Faculty contracts remain undecided

At the culmination of the fall semester, members of the Keene State College Education Association (KSCEA) remain in discussion with the negotiating committee over faculty contracts. The latest meeting, held on Monday, Dec. 14, yielded no change between the two committees, who have been in closed-door talks since March 2009.
KSCEA negotiations chair and sociology professor Pete Stevenson said the union made further proposals to the negotiating committee, which were then countered.
“We’ll see if they have viability,” he said. “They have to talk to the Trustees.”
Vice President of Academic Affairs Emile Netzhammer said the administrative negotiating team will discuss over the winter break.
“We’ll be looking with the president and among the negotiating team at the things on the table to make progress and meet each other’s needs,” he said. “If part of that is to talk to the Trustees it will emerge out of those conversations.” KSCEA President Patrick Dolenc said the union will keep faculty informed about the latest happenings.
“We’ll send out updates to our membership because the faculty is completing grades and conducting finals this week,” he said. “We’ll have a membership meeting before the next contract meeting.”
Faculty contracts, which are discussed and revised every three years, expired on June 30 of this year. Negotiations involve amending aspects of the former contract so both the faculty union and negotiating committee are satisfied. In the February 2009 issue of “The Union Lieder,” a KSCEA newsletter distributed to all faculty, associate political science professor Mike Welsh wrote an article about the Fall 2008 membership survey. According to the survey, 43 of 58 respondents ranked salary as a priority concern in the current contract talks. In addition, 56 out of 58 ranked workload as a priority. In terms of salary, the average income for a KSC professor is around $69,000 according to data extracted from a list organized annually by The Union Leader. Faculty at the University of New Hampshire make an average salary of around $88,600 and faculty at Plymouth State University make an average of around $68,800 comparatively.
Workload issues involve the amount of effort faculty can contribute to their classes. According to annual reports produced by the Office of Institutional Research at KSC, the student/faculty ratio increased from 17:1(2000) to 19:1(2008). A major factor is the rising number of accepted students. Student population increased over 15 percent since 2000, rising from 4,573 students to 5,271 in 2008. Additional data from the Office of Institutional Research shows that the number of part-time faculty reflects student growth, adding 39 positions since 2000 to bring the total adjunct population to 230. The number of full-time professors, however, remained relatively consistent. Full-time positions hover between 180-200, with the latest total at 185. This means the college hires more adjunct and part-time faculty than full-time professors, which Stevenson said may cause complications.
“The biggest impact is it doesn’t guarantee you someone with a PhD,” he said. “Usually they [adjuncts] have a Masters Degree and there’s nothing wrong with that, but when you overuse adjuncts and pay them so little, they have to teach here and other places just to make a living. I know an adjunct who is teaching six courses.”
Netzhammer said the college is committed to expanding full-time faculty, but status doesn’t always mean a higher quality of education.
“When you’re talking about classroom instruction, you can’t guarantee that a tenured faculty can be better, but in terms of being on the campus every day, working closely with the college and scholarship, having a full-time faculty majority is critical to the institution.”
Funds to hire more full-time professors come from the University System of New Hampshire (USNH) and the state of New Hampshire. Currently, New Hampshire ranks last in the United States in terms of higher education operating costs. According to a February 2009 report by the New Hampshire Postsecondary Education Commission, only 12 percent of the state’s budget went toward funding higher education. Netzhammer said the college should hire more full-time professors and the means to hire them exist, depending on the time frame.
“We’ve been very consistent in making it a high priority to have full-time faculty in the 70-80 percent range,” he said. “I think we’ve made good progress and will make good progress over time, it depends on the college’s fiscal situation.”
The next step for negotiations will be to take a recess over the holiday season and resume at the next contract meeting Jan. 5. If agreements cannot be reached between the KSCEA and the negotiating committee, more aggressive actions have the possibility of being taken. Impasse is a process by which faculty unions argue more aggressively for their demands. There are three levels of impasse: mediation, fact-finding and arbitration. Mediation consists of bringing in a neutral third party to assess the demands of both sides. Fact-finding consists of reviewing all data associated with the negotiation process and then presenting a detailed report of what action should be taken. However, the report is not binding and either side can reject the results. Arbitration is the third process, where a third party makes a legally binding decision, which both parties must accept.
A potential offshoot from stalled negotiations is work-to-rule. According to Stevenson, the job action wouldn’t affect students, but professors would have to coordinate times to assist students via e-mail or by appointment. Currently, no such actions are being taken by the KSCEA.
“The big idea is we don’t hurt students and don’t hurt membership,” Stevenson said.

Corey Smith can be contacted at csmith@keenequinox.com.