AAUP and UC|21

The University of Cincinnati Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (UC AAUP) applauds the effort, intensity, and purpose of the UC21 process, and the general concept of having a strategic plan for the University. Clearly, the new Administration means to do business in a public manner, and by lending some depth and transparency to a typically byzantine and subterranean process.

Because our stock in trade is academic excellence, the Faculty of UC will naturally accept a strong part in defining the contours of UC21. To that end, we have been discussing the plan, the notion of strategic planning itself, the language of the plan, and the likely obstacles and opportunities presented by it. At the outset, a guiding principle is that the UC AAUP agrees to stand with the Administration where the UC21 plan adheres to the faculty’s execution of the mission of the University of Cincinnati, where it defines practices and projects in accord with our Collective Bargaining Agreement, and where it not only protects, but restores faculty governance to a preeminent position in the university bureaucracy.

On strategic planning in general, the UC AAUP is not a crumbling ivory tower. We accept the need for strategic planning in an institution of this size. At the same time, strategic planning cannot replace responsible and ongoing adherence to fundamental academic principles and our striving towards the mission of the University. At its best, strategic planning can turn vision into practice and can channel disparate resources into a cohesive program of reform for a stagnant or emerging institution. However, it is fundamentally a business concept. And business models bring with them business-like problems, including the potential for crashes, autarky, and bureaucracy. We do not accept the market paradigm as the governing principle for the university, which still, even at this date, does not measure its success in dollars and cents. As a public institution of higher learning, we can only adopt business models and planning strategies as they further academic imperatives. Money is a means, not an end. This is the strongest caveat an academic union, especially its economists and grant-earning faculty, can issue to the administrators who plan for the University.

Applying any business-inspired model for budgeting and revenue-generation runs the risk of seriously distorting academic planning. Clearly, we need to find methods to increase economic resources, but a university, not being an industrial firm whose productivity and financing can be evaluated in cost-accounting ways designed for profit maximization, but a venue for education, cannot be managed as if it were Procter & Gamble. Students are not products or even consumers of marketable products but individuals coming to UC in search of an education that will outfit them for a satisfying and rewarding life as contributing citizens. This future will for most involve developing marketable skills to take to labor markets, but it is becoming increasingly clear that those now preparing for later careers will have to be flexible, resourceful, and creative in landing on their feet as job demands change. A broad conception of their education modeled on the ideal of a "liberal education" is the best preparation for the contingencies to be faced by our graduates.

The AAUP recognizes six keystone features of UC21 that align Faculty interests with University mission through the medium of the strategic plan: competitiveness, shared governance, entrepreneurialism, enrollment growth, transparency, and social justice. Note that these do not correspond to the UC21 items themselves. That list, like ours, serves a particular analytical and public rhetorical function. To focus on the 21 items steers us away from a critical analysis of the plan itself. You will note that we do recognize some immediate threats in the strategic plan, threats to the university mission and the faculty. These are doubtfully intentional, and some are simply inherited problems from past administrations and from the larger academy, but they will require serious address by Administration, and in more than the form of language. The most obvious is the continued expansion of academic contingency (non-tenure track hiring, the increased use of qualified faculty titles, and a heightened reliance on adjunct and graduate assistant labor), which in our capacity as the collective bargaining agent for all 2161 full-time faculty, we find the most abhorrent practice under any plan claiming reform.

UC will achieve competitiveness with other premier institutions by maintaining and expanding its full-time tenured faculty, and by protecting its career service instructors and researchers. The competitiveness of the faculty is not measured by numeric efficiency in churning out degrees, or by the ability of the faculty to teach more students with fewer resources. On the contrary, UC21 implies the need to preserve UC’s relatively strong teacher-student ratio. Each program and department has different needs and guidelines, but the AAUP is committed to maintaining or improving the campus-wide classroom and laboratory sizes that, according to all reliable studies, enhance and improve student learning and retention. Does being “competitive” with other institutions mean we should adopt their mega-class models and rigid degree-tracking programs? According to the national indexing agencies that are the focus of some of the UC21 goals, the answer is clearly in the negative. US News & World Report states that one of the criteria for its annual ranking of universities is class size, with their nod going to schools with a small faculty/student ratio, since this quality has been proven to encourage students to remain at a university. They also reward institutions with a high proportion of full-time faculty.

