This post has been co-authored by Carlos Martinez and Matt
Hinckley, with additional edits by Matt Henry. It is designed to provide
additional context, and to answer additional questions, that have arisen since this
Advance Blog post was made on Jan. 19, 2020, regarding the years-long project to bring
equity to the calculation of faculty load.
WHAT
IS THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT? WHY IS THIS BEING DISCUSSED NOW?
First, this is a brief narrative on the historical context
of the project. You may find additional detail by clicking the Load label on the Advance
Blog, in order to read previous posts on these issues.
In 2015 or 2016, the DCCCD
Human Resources Operational Guidelines (HROGs) were de-published by
District Human Resources, in the hopes of incentivizing innovation.
Unfortunately, this had the opposite effect, as departments, divisions,
faculty, coordinators, and deans, wrestled with conflicting interpretations
that often were informed by different iterations and generations of previous
HROG documents that existed electronically or even on paper in various offices
throughout the District. (For additional documentation of some of the concerns,
please visit the Advance Blog to read posts labeled under HR or Talent Central.)
In Spring 2016, the then-Chief Talent Officer, Susan Hall,
attempted to convene three compression planning sessions that were believed to
be an effort to reduce extra service teaching limits throughout all terms. This
prompted the Faculty Council to intervene directly to Chancellor May, to
convene a more representative group to study inequities, inconsistencies, and
interpretative concerns in how faculty load was being calculated across the
District. In Fall 2016, at the request of the DCCFA Faculty Council, the
chancellor commissioned the Faculty Load Review Group (FLRG). At the request of
the then-Council, Council president Matt Hinckley served as one of three
tri-chairs of FLRG, along with Ken Alfers (MVC History faculty) and Zarina
Blankenbaker (RLC VPAASS). Upon convening, FLRG organized itself into three sub
groups to investigate the three areas in which faculty and deans both reported
the greatest inequities in faculty load calculation and compensation. These
areas were lab/lecture inequity, class size inequity, and coordination
compensation inequity. The FLRG
report was delivered to Chancellor May in Spring 2017.
It was clear that, if implemented in full, the FLRG
recommendations would require significant additional resources to be invested
into instruction. Consequently, in Fall 2017, Chancellor May asked the DCCCD
Board of Trustees to approve a contract with Boston Consulting Group (BCG), to
review the FLRG recommendations (as well as other areas of concern), and to
provide an outside perspective. The contract was executed in January 2018, and BCG
met with the Faculty Council once, in Spring 2018, before its first report was
delivered to the Board of Trustees in June 2018.
While BCG endorsed adoption of many of the FLRG
recommendations (including lab/lecture equity, class size consistency, and
coordination compensation equity), there were other areas of concern that
clearly had not first emerged from FLRG. Most concerning was the fact that it
was apparent that numerous assumptions in that BCG report were the result of
apparently incorrect or possibly misleading input from the then-Chief Talent
Officer. Faculty input broadly at all seven colleges objecting to the errors,
and the sustained efforts of the 2018-2019 Faculty Council, prevailed upon
Chancellor May and BCG to begin a process both to re-review the initial
incorrect assumptions, as well as develop plans to implement the FLRG
recommendations that BCG independently endorsed. This effort was known as the Policy Initiative Team (PIT).
The Policy Initiative Team (PIT) was convened in Summer
2019, with four task forces to develop recommendations in four related areas:
Faculty Contracts, Compensation Practices, Master Course Table, and
Institutional Service and Reassigned Time. Faculty with extensive experience in
the issues were encouraged to apply to co-chair one of the four task forces. These
four PIT task forces solicited faculty input throughout Fall 2019 to develop
recommendations that were also vetted by a Steering Team. Reports from the task
forces were shared on the Policy
Initiative Share Point Site, and eventually were coordinated and combined
into a set
of recommendations delivered to Chancellor May and his Leadership Team on Jan.
29, 2020.
In summation,
FLRG in 2016-2017 identified the inequities and recommended broad solutions.
The Chancellor in 2017 agreed to further study of the FLRG findings. BCG in
2018 endorsed the FLRG findings and made some recommendations on how to
implement them in 2019. And finally, the PIT process begun in 2019 delivered
recommendations in January 2020 how to implement the needed changes.
It is important to note that, as of
Feb. 14, 2020, no decisions have been made, but the decision to implement
any/all of these recommendations rests solely with Chancellor May.
WHAT
ARE ACH/ADJUSTED CONTACT HOURS?
