Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Standstill?
Sorry for the lengthy absence but I had rotator cuff surgery and they filed down a bone spur while they were at it. Word on the street claims the University is at a standstill in terms of approving new or replacement hires. On the one hand this saves money; while on the other hand it doesn't do much to help our students. If the University wishes to continue its upward "surge" in enrollment, then students taking courses in their major field of study are going to require more than part-time instructors. The more part-timers you have the more difficult it becomes to control the curriculum and the overall pattern of instruction. This is not meant as a slam on all part-time instructors but students need full-time faculty for mentoring and career advising.
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5 comments:
It makes no sense to hire until you have a strategic plan.
Strategic plan or not, we still have students who need to be taught. We have classes that are required for them to graduate and we should be obligated to meet their needs. Students didn't enroll at UT with the understanding that before we can help ensure your success we have to wait and come up with a strategic plan. Instead we recruited students by saying we put students first. Let's do that.
The strategic plan in development will set broad aims and mirror initiatives already set as priorities by President Gaber and will not impact at the level of department and program including teaching and staffing needs. One of the Presidents often stated goal is to hire more high quality full time faculty. Several faculty hires are already underway and more in the final stages of approval, they all went through justification and approvals so there is no need to hold or delay pending the strategic plan. If the need has been shown and all levels already approved, these hires should proceed.
With its shaky finances and a yearlong, “we’re not in a big rush” strategic planning process now underway, UT will not be addressing its full-time vs. part-time faculty ratio anytime soon.
So everybody, just relax.
Pop open a cold Old Milwaukee Light, dust off your beanie with a propeller to wear at the next pep rally, and get ready for the epic Nov. 25 football game between the Rockets and Western Michigan, between the highest-paid football coach in the MAC—that would be WMU’s P.J. Fleck at $816,360, according to the Oct. 27 USAToday--
and the second-highest paid coach—our own Jason Candle at $675,000.
Go Rockets!
Here is a question to ask, in the old days, unfilled positions represented "salary savings" but their cash value was happily spent each year as one time money's by both the president and the Provost's office. The spending was unrestricted. Still true? If so, they are not savings at all, just not future commitments. On the other hand, the cash expenditure, if part of just doing reoccurring business, must come from some account the next year if repeated. So are salary savings in the bank or spent?
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