Category: Minutes

• What will our focus be, i.e. choosing which of our concerns that we want to prioritize and in what order.
• List of tips for new/untenured faculty
• Panel discussion on tenure/promotion?
• Wali Kharif Award for outstanding service:  form a committee to set the guidelines
•  By laws: form a committee to revise/edit
• Fun/positive vibes: form a committee to come up with ideas
  

 VI)             Other Such Matters

2/24/17

Letter-to-the-editor:

TTU Faculty and staff recently received more bad news from university President Phil Oldham. For the second year running, unplanned or unanticipated budget reductions were announced. For the current 2016-17 year the reductions amounted to over $3 million dollars and for 2017-18 they are reported to be $2.6 million. The cuts will be spread between instructional and non-instructional activities. The main reasons for the latest revenue shortfalls are said to be the continued decline in student tuition money (especially from declining foreign student enrollment) and excessive scholarship awards. The impact of these cuts on the university’s ability to teach and service its students has already been felt as academic and administrative departments have had to forego hiring while some administrative departments struggle with fewer staff employees. All of this has demoralized many faculty and staff and undermined the university’s core mission of providing effective education.

Greatly complicating TTU’s fiscal position is the fact that higher echelon administrative posts—those that come with large and growing salaries and questionable roles–have blossomed under the current administration. There is now at TTU a Vice President for Research and Economic Development who is paid $305,000; an Associate Vice President For Strategic Research Initiatives who oversees what was TTU’s Water Center (although this person has no background in water-related matters) and is paid$160,000; a Special Assistant to the President for Strategy who receives $174,700; and a Vice President for University Advancement that receives $200,000. The Vice President for Planning and Finance—TTU’s chief financial officer—receives $200,000, a salary that has increased by 55% (from $128,700) in about five years. Many have questioned what some of these positions contribute even as they represent huge, fixed administrative costs. Particularly difficult to justify is that substantial administrative raises have followed what many see as poor performance on the part of TTU administrators and as reflected in the continued and ‘unanticipated’ budget shortfalls. It is not likely that the foreign student enrollment decline—driven by students from largely Islamic countries—will reverse itself in the current climate; nor will non-foreign student enrollment likely surge given the access to free community college education. If belt tightening is called for, many TTU faculty and staff increasingly think that it’s high time to rein in administrative glut and redirect resources toward providing education instead of highly paid employment for multitudes of vice presidents.

Jon Jonakin, Emeritus Professor of Economics, TTU

3/24/17

Letter to the editor:

The latest, mass layoffs of 19 staff employees at TTU and the reassignment in lower-paying positions of an undisclosed number of others underscore the severity of the ongoing fiscal crisis of the university and, again, highlight TTU’s problem as unique among TBR schools. Something emanating from the management of TTU continues to plague the university’s ability to educate and service its students. At a moment when the state of Tennessee is awash in surplus cash, TTU is mired in deficits. The fiscal shortfall does not entirely lie with falling student enrollment and over-extended scholarships as the administration would have it. Huge salaries for increasing numbers of high ranking administrative officials contribute to the fiscal problem. Questionable business ventures such as the TTU ‘satellite campus’ in Lawrence County will drain resources from the core campus while the Golden Eagle golf course is believed to operate in red ink. A failed ‘Health Care Informatics’ center ran up deficits and gave evidence of serious conflicts of interest on the part of its former director. A public, non-profit institution, TTU is increasingly managed as a private, for-profit business, and a failing business at that. The mismanagement has become so acute that the TTU Chapter of the American Association of University Professors recently voted overwhelmingly on a resolution of ‘no confidence’ in the administration’s handling of the university’s business and fiscal affairs. The same resolution called for an outside audit of TTU’s fiscal accounts.

The human aspect of TTU’s crisis should not be lost in all the fiscal accounting woes. In a Nashville, WSMV, Channel 4 interview TTU’s President Oldham called the layoffs ‘gut-wrenching’. And indeed they are, but much less gut-wrenching for Oldham than for those fired. In what seems to be an instance of rewarding failure, Oldham was just awarded a raise of $35,700 and now makes $316,196. I spoke with some of the fired staff people. The vast majority of those let go are women and minorities (and this aspect of TTU’s problems also requires investigation). One of those laid off told me their spouse would now lose health care insurance. And this came from a person whose TTU job paid far less than Oldham’s raise. Such discriminatory impacts and anomalies rank as truly gut-wrenching and deplorable.

