Administrative Meeting 3/3/14 Transcribed by Abby Delman

Transcription

1 Administrative Meeting 3/3/14 Transcribed by Abby Delman In attendance: Robert Bell Bucky Bhadha Eduardo Cairo Abby Delman Julie Kiotas Bob Miller Jennifer Noble Paul Price [Begin Side A] Delman: Should I ask the first question? Bell: Ask away. Delman: The first has to do with Title 5 guidelines. Dr. Rocha had responded to me that we are good with Title 5, that he s hired so many full-time faculty that we are good to go. So I wondered what was behind his interpretation that we were good to go, because the ratios in Psychology are pretty bad. I looked at Sociology recently, and it s almost the inverse of what Title 5 suggests. Miller: Well, I can perhaps respond to that question. I didn t realize there would be so many people here. [Hands out packet of paperwork.] Basically the district has a Full-time Faculty Obligation Number (FFON) requirement that we need to adhere to. So the paperwork that you have here is the certification that we provided in his [Rocha s] trip to the Chancellor s Office last October 15, And if you turn to the third page, you will see the Pasadena Area is the second item from the top. You ll see that we have a calculated advance that we had to complete, and that s what the (unclear), which indicates we have 372.2, and our compliance final is The projected requirement is So given that, you can see that we are ahead of where we need to be in terms of compliance. And at the moment we are planning on hiring another, I believe, ten faculty for the Fall of 14. So we would be at roughly 382 if that happens, and our compliance is 358. And then the next documents in that packet is the legal opinion and statement stated February 9 of 2009 regarding full-time faculty obligation and what it means. This is from the Chancellor s Office. And it s from the Executive Vice-Chancellor of Operations and the General Counsel of the Chancellor s Office. Mr. Bruckman provides his opinion in terms of what that is. And then another copy of the compliance for the Fall of And then there s a Powerpoint presentation that was a very detailed one that actually speaks to Full-time Faculty Obligation Numbers and what it means and how it s calculated and the all the rest of it. So it s very, very complex to actually compute. There were two ways in which you could compute it, one that was based on raw numbers, the other one was based on percentages, including adjuncts and the like. That second category I think they refer to it as Category B is no longer allowable as of, I believe, the recording for next year. The Board of Governors had in place a penalty of roughly $63,000 per full-time faculty member that was under each district s obligation. That penalty was waved for at least the past three years, maybe longer, during the financial crisis. That penalty is now going back into effect, effective 14/15, which is one of the reasons why if you would have a reason to pay attention to this this is up and down the state 72 districts up and down the state are involved in massive hiring of full-time faculty right now. In relation to 75/25, 75/25 is an unfunded mandate that does not have any penalties tied to it. And I believe one of these reports shows the percentage if you look at the full-time faculty percentage column, you see for Alan Hancock and (unclear), and for Pasadena you ll see That s the compliance number for 75/25. But you ll see as you go through that, the vast majority of districts do not comply with 75/25, and there is no penalty tied to that. The penalty is tied to not achieving your FFON. So 75/25 is an example of many, many, many unfunded mandates, like pieces of legislation that are (unclear). 1

2 Delman: When you re calculating full-time faculty, are you including all people who are hired as full timers? Miller: Yes. Delman: Like Kent Yamauchi? Miller: No, it s all faculty. Kent is a manager. It s all of our counselors, librarians, and our full-time academic teaching Bell: (Unclear) instruction. Delman: Is counseling considered instructional faculty? Miller: Yes. Bell: Counseling and the library are non-instructional faculty, but they are Miller: But they re faculty. Delman: Okay. But the paperwork I got from Dr. Price and I sent that to everyone said that the people who are counted should be those who teach full-time. Miller: No, that s not the understanding I have. Delman: But if you follow that through pedagogically, it makes sense, because what happens is the full-timers that you have in place and I m coming from a personal place in psychology we ve had to let go of some really good work that we were doing in the community. For the past couple of years we had been placing students who qualified into positions in the community, which is part of the mission statement for the college. But because there are so few of us full-time faculty who have the time available two run big clubs on campus, one runs AGS, Jennifer Noble runs Psych Club we are very engaged with our students there s not enough of us to go around, so we re not doing it anymore. We re not properly supported in trying to be creative to do all these wonderful things for our students. We are tired right now. So thank you for approving the one position for us. That s really important. We need more. Miller: I respect that very much. As you know, currently we work with the Academic Senate and the Faculty Hiring Committee. They make recommendations to the administration. We worked closely with Eduardo and the group this year and tried to come to an accommodation. Both sides didn t end up with exactly what they wanted, but they ended up with what they got. I guess there was just one psychology position on that list. But that s sort of outside of this discussion, I think, to some degree. Bell: Well, it is and it isn t. It s outside of the direct discussion, but I would offer, Abby, that in fact, I hear and support your statement I think we find that in most academic disciplines, that we don t have the requisite number of full-time faculty teaching across the board. And that s consistent with all of the academic disciplines, which is why you see the numbers, hard as they are. We are not unique. As Bob said, over 72 districts are struggling with the same thing. So your point is well taken from my perspective. Yes, the ideal would be to complement the instruction across anything we do at PCC with a higher complement of full-time faculty. In fact, we reach for that 75/25 ratio, but we aren t there. In fact, as long as I ve been in this system, going back to 83, we have never been there. Miller: When I was responsible, from an administrator s point of view, for the Curriculum and Instruction Committee, I was very surprised to find out how many programs that we offer that are through our adjuncts. They are not even fulltime faculty that oversee the program. I don t know how that happened over the years. I m sure there were good 2