One of the principal recommendations to emerge, as a means
to equalize lecture and lab, class sizes, and coordination, was to denominate
faculty load in a single currency known as Adjusted Contact Hours (ACH). Most
simply, ACH is based on the catalog/WECM/ACGM defined contact hours for a
course. The current working definition of ACH is:
“Hours
faculty is required to spend delivering instruction associated with a course.
Used as the unit of measure for determining faculty load and corresponding
compensation. In most circumstances, 1 ACH equals 1 contact hour (exceptions
will be determined for areas such as clinicals). Typically, adjusted contact
hours represent the time a faculty member spends in instruction.”
Using ACH as the single currency of load allows:
- Lecture
and lab instruction to be treated as equal*
- Load
to be calculated down to the contact hour, rather than in blocks of 20% or 13%;
- Reassigned
time to be calculated precisely, rather than in blocks of 20% or 13%;
- Extra
service contracts to be paid on the basis of the exact number of ACH one is
teaching/working over the 240 per traditional semester (240 = 15 hours/week *
16 weeks) or 480 per academic year;
- Setting
standard class sizes, regardless of modality, for each course in the DCCCD
catalog, using a Master Course Table;
- Faculty
to be compensated equitably for teaching additional students in their
face-to-face classes even if the room cannot accommodate a “double LGI”
section, again calculating compensation down to the contact hour, rather than
in blocks of 20% or 13%;
- Optionally,
calculate over-enrollment compensation in terms of ACH.
*Note that for many decades lab has been discounted
compared to lecture by one-third. In practice this meant that, within the 30
hour work week, a faculty member teaching lab courses in their regular load
would have to spend more than 15 hours teaching each week. This meant that
those faculty members teaching labs had less time for students outside of the
classroom, for institutional service, and for grading and class preparation. Under
the new system, every faculty member’s teaching load is met by teaching an
average of 15 hours per week over the 16 week semester, with one lab contact hour
equaling one lecture contact hour, for a total of 240 ACH over one semester, or
480 ACH across the fall and spring semester.
HOW
ARE ACH PROPOSED TO BE CALCULATED?
Beyond the Master Course Table that is being developed, the
“assumptions” that are built into the
Beta ACH Excel Calculator can be found by clicking the “Policy Levers” tab
in the Excel Workbook. Please note that these are simply assumptions designed
to demonstrate how the calculator works. Some “assumptions” are based on
current Board Policy. Others are based on recommendations. The inclusion of a
given assumption is not an indication or prediction of what the chancellor will
choose to implement.
If you wish to test the Beta
ACH Excel Calculator, please DOWNLOAD the Excel file to your local
computer, and SAVE it under a custom file name, BEFORE you begin entering
courses and enrollments.
If you are interested in comparing your current extra
service earnings to hypothetical values on the Beta ACH Excel Calculator, one
way to do so is to find copies of your extra service contracts from the Fall
2019 semester, and/or use the eConnect “My Payroll Information” tool (click “Special
Pay & Deduction Details” at the bottom of your monthly summary).
WHAT SHOULD WE KEEP IN MIND RIGHT
NOW?
Please note that
this Beta ACH Excel calculator is not final. Another version will be produced
in the coming days that will include Premium Pay. Draft versions of the ACH
calculator are purposely being shared to help stakeholders become more familiar
with how the new proposed load calculation guidelines fit together into a
coherent whole.
In addition,
please note that the Beta ACH Excel calculator demonstrates the “portfolio” model for
over-enrollment compensation. The “section” model is still under consideration,
but as it would just be an adaptation of the existing DL grid, there was no
need to demonstrate it. For more information on the differences between the “portfolio”
and “section” models, please see the set
of recommendations delivered to Chancellor May and his Leadership Team on Jan.
29, 2020.
Also, please note
that the intent is for any faculty member who reaches 240 contact hours through
the sections they teach regardless of enrollment in those sections, will have
“made load.” Likewise, please note that the 86-page PDF document from
Jan. 29
represents a broad summary of recommendations to the chancellor, and in some
cases there are multiple options for him to consider. If/when he makes his
decisions, hundreds of pages of new guidelines will need to be written, as
those guidelines will be replacing the 1200+ pages of HROGs that were
de-published in 2015. All that to say, the absence of a specific provision in
these recommendations does not mean that such a provision has been rejected or
ignored. That said, Page 33 of the PDF document, on Under-Enrolled Compensation
Practices, recommends,
“(A)n
“under enrolled section” will be compensated as if it were a “full” section,
whether as a full portion of load (equal to the adjusted contact hours of
course), or as a full extra service contract.”
The idea is that if an instructor’s sections make – even if
they are not full and even if one or more of them has fewer students than the
recommended minimum – then they make for a full portion of load for each of
those sections. That language does not appear within the Beta ACH Excel
calculator, to be sure, but the final version of the new HROGs should stipulate
that no faculty member whose sections are not full, would ever have to teach
extra sections just to make their load.
