The New Environment for American Public Higher Education The challenges facing American public higher education beg for unique, path-breaking solutions. Globalization, technological change, uneven and uncertain funding, increasing demands for greater access by more diverse groups and rising expectations about the performance and accountability of universities are part of the story. The American experience is far from unique. In 1998 the World Conference on Higher Education released its declaration citing many of these pressures as well as the employability of graduates, the efficiency of operations, and, most notably, the future status of faculty and staff. Students of American higher education, including Ronald G. Ehrenberg who has contributed to this volume, have described these developments as a "perfect storm" (Ehrenberg, "Perfect Storm," 1). As Ehrenberg notes, since the early 1980s taxpayers have clamored for state income tax cuts, driven in part by the impact of Ronald Reagan's federal tax cutting revolution, which reduced the value of state income tax deductions on federal income tax returns (pp.1-2). Faculties sit in the eye of that storm. The story, however, is more complicated than merely tax cutting, a point driven home by David Longanecker, the Executive Director of the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education. Another contributor to this volume, Longanecker (2004) has turned to a different figure of speech to describe the situation, what he calls "A Tale of Two Pities." According to Longanecker, the leaders of higher education, on the one hand, and governors and state legislators, on the other, are increasingly like ships passing in the night (pp.13, 24). They view essentially the same set of circumstances in radically different ways. Thomas J. Kane and Peter R. Orszag (2003) at the Brookings Institution have given statistical credibility to Longanecker's provocative analysis (p. 5).
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President Hall's 2005 Spring Speech to Faculty >> Higher education leaders, including national organizations such as the American Council on Education (ACE), complain that public officials do not love them anymore (Longanecker, p. 2). They claim that the share of public dollars going into colleges and universities has gone down and that the priority they enjoyed from the 1950s through the 1970s has shifted elsewhere, notably to crime control, K-12 education, and, most recently, health care (Longanecker, p. 5). State legislators and governors, however, respond that higher education does not understand either what has happened or the problems they face. Lawmakers emphasize the point that over the past three decades total appropriations per student have actually gone up as has spending on Pell grants. And leaders in several high growth states, such as California, Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, insist that they have driven additional dollars into their higher education systems to take account of that growth. State leaders everywhere also protest that college and university presidents neither understand nor appreciate that the growth of entitlement programs, such as Medicaid, often leave them with little budgetary flexibility. This "Tale of Two Pities" demonstrates that the social contract between public higher education and the states has withered over the last quarter century. Increasingly, as Mark Yudof (p.B24) has written, public higher education, which was once viewed as a public good, has become a private good in which individuals, not society as a whole, reap the fullest benefit. In many instances, moreover, the rationale for public higher education has increasingly become one of driving economic development rather than producing an educated public. This has thrust higher education administrators into new contexts, required leaders to search for innovative solutions, and applied new pressures to professors at public universities. While groups such as ACE insist that the rapid increases in tuition are more than justified in order to maintain quality and international competitiveness, the public has responded with increasing skepticism (Hebel, A14). Critics claim professors teach too little and conduct research too much. Evidence of such concerns is clear in the growing calls to make public universities and their faculties more accountable and performance driven, just as has happened in the K-12 arena with No Child Left Behind. In September 2005 President George W. Bush's Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, announced the formation of a national commission to develop a "strategy" for higher education (Field, 2005, p. A29). Spellings' position is simple in its statement but complex in its impact, especially as it relates to careers of faculty. America's colleges and universities will not remain the best in the world, according to Spellings, unless they become more efficient, more accessible, and more accountable to parents, students, and taxpayers. A majority of commission members have insisted already that the status quo is unacceptable. The invited speakers who have appeared before the commission have been unsparing in their criticism of academe, calling colleges and their faculties complacent, resistant to change and sometimes downright lazy. As the commission's chairman, Charles Miller, put it, "We would not be here if there were not a lot of things to question." (Field, "Federal Panel") The Implications for Faculty These demands come at a time when public higher education faces an increasing challenge to recruit and retain the best faculty (Ehrenberg, "The Changing Nature"). Recent studies, for example, make clear the significant gap between what faculty and public and private institutions