3 reasons for that in terms of faculty (unclear) and division and department chair and then eventually division deans. It happens, and it happens at other schools too. Delman: That adjuncts play a bigger role? Miller: That adjuncts are the program. An academic program or a certificated program is run by an adjunct or several adjuncts, and there isn t even a full-time faculty member who is overseeing them. Delman: How can that be legal? Because they don t get compensated for thinking and creating. Now they get a little bit of office hour time. Miller: In all of the accreditations that we ve had over the decades, as well as all of the audits that we ve had, I don t believe that s ever been called into question. Bell: No. Again, I think if you looked at it from the standpoint of pedagogy, it makes sense that you would never want an academic program to be run entirely or supported entirely by adjuncts. It s just not sound. But Bob s right, it is a reality. Is it legal? It is legal, because I think the Chancellor s Office has identified that this entire system, because we have a Full-time Faculty Obligation Number, that s how we target or begin to approach getting to 75/25. We have never been asked or mandated even the legislature that offered 75/25 in the early nineties (unclear) there isn t a district in the state that can meet that 75/25 mandate. So in order for the district to be able to be compliant under the law, not being able to meet the letter of the law, that s when we went to the Full-time Faculty Obligation Number that Bob just explained. So when I hear you say 75/25 in the law, that s specifically what the law says, 75/25. The operating principle under the law for (unclear) law, that system goes back to the beginning of the eighties. It has always been it s Full-time Faculty Obligation Number, as Bob said. And (unclear) budget is not as robust. We re not (unclear) so there s no penalties. Other years, when there were no mitigating reasons for the district not to give us faculty in other words, we don t have the pleasure to hire faculty we are held to that standard. And hopefully Bob is going to straighten those numbers out. PCC has been above our obligation number for at least the last few years since I ve been here. And when we hire this year we will continue to be up on that Full-time Faculty Obligation Number, but that s not (inaudible). Cairo: Dr. Bell, I think what Abby is more concerned with is not so much the FFON for the campus, but for the department. And when you take a look at those numbers, then you see that that s not the case. I think (unclear). This department does not even come close to that. Kiotas: And for us, we have one of the highest full-time equivalent student numbers across the campus. Price: I think it goes without saying that the social sciences, and every area, could use more people. That goes without saying. You could go from Anthropology all the way down to Sociology. Every area needs more. How that will happen over time, I don t know. But what I do know now is I am in a position to put a lot of adjuncts in, and many of those adjuncts are doing a good job. But that is not to say that in every area again, from Anthropology to Sociology we could use more. Certainly I appreciate the psychology hiring, without question. We certainly could use more. Now, how that happens over time, I think we just have to go through the process. And that would be through this office and the Senate. Cairo: I think that statement speaks volumes, because on the one hand we are well over, according to one document. And yet, at the same time, the entire division needs people. So we are saying we need people across the board, but here it s saying we re over the cap. So there might be something wrong with the way this is being calculated. I m wondering if this takes into account reassigned time. So this accounting, this , does that take into consideration reassigned time? Miller: Yes, it takes into consideration all full-time faculty, including librarians and counselors. 3

