To Offer a SDS or Not?
What to do if a course is cancelled due to under-enrollment

Let’s start with the assumption that classes should only be canceled due to low-enrollment if that low enrollment would negatively affect the educational experience in the class.  Article 5.17.2 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between AAUP and the Board of Trustees governs class size.  It states “class size limits shall be determined on sound educational principles by the appropriate academic Dean in consultation with the department or interdisciplinary program.”  AAUP maintains that “class size limit” refers to both the minimum and maximum class sizes necessary to run a class effectively. 

If it is then determined that the class could not run effectively with a low enrollment, the option of an Student Developed Study is often suggested.  This is not an appropriate use of the SDS.  The Undergraduate Catalog states that SDS’s offer “opportunities to develop an individualized area of study” (p.37).  The Catalog continues, “this vehicle is designed to provide the student with an opportunity to develop his/her own learning experience.  The student will design a project and secure a faculty sponsor to work with” (p. 38).  Using an SDS to substitute for a standard course offering is clearly not appropriate, as it is not offering the student an opportunity to develop his/her own area of study.  The SDS also requires that the student design the course.  If the SDS is used as a replacement for a standard class, the student is clearly not the one designing the coursework. 

Even assuming that this is an appropriate use of an SDS, this application still leaves the course work subject to questions about its academic integrity. If it’s not academically sound to run it with low enrollment as a regular class, it should not be academically sound to run it as an SDS either.  Is a student in such a class having a comparable classroom experience?  One of the aspects of learning in a classroom comes from the interaction the students have with each other.  Canceling a class for low enrollment and running it as an SDS precludes that interaction.  It also seems unfair to subject the student in the SDS to the greater scrutiny and pressure of meeting one-on-one with the instructor.  Either way, the learning environment changes drastically. 

I have also seen it suggested recently that we shift SDS’s from the regular semester to summer and intersessions.  This practice just blatantly requires the student to pay more for their coursework.  Students are already facing higher tuition.  It is wrong to expect them to pay even more to take an SDS in the summer. 

In addition to academic integrity, one of the issues that AAUP cares the most about is protecting faculty workload.  If a faculty member is really doing all the work of a full, regular class for only one or a few students and calling it an SDS, then that faculty member should receive full load credit for the work, not the fractional load credit of an SDS (1/9 of a credit per student load credit).  If that instructor is not doing the work of a full class, then the SDS should not count as a substitute for the requirement.  Shifting our workload to the pittance of load credit assigned to an SDS is one way of undervaluing what we do.  We earn so little for an SDS (typically .33 credits) it is nearly impossible to build up enough time to take an eventual course reduction.  In effect, all your work in the SDS becomes a donation of your time.  If many students do enroll in an SDS, then the faculty member should clearly get the standard workload credit for the class. 

I know it may seem anti-student or anti-university to make these claims about SDS’s when we are facing a budget crisis.  But ask yourself, how will teaching a regular class as an SDS save someone’s job?  As I see it, it is more likely to cost jobs.  Consider the faculty member who would have taught a class, but it is now teaching an SDS instead.  Her load credit has just gone from 12 to 9.33.  She now owes the university nearly another class to meet her 12-hour workload.  She will most likely end up teaching 12.33 credits, and never be able to “cash in” that .33 worth of credit.  That faculty member is now teaching the equivalent of five classes for the price of four.  If that happens in enough cases across the University (a mere four times per semester, in fact) that is the cost of one full-time faculty job for the semester.  The University may save some money, but jobs are not saved, and the academic integrity of our programs is lost. 

Now more than ever, we must protect the university from monetary pressures that dilute educational excellence. v --Katy Wiss 
 

The National AAUP Committee of Government relations notes that “since September 11, 2001 and the subsequent passage of the USA Patriot Act of 2001 law enforcement agents have increased their monitoring of higher education institutions.”  These changes have affected teaching faculty, counselors, librarians and coaches. 

The AAUP Website continues, “the AAUP Committee on Government Relations has compiled some basic information to assist faculty members who are confronted with law enforcement inquiries.  These materials should assist faculty members in protecting themselves and the institution from liability for unauthorized disclosures.  While the USA Patriot Act made substantial changes to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the law still provides privacy protection for most student records.  This information is not intended as legal advice, and it is not intended to contradict any policies or procedures established by individual institutions.” 

The information National AAUP refers to is too lengthy and complex to reproduce here.  You can find it online at: http://www.aaup.org/Issues/Homeland%20Security/lawenfo.htm 

National AAUP suggests becoming, “familiar with your institution's existing procedures on responding to law enforcement inquiries, including inquiries under the USA Patriot Act.  If policies are being revised, ensure that faculty are included appropriately in the revision process.” v--Katy Wiss 
 

• E-mail has a habit of not disappearing and of being more widely circulated than you intended.  Things you say in anger or ignorance can sit around in files and later be used against you or others.

• Always reread what you have written in an e-mail message BEFORE you send it.  Ask yourself, would I mind if this turned up on the front page of the campus newspaper?  If you really would mind, then rewrite it or delete it.  Nearly everyone sends some e-mail that would be mildly embarrassing if it were exposed to public scrutiny, but be aware of your own boundary between mildly embarrassing and disastrous.  It's unlikely that your messages will come back to haunt you, but the reality is, you never know. 

• Be thoughtful about what you write in the subject line.  "Urgent" will annoy a reader who views the real subject of your message as "application for assistant professor."  Odd names and alarmist headings in combination often signal spam, hoaxes, or viruses, and some savvy users don't even bother to open them.  Be careful that your message won't be confused with any of those. 

