Summary of TBR Faculty SubCouncil Meeting of
Dave Vinson
Hi folks,
I attended SubCouncil Friday. Here’s my unsuccessful attempt at compressing the proceedings into a digestible summary.
For those of you unfamiliar with the workings of TBR, the principle players in the Academic Affairs office can be found at the following websites. Dr Paula Short is our Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, with a webpage at http://www.tbr.state.tn.us/academic_affairs/bio/vcshort.htm
The other members of Academic Affairs senior staff can be
found at http://www.tbr.state.tn.us/academic_affairs/aasrstaff.htm.
The nuts and bolts work of SubCouncil most frequently involves Drs Berryman,
I don’t know if I ever got around to announcing it (couldn’t think of a graceful way to do it,) but I was fortunate enough to be elected as Chair of SubCouncil for the 04-05 academic year, after completing a vacated term in 03-04. It’s a lot of work, but it’s also probably my favorite part of my job.
As a result of being elected to that position, I have been given the opportunity to participate in many activities that I would otherwise not have been a part of, including serving on the TBR Strategic Planning Oversight Committee (work completed in November), RODP Strategic Planning Oversight Committee (work to be completed in the spring), and RODP Academic Integrity Committee along with Lois Reynolds and Peter Nerzak (apparently to be an ongoing concern, with 2-3 meetings scheduled for the spring.)
In addition, I was invited to TBR’s 50th Anniversary of Brown vs, Board of Education Symposium, details of which live here http://www.tbr.state.tn.us/academic_affairs/brownvboard/brownvboardsymposium.htm
It’s been very busy, and I would like to publicly acknowledge Dr Bruns’ role in securing release time that allowed me to fully participate in these activities. It’s sincerely been one of the richest experiences of my academic career so far. While I found the proceedings of the Planning Committees almost too dense to present to you, I fully intend to give summaries of the ongoing work with RODP Academic Integrity Committee, as I believe there is potential to have positive impact beyond the borders of TBR. That is, hopefully, upcoming. If you wish to view summaries of TBR Strategic Planning work, it can be found at http://www.tbr.state.tn.us/academic_affairs/stratplan/stratplan200510.htm
Now finally, on to the meeting
DR SHORT’S INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS
There’s no anticipation of any budget cuts in higher ed this year; in fact we weren’t even asked to prepare a contingency budget, as was required of many other state agencies. There was no mention of the amount, if any, in salary increases.
In legislative news,
i) There’s talk of raising the individual amounts awarded in lottery scholarships, to counter the effects of inflation
ii) A weighted GPA is under consideration for lottery scholarships, which would award more quality points for honors and AP courses
iii) A “prodigal student” clause is being considered in the lottery scholarship program, which could extend the awards to students who are returning to school after having been out for a while
iv) THEC’s board has been extended from 10 members to 12, with the TBR Chancellor and UT President now ex-officio, but voting members
TBR has a total of about 11000 lottery scholars, and preliminary numbers show that around 55% of them achieved a GPA above the required 2.75 minimum
COMPASS CUT SCORES
There are some issues in placement. In fact, in the week prior to the SubCouncil meeting I learned something I did not know concerning students who wish to voluntarily drop down from college-level to developmental coursework. According to Dr Treva Berryman, students may challenge their placement downwards as well as upwards, but TBR policy requires that those students take the secondary placement tool (at PSTCC, that’s the Asset; at all 16 other TBR institutions, it’s the Compass, a difference that’s raising some questions, but more on that in a bit.) Students may not place themselves at a lower developmental level WITHOUT FIRST TAKING THE PLACEMENT TEST. It’s verboten. As I understand it, many of these policies are in place due to different levels of funding for developmental and college-level instruction. If a student moves down without placement, they are then free to change their minds, drop the developmental course, and move back up. It’s the placement tool that “locks them in” as it were. At least that’s as well as I understand it.
TBR has been considering a proposal to change the Compass cut scores in such a way that more students would place into developmental. It was not possible do an impact study in reading, as many campuses don’t yet use Compass for reading placement (they apparently use Nelson-Denny). This will not affect many of our students, who will still use their ACT scores as their primary placement tool, but may lead to larger percentages of developmental placement for students lacking valid ACT scores.
Ultimately, both Academic Officers SubCouncil and Faculty SubCouncil passed the proposal for reading, but tabled the proposal for math. The math cut score adjustment requires students to have an ACT equivalent of 22 to place into college-level math. This was going to create an inconsistency, as students fresh out of high school with a valid ACT math score of 19 – 21 would place into college math, but older students or students without valid ACT scores could score the equivalent of 19-21, and be placed into developmental math. So it was tabled for further study. I honestly don’t know why the same inconsistency doesn’t apply to reading, but will look into it if there is interest.
There is no plan to require an ACT score of 22 for all students; the system couldn’t bear the drastically larger numbers of students in developmental, even though ACT has published documents stating that only students with at least a 22 should be in college-level math (I understand that in the state of Texas, the minimum is 24.)
UPDATE ON ACADEMIC AUDIT
Academic Audit is sort of a souped-up program review/ self-study, the details of which can be seen here http://www.tbr.state.tn.us/academic_affairs/acadaudit/audit.htm
35 programs have completed these self-studies, and 3 members of SubCouncil who have participated in the program were very positive about the tone of the process and the results. One faculty member told me it felt more like a means towards real self-analysis and improvement, and not so much like a punishment.