4 Cairo: So does that mean that if I have 100% reassigned time, I am counted as being a full-time faculty member? Miller: Yes. Again, this is for the FFON. Now, the reassigned time is an issue that Dr. Bell and I are working on. In fact, as of last Friday, we nailed down relatively tightly what the issue is. Dr. Bell and I will be giving a report and making some recommendations about release time at the meeting this coming Thursday at 2:30pm in C217. I don t want to speak for Dr. Bell, but from memory here I d say we have roughly 32 or 33 full-time equivalent positions that currently are reallocated to non-classroom activities, roughly $3-million a year. That s the value of those folks that are on reassigned time. Cairo: (Unclear) is the same thing? Miller: I would say 60 faculty, 100 faculty, total the 33 FTEs. So we will be making some recommendations. Bell: I think there are roughly 167 total faculty who are full time who have some component of release time. It varies from 70% all the way down to 10%. But when you add all those percentages up, you come up with the equivalent of I don t have the exact number but about 32 or 33 full-time faculty. So if all that release time was taken back, that would be 33 full-time faculty who would be dedicated back to the classroom. If we were to do that magically today, they would not all necessarily go back and meet needs in psychology, because obviously those faculty are from different disciplines throughout the college. So they would go back, in a sense, to their original academic discipline, being whatever the case may be. So it wouldn t necessarily close this gap of 75/25 in psychology. Until I look at the list, I don t know how many psychology faculty are on there. Kiotas: Is that the percentage of the actual or the required for our school? Miller: It s the actual for that computation. It s not a requirement, it s just what it turns out to be. Kiotas: For our school at this time right now. Miller: Yes. Kiotas: So some schools are doing much better than us. Miller: Some are, but very few. Many are doing less. Cairo: What would be the answer to this question: How many faculty Miller: I m sorry, Eduardo. You should also know that those that are doing better are probably much smaller than we are size-wise. So their percentage is maybe higher because they re small. Cairo: How many faculty have 50% or more release time in terms of numbers? Bell: That I don t know, but I can get that number for you. I can get you the total number of faculty who are the whole number, the large n, and within that large n, how many are (unclear). I can give you that number by the end of the day. Miller: When Ed Martinez was president, Dr. Bell, he, and I met. And with Ed working with his cabinet at the time, he went through the release time. And working in conjunction with the Academic Senate and Dr. Bell, there was a reduction at that time of faculty reassigned time. So here we are, three years later, and we re at it again. In essence the problem is the same, or even bigger than what it was then. A percentage of these folks that are on reassigned time are tied to 03 grant projects. So the extent that we have committed to those grants and that those faculty who basically were very involved in getting those grants, they probably would like to stay doing that work. To the extent that we got folks that are on release time that are not necessarily tied to that, that s what Dr. Bell and others have to work with right 4

5 now. So what we plan to do on Thursday is to present the scope of the challenge. Putting on my budget hat and not my academic hat, the more faculty we can get back into the classroom, the less we d have to spend on adjuncts, and the more that we d have for supplies and utilities and other things like that. For every time we pull a faculty member out of the classroom, we have to replace them with an adjunct. And as much as I like to employ adjuncts everybody does the reality is that we could probably save a few dollars in that category. Bell: So I would say that, looking at the release time Eduardo, I heard you mention one time that it would be a good idea if we looked at the number of faculty who we ve hired who are doing something other than teaching. So that sort of prompted the review of that, plus the fact that it s a budgetary reform. So once we get that, and if we can close in on a decision of the current number of faculty who are released how many of those, and what numbers and what percentages will in fact be rededicated to the classroom that will begin to address that more globally. Specifically, Abby, as to the gap in psychology, I think that s a discussion that will need to be had, so we make the determination what faculty we re going to bring on board. How many of those will go (unclear). We re talking about closing a significant gap with 75/25. But that is a discussion that Bob suggested we have between the Academic Senate and the Administration, primarily my office, to see how we re going to do that and how we make the determinations and how we determine if we re going to hire (unclear) faculty, where those priorities are, what those priorities are, and which faculty we hire. Delman: Dr. Bell, what I m really concerned about is it feels like we re losing sight of what s best for students. And that s what really concerns me. All of these issues yes, we re all working hard, we re tired, because we re doing a lot of administrative things when we d rather be with our students and I m concerned that you re not thinking of it coming from a place of what s best for the students, rather it s all about the bottom line, the dollars. Miller: Respectfully, Abby, I just don t buy that personally. Every day I think about what s best for students. Delman: Do you? Miller: I really, really do. We re being recorded. I want to get that on the record. Delman: Okay. May I finish? Miller: Yes, you may. Delman: Many of the decisions that I see being made seem to not help the students. What would help the students is having more awesome equipped full-time faculty who are present, who can do programs with them, who can be here years down the road to support them when they always come back wanting help, including to go to graduate school. The way we best support them is by committing to teachers. And I don t see a commitment to teachers. I see a lot of adjuncts being hired, and I love adjuncts, too, but adjuncts typically do not come with the experience and expertise that full timers do. That s why full timers get those wonderful jobs. And I think that we really need to think about how this all affects the students. And I think I m much closer to them, and I know how a lot of the things that happen in the administration take a toll on me, on my energy and such, and I don t feel like I am being supported in doing the best job I can do for my students either. Bell: Well, Abby, I appreciate that. For me, as my nephew says, it s not all about the Benjamins. It isn t about the money and economics of it. We are a business, and we have to be cognizant of what it costs to run a business and how to do it most effectively. I appreciate your statement, because every decision I make is about what s best for the student. I know it doesn t come across that way sometimes to everyone, but that s really what s at the core of what I do. And so it is in the best interest of the students [inaudible], and that s why we re having this discussion. I wouldn t debate with you for a second that we at PCC would be much better served if 100% of our instruction were done by fulltime faculty. We d be that much stronger. This faculty would be even stronger than it is. It would be frightening how strong this faculty would be if we had 100% full-time faculty. But again, economically it s not feasible to be able to get 5

