September 20, 2009

In my previous post, “Off-campus Teaching Snafu,” I noted that the FA and SVSU have improved our working relationship. This good trend continues. Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Bachand, has been helpful resolving matters including this one. So has Director Jack VanHoorelbeke. Fewer gray hairs are growing out of my head; alas fewer hairs overall…

Since that posting I’ve uncovered new information that renders two statements inaccurate. First, I wrote that the FA has never lost an arbitration. Not true. In fact the FA has lost years ago, before I was hired (no correlation suggested!). I also mistakenly wrote, “In FA2006, the administration surreptitiously began adopting concepts and language found in Distance Learning (D29.2) and applying them to those engaged in Off Campus Teaching (D28.2).” There have been minor changes to the format of Off Campus “contracts” along with significant inconsistencies that date prior to 2006. And it was at some point prior to 2006 that the prorating formula and language of Distance Learning (D 29.2), such as the term, “travel ‘energy increment,’” was made part of the Administration’s Off Campus “contracts.” Not quite as bad as the fine print on your Mastercard agreement, the fine print and calculations for prorating a provision not meant to be prorated can seem tedious to follow or work out.

Interestingly, the Off Campus Teaching provision of the FA-SVSU Contract has remained consistent over these years. That isn’t good in all regards. Since at least 1996, payments per credit hour remain at $100 and haven’t been increased a cent since, despite quite a bit of inflation. The FA did achieve increases in the compensation portion. In the 1996-1999 Contract, compensation for the extra time and hassle you spend driving in your car two hundred miles in one day or two, through all kinds of weather, paid $250 plus the value of a round trip at $4.00 per mile. In the 1999-2002 Contract, the amount remained the same. In the 2002-2005 Contract, the FA successfully negotiated a significant increase to $500 and $6.00 per mile. However, no increases have been gained since 2002.

Another interesting note on Off Campus Teaching. Most of these courses are taught at Macomb, which is 107 miles from main campus according to Google Maps. Cardinal Direct shows the other sites offer on average only about one-fifth (1/5) as many courses. Cardinal Direct also shows that in WI 2009, faculty taught fifty (50) courses in Macomb, with eight (8) online or hybrid meeting face-to-face there from six (6) to ten (10) times during the semester. In our current semester, forty-eight (48) courses are being taught at the Macomb campus and of these ten (10) are online or hybrid and meet face-to-face from five (5) to eleven (11) times. For WI 2010, fifty-five (55) courses are scheduled for Macomb with eleven (11) being online or hybrid and meeting face-to-face from five (5) to seven (7) times during the semester.

To be sure, not all of courses at Macomb or the other sites are “Off Campus courses.” It depends on whether the faculty member must drive 30 miles or more, as part of teaching the course, from her/his designated main campus. But many of the courses at these other campuses, especially at Macomb, are in fact Off Campus.

The FA and SVSU are scheduled to arbitrate this grievance in January 2010. We’re all still working to resolve the matter in a fair way. We’ve got the whole semester and I think our optimism is reasonable.

In response to inquiries by faculty, this is an intermediate update on the Off-Campus Grievance filed last fall (see “Off-Campus Teaching Snafu” article below). Please bear in mind that these matters move at a seemingly glacial pace (global warming notwithstanding).

After the FACCG (Faculty Association Committee for Contract Grievances) voted to file the grievance, Gary Thompson and I met with Administration representatives on December 12, 2008 for the Step One meeting, per article K 2.1. The matter was not resolved and the Administration responded with a written denial within ten days.

Per article K 2.2, the FACCG met to discuss the denial, voted to appeal, and responded within ten days in writing to proceed to Step Two. Due to Winter vacation, both sides agreed to put the Step Two meeting into abeyance until early February, 2009.

The February Step Two meeting concluded with no resolution and the Administration rendered a written denial within ten days. Within ten days of receipt of the written denial, the FACCG met again and voted to appeal the Step Two denial, taking the matter to Step Three (arbitration). Our uniserve director, Saun Strobel, filed the appeal and an arbitration date has been set for January 2010. The long wait for arbitration is common.

In the meantime, information from affected faculty continued to trickle in and the FACCG discovered just recently a key difference between faculty who teach full courses Off-Campus and those who instruct Off-Campus irregularly, for example, as with an Off-Campus practicum, hybrid, or online course (instruction requiring a faculty member to travel beyond 30 miles of their designated campus).

There is no provision in D 28 or anywhere else in the Contract to prorate Off-Campus instruction. However, the FACCG concluded earlier this month (1) that the inclusion of both types (regular and irregular) in the same arbitration would muddy the waters. It also agreed to (2) to seek a reasonable Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) to prorate irregular Off-Campus instruction, and (3) barring such agreement, voted to file an “Irregular Off-Campus Instruction” grievance.

Please refer to your 2008-2011 Faculty Contract, especially MOU XIII on p. 94

Last year the Faculty Association was told that the administration intended to begin to enforce two provisions of the contract which affect spring-summer teaching. D 4.1 says that faculty must teach “not less than 24 … credit hours over a three semester appointment.” This means that if you teach fewer than 24 hours in fall and winter, and teach spring 2009, the total for your supplemental appointment will be reduced by whatever is needed to make up 24 first. So, for example, if I taught 23 hours in fall + winter and offered to teach 6 hours in spring or summer, I would receive supplemental pay as per contract for only five hours. (If you have banked hours, you may use those to make up any deficit.)

Those faculty teaching in summer 2009 will need to schedule at least 24 hours for fall-winter 2009-2010 or incur a similar penalty.

The FA and VPAA negotiated an MOU (p. 94) that specified that this provision would not be enforced for spring-summer 2008, but conceded that the administration could enforce it thereafter (i.e., this year). That MOU was based on the understanding that deans and department chairs would inform faculty about this provision for 2008-2009, so that no one would be surprised this spring-summer. Evidently some faculty have been taken by surprise.

Please feel free to talk with your FA officers, board members, or floor reps if you have any questions about these contract provisions. And you should talk with your department chair and dean about the extent to which you were or were not warned that the administration would enforce this provision for spring-summer 2009.