Faculty Stakeholder Group’s Recommendations
Presented to the Working Group Studying
Arizona’s University Redesign
February 11, 2005
The Faculty Stakeholder Group comprises faculty from each of Arizona’s university campuses and from the community college system. In our numerous discussions, it is evident that we have wide agreement that each university campus must provide high quality education and be provided the resources to meet the changing needs of each institution and the state. We are very concerned about access, the missions of our campuses, and the role of the university and its faculty within the coming years. Our faculty believe that it is very important that the state understand what it takes to provide a high quality education in a high quality educational environment at each campus. The state’s university faculty are committed to providing the highest quality education in our statewide public universities from a learner-centered and a K-16, K-20 perspective.
Our concerns are briefly summarized in seven points and the supporting documentation that has been provided to you.
University faculty are uniquely positioned to provide academically sound degree programs and community responsive service contributions. Teaching and service responsibilities are dependent upon the scholarship demands of each academic field. It is only through the progressive development of high quality campus delivery systems that the state will be able to develop a capable work force that is responsive to the economic, political and social needs of the state.
The harms from tiering the state universities and campuses have been discussed in numerous documents submitted to the working group. It is important to indicate here that the diversity among institutions that the state is looking for already exists. We have diverse institutions that provide for diverse educational environments for students seeking diverse learning opportunities. NAU provides high quality graduate and undergraduate programs at its mountain campus and has a well developed distance- learning program that offers degrees statewide. NAU-Yuma has a well integrated 2+2 program that enables students to begin at a community college and be developmentally ready for their upper division requirements upon entry into the university. ASU, with its three (four) campuses provides a wide array of programs that are responsive to the state’s largest growing county and is expected to continue to develop its graduate, professional and undergraduate offerings at each campus. UA and UA South have a cohesive and integrated plan for providing high quality undergraduate education in Tucson and the southern tier while maintaining and furthering UA’s commitment to its graduate and professional degrees. It is exciting to see collaborations among the universities, such as UA South offering agricultural courses at NAU-Yuma and the recent union of the UA and ASU to develop a medical school and research in downtown Phoenix. High quality learning requires that the state be able to attract and retain highly qualified faculty and tiering does not serve the state’s need to educate its citizenry.
It was pointed out by members of ABOR at their January, 2005, meeting that the system is able to accommodate expected growth. Even the redesign consultant, David Longanecker, when he first spoke about redesigning Arizona’s universities, stated that our system is doing pretty well and is better than most. The gap that might exist between expected demand and the state’s capacity is small. Any gaps can be effectively handled by the expansion of ASU’s campuses, the expansion of UA South, NAU’s distance education offerings and programs, and NAU-Yuma’s continued expansion. It is also expected that community colleges may begin to offer bachelor degrees. The faculty are concerned with community college 4 year degrees if standards for high quality degrees are not in place. While some community colleges have worked closely and effectively with our universities to ensure quality of higher education offerings, 4 year community college degrees must be offered only if there is a need, only if there is academic integrity to the programs, and only if doctoral degree faculty are hired full time to deliver and oversee the academic programs. All campuses need resources to develop high quality academic programs. Rural population needs may be different from the needs of the urban populous. University degree programs, statewide, must be developed on demand and have the resources provided to ensure the highest quality faculty are developing these programs in response to the divergent needs of their communities.
We are, at present, relatively cost effective at each campus. When we consider the cost of education and general expenditures in the state system with our graduation rates (6 year), we find that ASU, UA and NAU are cost effective. ASU West (a Masters I campus) and NAU (a research-intensive university) are more cost effective than Colorado’s baccalaureate institutions initially proposed as a model for Arizona and the California State University system.
The faculty are very concerned with financial aid and find this to be an issue that will require much more study. We are concerned that because the state does not fund financial aid to the same degree as other states, and because of expected changes to the federal financial aid formula, student access to the university system will be affected. We note, however, that the answer is not to differentiate tuition within university campuses. The state already has differentiated tuition among the universities themselves, and students can choose to begin their higher educational studies in the lower tuition community college system. If the university is to grow on demand, then each campus will need adequate resources to develop high quality educational environments. The state needs to study if a redesign of student financial aid will enable access to diverse students. The faculty stakeholder group does not want to have “lower cost” campuses become ghettos. Resources, simply put, are indicative of educational quality.
Our statewide stakeholders understand the importance of having high quality university institutions and campuses. Whether we consider the comments submitted to the working group by the diversity stakeholders (speaking for the Native American and Latino/a population), the community and business stakeholders, the student stakeholders, and others, the message is clear. We need our university faculty to engage in scholarship and service activities that embed them within the communities where they are located, and that these activities are integral to a high quality classroom environment.
We are not sure whether any one campus will have a change in name or status. But, should any university reorganization result in a significant change in a campus’ mission, direction, status or classification then all employment contracts and benefits must be honored – faculty, academic professionals and classified staff must not start over.