6 there now. We just can t hire enough full-time faculty. This is the economics of it, and there are a lot of reasons for that. I ll buy you a cup of coffee and tell you the reasons why USC can do it better than PCC can do it. It has to do with the way we re funded. A lot of it has to do with the way we get money and the way we can allocate our income. So it s a state institution versus a private institution. Delman: So for example, it s not just a choice? You have a certain amount of money that is to hire full-time administrators and a certain pot for full-time faculty? Is that how that works? Bell: Well, by law 50% of every dollar we spend has to be spent directly on instruction. Miller: In the classroom. Bell: In the classroom. So 50% of every dollar we get has to be spent on direct classroom instruction. Now, does that mean full-time faculty, does that mean adjunct faculty? Yes and yes. Fifty percent of our budget every year and for every college in the system has to be spent on instruction. Delman: It s not technology? Bell: No. Delman: It has to be spent on instructors? Bell: Direct instruction. Everything else comes back to [unclear] support instruction. That s not direct instruction. Delman: Okay. Bell: So we do that. And Bob can tell you that we re measured on that, just as we re measured on the FFONs. And [unclear] that we re spending 45% of our budget on direct instruction. Miller: And I ll just add very quickly that many, many, many districts suffer with that and can t achieve that. And there have been attempts for years to try to get adjustments. Because again, if we have more and more of these unfunded mandates that come to us that require us to do certain things that pull direct instruction dollars out of the classroom, it makes it very, very difficult to achieve that. So we re sitting on about 52 (point something) percent, which is considered to be high, very high. And even at that it s a struggle. And it s the reality of the situation, based upon the way is currently written. It had been written for the last years [unclear]. Bell: So Abby, let me offer this. I m tenured in our system as a counselor. I m a tenured counseling faculty member. And I could tell you that we could hire 20 new faculty this year, and if all 20 of them would be counselors, we wouldn t have enough counselors. Counselor [unclear] so high. If I hired 50 brand new counselors to drive this number up, we still would not serve the students [unclear]. But that wouldn t be close to your point about classroom instruction. Delman: But that taps into why we re being asked to counsel our students. More is being asked of us to deal with trying to balance everything. Bell: Yes. There s a large component of advisement, if you will, that all the full-time faculty do every day in class. Delman: Absolutely. Bell: In fact, I hear from students every day about professors telling them this and that. 6

7 Miller: No disrespect to my colleague and peer as a counselor, but the best advisement I ever got, all the way through from undergraduate through graduate school, was from faculty members. They knew the field better than anybody else. Delman: I m sorry, but does anyone have the time? Bell: It is 20 minutes to the hour. Delman: Oh! I m late to my class. Bell: I ve already disrupted instruction. Delman: Oh dear, so I need to run. I don t know if others can stay, but I ve got to get to my students. Bell: Go to your class. Delman: Let s meet again. Bell: Okay. Delman: But I would like to know, because I d like to get information right away if I can, am I entitled to ask for information directly from Human Resources? Or, Bob, do I go through you? Am I entitled to this or not? Yes or no? Miller: You can certainly go through me. The data that supports the assertion that he [President Rocha] has hired more full-time faculty in his tenure at PCC than in the 10 years prior to that, I don t know. Delman: That s what I ve been asking for that you promised Miller: And that PCC is adhering to Title 5 guidelines by attaining the appropriate ratios, for that the answer is absolutely, because we follow Title 5 [inaudible]. Delman: Okay. Let me run. But if I contact Julianna Mosier again, am I going to get a response from you, or is Julianna going to give me the data I request? Miller: Why don t you send me what you want again. Is this what you want? Delman: If I am entitled to do this, I d rather go straight to the person that generates the data. If I am entitled, that s my preference, because it would give me more of a trust of the situation. Miller: Okay. Well, no disrespect, but you can trust me. Delman: No disrespect, but I don t trust you, Bob. I m sorry. Miller: And so my response is, we have a Human Resources Department that is burdened by a million things right now. You don t [unclear] talking about. So I ll be the filter for now, and if you don t trust what you get back, then you don t trust what you get back, and we ll go from there. Delman: So the stuff you promised to have for me today, I don t have, but you ll get that for me? Miller: This is it. Delman: This is all of the full-time hires since 7

