February 7, 2002
Difficult budget, difficult choices for faculty
This academic year, Brad Holt, the Chair of the Faculty Senate, Vice-Chair Sandra Silberstein, and the Senate Executive Committee made plans to increase communication between the Senate and faculty. One part of that project, made possible by University Week, comes in the form of occasional columns by the group representatives on Senate activities and concerns. As the Group 1 Representative (Humanities and Information School), I have the opportunity to begin the discussion and I’ll be addressing two topics, faculty input on budget issues and faculty concerns about their role in the event of another job action by GSEAC/UAW.
Budget
As we have all read, the news from Olympia is grim. In a recession more profound than almost all other states, Washington is facing a considerable shortfall between revenues and needs. Although K-12 educational funding is constitutionally protected, higher education is not and will face cuts along with state social services. Gov. Locke has proposed a 5 percent cut for higher education, but that 5 percent is a best-case scenario: the budget must work its way through a Legislature faced with unpleasant alternatives.
The University of Washington will be facing budget cuts as well, though we will not know the size of the cuts until the Legislature acts. In the College of Arts and Sciences, Dean David Hodge, with the consultation of the chairs and the elected College Council, has formed an ad hoc working group, composed of chairs elected by their peers, to begin the process of considering the basis and plan for budget cuts in the college.
This group will meet bi-weekly and report to the chairs and the College Council. This is a new process, more public and organized than the last time we faced budget cuts. This working group will begin with the common data set figures, compiled into the University of Washington Factbook, which includes quantitative academic profiles for each department. These figures are available on the Web at http://www.washington.edu/admin/factbook/index.html. Click on the highlighted phrase “OIS Home Page” for academic profiles.
Identifying additional factors related to quality to refine the common data set figures will be one of the working group’s tasks. The working group will also recommend options for cuts in the college budget.
When the working group has completed its analysis and recommendations, Dean Hodge will conduct an open meeting for the college. Faculty are encouraged to discuss their concerns with their chairs, divisional deans, and members of the College Council as the process gets under way. Faculty are also urged to consult with their Senate representatives. The Faculty Senate will discuss the overall budget process as well and the senate leadership encourages faculty to stay informed and to ask questions about the progress of these discussions.
In addition to conveying concerns about the budget within the University, faculty should make their views known to their legislators in Olympia (not, of course, with University resources). To find the addresses of your representatives and state senator, go to the Legislature’s “District Information” Web site at http://apps.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder/. Entering an address will produce all contact information for your legislators.
Institutional Responsibilities in Courses with Teaching Assistants
Last spring, with the GSEAC/UAW job action at the end of the spring quarter, many faculty were faced with difficult choices. Faculty were already fulfilling their own responsibilities in teaching but now were faced with significant changes without the graduate student employees.
Some faculty were teaching large lecture courses in which many teaching assistants taught discussion sections and graded final exam essays. In some of those large lecture courses, faculty had assigned papers with the expectation that teaching assistants would be participating in grading and were now facing grading 250 final papers or more. In many of the Humanities departments, teaching assistants, after training, were responsible for teaching and grading their own sections.
Some faculty, concerned about undergraduate students, found themselves working well into the summer without compensation. Other faculty observed that there were serious pedagogical concerns involved in grading final course work, or even the entire course work, in a class wholly taught by another person.
In order to answer these questions, the Senate Executive Committee formed the Special Committee on Institutional Responsibilities in Courses with Teaching Assistants, chaired by John Junker from the School of Law. The special committee collected information, met with faculty members, and examined the Faculty Code, and noted the great diversity of roles for teaching assistants across the University.
The committee made two sets of recommendations, one on the process faculty should follow to support undergraduate education in the event of another work stoppage and the other on safeguards for faculty and limitations to be observed during that process. The full report is available online at http://www.washington.edu/faculty/facsenate/reports/junker.htm.
I appreciate the opportunity to share information with you on faculty concerns. Look for additional reports from Faculty Senate Group Representatives in the coming weeks.