A faculty with a deep bench will emerge as we attract renowned Faculty with higher minimum salaries, and also by retaining excellent Faculty through the elimination of politically divisive salary compression and inversion trends. To facilitate competitiveness, improvements to faculty working conditions should be ratified into the AAUP Collective Bargaining Agreement as a sign of commitment by the union and of good faith by the Administration.

Continuing to support our existing nationally and internationally acknowledged strengths will further enhance competitiveness. Further investment in new areas of thought (e.g. truly inter-disciplinary collaboration) as well as improvement and restoration of neglected departments and programs (reeling from cuts chosen primarily because of the opportunities they allow for savings due to retirements and attrition) are surely called for. In planning for any new academic investment, however, the key ingredient is "bottom-up" faculty input, drawing on the expertise of both seasoned and promising junior faculty, who understand best the demands of their own disciplines and whatever creative "synergies" are genuine possibilities for UC in the future.

In demanding more from faculty, UC21 implies a greater role for shared governance. As defined by their status as elite professionals, and by their contractually guaranteed academic freedom, tenure, and RPT criteria, Faculty are best-positioned to evaluate needs for student learning, laboratory environment, and the general trajectory of progress in their fields and colleges. The Faculty should acknowledge Administrative guidance about restructuring or college mission, but it should not shirk its duties by ceding Faculty leadership obligations. Decanal and administrative mandates in particular should be evaluated for their long-term effects on shared governance, competitiveness, and student access to learning, not on short-term budgetary constraints or as solutions for problems that administrative predecessors have themselves created.

Shared governance does not mean that the faculty simply advises on UC21 or gives input to it. Rather, faculty are obligated as professionals and public servants to authorize, revise, and retool UC21 when their expertise so warrants. Neither the Administration nor the AAUP should practice fiat in making policy, nor should either of them leverage public voice to undermine the vested authority of the other. For example, appeals for the re-structuring of a college or campus should first be made to the Faculty. The UC AAUP Agreement with the University Administration guarantees the right to shared governance through the Faculty Senate, through faculty-developed Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure Criteria, and the right to be heard before a committee of peers on the University Faculty Grievance Committee.

A key ingredient of shared governance is transparency. Transparency is not achieved simply by allowing faculty to sit at the table while decisions are being made. Transparency must be created purposefully and maintained aggressively, and the responsibility for creating it rests with the agency or administrator in charge of a project. Transparency is not simply “reporting.”

While academic connections among the various colleges and units of the university should be strengthened, significant changes in structure (e. g., unifying departments across campuses) should be discussed only within guidelines long recognized in provisions of the UC-AAUP Contract, which protect traditional governance prerogatives. The 9th edition of the AAUP Redbook (215-227) addresses this topic in general, and articles 27 and 29 of our contract protect the faculty's rights to meaningful representation. Any "top-down" directives coming from the central administration expressing a far-reaching "vision" to be implemented on the department level is neither acceptable nor advisable.

The recent experience of dislocations and career disruptions leading to lowered faculty morale occasioned by the Collegiate Structuring Initiative (CSI) strongly suggests that any model for re-organizing academic units should receive the "advice and consent" of those most affected by administrative changes. The oversight and review of course instruction is a basic right and responsibility of the teaching faculty who deliver the service, know collectively what should be taught and how, and what pre- and co-requisites are desirable and feasible. Expansion of the "ideas behind the College Structures Initiative to encompass all academic activity," (pp. 102-3 of the UC/21 Technical Report of 2004), unless specifically endorsed and supported by the Faculty through their representatives and normal unit governance procedures, would be an unwarranted departure from "past practices." Restructuring should not end-run the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

As UC21 suggests, entrepreneurialism is critical to mission funding, but it cannot be a benchmark for resource allocation in the traditional non-revenue-generating disciplines. This would lead to a dangerous model where the rich become richer, and the accreditation of the institution again comes under scrutiny. The irony of entrepreneurialism is that truly great tier-one schools, and truly excellent research and science programs, have always sought to escape its demands through strong endowments, public funding, and alumnae support. The market-based model has been tried and has failed at many places, including the University of Florida, where under President John Lombardi an entrepreneurial “Bank” model led to a crisis in morale, a faculty exodus in many departments, and a quantifiable loss in status among peer institutions after “entrepreneurially fit” programs grew disproportionately wealthy under a matching funds program.

Our “bottom line” on entrepreneurialism must be that revenue-generating programs have an ethical and practical obligation to help fund the extra-disciplinary fields that enrich their student and faculty experiences at the University. Likewise, traditionally non-revenue-generating programs must accept the challenge of including wealthier programs in the academic life and governance of the university as equals.

