Faculty Spread Sheet - do you measure up? - USM Forum -- Message Board

Invictus · Status: Offline

RE: Faculty Spread Sheet - do you measure up?

Reporter · Status: Offline

stinky cheese man wrote:

could any of you at the FS meeting produce copies of these expectations? i am puzzled that some things seem so widely known, but folks in my shop have never seen them. in what form were these expectations presented at the FS meeting?

Minimum Performance Expectations 2006-2007

INDICATOR....................MINIMUM PERFORMANCE EXPECTATIONS

Net Contribution................Positive value for each faculty member
Faculty Ratio.....................70% full time faculty by teaching site
Research.......................1 grant application/faculty member filed per year
Enrollment and Retention....4% increase in enrollment compared to Fall 2006
Student Credit Hours........Undergraduate: 4%increase compared to Fall 2006
.....................................Graduate: 5% increase comapred to Fall 2006
Alternative Delivery.......Prepare one additional program for online delivery per year
....................................Expand weekend and compressed offerings to meet
....................................student demand
Assessment...................Complete all assessment plans and reports for SACS and
.....................................NCATE as scheduled
Program Reviews (noneligible..........Complete reviews and submit documentation
for accreditation)............................on time as scheduled.
Community College Relations.........Host faculty function for one department per
...................................................semester targeting 8 community colleges.

-- Edited by Reporter at 21:48, 2006-09-10

-- Edited by Reporter at 21:52, 2006-09-10

Jameela Lares · Status: Offline

Where's publication? JL

LVN · Status: Offline

Publication? Publication doesn't increase revenue. Publication only increases influence, prestige, scholarship --

This expectation of a 4% increase in SCH production per faculty member is what I referred to earlier. How can every faculty teach 4% more if enrollment only increases 2%? This is ludicrous beyond words, and I as a non-faculty person can see it.

asdf · Status: Offline

LVN wrote:
This expectation of a 4% increase...

You just have to get the students to sign up for more hours a semester. If you know a part-time student, encourage them to take 12 hours...encourage a full time student to take over 19 hours. Now I know they might graduate earlier, or flunk out because they can't handle the work load, but that could mathematically work for a year or two (wait, easy solution to the flunking out situation, don't flunk your students...I mean, what good does that really do, would McDonalds refuse to sell you a value meal just because you couldn't figure out their numbering system...why kick out a paying customer).

The flip side is that you really shouldn't encourage anyone to take more than 12 hours and less than 19 because they don't pay anything extra for those classes. But that is not how the spreadsheet works, and you have to play the system by the system's rules.

I have a serious question: everyone is supposed to submit one grant proposal a year, correct? What kind of grant? Is a $500 grant the same as a $500,000 grant? I guess we already know that where the money comes from does not matter. Does it matter how good the grant is? Can I just submit a crap proposal that has no chance of being funded to satisfy my requirement? One thing is for sure when you set minimum performance goals, you will get the minimum performance.

Greg OBrien · Status: Offline

Thanks Reporter for that information. Really amazing that enrollments should increase per program/department by at least 4% in one year (while university-wide enrollments are down) and yet a 70% full time faculty ratio should be maintained too. Some departments do not meet that 70% threshold now. Are they going to be given the necessary funding to hire more full time professors? Such dramatic student enrollment increases have to be met with requisite hiring of full time faculty or else such a system is doomed to fail (or not enough sections of courses will be offered). Perhaps that is the point, at least for some programs? Are some of us not being set up to fail? SACS may find all of this interesting as well, especially since this fall's review is still in process. In fact, the more I look at these made-up target numbers, is this not an attempt by the Administration to supply a SACS-like document to show how they are striving to "improve"?