earn. Full professors at public institutions earn on average about 20 percent less than their counterparts at private universities. While it is true that faculty salaries have gone up, a report by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) indicates that when adjusted for inflation over the last decade, public university faculty salaries have actually declined slightly (AAUP, 2004, electronic version). The consequences of the "Tale of Two Pities" appears also in the changing nature of the professoriate. Take one example, contingent faculty. Both full-time and part-time faculty in non-tenure track positions fall into this category as do term-faculty, adjunct professors, visiting professors, and lecturers (Baldwin & Chronister, 2001, p. 3). On the one hand, tenured faculty enjoy long-term job security and significant benefits such as paid sabbaticals (conditions of work that prompt protest from some public officials as being overly generous). In contrast, contingent faculty have limited contracts and thus limited job security, with one-year appointments being the norm. Most colleges and universities hire full-time non-tenure track faculty to teach lower division undergraduate courses, though many 4-year colleges will allow non-tenure track faculty to teach both upper and lower division courses. Baldwin and Chronister (2001) found that some institutions hire full-time non-tenure track faculty to fulfill teaching duties and clinical or field supervision or administrative work (p. 5). Rarely do universities expect non-tenure track staff to do the same amount of research, teaching, and service as tenured faculty. Colleges also employ full-time non-tenure faculty as specialists in certain curricula or fields, especially professional schools; colleges foster continuity in academic programs by relying more on full-time non-tenure faculty and less on part-time faculty (Gappa, 1996, p. 141). The hiring of full-time and part-time faculty in non-tenure track positions has been a growing and significant trend in higher education for more than a decade (Holub, 2003, p.1). The pattern has become pervasive while the social contract that has traditionally sustained public higher education has eroded. The issues associated with contingent faculty are legion and the question they pose is whether such faculty represents the canary in the coal mine of higher education? Are these developments sounding an alarm about more basic changes in the structure of the workforce? The lack of job security posed by term contracts, obstacles to academic freedom and diminished opportunities for student learning are cited as some of the main concerns. Academic freedom, the right of faculty to freely express and publish their ideas without fear of reprisal, is a core value in higher education. Without the security that tenure provides, many worry that contingent faculty will not express unpopular, challenging or even innovative ideas (Gappa, 1996, p. 144). There is also a belief that as the numbers of contingent faculty increase the broad rights of regular faculty will become increasingly tenuous. (ibid.) Then there are the students, whose academic and career fates are shaped by the faculty that teach them. Some critics complain that contingent faculty, especially part-timers who are paid by each course and not by office hours, have neither the time nor the motivation to mentor students outside of class or to become involved in student activities. Since contingent faculty are mainly employed to teach undergraduate lower division courses, Benjamin (2002) argues that "such over-reliance particularly disadvantages the less-well-prepared entering and lower-division students in the non-elite institutions who need more substantial faculty attention." (p. 4) And the rise of increasing numbers of non-tenured positions may also threatened one of the most treasured aspects of the academy, collegiality, because of growing inequities in job security, status, pay, and benefits between tenured and contract faculty. The system of shared governance seems under attack as well, since contract faculty are often either barred or marginalized from governance activities. In short, morale maybe diminished in this new environment in which faculty are pressed to be more productive (and accountable) with shrinking resources. The AAUP, in what they perceive as a threat to quality in higher education, has recommended that university's cap instruction by non-tenured employees to 15 percent (25 percent per department) (AAUP, 2005, electronic version). There seems little doubt that contingent faculty will remain a central and almost certainly a growing feature of American public higher education. The issue is not whether they will continue but how their interest in job security and appropriate pay will be balanced against the need for quality student learning. The rise of contingent faculty is only one manifestation of how this new Dickensian era is re-shaping faculty lives. Morrison (2003, electronic version) outlines four demographic changes that are affecting higher education: ethnicity, increasing enrollments, age demography, and increasing retirees. First, the proportions of historically under-represented racial and ethnic groups are growing much faster than their numbers in faculty ranks. Statistics show that by the end of the current century whites will make up less than half the population of America, yet the numbers of faculty from historically under-represented groups is growing only incrementally. If students are to be taught by faculty members who come from backgrounds like themselves, then there will have to be considerable change in faculty recruitment (Nasser, 2000, electronic version). Second, the demand for post-secondary education is on the rise, especially from groups that have been historically under-represented. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) notes that between the years 2000 and 2013 the number of 18-24 year olds in America will increase 19 percent in higher education enrollment (18 percent in public institutions and 20 percent in private institutions) (NCES, 2003, electronic version). Age will also ignite change. The NCES shows that between the years 2000 and 2014 higher education enrollees between the ages of 18-24 will increase 16 percent, while enrollees over age 35 will increase five percent (ibid.). Third, as Morrison (2003) explains, "the graying of the population is also reflected in the graying of the workforce, a workforce that needs continuing education to remain viable" (electronic version). Related to age demographics is a fourth challenge to higher education: the number of retirees. The number of Americans 55 years or older will increase from 59 million in 2001 to 85 million by 2015 and the faculty of public institutions will be graying along with the rest of the population (National Census Bureau, 2002, electronic version). These developments, of course, are not unique to the public higher education sector. They also apply to corporations, especially the traditional goliaths of American business, such as General Motors and Ford (Birnbaum and Freeman). Whether public or private the implications of national demographic and employment fluctuations strike at the core of the twenty-first century human resource dilemma. Taken together, then, these developments drive home the basic point that teaching at a public university is not what it used to be. To make the professoriate more attractive and responsive in the era of greater accountability, measured performance, and limited resources there will need to be change. How We Treat Our Employees New demands require new measures, and to that end we might take note of what is happening in the private sector, where similar pressures are operating. Attracting qualified employees, retaining them, and making them more productive is a tall order. Yet examples from the private-sector knowledge industry suggest a way forward. Take Jim Goodnight and his software company, SAS. Like institutions of higher learning SAS depends on talented people to keep business thriving. SAS, which is located in Cary, N. C., regularly ranks among the best employers in the United States (Levering & Moskowitz, 2005, electronic version). That status reflects a commitment to its employees, a commitment that public universities might well heed. What distinguishes SAS is its talent for blending principles of flexibility, equity, and efficiency to create a dynamic work environment. SAS provides its employees (all of them, not just the programmers and software developers) office massages, a state-of-the-art gym, a gourmet cafeteria, on-site child and health care, professional counseling, flexible work rules, and incentives for performance. These and other benefits go to day care workers, landscapers and food service people. Moreover, rather than out-source jobs, SAS keeps them in-house, doing so in the belief that they will get better quality work from people who feel they are part of the company. All employees receive the same profit- sharing and health care. The only benefits that vary are bonuses, salaries, promotions and raises. These are based on merit, just as universities claim to be. All of SAS' benefits extend to part-time as well as full time employees. The result is a privately held corporation that looks to improve its bottom-line by strengthening the morale of its employees and implementing innovative solutions. And SAS managers have the proof to justify their decisions: voluntary turnover is under 3 percent a year. By keeping its turnover so low compared with other software companies, SAS has undoubtedly been able to save more money than its spends. "You either are going to spend your money on headhunters and training," Goodnight notes, "or you could (spend it taking care of the people you have)." (Kirby) The example of SAS, of course, cannot be fully replicated across all of public higher education. Indeed, it is not even replicated across all private, for-profit corporations. Admittedly, some state legislators are likely to balk at the idea of office massages for employees. However, the broadly progressive nature of SAS's approach to its employees is a reminder of what is required to recruit and retain the best and the brightest. Still, the broadly progressive nature of SAS' approach to its employees is a reminder of what is required to recruit and retain quality employees in three areas: flexibility, equity, and efficiency. Flexibility The changes underway in higher education are bound to affect the who, what, and how of the faculty's important tasks, of which teaching is one of the most significant. For the who of teaching, university leaders must recognize that as age, ethnic, and gender demographics reshape higher education, higher education must respond in flexible ways. The key questions are not whether diversity is a good thing or whether it will occur; demographic trends are to some extent overwhelming ideological differences. The nation is headed towards a much more diverse student population and almost certainly a much more diverse faculty. Scholarship is replete with studies that show the benefits of diversity in higher education, but the emphasis should also be on how to manage such diversity (Smith, 2000, electronic version). There is considerable evidence that students from historically under-represented backgrounds will benefit from faculty drawn from those same backgrounds (Antonio, 2003, electronic version). Change is already on the way. Less