Non-classroom faculty and the 50% law:

Faculty fighting faculty or a win-win solution?

Concerns of non-classroom faculty:

    * No protections exist in the Ed Code 84362 (the 50% law)
    * Some perceive that non-classroom faculty are given second-class status in the law and in campus decision-making
    * Focus on enforcement of 50% law has irritated administrators; the backlash of threats not to hire counselors/librarians is of concern

Points of information:

    * Counselors have increased as a percent of full time faculty from 1990-1999, during which time the 50% law was fully in place, so it didn’t hurt growth.
    * Some of the increase in counselors has been as a result of new revenue streams for counselor hiring from the state (categorical money). These funds are not available for classroom faculty.
    * Some faculty in Counseling and Library Departments actually teach classes that are approved as part of the instructional program; these faculty, or the classroom portions of their assignment, ARE counted with other instructional faculty in the 50% law numerator.
    * Administration threats not-to-hire non-classroom faculty as a result of 50% law enforcement implies that there may have been intentional disregard for the law in the coding of counselor hires prior to enforcement pressure, otherwise there would be no reason to change hiring policies

Nussbaum’s Solution: Add non-classroom faculty to 50% law

    * Supported by administrations, it would hold faculty costs in check, and increases in non-classroom as well as classroom faculty would allow more to be spent on administration and other non-instructional costs.
    * Gives the appearance of equal treatment of faculty; administrations could not refuse to hire counselors based on "50% law"
    * Proposed percentages increases (to 57% or 60%) would not provide for classified counseling and library assistants, who would probably be coded to instruction to parallel the current lawful treatment of classified instructional assistants; Chancellor refuses to consider increasing percent to allow for all employees in these areas. Result: more people paid out of pie reserved for "instruction."
    * FTE dollars are based on classroom instruction. This funding formula would not change, so dollars to fund positions would still only increase if instruction as defined by the state increased–that is, classroom faculty.
    * Administrators, then, could still refuse to hire additional counselors or librarians because increases in funding could only be achieved by hiring additional faculty in the classroom, who would bring in FTE dollars–counselor or librarian hires would not.
    * Increases to counseling faculty above the current student-counselor ratio would have to come at the expense of instructional faculty in terms of increased class size or more part-time instructors paid at a lower rate. This unintended but unarguable result of this classification change would create faculty divisions on pedagogical as well as financial lines.
    * The "fight for funds" would not be between counselors and administrators for their piece of the pie (which is more defensible; which expense looks better to taxpayers?); it would instead be between counselors and classroom faculty. This is the way administrators want it.
    * Non-classroom faculty access to categorical funds unavailable to classroom faculty would not automatically decrease, giving counseling faculty in particular two pools of funds; however, if these funds were removed as a result of the new percentage arrangement, special programs would suffer.
    * This solution would require legislative action, and the destruction of the 50% law as it now exists. The possibility that the better-organized and funded administrative lobbyists would be able to remove all protections to instructional funding and create loopholes is very great.
    * This change would destroy guarantees for instructional faculty, without providing any guarantees for counseling faculty.
    * Administrators like this idea so much, it makes me think that there are abuses of the calculation that will be possible under this plan that we haven’t even thought about.

A win-win solution: separate stream of funding based on student-faculty ratio:

    * Growth is needed in counseling and library areas; they are understaffed; non-classroom faculty could grow without causing losses to instructional faculty.
    * Staffing needs should be based on student-faculty ratio, as well as demographic data for college student populations.
    * The legislation for this would be separate from the 50% law, so there would be no danger of losing funding protections we currently have.
    * The first legislative steps would be establishment of standards, such as the 75/25 ratio for full time to part time instructors; the second would be establishment of minimum funding levels.
    * Non-classroom faculty could free themselves from administrative interference if such a funding model were in place.
    * Administrations, the Chancellor’s office and Counseling administrator reps to the 50% law task force totally reject this solution, indicating that they really just want to free up dollars for administrative discretion, not fund Counseling and Library faculty needs in a better way.