• We receive lots of e-mail and most of it uses correct spelling and grammar.  But we also get plenty of messages with misspellings, incomplete sentences, and poor grammar. We know how easy it is to write something and zap it off immediately without proofing.  (We've done it!)  But it's important to take a few moments and reread, spell check, and recheck information of which you are uncertain. Because so many messages are forwarded to others, you don't want writing that reflects poorly on you bouncing around in cyberspace. 

(Friday, June 15, 2001; http://chronicle.com/jobs/2001/06/2001061501c.htm) v--Katy Wiss 

That is an excellent question.  I can see how many people would see that the interests are divergent.  And in many universities the part-time and full-time faculty are in different unions.  However, the goal of the full and part-time faculty is the same:  to provide high quality education to students. 

We also all want to be paid what we are worth.  The AAUP works hard to negotiate pay and benefits for its part-time members.  In the last 10 years there have been some significant changes that have improved the working conditions for part-time faculty (especially in the area of travel money.)  We are constantly working to make part-time faculty status equal to full-time faculty and to make benefits proportionately equal.  We have worked to pass legislation to prorate the pay and benefits of part-time faculty. 

Since unions are funded by a percentage of their members’ salaries (less than one percent in the case of AAUP), a union consisting exclusively of part-time faculty would have significantly less financial resources to harness in the fight for improved wages and working conditions. 

Unfortunately, for our efforts to improve part-time faculty working conditions, the state likes to keep costs down.  This is especially true during the current budget crisis.  There is also a relatively large part-time faculty labor supply.  So, the state usually has no problem finding people to hire.   This market effect also works to keep salaries low.  The summer school pay that full-time faculty receive closely mirrors the scale of part-time faculty pay.  So full-time faculty are well aware of how grossly under paid part-time labor is. 

Many of our part-time faculty would like to be full-time (although not all), and we spend a lot of energy working to increase the full-time faculty numbers.  Also the way the contract is worded, the more full-time faculty that are hired, the more part-time faculty that can be hired.  So everyone benefits. 

How might the current budget crisis affect part-time faculty?  If our budget is cut, the University could make all the full-time faculty go back to teaching a full load, and take away their research time and other duties that take them out of the classroom.  When full-timers teach more, part-time faculty will have fewer job openings.  Decreasing budgets will mean we will admit fewer students, again causing a decrease in demand for courses taught by part-time faculty.  Decreasing budgets means the library, resources, technology, videos, etc. used to supplement teaching won't be maintained and it will be harder to teach classes.  If concessions are granted, part-time faculty pay raises (meager as they may be) will be rescinded.  And any hope of improving the lot of part-time contingent faculty will diminish. 

AAUP welcomes the input of its part-time members.  Unfortunately, part-time faculty do not often have the time to commit to union activity.  Occupancy in the job is also fleeting for many part-time faculty.  AAUP does what it can to represent all its members.  If there is anything you think that we should be working on, let me know. v --Katy Wiss 
 

In his article “Fire at Will,” Jon Wiener argues that Michael Bellesiles was the target of a well-organized NRA witch hunt that began two years before the publication of his book.  The relentless work of NRA supporters created the hostile climate for re-examination of Bellesiles’ research. 

Here is one example of what Dr. Bellesiles faced: 

“When historian Michael Bellesiles came to the University of California, Irvine, to give a talk on the controversy surrounding his book . . . people coming to the talk were greeted at the door of the Humanities Lecture Hall by four unusually large men passing out a brochure titled "The Lies of Michael Bellesiles." One wore a flak jacket, one had a shaved head; they did not look like faculty members or even history grad students. People coming to the talk were startled, and some were a little frightened, but Bellesiles said calmly, "Ah, so they did come." . . . 

When the question period came, he started with the first of the four large men. "You say the probate records show very few guns, and argue that this proves people in early America didn't have guns. But when my father died, there was nothing in his will about his guns--even though he owned four of them. But he had told me he wanted me to have them, and now I do. Are probate records really a good source of evidence on gun ownership?" 

Bellesiles answered, "I'm sure you're right about your father's will, but wills in the eighteenth century were different. People didn't own very many things compared to today, and their wills contained a detailed list of everything they had, down to the knives and forks. There are other problems with probate records--they are biased in many ways. But I'm confident that if an eighteenth-century man owned a gun, it would be in his will. Remember that we're talking here about wills in the 1700s." 

He called on the second large man. "I want to ask about your use of probate records," he said. "You say probate records showed few guns, but my father owned several guns that did not appear in his will when he died. My brother and I divided them up." 

He called on the second large man. "I want to ask about your use of probate records," he said. "You say probate records showed few guns, but my father owned several guns that did not appear in his will when he died. My brother and I divided them up." 

Bellesiles paused and looked around the room, where students glanced at each other with stunned disbelief: So this is what it's like when you're the target of a campaign to destroy your work.” 

We encourage you to read the whole article, which you can link to in the Perspectives section of the WCSU-AAUP web site. v
 

It is just as important for our state legislators to hear from our students as it is to hear from us.  Students, too, can put a human face on the consequences of under-funding higher education. 

We have designed a brochure for students & their parents, educating them about the situation and exhorting them to act.  To request brochures, contact Heather Finn in the AAUP office at 837-9235. 

It is important that you hand them out before or after class (not during), and not in the classroom (hallway is fine). v --Katy Wiss