Agenda Item 7008
October 5, 1998
SUBJECT: Proposed policy on Use of Adjunct Faculty
PROPOSED ACTION
That the Board consider, and potentially adopt after any desired amendments, the policy resulting from its decision on the proposed alternative drafts of the policy.
RELATED BOARD POLICY OR RESOLUTION
This topic was identified as a major Board policy-development priority by Board vote in November 1997.
RATIONALE
This "comprehensive" draft incorporates the current versions of all alternatives proposed at this point by any Trustees. Sections with alternatives are labeled 2A, 2B, etc., with the shorter alternatives first. The Board will choose among the alternatives by voting, and will then consider any further amendments proposed to the resulting motion. There are many shared or currently-uncontested provisions (shown in italics below) among the alternatives; contested provisions are in bold. Provisions which have been recently added are in bold italics. In some cases what is being contested is whether or not to put something in this Board policy, not the idea itself (a provision might be better handled as an administration or faculty rule, or as part of a different policy).
BUDGETARY CONSIDERATIONS
The budgetary impact of this policy will depend on its final provisions. If the details of the compensation provisions are deferred to the planned policies on that topic, the major impact will be decided at that time. Many of the increased costs associated with more responsible use of adjunct faculty are already being incurred due to administration initiatives in this area.
RESOURCE PERSONNEL
Richard Fonte, President
Hunter Ellinger, Trustee
Carol Nasworthy, Trustee
John Worley, Trustee
Rafael Quintanilla, Trustee
ATTACHMENTS
Draft policy
Policy language suggested by Adjunct Faculty Association
USE OF ADJUNCT FACULTY --- [draft policy proposal for 10/5/98 meeting]
While faculty whom the College employs on a multi-year basis and who have additional mandatory non-instructional duties (referred to in this policy as full-time faculty) have the central role in organizing and delivering its instruction, adjunct faculty also provide essential services in most instructional areas. Among other benefits, use of adjunct faculty permits the College to schedule flexibly, to provide students direct access to working professionals in the fields they wish to enter, to refresh the instructional dialog with new perspectives, and to achieve for each area an appropriate balance of overall faculty effort between direct instruction and other needed faculty work.
However, care is required for the best use of adjunct faculty. The President shall maintain systems which ensure that use of adjunct faculty by the College meets community standards for responsible employment and that it does not result in diminished or uneven instructional effectiveness or violation of accreditation criteria.
Accordingly:
[1] priority of instructional effectiveness: The foremost consideration in hiring and scheduling all faculty shall be to ensure that instruction systematically meets high standards for effectiveness both in imparting needed skills and in successful student completion of programs.
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[2A] evaluation: Evaluation shall be multi-faceted, based on published criteria, include appropriate observation, and be used to develop plans for improvement of performance where needed. Evaluation systems for adjunct faculty should include measuring levels of performance required to maintain standards established for the course. Adjunct faculty shall be promptly and fully informed of the results of their evaluations.
[2B] evaluation: Adjunct-faculty evaluation, which shall be coordinated by teachers in the discipline, should be multi-faceted, based on published criteria, include appropriate observation, make use of long-term student-success results, and determine whether the course syllabus and the skill levels covered by tests match the standards established for the course. Adjunct faculty shall be promptly and fully informed of the results of their evaluations, which shall be used to develop plans for improvement of performance where needed.
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[3] appropriate balance of adjunct and full-time faculty: The President shall develop and implement plans, subject to Board approval, to hire the number of full-time faculty required to ensure quality, provide needed academic support activities throughout each area, and meet accreditation standards, and shall make rules to limit use of adjunct faculty to a level which does not jeopardize these goals.
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[4A] faculty work assignments: The College shall maintain a clear delineation of duties for adjunct and full-time faculty. Standard adjunct-faculty duties relate to areas of direct instruction, including needed preparation and grading, and the associated section-specific student consultation. The College shall usually rely on full-time faculty for further required faculty work, such as subject-area advising, instructional planning, curriculum innovation, program and personnel evaluation, supervision of adjunct faculty, and shared-governance responsibilities. For appropriate liaison or specialized tasks, or when there are not enough full-time faculty in an area, adjunct faculty may be selected to work in these areas.
[4B] faculty work assignments: The College shall maintain a clear delineation of duties for adjunct and full-time faculty. Standard adjunct-faculty duties relate to areas of direct instruction, including needed preparation and grading, and the associated section-specific student consultation. The College shall generally place at least as high a value on such direct instruction as on other faculty work. The College shall usually rely on full-time faculty for further required faculty work, such as subject-area advising, instructional planning, curriculum innovation, program and personnel evaluation, supervision of adjunct faculty, and shared-governance responsibilities. For appropriate liaison or specialized tasks, or when there are not enough full-time faculty in an area, adjunct faculty may be selected to work in these areas.
