has been earnest opposition to the schedule by faculty and students, the administration continues to misrepresent them as “being totally supportive” of the schedule, which is utter nonsense. The faculty were told by the Provost that the “discussion is over” and they are ordered to submit and implement the schedule for Spring 2009 by June 23rd.
Q - How will this schedule keep tuition down?
A - It won’t. The University will raise tuition to the limits allowed by the state of New Jersey. It cannot go beyond a certain percentage without incurring penalties from the state. The promise that this will affect tuition rates is to convince the students to support the new schedule.
Q - I don’t understand how a class meeting three times a week for fifty minutes helps save money?
A - It won’t for anyone, most especially students who will spend a great deal of money commuting to campus three times for a class that formerly met met twice a week. Even better would be classes that met once a week. That would, in fact, cut down Kean University’s carbon footprint. USA Today recently published an article on how universities are helping students use gas efficiently by cutting the number of class meetings per week. Kean is adding classes at a time when gas prices are the highest in history. Now students and faculty are driving more to meet for less contact time.
Q - Won’t those MWF classes only affect lower division students?
A - Yes, but in addition, faculty have been told to schedule required classes at 8am, late evening, Fridays and Saturdays. This will ensure enrollment for unpopular times and so students will find themselves taking classes five days a week, not three.
Q - But why do the faculty object? Don’t they just want to be here fewer hours like the administration says?
A - Faculty have to prepare to teach four three hour classes per week, prepare and copy materials, write up assignments, grade papers, prepare and grade tests, supervise labs, meet with students, do advising, attend meetings, attend Open Houses, convocations, commencement, training, write courses, revise curriculum, serve as advisors to clubs, and much more, at a minimum. As faculty employees they are also required to keep up their professional work, do research and publish, serve on committees, write grants, attend conferences, and do service for their department, college, university and community. All of this must be documented and submitted to the administration each year, in the Individual Faculty Report that becomes part of a departmental summary report. There is great accountability for the faculty activity that far exceeds a typical forty hour work week. All non-tenured faculty re-apply for their jobs each year and the documentation necessary for reappointment is tremendously rigorous. Tenured faculty are reviewed by law every five years and must account for five years worth of activity in teaching, scholarship and service. Most tenured faculty are also applying for highly competitive promotion. All these activities require three sets of peer observations and student evaluations. Faculty work hard to make sure their classes result in a quality education for students. The characterization of faculty putting in the equivalent of two eight hour days per week is absurd. On the other hand, there is no administrative report and no accountability for administrators. Maybe the New Jersey taxpayers and students should ask them for similar documentation as to what they do and to justify why they continue to hire more administrators while freezing full time faculty positions.
Q - The administration says that this new schedule is “good for students, and good for Kean University,” is it?
A - No, faculty know the students they teach and the programs and curriculum they design, not the administration. They know what classes and times work best for students and their busy schedules. They understand that Kean students need blocks of time for work, internships, athletics, labs and other commitments. They understand that MWF classes will not save the university money and that there is no savings that will be passed on to students. The complicated, convoluted schedule simply does not work. It will be almost impossible for a student to get a three day or four day schedule. Most everyone will be on campus five days a week and that will complicate already hideous parking issues, assuming there will be gas money to drive to campus and circle the lots.
Q - But won’t I get better advising?
A - You don’t need the new schedule to get better advising. There have been a lot of problems with advising that are not the fault of the faculty: KeanWISE is often down, students have restrictions or “holds” on their accounts (frequently there long after the student has resolved or attempted to resolve the issue). Student schedules are dropped by the administration and everyone scrambles to get back into closed classes. KeanWISE or Datatel gives an error message or says the transcript is “unavailable.” Student records fall far behind actions such as changes of majors, or documents have to be submitted multiple times or have multiple signatures from multiple offices. Forms are unavailable or outdated. Information is contradictory or unavailable. Administrative offices don’t answer their phones. Many faculty computers are hopelessly out of date and won’t run some of the software programs. School advisors responsibilities have been transferred to faculty who now must advise outside the major program and spend time training to keep up with endless changes in curriculum, university or state regulations. Online program evaluations are difficult to interpret and often inaccessible.
Q - Why is the Council of Chairs opposed to the new schedule?
A - Because it was imposed on the faculty and students without regard for real input from affected parties. The administration refuses to answer questions, discuss superior alternative plans, supply written evidence, or even acknowledge that this plan does not make fiscal sense. It wants to impose the schedule on the campus community even though the evidence suggests that it will makes things worse, not better. It will require adjunct faculty to drive to campus three times a week for very little compensation. It has already cost a fortune in man hours to re-tool scheduling from scratch. Faculty oppose it because they know it won’t work, is not in the best interest of students, and not good for Kean University.
Q - How does the University expect to cover the deficit?
A - They will likely attempt to increase enrollment, increase tuition to allowed limits, impose a freeze on hiring faculty, increase reliance on adjunct professors, and increase fees, and rely on adjunct faculty. Kean has the highest percentage of adjunct faculty of all the state institutions. They threaten to cut full-time faculty even further, at a time when they have hired a record number of new administrators. They announced the appointment of two new vice-president’s within the past two weeks. They claim that the biggest expense is in salaries, but even the highest paid faculty make far less than the far more abundant top administrators.
Q - How can we get the administration to be accountable or actually answer questions?
A - Tell your friends the truth…and share this document with them. Tell them to show it to their parents and to write to their representatives asking for an impartial inquiry into why this scheme is allowed to move forward.
A - No, under the guise of being a “student” newspaper, it was created by the administration who objected to negative or critical stories written in the independent paper, The Tower, so that it could control information distributed to students. You will never find anything critical of the administration in the Cougar’s Byte. Its purpose is public relations, not news.