The AAUP underscores that modern academic entrepreneurialism requires a clear division of labor when applied to a complex public bureaucracy like ours. That is, heavy per capita classroom resource allocation and sufficient staff resources for each academic unit will allow the faculty to do world-class work. A well-remunerated staff will be in the most comfortable position to deliver the specialized services to support the labor of the faculty and the learning of students. Entrepreneurialism (like competitiveness) does not mean arbitrarily combining and downsizing the staff from two departments or colleges, thereby increasing the non-academic workload of faculty.

In contrast to the likely failure of a purely entrepreneurial model, the traditional ideal of a "liberal education" is well worth re-affirming. This idea involves, among other things (see endnote[i] for a venerable quote in its defense) a firm commitment to the education, not mere training, of students across the academic disciplines of the sciences, arts, and humanities. With "liberal education" as a goal, as well as an ideal, professional programs for which UC is justly proud can be enhanced by integrating into the education of all students the wider perspectives of different ideas, themes, and modes of reasoning from our own diverse cultural past as well as the richer knowledge to be encouraged by exploration of other traditions.

UC21 is a growth-oriented strategic plan. But enrollment growth cannot be a measure of success without also indexing the need for more resources. UC AAUP faculty share the concerns of students and parents that the best mentoring, laboratory, and fieldwork opportunities do not occur in oversized classes. Study after study shows that economies of scale do not apply in many successful business models, nor do they apply to learning.

Faculty know through research, experience, and instinct that parents, faculty, and students do not want to be treated as clients in a crowd, but rather as engaged citizens on a bustling trans-urban campus. Technology inputs do not inherently increase capacity for enrollment growth, especially when they are supported by contingent staff without job security. Smaller classes and personal attention by full-time faculty add value to each tuition dollar spent at the University. This attention and care, shown to each student, creates a loyal alumnae base that will support the university financially and politically. This philosophy is also reflected in the US News rankings, which cite generous per student spending as a correlating factor to success.

The local AAUP recently began an organizing campaign to build camaraderie and community among its distended and widely distributed constituents. Our “Faculty Energy” ad campaign signals a desire to re-establish ourselves as public servants who produce knowledge and encourage discovery among our peers, neighbors, and affiliates. We signed a contract with the administration that enacts raise-for-increased enrollment quid pro quos, signaling our commitment to providing the same or better education it has been providing, but to a larger student body. This commitment does not mean that faculty will work more for less, or more for the same. We already work quite a bit. Contrary to myth, ours is not the “last best job in America.” Faculty work an average of fifty-five (55) hours a week, not including many service functions.

Transparency means up-front and pre-emptive engagement with all faculty, staff, and students on policy formation and modification. It includes, but is not limited to, timely reporting and strident criticism of failed or failing policies. All those working and studying at a public institution should be made aware of potential Administration and Faculty decisions, and of the logic, the personnel, and the process by which and through whom those decisions were made. The assembly of a multitude, and the reporting of a conversation held among them, does not constitute transparency. Likewise, decisions that effect groups within the UC community cannot be made behind closed doors. Let us build our successes, and accept the blame for our mistakes, as a collective enterprise of students, faculty, and administrators—especially when outside parties claim to have the best interest of the university in mind. An opportunity to speak out against a policy does not stand in for the ability to change that policy. To claim a process “transparent” simply because people were allowed to express their opinions about it is to patronize the students, faculty, and staff who are the lifeblood of the university. The AAUP hopes that a vibrant and vital strategic plan will stand up to, and even change under, the pressure of dispassionate criticism.

The AAUP agrees with many administrators and faculty that the definition of “just community” in the UC21 strategic plan is well-meaning, but it does not address fundamental issues of social justice. As it stands, the section speaks in managerial and client-oriented terms to ill-defined notions of responsibility, diversity, and tolerance. These are passive notions that do not comport with the active role we wish our educated citizenry—faculty and students alike—to take in making a better world. A fundamental tenet of just community should be active reform of existing inequities within and beyond the campus, and also the recognition not only of “diversity” within a homogenous whole, but of “difference” across a broad range of class, cultural, and political interests. Diversity should not mean the mere accounting of minority groups on campus, or the acknowledgement of their “voice.” It should also include an index of engagement and empowerment of those communities with others on campus and beyond, and a real measure of their financial, physical, and political ability to learn from, and reform, our institution. We should ask students, administrators, and our own faculty, to account for ongoing structural inequities that allow the wealth and “diversity” of the university to co-exist alongside the poverty and imperfect democracy of one of our nation’s most segregated cities.