Ellen Weinauer · Status: Offline

Greg, I was thinking about SACS too, but in the opposite direction. IF there is any effort to enforce this--and I do know one faculty member in CoEP who has been handed a list of "goals" consonant with this spreadsheet--then the effect for non-grant getters will be to increase the size of classes, especially at the 100-200 levels. And this will mean that the QEP will go out the window, since there's no way to "enhance" writing and speaking skills when you have 150 people per class. In short, I would imagine that SACS would have very little good to say about this particular model for faculty responsibilities. Can anyone more informed help on this point?

It did occur to me that under this model two of the most "valuable" members of CoAL, if not of the university, would be Frank Glamser (as I recall, he had a pretty high number of SCH) and Gary Stringer, whose ongoing NEH grant was an extremely high-dollar one.

Bleak humor aside, this is extremely unsettling and upsetting. Any sense of how the deans have responded?

Ellen Weinauer

LeftASAP · Status: Offline

Ellen Weinauer wrote:

... Any sense of how the deans have responded?

Ellen Weinauer

What I hear is that this was/will be passed to the chairs through the deans. I heard that last week a few faculty had tried but had not been able to get their dean's to discuss this . Something may be going on this week.

LVN · Status: Offline

It strikes me that this would be a good time for the deans to show some backbone. Their situation is pretty bleak anyway, and they seem to have little to lose. What would happen if all of them just refused to enforce this scheme? If I were a dean, I would be asking for "clarification" ad infinitum, and sending it back with lots and lots of questions, until the clock ran out, which it will.

What's really baffling is that such a radical deal is being put forward in the final year of an administration. I wonder if the originator is angling for bigger and better things for him/herself and is using this as a resume-enhancing device. Or maybe it's something they were told to do and they know perfectly well it will never fly with SACS, but they're moving forward. Or maybe it was promulgated by alien invaders disguised to look like desperate administrators . . .

Actually, given that ST's term expires in May, and teaching assignments are already set for 06-07, how will this scheme be enforced??

-- Edited by LVN at 11:30, 2006-09-11

qwerty · Status: Offline

Let's see....

The administration has now made the defacto standard for evaluation 1) high ratio of credit hours/faculty member 2) 4% growth in total credits (per faculty?, Department?) 3) Grant funding.

What's an effective way to respond to this incentive system?

1. Take on large sections, preferably at the 100/200 level. Since grad enrollment has to grow at a 5% rate, maybe you'll have a TA or two to do all the heavy lifting in the course.

2. Make the class very, very easy. Give lot's of A's and B's. Move the defacto failing grade to a C or even a B. Nothing builds course enrollment better than having a reputation as someone who teaches "slide" courses.

Keep in mind that you'll have to never, ever change your exams so that frat/sorority test files remain relevant. You cannot advertise your course publically as a slide, so you'll have to rely on word-of-mouth advertising. Be sure to log on to all the faculty evaluation websites (posing as a student, of course), and post that you give lots of A's, are real easy, and that no one ever seems to fail.

Even if the course is easy, student preference is for a class that one can get an A/B without hardly ever showing up, so never take attendance.

3. Don't assign any writing, either on the exam (essays take too long to grade. feeding the exams into the scantron is so much quicker), or as part of normal class assignment.

4. Redeploy all the time you formerly spent preparing to teach, grading papers, meeting with students to developing your research project so you may get another grant.

5. Check your professionalism at the edge of campus. Avoid mirrors so that you'll not have to look at yourself.

LeftASAP · Status: Offline

LVN wrote:

It strikes me that this would be a good time for the deans to show some backbone. Their situation is pretty bleak anyway, and they seem to have little to lose. What would happen if all of them just refused to enforce this scheme? If I were a dean, I would be asking for "clarification" ad infinitum, and sending it back with lots and lots of questions, until the clock ran out, which it will.

What's really baffling is that such a radical deal is being put forward in the final year of an administration. I wonder if the originator is angling for bigger and better things for him/herself and is using this as a resume-enhancing device. Or maybe it's something they were told to do and they know perfectly well it will never fly with SACS, but they're moving forward. Or maybe it was promulgated by alien invaders disguised to look like desperate administrators . . .