Jon Jonakin, TTU Emeritus Professor of Economics

4/26/17

Letter-to-the-editor:

Much of the blame for TTU’s on-going fiscal crisis and the related employee firings has been assigned to the over-extension of student academic scholarships and this according to President Phil Oldham. One casualty of this over-extension was the Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management [AVP-EM ] whose office was charged with the actual award of such scholarships. Earlier, in 2014, the same AVP-EM had been asked by Oldham to develop a plan outlining options by which TTU would award scholarships and attract good students. The AVP-EM proposed various options on which to focus scholarship awards: transfer students, high performing students, and medium performing students. Oldham made the decision to pursue all these options, thus assuring that the scholarship pool of eligible, prospective students was ‘large’. In a subsequent meeting in 2014, Oldham, the TTU Provost, the Vice President for Planning and Finance [VP-PF], and the AVP-EM all agreed to pursue the composite of options and the ‘large’ pool. As a result of the new policy, the scholarships awarded in 2014 and 2015 resulted in larger dollar payouts than anticipated. In both years the VP-PF cut the checks needed to cover the costs and no red flags were raised regarding the unanticipated over-extensions. Then, in 2016 and continuing into 2017 there were yet more ‘unanticipated’ scholarship over-extensions. With a developing and now acute fiscal shortfall, funds were cut for academic and non-academic departments, hiring freezes were imposed, and finally job reassignments [to lower paying positions] and layoffs affecting around 20 people occurred. Among those let go was the AVP-EM who became the scapegoat for the whole scholarship affair.

Clearly, the wrong person was sacked. Both Oldham and the VP-PF—TTU’s chief accountant—signed off on the policy that yielded, year after year, the over-extended scholarships. The President and the VP-PF facilitated the problem from the beginning. Yet far from facing sanctions themselves, they were awarded raises in recent years that together have totaled over $90,000. A worrisome aspect of this turmoil is that the scholarship issue is but one component of TTU’s current fiscal problems and which have arisen as a result of generalized mismanagement occurring at very top of the administrative ladder. When the failures of the top-most administrators go rewarded, one understands that such administrators have begun to operate with the expectation of impunity and this is deeply worrisome.

Jon Jonakin, TTU Emeritus Professor of Economics

7/12/17

Letter to the editor:

The second meeting of the Tennessee Tech Governing Board meeting can be watched here: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGtMprxWisA&t=4156sa) and it was eye opening. . Early on, the Board undertook a long discussion of whether TTU faculty and staff were deserving of a 3% raise mandated by the State. Several Board members appeared to agree that only those faculty and staff members who were “innovative” deserved even a 1% cost of living raise. One Board member insinuated that [many?] TTU faculty were simply slackers who were just “living another year” and collecting wages. Not only are these attitudes toward TTU employees disconcerting, it betrays an ignorance of what TTU Faculty do and do well. TTU faculty use cutting edge technology and teaching methods; they conduct research; and they are active in professional and community service. ALL faculty and staff deserve raises that at least account for the cost of living. There have been many years when faculty and staff have gotten NO raise. In addition, faculty and staff salaries at TTU are below the levels of comparative schools, or the ‘CUPA norm’. In fact, the only individuals whose salaries are generally above peer equivalents are TTU’s top administrators’, many of whom have received significant raises in the last four years.

When the discussion turned to whether President Oldham should receive a 3 % raise, there was almost universal agreement that he deserved yet another raise on an income of $340,000 given his “motivation” and “dedication”. Many were left wondering how these ineffable, (pandering?) tributes would be measured or clearly demonstrated. This discussion was all the more surprising considering that TTU is the only TBR university facing an acute financial crisis; one replete with large layoffs and all as a result of administrative mismanagement. Faculty evaluations of Oldham and high level administrators already exist but the administration refuses to allow access to them. A TTU-AAUP faculty survey resulted in a vote of “no confidence” in President Oldham in 2016. Before the Board begins evaluating faculty as slackers and denying them raises, they need to demand the release of administrative evaluations that already exist and the Board needs to consult with the AAUP on its existing survey. Morale among TTU faculty and staff is at rock bottom and will likely fall further if the Board and the administration continue to permit the kind of disparaging conversation and discrepant evaluative treatment evidenced in the second Board meeting.

Jon Jonakin, TTU Emeritus Professor of Economics

Letter to the editor:

The second meeting of the Tennessee Tech Governing Board meeting can be watched here: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGtMprxWisA&t=4156sa) and it was eye opening. . Early on, the Board undertook a long discussion of whether TTU faculty and staff were deserving of a 3% raise mandated by the State. Several Board members appeared to agree that only those faculty and staff members who were “innovative” deserved even a 1% cost of living raise. One Board member insinuated that [many?] TTU faculty were simply slackers who were just “living another year” and collecting wages. Not only are these attitudes toward TTU employees disconcerting, it betrays an ignorance of what TTU Faculty do and do well. TTU faculty use cutting edge technology and teaching methods; they conduct research; and they are active in professional and community service. ALL faculty and staff deserve raises that at least account for the cost of living. There have been many years when faculty and staff have gotten NO raise. In addition, faculty and staff salaries at TTU are below the levels of comparative schools, or the ‘CUPA norm’. In fact, the only individuals whose salaries are generally above peer equivalents are TTU’s top administrators’, many of whom have received significant raises in the last four years.

When the discussion turned to whether President Oldham should receive a 3 % raise, there was almost universal agreement that he deserved yet another raise on an income of $340,000 given his “motivation” and “dedication”. Many were left wondering how these ineffable, (pandering?) tributes would be measured or clearly demonstrated. This discussion was all the more surprising considering that TTU is the only TBR university facing an acute financial crisis; one replete with large layoffs and all as a result of administrative mismanagement. Faculty evaluations of Oldham and high level administrators already exist but the administration refuses to allow access to them. A TTU-AAUP faculty survey resulted in a vote of “no confidence” in President Oldham in 2016. Before the Board begins evaluating faculty as slackers and denying them raises, they need to demand the release of administrative evaluations that already exist and the Board needs to consult with the AAUP on its existing survey. Morale among TTU faculty and staff is at rock bottom and will likely fall further if the Board and the administration continue to permit the kind of disparaging conversation and discrepant evaluative treatment evidenced in the second Board meeting.