[4C] faculty work assignments: The College shall maintain a clear delineation of duties for adjunct and full-time faculty. Standard adjunct-faculty duties relate to areas of direct instruction, including needed preparation and grading, and the associated section-specific student consultation. The College shall generally rely on full-time faculty for further required faculty work, such as subject-area advising, instructional planning, curriculum innovation, program and personnel evaluation, supervision of adjunct faculty, and shared-governance responsibilities. When there are not enough full-time faculty in an area to accomplish such work, their efforts shall be augmented in appropriate areas by adjunct faculty paid at compensation rates equal to the rates per hour for these tasks paid to full-time faculty with equivalent education and experience. Adjunct faculty are required to keep one regularly-scheduled office hour per course per week for individual consultation with students. In addition, adjunct faculty should accommodate reasonable student requests for consultation outside regularly-scheduled office hours, so long as these requests can be fit within the adjunct professor's schedule without undue burden to the adjunct professor.
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[5A] assignment of adjunct sections: Consistent and comprehensive effectiveness in serving student needs will require, in addition to specific individual teaching skills, connection of the College to all parts of its diverse community and predictability of employment for successful adjuncts. Adjunct sections shall be assigned so as to [a] provide a controlled but sustained influx of new people into each area of substantial adjunct-faculty use, [b] make extensive use of multiple-semester assignments for adjunct faculty, and [c] make best use of individual adjuncts in light of the skills revealed by evaluation and supervisory observation; an annual report on the performance of the College in these areas shall be made to the Board. Adjunct faculty shall not be scheduled for workloads which are excessive in combination with their other commitments at the College and elsewhere. Individual adjunct-faculty preferences as to location and time of work shall be accommodated as much as is consistent with College and student needs.
[5B] assignment of adjunct sections: Annual contracts covering up to half the adjunct sections in an instructional area shall be offered to adjunct faculty who have demonstrated by their length of service a long-term commitment to the College and who also demonstrate (1) consistent teaching excellence, (2) ability to teach a full range of courses in the area and willingness to serve where and when most needed, and (3) significant other professional accomplishments relevant to their subject area. Scheduling shall be done so as to ensure that such faculty are offered the course load their contract specifies. The remaining adjunct sections should be distributed among all other applicants deemed well-qualified for the particular courses; to the extent feasible, this should be done so as to offer similar workloads to all such adjuncts within an instructional area. However, teachers may be given lower loads if on probation or during their first two years at the College, and courses with only a few adjunct sections may be handled specially to ensure continuity. Although there shall be no set limit on the number of courses or lecture-equivalent hours adjunct faculty may teach, adjunct faculty shall not be scheduled for workloads (instruction plus other tasks) which are excessive in combination with their other commitments. Scheduling of adjunct faculty for courses shall be efficient, impartial, and understandable to all involved. The administration may, with written justification, make exceptions to these workload guidelines as needed in the interests of instructional quality.
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[6A] adjunct-faculty compensation: Adjunct faculty shall be compensated at professional rates for all work expected of them. Appropriate allowances may be made for courses with unusually high or low workloads and for difficult-to-staff courses. Allowance may also be made for relevant experience and education at the College and elsewhere, but recognition of such experience or education should generally be made after a two-year initial probationary period.
[6B] adjunct-faculty compensation: Adjunct faculty shall be compensated at professional rates for all work expected of them. Appropriate allowances may be made for courses with unusually high or low workloads and for difficult-to-staff courses. Allowance should also be made for relevant experience and education at the College and elsewhere, but recognition of such experience or education should generally be made after a two-year initial probationary period.
It is a goal of the College that adjunct faculty whose total work for ACC equals half-time or more annually have adequate health-insurance benefits. The President shall, in each budget, provide a plan to implement this goal; the FY2000 budget proposal may plan for partial implementation as long as it makes substantial progress toward the goal.