NOTE/UPDATE AS OF THURSDAY, FEB. 20: In response to concerns raised by faculty who teach in disciplines with lab courses, the next iteration of the Beta ACH Excel calculator is expected to include the functionality to enter lecture and lab ACH separately. This may require additional updates to the Master Course Table, to have separate line items (and student maximums and minimums) for the lecture and lab portions of each course. Since these are fundamentally pedagogical issues, it is important that faculty in the discipline/program have robust discussions among themselves about the practice of separating lecture and lab (specifically if different instructors should be permitted to teach the lecture and lab portions of a given course), and convey their recommendations to their respective faculty association president, and/or a member of the PIT steering team.
WHAT
ABOUT EXTRA SERVICE TEACHING LIMITS?
That said, one of the issues that has been most hotly
debated is the issue of extra service teaching limits. First, faculty are most
familiar with “14.7” as the abbreviation for extra service limits. In a model
where all load and extra service is denominated in ACH, the ACH equivalent to
14.7 is 235.2 ACH, (14.7 is 98% of 15; 235.2 is 98% of 240), as was most
recently also explained in this Advance
Blog post.
It is important to note that changes to extra service
limitations in Fall, Spring, Summer 1, and Summer 2, are not being proposed or discussed.
What is under discussion is extra service teaching limits during May Term and
Winter Term only. One option presented to the chancellor is to leave May Term
and Winter Term extra service teaching limits as is, at 235.2 ACH. Another
option presented to the chancellor is to reduce May Term and Winter Term extra
service teaching limits to 117.6 ACH (one half of 235.2). Here are some
relevant facts:
For the past nine mini terms
(Winter Terms and May Terms), between 13% and 15% of faculty who were teaching
during those terms, actually exceeded 117.6 ACH. This represents between 4.3%
and 7.6% of all 950 full time DCCCD faculty. By term:
- In Winter Term 2016, 41 exceeded 117.6 ACH;
- In May Term 2016, 63 exceeded 117.6 ACH;
- In Winter Term 2017, 46 exceeded 117.6 ACH;
- In May Term 2017, 59 exceeded 117.6 ACH;
- In Winter Term 2018, 49 exceeded 117.6 ACH;
- In May Term 2018, 72 exceeded 117.6 ACH;
- In Winter Term 2019, 49 exceeded 117.6 ACH;
- In May Term 2019, 70 exceeded 117.6 ACH;
- In Winter Term 2020, 47 exceeded 117.6 ACH;
In addition, in any given May
Term or Winter Term, between 454 (47.7%) and 630 (66.3%) of the 950 full time
DCCCD faculty were not teaching any sections.
Moreover, the practice of teaching extra service above 117.6 ACH in May Terms and Winter
Terms is not equitably distributed across the DCCCD campuses. For instance, the
smallest campus in the District by enrollment, Cedar Valley, regularly accounts
for 18-29% of those who are teaching more than 50% load in a May Term or Winter
Term, likely due in large measure to the CVC Vet Tech program's routine practice of teaching high contact-hour courses over 12 week summer terms, which stretch across May Term, Summer 1, and Summer 2. The practice of teaching high contact hour courses that stretch across multiple summer terms would continue to be permitted under the PIT recommendations before the Chancellor, provided that the summer maximum of 588 ACH (117.6 for May Term, plus 235.2 for Summer 1, plus 235.2 for Summer 2) not be exceeded.
The practice of teaching more than 117.6 ACH in Winter Terms or May Terms also appears to be more common in certain disciplines or
discipline clusters at some campuses. For instance, during the most recent Winter Term, the practice seemed most common in the Math departments at Cedar Valley and Eastfield, the Social Sciences at Brookhaven and Eastfield, and the Sciences at Mountain View and North Lake. Further study will be needed as the seven
DCCCD colleges consolidate into One College, to determine the extent to which
individual campuses may need more faculty in certain disciplines. Put another
way:
- In any
given May Term, the number of faculty who get no sections to teach is six times
larger than the number of faculty who take more than 117.6 ACH;
- In any
given Winter Tem, the number of faculty who get no sections to teach is 15
times larger than the number of faculty who take more than 117.6 ACH.
HOW
WOULD THE PROPOSED NEW LIMITS AFFECT MY EXTRA SERVICE EARNING POTENTIAL?