Jon Jonakin, TTU Emeritus Professor of Economics

Letter-to-the-editor:

TTU faculty and staff recently received more bad news from university President Phil Oldham. For the second year running, unanticipated budget reductions were announced. For the current 2016-17 year the reductions amounted to over $3 million dollars and for 2017-18 they are reported to be $2.6 million. The cuts will be spread between instructional and non-instructional activities. The main reasons for the latest revenue shortfalls are said to be the continued decline in student tuition money (especially from declining foreign student enrollment) and excessive scholarship awards. Overall student enrollment today has fallen to levels last seen in 2010. The impact of these cuts on the university’s ability to teach and service its students has already been felt as academic and administrative departments have had to forego hiring while some administrative departments struggle with fewer staff employees. All of this has demoralized many faculty and staff and undermined the university’s core mission of providing effective education.

Greatly complicating TTU’s fiscal position is the fact that higher echelon administrative posts—those that come with large and growing salaries and questionable roles–have blossomed under the current administration. There is now at TTU a Vice President for Research and Economic Development who is paid $305,000; an Associate Vice President For Strategic Research Initiatives who oversees what was TTU’s Water Center (although this person has no background in water-related matters) and is paid$160,000; a Special Assistant to the President for Strategy who receives $174,700; and a Vice President for University Advancement that receives $200,000. The Vice President for Planning and Finance receives $200,000, a salary that has increased by 55% (from $128,700) in about five years. Many have questioned what some of these positions contribute even as they represent huge, fixed administrative costs. Particularly difficult to justify is that substantial administrative raises have followed what many see as poor performance on the part of TTU administrators and as reflected in the continued and ‘unanticipated’ budget shortfalls. It is not likely that the foreign student enrollment decline—driven by students from largely Islamic countries—will reverse itself in the current climate; nor will overall student enrollment likely surge given the access to free community college education. If belt tightening is called for, many TTU faculty and staff increasingly think it’s high time to rein in administrative glut and redirect resources toward providing education instead of highly paid employment for multitudes of vice presidents.

Jon Jonakin, Emeritus Professor of Economics, TTU

1345 Inglewood Drive

Cookeville, TN

526-3399

AAUP Report: Fall 2016

Our TTU AAUP chapter met several times on and off campus during fall semester 2016. We invited several administrators (Dr. Stinson, Dr. Hodum, Dr. Stephens), Faculty Senate president Christy Killman, and the three finalists (Dr. O’Connor, Dr. Timmerman and Dr. Geist, who was elected) for the faculty position on the board that will govern TTU starting in 2017. The topics discussed at each meeting can be found in the meeting minutes on our website.

Throughout the semester, AAUP was contacted by faculty and staff, who pointed out issues and concerns. Below, we are providing a summary of these reported items to make them transparent and open for discussion. It is important to note that we did not investigate all the problems brought to us. Some items are based on perceptions. However, we believe that this document will be helpful for the administration to learn how faculty and staff experience their work environment. We are bringing the following observations and questions to the administration’s attention, so that they can be addressed adequately.

On that note, it seems necessary to mention that faculty never received a report summarizing the issues brought to President Oldham’s attention over the summer. When asked whether he could give us an idea of what had been discussed, he said there had been too many different issues. Meetings are good and necessary if we want to ensure that faculty is included in the discussion, i.e. in how we share governance of our university. Meetings without follow up reports that state what was discussed and how the issues brought to the President’s attention were addressed and/or resolved are not productive.

An overarching theme of our discussion with faculty and staff members was the perception that there seems to be a lot of waste of resources and money.

• One example is the mulching and maintenance of the grounds of our campus. Grass is removed, mulch is spread, trees and plants are planted, but no one waters or tends to them, so they wither and die. Speaking of the grounds, Governor Haslam is extending his credo of outsourcing to universities and other state facilities, like Fall Creek Falls Lodge. It is not proving popular at Fall Creek Falls and citizens are rising up to oppose it.  We should oppose the outsourcing and also speak up against the proposed outsourcing of grounds employees and possibly other groups.  In the Jan. 15^th Herald Citizen, p. A3 is an AP report “Lawmakers question Haslam’s [privatizing/ outsourcing maintenance work] Plan for UT.  “Haslam has left it up to the leaders of each institution to decide if they want to participate in the outsourcing plan.”  We would like urge Pres. Oldham NOT to participate in outsourcing.
• Our student population has decreased to the level of 2010. Tuition has increased. The question that is asked over and over again: Why do we need so many more top administrators (that are paid top salaries) when we have the same amount of students as seven years ago? Faculty members report that their departments are in dire need of faculty positions. Offices are not able to hire staff to do the lower level administrative work that we all depend on. However, concerns are largely ignored and it seems like the TTU leadership is putting its ostrich head into the omnipresent mulch.