[6C] adjunct-faculty compensation: Adjunct faculty shall be paid on the same scale as full-time faculty, giving them due credit for relevant education and for relevant experience at the College and elsewhere. It is the goal of the College, consistent with fiscal restraints, to pay adjunct faculty no less than rates comparable to those paid full-time faculty with equivalent education and experience, taking due account of the difference in duties between adjunct and full-time faculty. The determination of comparable rates shall be based on the established assumptions at this College concerning minimum full-time faculty workloads, plus the assumption that a faculty member who teaches 15 class contact hours per week will, over a semester, average, at a minimum, 10 hours per week in preparation and grading. In addition, it is a goal of this College, consistent with fiscal restraints, that minimum and maximum salaries per course for adjunct faculty will, at the least, be in the middle range when compared to minimum and maximum per-course salaries paid by other institutions in the Austin area to faculty who are relevantly similar to this College's adjunct faculty, including lecturers at the University of Texas. Appropriate allowances should also be made for courses with unusually-high workloads and for difficult-to-staff courses. Prior to the achievement of the goals set forth above concerning adjunct pay, an additional allowance shall be made for adjuncts with annual contracts or with high overall workloads who meet standards set by the College for teaching excellence and professional development. Adjunct faculty under contract to teach 15 LEH or more a year, who are not otherwise covered under an employer-sponsored health insurance plan, shall be provided health insurance benefits by the College. The College shall, if possible, secure these benefits from the Teachers Retirement System (TRS). If that is not possible, the College shall provide the benefits itself on the same terms to the employee as the TRS would provide.
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[7] professional development: The College shall encourage professional development for adjunct faculty. Such professional development, which may be mandated and be an element in the adjunct-faculty compensation scales, shall be appropriate to the teaching tasks and prior professional competence of adjunct faculty members.
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[8A] new faculty: Special systems for effective orientation and supervision of new faculty shall be maintained, including immediate course evaluations whenever a faculty member has not previously taught a particular course at the College. People applying to work as adjunct faculty who may consider ACC as a potential source of full-time faculty employment shall be frankly informed of the small number of full-time faculty openings at the College and of the large number of applicants from inside and outside the College for such positions. Experience and performance at ACC will be given equitable consideration to experience and performance at other institutions.
[8B] new faculty: Special systems for effective orientation and supervision of new faculty shall be maintained, including immediate course evaluations whenever a faculty member has not previously taught a particular course at the College. People applying to work as adjunct faculty who may consider ACC as a potential source of full-time faculty employment shall be frankly informed of the small number of full-time faculty openings at the College and of the large number of applicants from inside and outside the College for such positions. ACC adjuncts who do apply for full-time faculty jobs shall be given equitable consideration, with the quality of their performance as adjunct faculty considered in the hiring decision process.
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[9] access to instructors: The College shall provide operational support, including voice and electronic mail, sufficient to ensure good student access to adjunct faculty as well as good communication between adjunct faculty and their supervisors. The College shall also decide its schedule early enough that adjunct-faculty names are generally available to students by the beginning of registration.
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[10] integration into the College: Each adjunct faculty member shall be provided a contact person in the teaching faculty in his or her discipline to provide needed consultation and assistance. Adjunct faculty shall also be informed in writing of who has primary responsibility for their evaluation, to whom they should refer students who have unresolved complaints about their class, to whom they should direct requests and questions about their scheduling, and how they should handle the provision of a substitute if they are unable to meet a class session due to illness or other causes.
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[11] community/industry connection: The College shall use the connections of adjunct faculty with their other employers and/or community activities to enrich and improve services to students.
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[12A] diversity: ACC values diversity in its adjunct faculty, and shall maintain programs to actively seek out and recruit minority candidates for adjunct-faculty positions. The hiring and retention of adjunct faculty is subject to all provisions of policy F-1, Equal Employment Opportunity / Affirmative Action.
[12B] diversity: ACC values diversity in its adjunct faculty. The hiring and retention of adjunct faculty shall be subject to all provisions of policy F-1, Equal Employment Opportunity / Affirmative Action. The President must establish programs to actively seek out and recruit minority candidates for adjunct-faculty positions. ACC employees must, to the extent practicable, avoid practices that tend to exclude consideration of minority candidates for adjunct-faculty positions.
Principles for the Use of Adjunct Faculty
respectfully submitted
to the Austin Community College Board of Trustees
by John Hemdon, Adjunct Faculty Association President--September 21, 1998.
Adjunct faculty provide essential services in most instructional areas. Use of adjunct faculty permits the College to provide students direct access to working professionals in the fields they wish to enter, refresh instructional dialogue with practical perspectives, and schedule flexibly.
The President shall maintain systems which ensure the use of adjunct faculty by the College meets high standards for responsible employment and that it does not result in diminished or uneven instructional effectiveness or violation of accreditation criteria.
Accordingly:
1. Priority of Instructional Effectiveness: The foremost consideration in hiring and scheduling all faculty shall be to ensure that instruction systematically meets high standards for effectiveness in imparting needed skills and in successful student completion of programs.