Actually, given that ST's term expires in May, and teaching assignments are already set for 06-07, how will this scheme be enforced??

-- Edited by LVN at 11:30, 2006-09-11

LVN, I should point out that these "goals" are not much different from the "goals" the several deans of CoST would give the chairs each year. I don't remember seeing these written down, but the chairs informed faculty and then used this to negotiate at annual evaluation each year. They implied to faculty what needed to be done to get a decent raise the following year. This is how and when the yearly faculty "goals" were established for the next year's annual review.

LVN · Status: Offline

But Left, that doesn't answer the question of how a president leaving in May 2007 can enforce a plan that can't be made effective until August 2007. The enrollments and teaching loads are set for this year, unless someone is hallucinating that there will be a big jump in Spring enrollment.

That makes me think that the whole rigamarole is the idea of someone who is either leaving, or who thinks they will stay but in a higher capacity. Otherwise it makes no sense. (Ok ignore that last sentence. It already makes no sense.)

LeftASAP · Status: Offline

LVN wrote:

But Left, that doesn't answer the question of how a president leaving in May 2007 can enforce a plan that can't be made effective until August 2007. The enrollments and teaching loads are set for this year, unless someone is hallucinating that there will be a big jump in Spring enrollment.

That makes me think that the whole rigamarole is the idea of someone who is either leaving, or who thinks they will stay but in a higher capacity. Otherwise it makes no sense. (Ok ignore that last sentence. It already makes no sense.)

I agree, LVN. These goals can't be met for 2006-2007. However, annual evaluations occur while this administration is still in office. They could be used to set faculty goals for next year. The deans should still be around to pressure the chairs at least for one year, if not longer.

LVN · Status: Offline

That brings up another point -- how long does this crop of deans actually have?

qwerty · Status: Offline

Cossack wrote:

As for undergraduate education, it is far too important to allow second rate administrators and faculty to turn a university into a junior college. A large percentage of students at USM are first in their family to go to college. USM also has a large percentage of African-American students. The last thing they need is to be short changed in the education process by having watered down easy classes taught at a junior college level.

This quote caught my eye. I couldn't agree more. USM has done a great deal of good for people who may not be very priviledged, but were willing to do the hard work and learn. For me, the great joy of teaching at USM is encountering these diamonds in the rough, and having some small role in giving them a bit of polish before sending them out into the world.

stinky cheese man · Status: Offline

querty--i couldn't agree with you more! and, let's not forget we have some diamonds when they get here. let's shape them so they can go further. i heard of a diamond who came here and was admitted to harvard law school this fall. we can't fall prey to cynicism of the worst degree.

BAD · Status: Offline

asdf wrote:

LVN wrote:

This expectation of a 4% increase...

You just have to get the students to sign up for more hours a semester. If you know a part-time student, encourage them to take 12 hours...encourage a full time student to take over 19 hours. Now I know they might graduate earlier, or flunk out because they can't handle the work load, but that could mathematically work for a year or two (wait, easy solution to the flunking out situation, don't flunk your students...I mean, what good does that really do, would McDonalds refuse to sell you a value meal just because you couldn't figure out their numbering system...why kick out a paying customer).

The flip side is that you really shouldn't encourage anyone to take more than 12 hours and less than 19 because they don't pay anything extra for those classes. But that is not how the spreadsheet works, and you have to play the system by the system's rules.

I have a serious question: everyone is supposed to submit one grant proposal a year, correct? What kind of grant? Is a $500 grant the same as a $500,000 grant? I guess we already know that where the money comes from does not matter. Does it matter how good the grant is? Can I just submit a crap proposal that has no chance of being funded to satisfy my requirement? One thing is for sure when you set minimum performance goals, you will get the minimum performance.

Where the money comes from is important. State contracts and grants that do not include indirects are considered dirty like drug money.