 1) Administrators cost the university over $5 million annually 

The list of administrators in the 2016-17 Graduate Catalog is so out of date that it lists Brian O’Connor as the Faculty Senate President. Someone needs to look at the Graduate Catalog and fix that. Added up, top administrators cost the university $5.5 million dollars annually. If we add up the 30 highest paid individuals on campus, we find that their average salary is 185k. How do these people improve TTU–more students? more revenue? better teaching? better retention? (International Students are leaving, faculty positions are not filled, and we just have more administrators administering exactly – what? AAUP looked at hiring scenarios and salary increases since 2012. Since we have had no growth (see below), it seems odd and strategically wrong that we have more administrators.

Higher Administration 2010-11 and 2016-17 per undergraduate catalog + Patrick Wilson who was not listed.

2010-11

No Asst. VP

6 Associate VPs: Jeff Young, Mike Nivens (Facilities), Francis Otounye (Research), Reese (ITS), Stephens (Academic Aff), Grippin (Public Affairs)

4 VPs Stinson, Elkins, Armistead (Academic Affairs), Hutchins (Univ. Advancement)

7 Deans: Elkins, Bagley, Semmes, Peach, Huddleston, Boucher, Jordan-Wagner

11 Directors: Cowen, Glenn James, Mark Wilson, Camuti (Career Services) McKenzie (Fin. Aid), Metts (Internal Audit),Rachel Rader, Doubet (Craft Center), Nipp Kientz (library), Hodum (Executive Director Enrollment Management), Barry Stein (University Planning)

2016-17

3 Asst. VPs: Boucher, Owens, Irvine (Student Success)

7 Associate VPs– Young, Hodum, Butler, Brewer, Crickenburger, Lykins, Wilson

6 VPs: Braswell (University Advancement), Burnett, Claire, Huo (Academic Affairs) Stephens (Academic Affairs), Soni

10 Deans: Library, Interdisciplinary, Payne, Rencis, Mullens, Semmes, Shank, Stephens (Grad school), Tzeng, Williams (Interim Dean of Students)

1 Interim Associate Dean– Bedelia Russell

10 Directors: Smith (Counseling Center), Laura Cruz, Goad, Haley (Career Services), James, McKenzie, Metts, Nelson (police), Winkle (Craft Center), Cobb

Saltsman – Personal Assistant to President

2) Enrollment, Tuition and Research Activity

http://www.comptroller.tn.gov/repository/sa/cu15064.pdf

If the numbers pulled are accurate and correctly interpreted, it would appear that the cost to our students has significantly increased which would imply that TTU is spending a lot more in 2016 relative to 2012 to do nominally the same job or less. How is that justified?

Total student FTE and university research activations are gross indicators of university activity. From fall 2012 to fall 2016, total student FTE has declined slightly from 9,586 to 9,125. Total research activations remained flat at $13.1 million. The aggregate didn’t change much.

AY2015 is the most recent financial audit posted online. From 2012 to 2015, university appropriation revenues increased slightly from $39.9 million to $42.2 million while tuition and fee revenues increased from $41.4 million to $61.6 million.

2012 through 2016 were a good economic environment for higher education in Tennessee and nationally.

As reflected above from 2012 to 2015, the state appropriation remained relatively flat which reflects the relatively flat measures of TTU activity noted above. However, tuition and fee revenue appears to have increased by 46% from 2012 to 2015.

From 2012 to 2015, the TTU undergraduate tuition rate increased from $6,996 to $8,551 which is a 22% increase.

These figures raise several questions with the first, most basic question being justification of the $20 million increase in tuition and fees during a period when university activity was stable? Since the instruction load measured by student FTE slightly declined and the level of effort measured by university research activations remained constant, what are the consumers of our services receiving today that they did not receive in 2012? How is the $20 million increase justified in this activity environment? Why is it better for our students to place that additional $20 million in the university rather than in their own pocket? How did out-of-state tuition increase?

 3) On recent budget cuts

From President Oldham’s message: “The instructional budget, which includes the university’s colleges and school, will be responsible for $1.24 million, or 50.7 percent, of the cuts needed; the non-instructional budget will be responsible for $1.2 million, or 49.3 percent. An additional $1.08 million in cuts have been assigned to non-instructional units, bringing the total non-instructional cuts to $2.29 million.”

$1.24M + $1.2M=$2.44 M around the amount of 329 students not coming to TTU.

The additional $1.08M isn’t as much as the international students would cost us, but, it’s somewhere in the ball park–a few $100,000 short.  Why did President Oldham change “responsible” in the case of instruction and non-instructional budgets to “assigned” for non-instructional units with the $1.08M?  There is something strange about the wording.

What is the basis for a 50% to 50% budget split between administration and academics? How are services classified?

Why did the administration split the budget cuts 50-50?  Why did higher administration not get cut more than instruction?  After all, what is more important?  There are only two people in Dr. Hodum’s office now who are responsible to prepare students’ paperwork for graduation. Obviously, we need more administrators to do that kind of work but we do NOT need more in the 140-305k range. In the AAUP meeting Dr. Hodum attended, he said that it was not feasible to only have two staff members process all the paperwork. Many departments have not been able to hire new faculty. The searches are announced, but then stalled and canceled. Many positions remain “interim” for years.