than two decades ago, white males made up 90 percent of all full-time faculty. Today, women represent 38 percent of full-time faculty (ACE, 2005, electronic version). Ethnicity and age demographics will demand modifications to the what of teaching, as curriculum and human resource policies adapt to the burgeoning diversity of students and faculty alike. Technological advancements have, and will continue to change how higher education delivers knowledge. New and promising technological teaching methods may well offer the opportunity to deliver more higher learning to populations not otherwise accessible through the traditional forms of delivery. While not the "magic bullet" that Van Dusen heralds in his analysis of technologically-delivered education, its "just-in-time" qualities do mean that potentially more students can be accommodated (Van Dusen, 1998, p. 59). To do so, however, faculty will have to learn new pedagogical and delivery skills. Despite the concerns with contingent faculty, there remain issues and opportunities for improving the lot of tenure-track faculty. Remaining also is compelling structural barriers to change. For example, tenure is a fact of business life; despite the on-again, off-again clamor for reform, it is unlikely to go away. There are issues surrounding promotion policies, probationary periods during pre-tenure years, and a lack of flexibility in employment options for retirement age faculty. Administrators are well-acquainted with roadblocks in the tenure process: ambiguous and contradictory criteria, conflicting messages between institutional rhetoric and actual reward structure, conflict between promotion and tenure processes and personal responsibilities and structural barriers for women and people of color (ACE, 2005, electronic version). Scholars are calling for increased awareness of these problems, a national dialogue to address specific tenure track issues, and manageable approaches to assist universities in implementing flexible solutions (ibid.). Administrators would do well to consider flexible employment options for their full-time faculty members, whether on or off the tenure track. For example, there are work/life issues whose solutions respond to many of the significant changes in higher education. Flexibility in paid leave policies, in response to pregnancy, family care and emergencies is one strategy. The University of California system, faced with a surge in enrollments and a sizeable new round of faculty hires over the next decade, has taken a page from Goodnight's book in seeking to hire the best and brightest scholars to its ranks. (University of California, electronic version) The UC Faculty Family Friendly Edge program is designed to assist tenure-track faculty, pre- and post-tenure, in achieving simultaneously satisfying and productive career and family experiences. The idea is to not let them become the enemies of one another. And the goal is to make the University of California an employer that takes account of the realities of a twenty-first century workforce; including a greater number of women entering the academy, more families with two spouses working, and patterns of professional development different from those in the past. Plans like those adopted by UC will help to ameliorate the pressing needs in gender and age diversity. As universities benefit from a stronger presence of women in their workforces, pregnancy and child-care needs threaten to slow progress, or even prohibit women's inclusion. Scholars have examined the tension that still exists in higher education faculties between work, family, and home roles. Too many women consider temporary leave for childbirth or family care as being detrimental to their careers, and they opt for part-time or full-time non-tenure track positions. Interestingly, scholars discovered that 55 percent of women prefer full-time, non-tenured track positions (Perna, 2001, p. 604). The choices almost surely reflect the too often inflexible options presently available to women in the higher education workforce. As the UC program demonstrates, inflexibility could be alleviated by active-service modifications that permit temporarily reduced work loads or leave, without the loss of status. Also, administrators should consider policies that allow the tenure clock to stop, while extending probationary periods following child-birth or adoption (ACE, 2005, electronic version). Flexibility approaches can also make a difference in other ways. For example, higher education administrators that conduct post-tenure reviews, accommodate shifts in professional values and priorities, and create and appoint integral institutional committees to address needed reform learn that administrative flexibility is a work in progress (ACE, 2005, electronic version). Flexible approaches must bear the stamp of being deliberate and consensual. Administrators who are too flexible or who apply change simply for the sake of change threaten to weaken institutional safeguards that protect employees and provide valuable stability. Nonetheless, administrations need flexible solutions when confronted with change or they risk institutional atrophy. Equity Equity in higher education administration, with all its connotations, is an essential principle. Like flexibility, administrators face problems of equity in the who, what, and how of higher education faculty employment.