UC’s widely publicized "Just Community" initiative would help attract and keep promising faculty members, were it to be enlarged as to include domestic partner benefits to guarantee cultural and sexual diversity. Another extremely important consideration for making both resident faculty and those we wish to recruit confident that the University will provide an encouraging venue to continue their research and, seamlessly, use their findings in the classroom is the University's continued espousal of the understanding in Article 2.2 of the UC/AAUP Contract that academic freedom is "essential to protect the rights of Faculty Members freely to discuss and debate all ideas, however controversial or unpopular, before the broader community." Recent rumblings from Columbus and elsewhere only make this important traditional value timelier than ever.

The greatest threat to student learning over the last decades has not come from the external influence of corporate interests, or from the loss of faculty power to teach the curriculum as it sees fit. The culprit is contingency, or, the widespread abuse of part-time, non-tenure-track, and de-skilled labor to achieve the mission of putatively “tier-one” research universities. This mode of academic production (so named because it encourages assembly-line style teaching) threatens shared governance, lowers the quality of instruction and research, challenges the accountability of overworked first authors and lab professors, and undermines public trust in the academic enterprise. Perhaps most distressing is the culture of overwork and marginalization in which it places the next generation of scholars.

Contingency will surely be the stumbling block of any strategic plan seeking to move UC into the highest tier. It will wreak havoc on the high standards and professional devotion demanded by UC21. Field Service, Adjunct, Visiting, and other contingent faculty do incredible work at UC. Some of these positions, such as Clinical Faculty, even have professional functionality within their contingency. But UC21 cannot achieve its goals by expanding the ranks of the contingent, or by maintaining their currently unprotected status. The institution should recognize their right to collective bargaining, as UC did over thirty years ago for the full-time Faculty. The overuse and abuse of “temporary” lines as de facto career positions violates the fundamental principle in academic work—that institutional security provides the space and comfort to perform excellence in research and teaching.

The hiring of non-contingent faculty, who are very hard pressed to publish and gain national reputations, does not enhance national reputations, the touchstone of such surveys as that of US News’. This is not to criticize, of course, the service they perform for us and our students in the classroom, but to encourage more full-time, tenure track hiring if we wish students to have the benefit of faculty with proven expertise in their disciplines, who teach the number of courses that will allow them to continue to grow in their fields of research, even to help shape them as participating citizens in a pluralist democracy.

Graduate assistantships can also be abused, and all Faculty should be wary of the way we “employ,” and/or “train” future academics. They should not replace or be used as de facto professional staff support or as ongoing supplements to perpetually empty faculty lines. A UC21 campus will instead aim for and improve upon the “apprentice” model, where graduate assistants work with attainable career goals in mind, meanwhile being compensated for their work and service in both sustainable wages and institutional loyalty. Their excellent compensation and benefit support will help build future professionals and will create a cadre of loyal alumnae donors.

[i] Alfred North Whitehead's words from his 1929 The Aims of Education (Free Press reprint, 1957) still ring true in this new century:

"The universities are schools of education, and schools of research. But the primary reason for their existence is not to be found either in the mere knowledge conveyed to the students or in the mere opportunities for research afforded to the members of the faculty [which] could be performed at a cheaper rate, apart from these very expensive institutions. Books are cheap, and the system of apprenticeship is well understood. So far as the mere imparting of information is concerned, no university has had any justification for existence since the popularization of printing in the 15th century. The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning. The university imparts information, but it imparts it imaginatively. At least this is the function which it should perform for society. A university which fails in this respect has no reason for existence. This atmosphere of excitement, arising from imaginative consideration, transforms knowledge. A fact is no longer a bare fact: it is invested with all its possibilities. It is no longer a burden on the memory: it is energizing as the poet of our dreams, and as the architect of our purposes.

The initial discipline of imagination in its period of youthful vigor requires that there be no responsibility for immediate action. The habit of unbiased thought, whereby the ideal variety of exemplification is discerned in its derivation from general principles, cannot be acquired when there is the daily task of preserving a concrete organization. You must be free to think rightly and wrongly, and free to appreciate the variousness of the universe undisturbed by its perils." (emphasis added)

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