A 50-50 split would yield about $90 million to each side.

If admin were restricted to 48%, the split would be $88.2 million for admin and $91.8 million for academics.

What could academic departments do with that $3.6 million? How many faculty members could be hired for that amount?

4) The new budget model

Several times statistics have been presented showing how much the budget has grown since 2012, number of positions added. Dr. Stinson’s statement in the Herald Citizen about basing the budget on the prior year is questionable. Prior year should be a starting point but nothing more.

*       To meet budget reduction numbers several positions went unfilled between 2008-2011 including force reduction. How much of the touted increase is just a recovery from an abnormally low base?

*      We haven’t seen details that show how the appointments were distributed between regular faculty, non-tenure track instructors, and administrators who hold tenure.

The new budget model will provide cover for administration to reallocate funds under the guise that “the model made me do it”.

We suspect that it is too late to stop the budget model implementation. The academic deans and faculty senate should have insisted on being involved in establishing the broad model parameters that would guide outcomes. Any budget model should support the activities that are viewed as high priority by the organization and the values used to establish the model base must be grounded in reality.

5) Lack of planning, focusing, leadership/fiscal responsibility

Our administration seems infatuated with fads. Our new budget model is one of the fads. Budgeting that heavily emphasizes the revenue stream and revenue growth is not effective for public bureaucracies, such as higher education. We can always spend more money and we can always raise more revenue by increasing tuition and fees to a captive market.

The more appropriate focus should be on good stewardship of public funds and trust to achieve the objectives that the public wants in a cost-effective manner. If we followed the approach outlined above, we would find that TTU has plenty of funding to achieve our mission tasks, faculty compensation would be more competitive with the market, and we would provide better service to our students and regional constituents.

Consider the efforts to grow a research enterprise. TTU has not taken the fundamental steps to analyze the workforce and workforce commitments which means that no one has a grasp on the number of faculty equivalents available and the areas of expertise represented to bring to bear on any specific research area. The approach has been to assume that excess capacity exists in the various units and that it will magically transfer into production.

At minimum, you must quantify the resources available to bring to bear on the tasks and compare that to the desired outcomes. Then you can begin to make a meaningful estimate of a timeline on which progress towards the objective can be made. This would have to be iterative until the resources available and resources required match up with the implementation timeline and desired outcomes based upon an agreed upon definition of success.

The intellectually lazy approach of skipping these minimal steps will pretty much guarantee failure. Success would only result from blind luck whereby one of President Oldham’s probing ventures randomly struck oil. To remedy the current lack of planning, focusing, and good leadership and to take fiscal responsibility, we recommend to:

• Honestly evaluate conditions and identify desired accomplishments. The desired accomplishments must be well understood and hopefully embraced by employees and constituents. Buy-in is critical for a service organization.
• Develop a viable tactical strategy to achieve the desired accomplishments. This is the step that converts “wishes” into “wants. This must identify the timeline; resources required; resources available; how to identify success; how to decide when to change directions; etc. Repeat the statement about the importance of everyone understanding what is to be done and how it will be done. Buy-in is critical.
• Focus on building an organization that supports success. Basically, start doing things that are productive and work with faculty who can help the administration (in many cases for FREE) rather than hire consultants that cost a ton of money.

6) Parking

During fall semester, AAUP received many photographs of empty parking lots. People complained about the silly entrance and exit construction on the parking lot behind Henderson Hall. It takes forever to get out of that parking lot. Why is there a lottery that gives away parking tags for the gold area to graduate students? Why not include staff in that lottery, if there is a lottery at all. Why are we giving away parking places that faculty and others are paying for?

7) TTU is discussing opening a Satellite campus in Lawrenceburg, TN

Is this true, and if so, what are the objectives? Could we possibly be lowering the profile of TTU which, after much hard work on the part of faculty, finally achieved the status of a Carnegie Mellon Designation.

8) Questionable initiatives and methods

Several faculty members have reported a pattern: Initiatives pop up, such as the Center for Health Administration, which vanished together with its director Thad Perry (after AAUP pointed out that he was producing “a suite of products” at TTU that he was selling to one of his own companies), or the Center of Caregiving. These initiatives are not discussed with faculty. Instead they are implemented without appropriate discussion. Faculty is told what to do to make these initiatives happen, rather than consulted to discuss feasible ways to make them work. It is not that these initiatives are necessarily bad ideas, but faculty members report that the ways these initiatives are executed are less than ideal. There are not any plans ahead of time; initiatives and centers pop up from nowhere. AAUP is told that there is usually a lot of money involved as well. How much do these centers and running them cost? Can we really afford to work this inefficiently in times when other centers on campus work well, but are in need of funding?

AAUP has also been informed that the Office of Research has approached (untenured) faculty to review (tenured) faculty’s research. Is it possible that someone does not know how academia and the tenure system work? It is very uncomfortable for an untenured faculty member to review a tenured colleague’s work and to provide feedback. Let’s also make sure that only names of researchers with adequate research background are included on research proposals that are submitted for funding within and outside of TTU.