Return to the issue of contingent faculty. Universities today face a much greater issue of how to accommodate such faculty than they did only a few years ago. The Chronicle of Higher Education (2005, p. A8) reports that degree-granting institutions hired 60,000 more contingent faculty members in 2003 than they did in 2001. If you subscribe to the notion that a higher ratio of tenure to non-tenure track positions is detrimental to the quality of higher education, this demonstrates flexibility run amok. If, however, employing contingent faculty represents one tool in a kit of instruments to respond to new challenges (like reduced funding and growing enrollments), then such faculty positions may in fact be helpful. The accelerating rise in the 1990s of contingent faculty spawned profound issues of equity. Decreasing government appropriations and other funding sources during the 1980s and 1990s forced higher education administrators to look "outside" their lists of traditional financial providers (NCES, 1997, electronic version). Finding alternative funding sources was not enough, however. Since instructional costs represented the greatest single expenditure of higher education institutions, with by far the majority consisting of faculty salaries, changes in faculty profiles could mean substantial savings for weary budget administrators. Subsequently, as early as 1992 42 percent of higher education instructors were employed part-time (an increase of nearly 122,000 from 1987) meanwhile full-time instructors were becoming less satisfied with their increasing work-loads (ibid.). Necessity and desperation are unsteady guides to the best institutional decision making. As the who of faculty and students changed so did the challenges faced by higher education administrators. Frequently, the what will appear as a logical solution (even flexible), but it poses its own inherent roadblocks. Case in point, administrators are accused of using contingent faculty to limit the number of tenure-track positions at their institutions. Certainly the rise of contingent faculties was brought to bear during a budget crisis, but some feel state budgets are not entirely to blame (Todd, 2004, p. 17). Such a path of action makes sense in light of the fact that contingent faculty cost 33 percent of an average, tenure-track position (Schneider, 2004, p. 18). The cold numbers indicate significant cost savings to an institution by employing contingent instructors. Such a scheme, however, may not be equitable for either the students or the contingent faculty teaching them. For example, from a student perspective more contingent faculty members might be viewed as a threat to their higher education experience. Despite budget deficits and the presence of contingent faculty, students still deserve instructors (full or part-time) able to offer quality teaching, student advising and counseling and innovative curricula. Administrators must weigh the effects the bottom line will have on their most valuable asset, the students. Interestingly, some for-profit institutions like the University of Phoenix, market their contingent faculty as essential to their education paradigm. Part-time faculty who are also professionals in their fields of instruction offer students a more "practical" or "applied" education experience (University of Phoenix, 2005, electronic version). Therefore, the hiring of contingent faculty may well produce a more grounded educational experience based on the careers of their instructors than would otherwise be the case. Several organizations have published recommendations (the how) for higher education administrators to direct toward contingent faculty. In an echo of SAS' approach, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT, 2002, p. 7) suggests fairness and equity standards for part-time faculty. They begin with recommendations for equitable compensation: part-time/adjunct teachers should be paid a salary proportionate to full-time, tenured faculty of the same qualifications for doing the same work. This includes pro-rated sick-leave and holiday pay, proportionate health care and retirement benefits, and even unemployment insurance when they are not on the institution's payroll. The AFT also recommends equitable employment standards, including a more professional and credible hiring process, job security after a probationary and evaluation period, freedom to design their own courses, develop a form of seniority and be considered a preference for full-time hiring (p. 9). There is much work to be done to ensure equity in contingent faculty policies. Doing so, however, makes excellent sense in light of the simple fact that the morale and well-being of these faculty are essential to the success of the institutions that employ them. As Goodnight has reminded us, treating people well is the best way to enhance their performance. The need for equity is important in another way. There is evidence that from a student perspective, the use of contingent faculty may not be detrimental to the learning process. In 2003 Toutkoushian and Bellas, for example, empirically showed that most contingent faculty members are satisfied with their employment arrangements. Even though there were disproportionately more women than men as contingent faculty their employment seems to fill a need they have in their professional and personal lives. The positive findings underscore how important it is for institutions to develop equitable solutions that give more appropriate rewards and recognition to contingent faculty. Health benefits and equality of pay between men and women are two important recommendations (p. 192). Equity in the treatment of all faculty is important in another way. A more diverse student body will benefit from a more representative, and diverse faculty (Gater, 2005, electronic version). Also, recognizing that women earn nearly half of the PhD's awarded today, while an increasingly significant amount of elderly rely on their children for their care, means work and life issues are (or soon will be) at the forefront of employee-related needs (NCES, 2005, electronic version). The UC