STATUS REPORT ON TASK FORCES
There are 7 discipline task forces working on degree requirements, 60/120 hour restriction requirements, and gen ed issues. Dr. Kay Clark coordinates the actions of these task forces. Business and Pre-Nursing are finished. 3 others (and I apologize, I didn’t get which ones) will finish by the start of March, Nursing will take considerably longer, and apparently Math is the seventh level of hell, destined to go on for all eternity. Because of the Math department heads hesitance to define just exactly what works as gen ed, the Academic VPs are reconstituting the Math task force, adding faculty members from other disciplines that use math, in an attempt to break up the log-jam. (I told them that if all those dumb schools would just step back, Pellissippi would answer all questions within a month. No one was swayed.)
Dr. Clark also mentioned that there is an A89 committee, charged with answering questions arising out of A89 requirements. For example, community college students with A89 “requirements” are no longer subject to them if they complete 60 hours and transfer to a university.
DECEMBER BOARD ACTIONS
An honorary degree policy was approved by the board, and in fact, ETSU has already awarded one, to a 99-year old undergraduate.
The Board also approved the key priorities and goals as formulated by the Strategic Planning Oversight Committee and Working Committees. Dr. Linda Doran spoke briefly about the planning process, which now mainly resides at the institutions. We are charged with designing individual institutional plans that are line with the system master plan, which are to be presented to the Board in May (so time’s a-wasting, get out there and plan.)
RALI (Regent’s ???? Leadership Institute)
The A slipped my mind there. (Associated? Awesome?) 25 department heads and division chairs have been selected to participate in a leadership training institute that will commence in June. Details forthcoming after consultant bids are assessed.
EXTRA COMPENSATION
Some schools have decided that they will not pay the maximum
amount for full-time faculty teaching overloads. This is difficult politically,
in that some faculty members feel implied pressure to teach overloads (as in
“you don’t have to but it sure would look good come tenure/promotion time”),
but then are paid nowhere near the amount called for in the policy. (I just
unsuccessfully looked for the policy, but the TBR website search engine is
down, and I give up, so I will just try to get close.) As one example, recently
a Nashville State English teacher, in discussion with a Volunteer State
English, discovered that they were teaching the exact same course as an
overload. The
Essentially, the language says that schools “shall pay” the equivalent to maximum adjunct pay for overloads. Some schools are interpreting this “shall” as “will, if you want to”. TBR staff feels that “shall” intends “will”. One faculty member pointed out that the 10 commandments are peppered with shall. I suggest “You shall honor your father and mother, unless it saves you a little money not to” and “You shall not kill, unless it’s for cash”.
Consequently, we unanimously passed a resolution that said “With regards to Policy # (whatever it is), shall means must.” This resolution will go to the Presidents and TBR’s CFO (a guy named Bob Adams), with Dr. Short’s strong recommendation that it be adopted.
In the brief discussion that followed, it was mentioned that, particularly since the advent of RODP, use of overloads has been rampant. If overloads were utilized as infrequently as the TBR policy suggested, paying the full amount for teaching overloads would be trivial financially.
Scariest news of the day: APSU rep pointed out that they are now hiring faculty apart from departments for the purpose of teaching online courses. They are hired directly by the office of distance learning, and do not go through department screening. Austin Peay is calling these hires “E-Faculty”, and the school is pushing for an expansion in this direction. Dr. Short was appropriately (I think) aghast.
TENURE/PROMOTION ALERT
I think we already accounted for this, but due to the shifting of the summer Board meeting, all institutions should have their tenure/promotion process completed by April 14th, with submission to TBR required on or before April 21st.
TRANSFER GRADES WITH OR WITHOUT GPA
Some schools accept other school’s grades upon transfer, and figure them into the calculation of the GPA, others only accept pass/fail, and start the GPAs afresh. In trying to establish a consistent system-wide policy, the Presidents came to the conclusion that it couldn’t be done for now, and tabled the notion for an unspecified period of time.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST POLICY WITH RESPECT TO TEXTBOOK SELECTION
Faculty pointed out to TBR staff that the most recent Conflict of Interest policy was being blamed for recent restrictions placed on textbook committee assignments at some institutions. Dr Short responded that the Conflict of Interest policy in no way altered the process by which textbooks should be selected. In fact, the only possible setting in which COI should ever come into play into textbook selection was when evidence was presented that proved that specific faculty members had benefited financially from the selection of specific textbooks. Under that scenario, that specific faculty member could be reprimanded. Shy of that situation, TBR’s Conflict of Interest policy should not in any way determine who is and is not eligible to serve as head or member of textbook selection committees.
COMMON CALENDAR COMPLAINTS
TBR will not change the common calendar template in any way until at least three years of data exist. If you have specific complaints, please keep track of those, or forward them to me, and at the end of the trial period, we will see what we can do.
I DON’T KNOW IF ANY OF US CARE BUT HERE IT IS ANYWAY
Southwest Community College is getting a new campus in east Memphis.
THE SELLING OF TEXTBOOKS
There was a discussion about textbook buyers and faculty re-sale of desk copies. Some campuses have claimed that faculty can not sell textbooks due to “TBR policy” (I like to refer to this as the “because TBR said so” defense; it’s usually used when the person giving it knows it’s not true, but wants you off their back.) Dr Short affirms that no such policy exists. In fact, previous discussions have established that
1) If you receive a textbook, and your name is on the label, even if the label also contains the name of your school, that textbook is YOUR PROPERTY, and you are free to do with it as you please.
2)
WOW, I THINK THAT’S IT
Thanks,
dave