9) Consultants

How much money is spent on consultant firms? Is it true that TTU has plans to hire a consultant firm to oversee safety (gun-safety related) but plans have stalled because there is … no money? How much will this cost? How much money is spent on the consultant firm that is recruiting international students? How much money does it cost to run the golf course? Is there any revenue? How much do the banners cost that hang all around campus? How much is the branding, the Flight Plan?

10) (Online) student population?

How many students are enrolled in online programs? In-state/out of state? How many students are currently enrolled in Dr. Saltsman’s public safety course? Out of the 300+ international students, how many were enrolled online? How many of the 10k students at TTU are international students?

11) Controlling the message

On at least two occasions, the Office of Marketing and Communication called the Herald Citizen to request that reporter Tracey Hackett should not attend a meeting at TTU. The reason given was that she cannot objectively report because she is a personal friend of AAUP officers. Is it safe to say that TTU is trying to control the message? This allegation of Hackett’s bias is first of all untrue (she is NOT a personal friend of anyone in AAUP but has a professional relationship with all) and it is also an insult to her status as a professional journalist. Since she is a product of TTU’s journalism, this is particularly offensive.  The person alleging this should be disciplined, since this is possibly a case of harassment as well.

12) International, minority and marginalized students at TTU

Faculty has observed that TTU is “cheating” international students out of their education. TTU happily accepts these students’ out of state tuition money, yet TTU is NOT providing them with the extra service they need to succeed. Therefore, they leave. They also left because they were not treated respectfully and/or kindly. In light of the recent increase in hate-related crimes (as reported by sources such as this: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/29/trump-related-hate-crimes-report-southern-poverty-law-center), it would make sense to focus on how we treat minority and marginalized groups on campus and to improve their experience at TTU. This includes addressing the problem instead of acting as though it does not exist. How will President Trump’s recent ban on Muslims impact TTU in the future? We doubt that Dr. Stinson’s plan to continue to kick the ball down the road, as she told the Faculty Senate when asked about how she will manage TTU’s finances, will work to the institution’s benefit. We urge top administrators to approach the legislature about appropriate state funding instead of relying on international students’ out of state tuition.

13) A VERY Brief History of Temporary Full Time Faculty in Tennessee

The category of Lecturer has been discussed for several years, and some Tennessee universities, like UT Knoxville, have been using the category of “Lecturer” for years.  Others, like MTSU, have had full time temporary faculty on 1 to 3 year contracts for years as well.  Bumps along the road have included whether  temporary full time faculty have rank at all — i.e. with a Ph.D. are they assistant professors as temporary full time? They are not.

More and more departments on campus are hiring Lecturer positions or contract instructor positions.  There is a debate about whether Lecturers should be considered temporary employees or not.  By the definition of TBR, they were very definitely temporary faculty.  See https://policies.tbr.edu/policies/faculty-appointments-universities

President Oldham in a recent e-mail exchange with a couple of AAUP officers on these matters stated that such things as voting rights for lecturers should be decided by each department and asserted that, although he supports tenure, he also believes in “optional” supplementation of tenure track positions by temporary or permanent non-tenure track faculty (e-mail of Dec. 6, 2016). Other administrators also say that it is necessary to hire lecturer positons and not tenure track positions.  Several tenure track searches that were propose had to be ditched after the Fall 2016 budget crisis.

A lot of colleagues think that a set of guidelines for advertising lecturer positions and guidelines for hiring as well as a university-wide agreed upon treatment of contingent workers would be better for each department and for the  institution overall.

Why are we being compelled to hire adjunct instructors (albeit in a “part time, temporary category) and lecturers (ditto) when the institution is hiring expensive and perhaps extraneous administrators in positions that seem redundant or unnecessary?

FACULTY WORKING CONDITIONS ARE STUDENT LEARNING CONDITIONS

14) General Faculty Meetings

Many faculty members find it disturbing and disconcerting that general faculty meetings continue to be canceled at the end of the semester.

15) Construction at RUC

What is up with the construction site at the RUC? Why isn’t there any progress? The building has been fenced in for over two years. Have we run out of money?

16) Due dates for grants

Due dates for grants, such as the non-instructional grant, are listed incorrectly on the TTU webpage. (February; proposals were actually due in January). In general, information is very difficult to locate or impossible to provide on proposals. For example, for the Track 1 research proposal, faculty members, who want to apply for a course reduction, are required to indicate in detail and monetary terms for what they are asking. However, no one (including some chairs) knows or can tell faculty members what the $ equivalent for the credit hours/course are. This information must become available and visibly available online, so that faculty members can propose their research appropriately and effectively.

