Prepared by UC Chapter AAUP

4 December 2004

 Approved by the Board of Directors

			Overview

This study examines the University of Cincinnati’s dissolution of the University College, which offered two-year technical degrees and served as a transition college for under-prepared students on their way to four-year and other programs.  After dissolution under the Collegiate Structuring Initiative, College faculty were transferred to new appointment and tenure “homes” in other colleges across the UC campus. 

Administrators, officers and members of the faculty union (UC AAUP), and the transferred faculty have varying opinions about the success of the transfer.  But one thing is sure, the restructuring tested the boundaries of shared governance, placed great stress on both transferred faculty and their “receiving” departments, and damaged good will between multiple parties.  While our study finds that some Faculty Members are in fact pleased with the ultimate results of the transfer, the general narrative is a cautionary tale.  If another restructuring takes place, interested parties should study the University College case, both for what was done right, and for its mistakes. 

			Methodology

            Our analyses are based on notes taken during a formal meeting with a group of ten Faculty Members formerly serving at University College; at least a dozen personal meetings between similar Faculty and the staff and officers of the local AAUP chapter; three issue-specific meetings between an individual Faculty Member, AAUP staff, and University officials; and the results of an essay response survey sent to all former College faculty.  No identifying information will be cited in the analysis.  The total number of individual faculty contributing data number approximately twenty-four.

			Limits of the Study

           This study does not examine the experiences of faculty in receiving departments, or the university administrative perspective on restructuring.  With regard to some of the former University College faculty, some retired before completion of the survey, and at least three submitted survey responses or made it known publicly or privately that they would not participate in any study.  Because the process of collegiate restructuring was a deeply personal experience, both in an emotional and technical sense, a qualitative approach was deemed superior to quantitative data.  However, caution must be taken in interpreting the results.  Many faculty were still in the process of settling in to their new tenure homes, and have not yet experienced peer review, RPT procedures, or changing workload environments in receiving departments.  Likewise, adjustments in receiving departments and ongoing work by the AAUP and the Administration have sought to redress some ongoing problems.  These observations are in no way intended to lessen the impact of the faculty’s concerns.

			Demographics of Former University College Faculty

            The University College employed approximately 65 full-time faculty of a University total of 2084.  The faculty served the university an average of 22.6 years at an average 2004 salary of $55,312.  The seven contingent (non-tenure track) faculty—five adjuncts and two “field service” employees—where not “temporary” workers.  They served an average 10 years.  The remainder of the College included 18 Assistant Professors, 28 Associate Professors, and 11 Professors.  Departments of the College included Language Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Mathematics, and Business and Commerce.  Nine of the 58 full-time former University College Faculty are as yet untenured.

            The destinations of transferred faculty included the new Center for Access & Transition (CAT), College of Applied Science (CAS), Arts & Sciences (A&S), Raymond Walters College (RWC), and the College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services (CECH).    

			Faculty Experience

            Faculty experiences can be divided into three overlapping periods: the dissolution itself, experiences during the transition, and experiences with their current appointment or tenure homes.

The Dissolution

            Faculty were almost universally disappointed with the way both the AAUP, the representative union for collective bargaining, and the Administration handled the process of dissolution itself.  “Out of the loop”, “pulled the rug from under us”, and “no concern for faculty,” have been used to describe the administrative process.  Several Faculty Members related that they were not sure of the dissolution until reading about it in the newspaper.  Others learned of important committee meetings or the inner workings of decision making only after the process was over.  “Inform the faculty of the chain of command,” one College Faculty wrote, “and don’t form committees if their recommendations will not be considered.”  While a few understood the administration’s position that University College did not serve the mission of the University, they believed the process for correcting the problem should have been more inclusive and transparent.  Some wondered why UC would cut a program, losing non-traditional enrollment that would probably not be reabsorbed by the traditional A & S departments, just as it was making new claims to “just community.”  One faculty noted that the report from a year-long “make work” committee (as they called it), the “Restructuring Committee,” was submitted only a single day before the dissolution was finalized.  There could clearly have been no time to review its recommendations.  Another Faculty Member suggested that restructuring be done “with the faculty and in response to student needs.”  Both comments suggest that the committee’s work had been in vain.  “Be more collaborative, honest, and democratic,” wrote one respondent.

On the union side, criticism has been strong as well.  The union lost membership from this sector, although many former members and activists have returned to the AAUP to work on this issue in good faith and spirit.  Faculty expected the Administration to perform certain managerial duties and to carry out strategic goals, but they also expect their union, in which the majority of College Faculty were members, to take a pro-active role in defining the contours of such a major change.  One transferred faculty wrote that Deans and Department Heads had done the best they could with the transfer, but that inaction by the union had allowed some misguided policies to go unchecked and unquestioned.  One faculty wrote, and some stated explicitly, that the Administration and the AAUP had actually conspired to process the dissolution.  The overall opinion about the union was akin to one Faculty Member’s opinion about this survey itself.  Even were improvements to be made to restructuring protocols, anything the AAUP had done was “too little, too late.”