If Winter Term and May Term extra service teaching limits
were reduced to 117.6 ACH (resulting in an maximum limit of 1,176 ACH across
all terms of an academic year), and the portfolio model for over-enrollment
compensation were adopted, the following assumptions can be made regarding
extra service income potential, according to the Beta ACH Excel calculator:
At
the current adjunct/extra service rate of $48.42 ($2324 for a regular
3-hour course), one could earn a maximum of $56,941.92 in extra service
teaching income in an academic year. (1,176 x $48.42 = $56,941.92)
At
the proposed adjunct/extra service rate of $62.50 ($3000 for a regular
3-hour course), one could earn a maximum of $73,500 in extra service
teaching income in an academic year. (1,176 x $62.50 = $73,500)
Note that these estimates do not include Premium Pay. Subsequent iterations of the Beta ACH Excel Calculator will include Premium Pay, which is payable at $81.25 per ACH for up to 96 ACH. Moreover, the PIT recommendations even include a proposal to allow Premium Pay to be earned during the Fall and Spring semester under certain limited circumstances, such as instances where enrollment demands are high in Fall or Spring, but insufficient enrollment in the Winter or Summer Terms to allow Premium Pay presently to be earned. There is no proposal to limit or reduce Premium Pay, or to make it unavailable in May Term or Winter Term.
WHAT ABOUT STAKEHOLDER
INPUT?
Some faculty have understandably
asked about stakeholder input.
There was robust stakeholder input
throughout the FLRG process. All three sub groups - Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie -
vetted their findings and recommendations through the Faculty Council, and
faculty were able to share their feedback both through the Council and with the
sub groups.
Some among the BCG “Student Centric
Transformation” set of recommendations initially suffered for a lack of
stakeholder input on some provisions, even as it also endorsed many of the FLRG
recommendations (lab/lecture equity, class size consistency and compensation
for over-enrollment regardless of morality, equity in coordination compensation).
Indeed, BCG had falsely been led to believe that sufficient stakeholder input
and/or DCCFA Faculty Council input had taken place. When this lack of
stakeholder input became apparent, the Council prevailed upon District
leadership and BCG to conduct the various town hall meetings during the Spring
2019 semester.
Throughout Fall 2019, the four PIT
task forces solicited and received robust stakeholder input. With regards to
compensation practices specifically, the task force intentionally expanded its
membership to ensure that there was faculty representation from each campus.
The master course table task force worked directly with the faculty
program/discipline chairs to ensure the recommendations were based on
pedagogical considerations. The reassigned time and institutional service task
force accepted robust input and made its recommendations based on best
practices from around the District. And the faculty contracts task force has
incorporated years of faculty concerns into improving both the full-time and
adjunct/extra service teaching contract documents.
WHAT IS THE BIG PICTURE?
While individual faculty and even
some individual campus disciplines or discipline clusters object to some of the
specific recommendations to emerge within the overall FLRG/PIT project, largely
on the basis of a perceived/predicted negative effect on their individual
earning potential, taken as a whole, the FLRG/PIT recommendations - if
implemented - will result in significantly more resources being devoted to
instruction. Specifically:
· More full time faculty will need to be hired;
· Previously uncompensated work finally will be compensated;
· More faculty – full time faculty and adjunct faculty – will see
their earnings increase.
All of these are big wins for the faculty
of the DCCCD broadly. And most importantly, these are big wins for the students
we serve, who would be the ones to benefit from faculty who are not trying to
take on as much extra work as possible and thus are able to devote more time to
individual students.
To delay the implementation of the
FLRG/PIT recommendations would only perpetuate the inequities that have plagued
us for decades, and commit those hundreds of DCCCD faculty – who teach labs for
reduced compensation, who teach extra students without compensation, who
coordinate without compensation – to another year (or more) of the indignity of
being compensated inequitably or even to be forced to perform uncompensated
work, like more hours in the lab at reduced compensation, or teaching extra
students in larger classrooms without compensation, or performing coordination
work without compensation.
Instead of passing resolutions objecting
to, or seeking delay of implementation of, FLRG/PIT recommendations – before
the chancellor has even decided – faculty can and should use this time to study
the recommendations learn how they work together using the ACH Beta Excel
calculator. Having the recommendations and calculator freely available for all
faculty to try has specifically been done further to gather stakeholder input.
In addition, once the chancellor
makes his decisions, guidelines will need to be written. There will then be
further opportunity for stakeholder input to ensure the guideline language does
not result in unintended consequences.
In the interest of the greater good
of faculty broadly, and in the interest of solidarity with those faculty who
have labored for inequitable compensation for decades, the Council strongly
urges all its members to support the FLRG/PIT recommendations.
WHAT IF I HAVE FURTHER
QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS?
The
time is now for all stakeholders, including faculty, to review all of the
recommendations in context, and to share their concerns with their respective
faculty association president.