model is equitable because it is flexible. To address the problem of many women faculty members encountering difficulty re-entering tenure-track positions after stopping out of the professoriate, the UC programs offer several different approaches, all of which emphasize equity. For example, equitable solutions to gender and family matters can include better paid leave policies, a variety of workload options, and facilitating the movement into, out of, and back into the tenure track. Achieving equity in faculty employment practices requires an administrative revolution that balances the realities of demographic and social change, along with the academy's traditional emphasis on quality tested peer review. Fortuitously, the reality of limited institutional funds opens the door to alternative employment practices. However, to keep the best people higher education employees, like SAS' employees, will expect the best and fairest treatment. Flexible options abound to address even the most sensitive employment challenges. Unfortunately, the threat of inequity seems never to have been as apparent in higher education as it does today. Efficiency The increasingly stringent public funding of higher education is likely to persist. The old adage, "doing more with less," seems eerily appropriate when describing higher education, even in the face of the reality that the ambitions of faculty and administrators always run beyond the available resources. However, perhaps it would be more effective to urge administrators to "do better, with less." Considering the fiscal deprivations higher education faces with increasing regularity, it would serve administrators little if their flexible and equitable options resulted in institutional inefficiency. The SAS model suggests that efficiency, equity and flexibility are reinforcing rather than conflicting ideals. Efficiency means to act or produce effectively with a minimum amount of waste, expense, or unnecessary effort, along with a high ratio of output per unit of input. As the rising chorus of demands for greater accountability remind us, efficiency is no longer either administratively or politically taboo. The who and the how are especially important to a dialogue of efficiency in higher education. The who addresses the question: is it possible for administrators to make more efficient human resource policies, rooted in career socialization and career completion? And, can administrators find meaningful ways to enhance faculty productivity? The how focuses on the innovative tools increasingly at administrators disposal to make higher education instruction more efficient. A rising number of retirees combined with growing enrollments in many states will generate a new wave of hiring. How we handle not only the hiring process but also the end-of-career issues for colleagues will become increasingly important, both as a matter of equity and efficiency. That means better policies and programs dealing with the front, middle, and back-end of academic careers. At a time of scarce resources, it might make sense, on first impression, to write-off the fate of retirees. Doing so, however, would be a mistake, both for the former faculty and for the institution. Faculty members that feel secure in their status after leaving the full-time ranks are more likely to be productive when they are fully engaged. On the front-end of careers, new faculty should be socialized in their responsibilities. Administrators should consider developing (or improving) faculty orientations designed to define professional responsibilities and expectations in an initial environment of support. New faculty members, eager to begin their jobs, should leave an orientation with a strong sense that their university strives to support them. And universities, for their part, should treat orientation as an on-going rather than a one-time, usually one-day, process. University and departmental handbooks, updated regularly, offer when-needed reminders or clarifications of institutional policies and reminders of administrative support. New faculty members will also benefit from effective mentoring and support networks. The American Council on Education (ACE) recommends offering incentives to faculty members to develop "more collegial environments," for guiding, collaborating with, and mentoring colleagues (2005, p. 10). Effective mid-career policies will add efficiency by enhancing faculty productivity. First, in some instances, administrators should tackle the difficult task of teaching loads. One approach is to ask colleagues with less productive research careers to teach more hours while offering more productive researchers fewer student contact hours. Such a scheme, however, often means that the best researchers have less access to students, especially undergraduate students. Still, it is difficult for an over worked, or overwhelmed faculty member to perform efficiently, either as a teacher or a researcher. Institutional research leaves can also be valuable aids to productivity. Such leaves not only encourage scholarship but allow a faculty member to devote full-time to research activities. In addition to research leaves administrators can create an environment that encourages interdisciplinary research. Faculty members can be reminded that some of the best scholarship in higher education is taking place at their own institution. Research grants provide the necessary funding to under-gird research leaves and research collaboration. In the areas of mathematics, science, engineering, and social sciences the National Science Foundation alone funds approximately 11,000 research, education, and training projects a year (NSF, 2005, electronic version). Administrators would also do well to provide their faculties