Orchestrated attacks on a TTU professor who dared to communicate post-election concerns over the future of public higher education and the well-being of LBGT students at TTU are an increasing sign that calls for tolerance will not be tolerated even by elements within TTU itself. The professor under attack, Dr. Julia Gruber, teaches German and is President of the TTU chapter of the AAUP. The first reaction came from a TTU professor of Decision Science, who sent Dr. Gruber a series of increasingly strident and aggressive emails. This professor devoted special attention to deriding the post-election concerns voiced by TTU’s LBGT students–who Dr. Gruber advises and with whom the professor had not spoken–by calling them “snowflakes”. The same professor’s personal website became a springboard for misdirected and vile statements and threats directed against Dr. Gruber who was characterized, with no evidence whatsoever, as an indoctrinating ‘Liberal’ unfit to teach. Ironically, these attacks came the same month as Dr. Gruber received the TTU Ambassador award for excellence in teaching. The matter escalated when the communication sent by Dr. Gruber was passed along—most likely by a TTU faculty person—to a local website—the Daily Roll Call–where it went viral. The website is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a source dedicated to Islamophobic hate speech: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2015/women-against-islam. Interestingly, the first post to this story on this website was made by another TTU Decision Science professor and the wife of the above noted professor. She offered the following commentary: “My husband and I are both professors at TTU and we both responded sternly to Dr. Gruber and ask [sic] us [sic] to remove is [sic] from her mailing list. Trust me we are not all liberal professors …” Should we presume from these comments that both professors, as proud Conservatives, are busy indoctrinating their students with their conservative ideology? Should we presume without further evidence that both are avid fans of the religious and racial bigotry represented by the Daily Roll Call? Should we presume that both professors were instrumental in communicating all this to the Daily Roll Call? Should we presume that the dramatic and fiscally burdensome decline in TTU’s foreign student enrollment largely from Muslim countries is somehow connected to TTU professors who share the Islamophobic bigotry on display at the Daily Roll Call website? Regarding these questions, the TTU chapter of the AAUP believes that we should not rush to hasty conclusions and instead we should extend forbearance unless proven otherwise; the same kind of forbearance that was not extended to Dr. Gruber and against whom outrageous charges and threats have been made.

–Jon Jonakin

Letter to the Editor Hays

Below is the body of message sent to TTU President Phil Oldham by TTU-AAUP Chapter President Julia Gruber, re: the recent satisfaction survey conducted by TTU-AAUP.

President Oldham:

As announced, this report summarizes the results of the survey undertaken by the TTU-AAUP in order to ascertain TTU faculty opinion regarding the general condition of the university and administrative policy.  The number of respondents was 149.  Given that the faculty distribution list provided by the university to disseminate the survey contained approximately 435 individuals, this number was used to determine the response rate of 34%.  Along with this report we are submitting a set of copies of the 149 surveys returned by respondents.  In the case of the questions, a ‘no response’ was not used in calculating the reported percentage share.

1.  Would you say that the university is better off than it was a year ago, or is it worse off?

Better off: 8 or 5%

Worse off: 117 or 79%

About the same: 13 or 9%

Not sure/no opinion: 10 or 7%

No response: 1

1.  What about your department or college?  Would you say that your department or college is better or worse off than it was a year ago?

Better off: 15 or 10%

Worse off: 98 or 66%

About the same           : 33 or 22%

Not sure/no opinion: 2 or !%

No response: 1

1.  How about your students? Would you say that they are better or worse off than they were a year ago?

Better off: 11 or 8%

Worse off: 89 or 60%

About the same: 42 or 28%

Aot sure/no opinion: 6 or 4%

No response: 1

1.  Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: “Shared governance is working well at Tennessee Tech”?

Strongly agree: 2 or 1%

Agree: 5 or 3.4%

Neither agree/disagree: 5 or 3.4%

Disagree: 17 or 12%

Strongly disagree: 117 or 80%

No response: 3

1.  Do you have confidence in the university’s strategic planning and budgeting process?

Yes: 5 or 3%

No: 136 or 92%

Not sure/no opinion: 8 or 5%

No response: 0

1.  Are you confident that President Oldham is leading the university in a positive direction?

Yes: 9 or 6%

No: 123 or 84%

Not sure/no opinion: 15 or 10%

No response: 2

1.  Are you confident that the Administration has been upholding its responsibilities?

Yes: 9 or 6%

No: 132 or 89%

Not sure/no opinion: 8 or 5%

No response: 0

College of Respondent:

Engineering: 28 or 19%

Nursing: 6 or 4%

Education: 38 or 26%

Business: 11 or 7%

Arts & Sciences: 37 or 25%

Interdisciplinary Studies: 5 or 3.3%

Agriculture/Human Ecology: 8 or 5%

Other: 4 or 2.7%

No response: 12 or 8%

The following letters have recently been sent to the Herald-Citizen by current and retired TTU faculty (and AAUP members).