At their most positive, faculty ascribed the Administration’s behavior to larger market imperatives, to the fear surrounding possible de-accreditation in Arts & Sciences programs, or a general culture of disdain in the larger academy for the role of developmental programs.  More than a few faculty pointed out that the aversion to the new CAT program, while its mission is somewhat different, is a continuation of the disrespect for University College and another dissolved program—Evening College.  When being positive about the union, opinions were similarly guarded.  One faculty noted that there was probably little the union could do beyond guaranteeing that no one lost their jobs or tenure.  This very position, which the union took as its own, upset other faculty.

The Transition

            The most bitter moments described by College faculty involve the transition process itself, specifically being “interviewed” for transfers into receiving departments in which they expected to be received as colleagues.  While administration promised no interviewing would take place, some departments held recognizably interview-like sessions with their colleagues.  Some of the interviewers were not only known colleagues, but also AAUP members.  So again, College faculty felt aggrieved against the union and its representatives.  In this area, a survey of receiving department faculty would be especially insightful into other views on the process. 

At least three College faculty expressed concern that accreditation worries in Arts & Sciences had led faculty there to be overly critical of College Faculty credentials and their ability to contribute to receiving programs.  This led receiving departments to submit them to rigorous interview processes.  Two Faculty were told that they were incompetent and could not teach at the college level.  Several were made to understand that they would be members of the department in name only.  Some were offered a status in the new department that would, in practice, violate the contract.  Ongoing experiences with discipline, grievances, and early retirement negotiations confirm these sentiments.

            While some Faculty faced what they believed to be humiliating experiences, others entered programs where the Chair or the Dean was too busy, uninformed, or uninterested to meet with them much at all.  In some of these cases, the transferred faculty felt no animosity towards the receiving unit head or Dean, but simply took it as another sign of the failure of the transition process. 

            The developmental program of the new CAT was a peculiar aspect of the transition.  Even while the College was dissolved, CAT came on-line as the University’s attempt to have a structured transition into college life (and into A & S and other programs) for developmental students.  Some transferring faculty found themselves in a receiving Center that was itself uncharted.  While University College Faculty may, by virtue of their mission, have been more prepared to accept the role of CAT than their A&S peers, many viewed the intermediary and ad-hoc nature of CAT planning as another sign that they had been displaced onto a shifting space.  “There is a general perception that CAT faculty are second-class citizens,” wrote one transferee, who was also upset to be told salaries between CAT and the rest of the campus could not be meaningfully competitive.  Faculty in CAT openly speculate about being transferred yet again if state money for developmental programs ceases, or if CAT does not meet its goals.

            The middle ground appears in a pithy summary by one former College Faculty who is pleased but cautious.  The attitude in the receiving department is “Welcome to our department, this is how we do things here.”

Experience in the New Department

One faculty lauds their receiving unit for investing their new colleagues, pro forma, with full rights.  At the same time, other members of this department have openly disparaged the quality of entering faculty from the College.  Others have discovered that they have transferred from a dissolved college into programs that are themselves under the magnifying glass for restructuring.

A common problem is that, while transferred faculty are expected to comport with new conditions and requirements in their tenure homes, many have received higher workloads than their new peers (“a class system within the department” as one writes) which will prohibit them from doing the kinds of research or professional development required to fit in.  Another issue that created financial stress for faculty was the end to years of summer school work in which College Faculty had supplemented their relatively lower incomes.  Receiving departments often did not have the summer school activity to support this continuing practice.

Among the praises for a job well done in the new departments are Women’s Studies, A & S English, and the College of Applied Science.  Notably, none of these was free from criticism either, except Women’s Studies.  One faculty wrote of their general experience that the receiving department was “welcoming,” but admitted to prior contact with them in professional duties.  This same faculty respectfully recommended that any receiving departments not see themselves as “colonizers” taking in “the colonized.”  In the end, this Faculty believed it was sheer luck that their process was a simple one.  “Others were not so fortunate,” they wrote.

			Conclusions

            Few aspects of the dissolution were successful in the eyes of the transferred faculty who are a part of this survey.  Faculty felt disowned and uninformed.  While most have accepted the dissolution as a done deal, most Faculty Members responding to the survey believed that both the Administration and the AAUP could have done more to make the dissolution palatable.  The greatest failure was in communicating concerns, recommendations, limitations, and potential solutions between all parties.

The transfer itself was more successful, but still highly problematic.  The use of interviews, appearances of academic elitism, and the ignorance or lack of protocols in receiving departments were the criticisms most often leveled.  The successful aspects of the transfer typically involved individuals or small groups of faculty and administrators in receiving departments working closely with incoming faculty to develop new courses, share resources, and provide symbolic and functional inclusion for governance and decision-making.

Once in their new appointment and tenure homes, faculty have been more satisfied than before but much territory remains uncharted.  Anxieties linger about being transferred yet again from failing or outmoded programs.  Faculty are often working at the same teaching and administrative loads they had in University College, but are being asked to perform in research and other tasks that their colleagues have more time to achieve.  The recommended solution that has been offered by many—Article 15 adjustments—are not obligatory and require administrative and college largesse, not to mention solvency.

In brief, our analysis was done at a point of transition that may not near “completion” for some time.