institutional research grant support - to teach faculty members the in's and out's of grant writing and research. Such practices will help new and mid-career faculty members maintain positions on the cutting edge of scholarship and improve morale and job satisfaction. The valuable resources administrators need to implement such solutions are frequently already part of their institution. It takes an administration cued into its faculty to recognize and tap into the existing pool of talent. Faculty members can also be more efficient in their careers and more equitably treated if they have confidence in the back-end career decisions they will need to make. Administrators should consider developing phased retirement programs which would allow professors to continue teaching and conducting research on a part-time basis (for a limited number of years) in return for the understanding that at the end of that period they will leave the faculty. Such a scheme makes it possible to plan for new hires while treating departing colleagues with dignity informed by flexibility. And retired faculty need to know that, if they wish, they can provide valuable support to new faculty and engage new students. At the University at Albany, for example, emeritus faculty participate as leaders of a semester-long, university-wide discussion on common books. Retired faculty used in this way strengthen the intellectual community, pay appropriate homage to the years of experience that colleagues develop, and acknowledge that there are different ways to contribute to the institution at different times in a career (ACE, 2005, p.11). Similarly, a Faculty Emeritus Center can give retiring colleagues the hope of staying in contact with their university while having a place to work. Technological innovations provide promising opportunities to produce a more efficient learning environment, both for the students and faculty. Technology is permeating the very heart of higher education's mission. While hardly the magic bullet it was represented to be a decade ago, technology remains an important way of increasing faculty productivity and extending the impact of higher education to new audiences. Consider, the Sloan Foundation's report that over 1.6 million students took at least one online course in Fall 2002 and will grow at a rate of 20 percent (The Sloan Consortium, 2005, electronic version). The new technologies make it possible for busy, place-bound learners and others to make the best use of their time. Technology's impact is far from reaching its peak, not just on students but faculty. The logical use of technology in higher education is to reach the greatest amount of students in the most efficient way possible. Online courses, electronic reading reserves, online worksite programs and even electronic discussion boards broaden higher education's reach to the homes, job-sites and personal computers of a variety of post-secondary students. In 1998 Van Dusen found that fewer than half of U. S. colleges and universities have a strategic plan for technology, and fewer than a third have a financial plan (p. 64). Technology plans should be viewed as faculty use plans, not just documents about what software and hardware to adopt. In fact, most of the existing technology plans are short on how to better use the human capital required to make a success of the new learning strategies. Without such planning, it will be impossible to ascertain what technology can and cannot do and what its true costs actually are, both financial and professional. Before the question of affordability can be answered, these issues must be resolved. The implications for technology on faculty employment practices are provocative. A few brief examples will suffice. Technology has given human resource personnel efficient ways to communicate with and instruct their higher education faculty compatriots. Likewise, faculties have more efficient ways to communicate with each other - facilitating a closer, more knit institutional community. E-mail has become ubiquitous; students now expect instructors to respond to queries that come outside the classroom and office hours. In theory, such communication should drive greater productivity and, ironically, bring student and faculty members closer together. Also, new faculty members and retirees are able to stay "in-tune" with the day to day administrative network of ideas, policies, and events. Technology makes employment and communication available to a more diverse faculty - freeing the barriers of disability, for example. Efficiency is only as good as it is weighed against the other essential principles of flexibility and equity. For example, when technological solutions are provided for only full-time, tenure track faculty members it does little to support the growing number of contingent instructors teaching at universities. Limiting the benefits afforded to contingent instructors, or constraining tenure-track options might be the most fiscally efficient way to administer higher education, but is not the most equitable and, in the SAS sense, it is also not efficient in general.. Flexible human resource policies might seem like expensive perks to administrators, but companies like SAS prove how efficient employees can be when administrators invest in meeting their needs. Conclusion Seeking balance in the treatment of faculty will require, as the SAS model tantalizing suggests, more than business as usual. As the new age of accountability in higher education emerges, one of the important, but not exclusive, measures of its performance should be its ability to nourish the human capital represented in the faculty. The task is to fashion an environment in which bright, talented, committed and diverse individuals can flourish, whether