Q - Is anyone really in favor of this new schedule?
A - No one has had the opportunity to voice an honest opinion or participate in an impartial vote. Even though there has been earnest opposition to the schedule by faculty and students, the administration continues to misrepresent them as “being totally supportive” of the schedule, which is utter nonsense. The faculty were told by the Provost that the “discussion is over” and they are ordered to submit and implement the schedule for Spring 2009 by June 23rd.
Q - How will this schedule keep tuition down?
A - It won’t. The University will raise tuition to the limits allowed by the state of New Jersey. It cannot go beyond a certain percentage without incurring penalties from the state. The promise that this will affect tuition rates is to convince the students to support the new schedule.
Q - I don’t understand how a class meeting three times a week for fifty minutes helps save money?
A - It won’t for anyone, most especially students who will spend a great deal of money commuting to campus three times for a class that formerly met met twice a week. Even better would be classes that met once a week. That would, in fact, cut down Kean University’s carbon footprint. USA Today recently published an article on how universities are helping students use gas efficiently by cutting the number of class meetings per week. Kean is adding classes at a time when gas prices are the highest in history. Now students and faculty are driving more to meet for less contact time.
Q - Won’t those MWF classes only affect lower division students?
A - Yes, but in addition, faculty have been told to schedule required classes at 8am, late evening, Fridays and Saturdays. This will ensure enrollment for unpopular times and so students will find themselves taking classes five days a week, not three.
Q - But why do the faculty object? Don’t they just want to be here fewer hours like the administration says?
A - Faculty have to prepare to teach four three hour classes per week, prepare and copy materials, write up assignments, grade papers, prepare and grade tests, supervise labs, meet with students, do advising, attend meetings, attend Open Houses, convocations, commencement, training, write courses, revise curriculum, serve as advisors to clubs, and much more, at a minimum. As faculty employees they are also required to keep up their professional work, do research and publish, serve on committees, write grants, attend conferences, and do service for their department, college, university and community. All of this must be documented and submitted to the administration each year, in the Individual Faculty Report that becomes part of a departmental summary report. There is great accountability for the faculty activity that far exceeds a typical forty hour work week. All non-tenured faculty re-apply for their jobs each year and the documentation necessary for reappointment is tremendously rigorous. Tenured faculty are reviewed by law every five years and must account for five years worth of activity in teaching, scholarship and service. Most tenured faculty are also applying for highly competitive promotion. All these activities require three sets of peer observations and student evaluations. Faculty work hard to make sure their classes result in a quality education for students. The characterization of faculty putting in the equivalent of two eight hour days per week is absurd. On the other hand, there is no administrative report and no accountability for administrators. Maybe the New Jersey taxpayers and students should ask them for similar documentation as to what they do and to justify why they continue to hire more administrators while freezing full time faculty positions.
Q - The administration says that this new schedule is “good for students, and good for Kean University,” is it?
A - No, faculty know the students they teach and the programs and curriculum they design, not the administration. They know what classes and times work best for students and their busy schedules. They understand that Kean students need blocks of time for work, internships, athletics, labs and other commitments. They understand that MWF classes will not save the university money and that there is no savings that will be passed on to students. The complicated, convoluted schedule simply does not work. It will be almost impossible for a student to get a three day or four day schedule. Most everyone will be on campus five days a week and that will complicate already hideous parking issues, assuming there will be gas money to drive to campus and circle the lots.
Q - But won’t I get better advising?
A - You don’t need the new schedule to get better advising. There have been a lot of problems with advising that are not the fault of the faculty: KeanWISE is often down, students have restrictions or “holds” on their accounts (frequently there long after the student has resolved or attempted to resolve the issue). Student schedules are dropped by the administration and everyone scrambles to get back into closed classes. KeanWISE or Datatel gives an error message or says the transcript is “unavailable.” Student records fall far behind actions such as changes of majors, or documents have to be submitted multiple times or have multiple signatures from multiple offices. Forms are unavailable or outdated. Information is contradictory or unavailable. Administrative offices don’t answer their phones. Many faculty computers are hopelessly out of date and won’t run some of the software programs. School advisors responsibilities have been transferred to faculty who now must advise outside the major program and spend time training to keep up with endless changes in curriculum, university or state regulations. Online program evaluations are difficult to interpret and often inaccessible.
Q - Why is the Council of Chairs opposed to the new schedule?
A - Because it was imposed on the faculty and students without regard for real input from affected parties. The administration refuses to answer questions, discuss superior alternative plans, supply written evidence, or even acknowledge that this plan does not make fiscal sense. It wants to impose the schedule on the campus community even though the evidence suggests that it will makes things worse, not better. It will require adjunct faculty to drive to campus three times a week for very little compensation. It has already cost a fortune in man hours to re-tool scheduling from scratch. Faculty oppose it because they know it won’t work, is not in the best interest of students, and not good for Kean University.
Q - How does the University expect to cover the deficit?
A - They will likely attempt to increase enrollment, increase tuition to allowed limits, impose a freeze on hiring faculty, increase reliance on adjunct professors, and increase fees, and rely on adjunct faculty. Kean has the highest percentage of adjunct faculty of all the state institutions. They threaten to cut full-time faculty even further, at a time when they have hired a record number of new administrators. They announced the appointment of two new vice-president’s within the past two weeks. They claim that the biggest expense is in salaries, but even the highest paid faculty make far less than the far more abundant top administrators.
Q - How can we get the administration to be accountable or actually answer questions?
A - Tell your friends the truth…and share this document with them. Tell them to show it to their parents and to write to their representatives asking for an impartial inquiry into why this scheme is allowed to move forward.
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