8 Miller: No, no. I don t know [inaudible]. Delman: I had requested all of the full-time new hires since January of That s what I requested. Miller: By division, by department, by discipline, by name? Delman: All of the full-time new hires. Because President Rocha made the claim that he had done more than in the 10 years prior, and I wanted to see if that was true. Bell: So Abby, you want the number of full-time hires? Delman: I would like all of the positions, all of the full-time new hires since January of Bell: So if we hired 40 new faculty in 2010, you want those 40 names and those 40 areas? Delman: All the administrators, too all of the new hires. Bell: Oh, you want Miller: Now you ve added something. Bell: So you want faculty hires? Delman: I didn t initially ask for faculty hires. What I asked for and if you look at the , it s all there I requested full-time new hires from January 2010 on at PCC, not just faculty, not just a discipline, all the new hires. Bell: I hadn t read it that way. Delman: I ll reread it. I m sorry if it was not clear. Bell: No, no. You probably wrote it right. I probably didn t read it right, because I thought you were focusing on faculty. Delman: If I can request data and information, and you just give it to me, that will do more than anything else could possibly do to possibly restore some faith and trust. I ve lost some over here [points to Miller and Price]. You ve never done anything to shake my trust in you, Dr.Bell. But trust is something that typically is earned through relationships. That s why I m requesting the data, because I don t trust it through your filter [Miller s] or your filter [Price s] Miller: Then why don t we have Dr. Bell request it then? Delman: Okay, that s fine Miller: Dr. Bell can request it Delman: But if I can go right to HR and request it, that s what I want to know. Am I entitled to do that? I understand things are busy, but may do that? Miller: No. Delman: I can t do that? 8

9 Miller: I am asking you not to do that. I am asking you to take this information through Dr. Bell. Dr. Bell will then request it. Bell: I will get it for you. I don t know if you can get it through HR anyway. Delman: I believe you will get it for me. I would like to know the answer to this question, though, Dr. Bell. Am I allowed to request information, data, from Human Resources? I can request it from Crystal Kollross. She gives me information. It seems like a yes, no, or maybe/i ll check and see what the answer is. I ve asked you multiple times. I don t know why it s hard to answer. I understand you re busy. Given that, am I allowed to do this? Bell: I m not going to answer for Bob. Again, I know when I request information I just go to specific individuals and get it. I would have gone to Crystal first to get it. Delman: I did, and she directed me to Julianna Mosier. And then I ed Julianna and I got a response from Bob, which made me feel like Bob was running interference. Bell: I don t know if Bob was necessarily running interference. Delman: I m just trying to let you understand the kinds of things that are trust eroding. Miller: They may be trust eroding for you as an individual, but Delman: They are. And I work with you Miller: Hopefully people trust me, but that s fine. Putting that aside, I requested that I be present at this meeting, so that in the presence of Dr. Price, since you as a faculty member report to Dr. Price and Dr. Price reports to Dr. Bell, a consensus could be reached over what it was that you wanted. I brought information to the meeting, very extensive information about the FFON. I did not know that you wanted full-time new hires from January of 2010 for every employee. Do I think that s a problem to give you personally? No, I do not. It s public information. Delman: Oh, it is. Okay. Thank you. I got an answer. Miller: There you go. So we will get you that information, because there is nothing to hide. Delman: Okay. [End Side A, End Recording] Once the tape recorder was turned off, Bell told Delman that he would get the requested data about full-time new hires since 2010 by the end of the week. One important point that was made during the meeting was that release time is counted as instruction time. Cairo suggested that there may be an error in the calculation of full-time instruction, and that those calculations need to be revisited. Another important answer was that, yes, we are allowed to request data directly from Human Resources. Noble reported that, after Delman left the meeting, Price offered to restrict psych courses to rooms with a capacity of 35 or less so that we can create our own class size limits and in this way be less beholden to any new increases which may or may not have our input. 9