Dear Editor,

In her May 4 Herald Citizen article “Faculty senate president responds to no confidence vote,” Lindsay McReynolds mentions the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and correctly cites as among its goals is to “advance academic freedom and shared governance.”. Each term assumes that faculty members are the experts in the mission of the university: to educate students in faculty members’ fields of expertise. I will leave academic freedom for another letter; “shared governance” means that faculty shares in the governance of the institution, especially when it comes to areas of faculty expertise, like “curriculum, subject matter and methods of instruction, research, faculty status, and those aspects of student life which relate to the educational process” (AAUP Statement of Governance of Colleges and Universities). Recent decisions at TTU enumerated by the TTU AAUP and reported in a previous article by Tracy Hackett (April 29) bypassed meaningful faculty participation, like the parking plan – which raises the annual parking fee for faculty by 4 times the present rate and for students, 5 times — appointment of administrators, establishment of new degrees like the Public Safety master’s degree (though faculty opposition largely ended when the name of the program was changed from Criminal Justice) . There is a fear among many faculty members that as the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) is displaced by a local governing board at TTU (and at other universities in TBR), the faculty voice will continue be marginalized. The AAUP advises that in university governance “The structure and procedures for faculty participation should be designed, approved, and established by joint action of the components of the institution. Faculty representatives should be selected by the faculty according to procedures determined by the faculty.” In the Boards prescribed by Governor Haslam’s FOCUS Act, only ONE of the ten Board members must be a faculty member, and that faculty member will have a term of only two years, whereas all of the others (aside from a non-voting student board member with a one year term) will eventually have 6 year terms. Obviously, the structure of the local boards minimizes faculty input by its very constitution, and that sole faculty member will have a crucial role in channeling the faculty voice. Although the FOCUS act stipulates that the faculty representative will be selected “in a manner determined by the faculty senate” of the individual institution, I would hope that at TTU the faculty representative will be selected by an actual vote of the entire TTU faculty. Only thus can the process of selecting a faculty representative for the new local governing board of TTU be called truly democratic. Also, although the governor appoints the other board members, there is nothing that stipulates that other board members cannot be present or past faculty members in the institution, and I would hope that as many as 3 more board members – or more – be present or former faculty from TTU.

Sincerely,

Dr. Josephine A. McQuail

President of the TN Conference of the AAUP

Professor of English, TTU

The opinions expressed in this letter are those of the author

To the Editor:

TTU’s Office of Communications and Marketing emailed TTU employees (3/24/16) to explain that because a new science building is to be built on a commuter lot, the lot must be replaced, creating an “opportunity” for TTU “to restructure its parking to better fit the university’s master plan and better serve the campus community.” This plan costs $26 million: $14,250,000 for 1,000 parking spaces with a shuttle, modifications to Dixie and William L. Jones Drive, and a move to zone parking; and $11,856,000 for a parking garage with 600 spaces.

TTU states the 1,000 parking spaces will cost $3,000-$5,000/space and that the parking garage spaces will cost $12,000-$20,000/space. This was the only cost analysis given.

This is very disturbing.

The TTU community needs to see itemized projected costs if it is expected to pay. The increase in fees is almost five times more for students and four times more for employees for next year. Fees are to increase yearly. These new fees do not cover the construction of the parking garage. That charge will be assessed later. With no concrete financing plan for it, students and employees wonder if they will pay for it though they will not be able to afford to park there. Who will use it?

It has been reported that President Oldham recently said in a meeting that unless TTU wants to turn down a $90 million science building, then it could take lots more time to figure this out. Tying the science building to the $26 million parking plan is a false trail. Using TTU’s numbers, to replace the lost 650 spaces would cost about $2-$3.25 million, for 1,000 spaces $3-5 million. How are the remaining millions earmarked? Students and employees need to know.

In the same meeting the President reportedly said that he had no vested interest in this particular plan, and while a good plan, maybe it’s not the best. Isn’t it strange that we are then proceeding with it? Why not do what needs to be done now and save millions? In this meeting, the President reportedly also used UTK and Memphis as comparisons. We are not UTK or Memphis.

Parking is becoming a financial hardship for many students and employees as well as a logistical nightmare for others who, forced to park further away, will have trouble getting to classes and worksites carrying materials.

TTU is a regional school serving mainly Upper-Cumberland students and their families. Their needs must be put ahead of expensive restructuring that has not been justified or proven crucial to their welfare. TTU must rethink its “opportunities” and scale back to fiscally responsible action.

Too many changes, too fast, far too expensive.

Colleen Hays

To the editor:

Increasingly, the TTU faculty has deep concerns with the governing style and substance of the university’s president, Phil Oldham. A recent survey of faculty opinion carried out under the auspices of the TTU chapter of the Association of University Professors [TTU-AAUP] corroborated the widespread nature of the dissatisfaction. The 149 respondents represented fully 34% of the 435 tenured, tenure-track, and adjunct professors and instructors that compose the faculty and that received the survey based on the faculty list provided by the university. This was a large response rate as anyone who has conducted a survey of this type would appreciate. The survey indicated that 79% of the faculty felt the university was worse off compared to a year earlier, while 60% felt the students were worse off. Eighty four percent of the faculty believed President Oldham was not leading the university in a positive direction and 89% felt that the administration has not been upholding its responsibilities. The vast majority of respondents—92%–indicated that the common practice of ‘shared governance’ was not working at TTU. Instead of hearing the message, President Oldham and others attempted to dismiss the survey as unrepresentative, arguing that there were too few respondents for it to be reliable. If the administration wants to conduct a census of faculty opinion, it should by all means do so. In lieu of a larger sample and instead of denial, President Oldham and his administration need to face the facts and those facts indicate widespread dissatisfaction with: a top-down governing style, questionable hiring practices, curriculum development in certain instances that eschewed or ignored faculty input; the dismantling of successful programs such as the TTU Water Center and the creation of failed programs such as the Center for Healthcare Informatics; and expensive infrastructural projects—such as a planned parking expansion the costs of which will be borne by faculty and students and that may jeopardize the university’s fiscal condition.

Jon Jonakin