2. Evaluation: Evaluation shall be performed by the appropriate Task Forces or program coordinators. Evaluation shall be multi-faceted, based on published criteria, and used to develop plans for improvement of performance where needed. Adjunct faculty shall be promptly and fully informed of the results of their evaluations.
3. Long-Term Relationship: Stability and predictability being in the best interest of students, the faculty and the community, the College shall develop and maintain long-term professional relationships with adjunct faculty by requiring and providing professional development, by scheduling adjunct faculty for multiple-term assignments, and by matching as well as possible the adjunct faculty member's abilities and preferences to the College's needs in terms of courses, locations and times.
4. Senior Adjunct Faculty: Senior adjunct faculty are those who have five or more years of faculty service at ACC and 30 or more sections taught at ACC, and who are approved on the basis of evaluations by the appropriate Task Forces.
5. Faculty Work Assignments: Senior adjunct faculty shall hold the same rank as their equivalents in education and experience in the full-time faculty. Senior adjuncts shall serve on the Task Forces in their disciplines and perform additional duties as assigned.
Consistent and comprehensive effectiveness in serving students requires specific teaching skills, connection of the College to all parts of its diverse community, and predictability of employment and scheduling for all faculty. The College shall primarily appoint senior adjunct faculty. For purposes of flexibility, specialty knowledge, and promoting contact with under-served communities, the College may employ new and short-term adjuncts on a semester basis. Since continual temporary employment is not in the best interest of the College, the faculty or the students, adjunct faculty who are continually employed and meet the approval of the appropriate Task Forces will become senior adjuncts.
6. Adjunct Faculty Appointments: Adjunct faculty shall initially be appointed on a semester basis. Upon achieving senior status, adjunct faculty shall be appointed on a three-year basis; any faculty member who has a three-year appointment shall, in each year a favorable annual evaluation is received, be given a new appointment for the following three-year period. During the term of the appointment, employment of a faculty member may not be terminated by the College except for immediate cause as defined in Policy F-8. A faculty member is on probation if he or she has a one-semester appointment (initial probation) or if his or her most recent annual evaluation was less than favorable (performance probation). If a faculty member receives a less than favorable annual evaluation while on probation, the College may terminate the employment of the faculty member at the end of his or her current appointment without further evaluation. If a person is rehired as a faculty member at the College within five years of leaving such a position, he or she resumes the appointment status held prior to leaving faculty status.
7. Compensation: Senior adjunct faculty shall be placed on the full-time faculty salary scale and shall be paid the percentage of the full-time salary that is consistent with their work-load. Senior adjunct faculty who work half-time or more shall receive full benefits.
8. New Faculty: Systems for effective orientation, mentoring, and supervision of all new faculty shall be maintained. These shall include immediate course evaluations whenever a faculty member has not previously taught a particular course at the College.
New adjunct faculty shall be frankly informed that adjunct faculty
teaching is not intended to lead to employment as a full-time faculty member. However, the
College shall preferetially give due consideration to
hire adjunct faculty for other positions in the College for which they apply and are
qualified. Senior adjunct faculty members who apply for full-time faculty positions shall
be given preferential due consideration.
New or short-term adjunct faculty members shall be integrated into the College by providing them a contact person on the appropriate Task Force to give needed consultation and assistance. All faculty members shall be informed in writing of who has primary responsibility for their evaluation, to whom they should refer students who have unresolved complaints, and to whom they should direct requests and questions.
9. Student Access: All faculty shall be available to students outside of class at least two hours per course. One hour of this shall be in traditional office hours, and one hour by alternative means, including telephone and electronic mail.
The College shall provide operational support, including adequate office facilities, voice-mail and electronic mall, sufficient to ensure good student access to faculty and good communication between faculty members and their colleagues and supervisors.
10. Community/Industry Connection: The College shall provide incentives to adjunct faculty to employ their connections with their other employers, professional and community organizations and activities in order to enrich and improve services to and opportunities for students.
11. Diversity: ACC values diversity in its adjunct faculty. The hiring and retention of adjunct faculty shall be subject to all provisions of policy F-1, Equal Employment Opportunity/ Affirmative Action. Considerations of diversity shall include race, ethnicity, gender, sexual-orientation, age, disability and professional specialty or orientation. The President shall establish programs to actively seek out and recruit diverse candidates for adjunct faculty positions. ACC employees must, to the extent practicable, avoid practices that tend to exclude consideration of minority candidates for adjunct faculty positions.