part or full-time. An environment marked by flexibility and equity can also be, as the SAS example reminds us, an efficient environment. The UC Family Friendly programs offer a way forward. Such an approach seems more rather then less important in an age when higher education commentators openly invoke Dickensian and atmospheric metaphors. Rebuilding the social contract for public higher education means that taking care of the people in the institutions is the first not the last step in restoring balance amidst the turmoil of unrelenting change. References AFT Higher Education (2002), 'Fairness and Equity: Blue Print for Quality'. Visited November 25, 2005 American Association of University Professors (2005), 'Background Facts on Contingent Faculty'. Visited November 23, 2005 American Association of University Professors (2004), 'Don't Blame Faculty for High Tuition: The Annual Report of the Economic Status of the Profession'. Visited December 12, 2005.
American Council on Education (2005), 'An Agenda for Excellence: Creating Flexibility in Tenure-Track Faculty Careers - Executive Summary'. Visited November 23, 2005. American Council on Education, (2005), 'Creating Options: Models for Flexible Faculty Career Pathways'. Visited November 23, 2005. Antonio, Anthony (2003), 'Diverse Student Bodies, Diverse Faculties', Academe, November/December, 89(6), 14-17, EBSCOHOST, visited December 16, 2005. Baldwin, R.G. and Chronister, J.L. (2001), Teaching Without Tenure: Policies and Practices for a New Era, Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press. Benjamin, Ernst (2002), 'How over reliance on contingent appointments diminishes faculty involvement in student learning', Peer Review, 5(1), Fall 2002, 4-11. Birnbaum, Jeffrey H. and Sholnn Freeman, "Automakers Are Lining Up Aid, But Just Don't Call It a Bailout," The Washington Post, 4 December 2005, A1. Lexis-Nexis, 22 November 2005.
Chronicle of Higher Education (2005), 'More Faculty Jobs Go to Part-Timers', 51 (39), June 2005. Lexis-Nexis, visited November 22, 2005. Ehrenberg, Ronald G., "The Changing Nature of the Faculty and Faculty Employment Practices," (Prepared for the TIAA-CREFF Institute Conference on "The New Balancing Act in Higher Education," New York, New York, 3-5 November 2005). Ehrenberg, Ronald G., "The Perfect Storm and the Privatization of Public Higher Education," (Forthcoming in Change). Field, Kelly (2005), 'Education-Department Panel Will Develop a 'National Strategy' for Higher Education', Chronicle of Higher Education, 30 September 2005, A29-A29. Field, Kelly (2005), "Federal Panel on Higher Education Appears likely to Call for Testing of College Students," Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 December 2005. Gappa, J.M. (1996), 'Off the Tenure Track: Six Models for Full-Time, Nontenurable Appointment', New Pathways Working Paper Series, Inquiry, 10, Washington, D.C.: American Association for Higher Education.
Gater, Laura (2005), 'Human Capital: Diverse Faculty Reflects Diverse', World University Business, March 2005. Visited November 25, 2005. Hebel, Sara (2003), "Public Colleges Emphasize Research, but the Public Wants a Focus on Students," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2 May 2003, A14. Holub, Tamara (2003), 'Contract Faculty in Higher Education', ERIC Digest, ERIC Clearing House on Higher Education, 2003. Visited December 3, 2005. Kane, Thomas J. and Peter R. Orszag, "Funding Restrictions at Public Universities: Effects and Policy Implications" (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Working Paper, 2003). Kirby, Carrie, "Jim Goodnight; Private Company Pampers Workers," San Francisco Chronicle, 19 May 2003, E1. Lexis-Nexis, visited November 22, 2005. Levering, Robert and Moskowitz, Milton (2005), 'The 100 best companies to work for', Fortune, 51(2), 61-90, EBSCO-HOST, visited December 16, 2005. Longanecker, David (2004), 'A Tale of Two Pities: The Story of Public Support for Higher Education in the Pacific Northwest and the U.S.', Annual Conference: Pacific Northwest Association for Institutional Research and Planning, Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education, October 14, 2004. Visited December 12, 2005. Morrison, James L. (2003), 'U.S. Higher Education in Transition', On the Horizon, 11(1), 6-10. Visited November 23, 2005. Nasser, Haya El. (2000), 'Census Predicts Ethnic Face of Nation in 100 Year', USA Today, January 13, 2000, News, 3A. Lexis-Nexus, visited November 22, 2005 National Census Bureau (2002). 'National Population Projections, Summary Files'. Visited November 22, 2005. National Center for Education Statistics (2003). 'Projection of Education Statistics to 2013. Section 2: Enrollment in Degree Granting Institutions', U.S. Department of Education, October 2003. Visited November 22, 2005. National Center for Education Statistics (2005), 'Projections of Education Statistics to 2014', U.S. Department of Education', September 2005. Visited November 22, 2005. National Center for Education Statistics (2005). 'Youth Indicators, 2005 - Indicator 25: Degrees Conferred', U.S. Department of Education. Visited on November 25, 2005. National Center for Education Statistics (1997), 'Statistical Analysis Report: Instructional Faculty and Staff in Higher Education Institutions: Fall 1987 and Fall 1992'. U.S. Department of Education, August 1997. Visited November 23, 2005. National Science Foundation (2005), 'About Funding.' Visited November 23, 2005.
Parsad, Basmat and Glover, Denise (2002), 'Tenure Status of Post Secondary Instructional Faculty and Staff: 1992-1998', Education Statistics Quarterly, 4(3), National Center For Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. Visited December 3, 2005. Perna, Laura W. (2001), 'The Relationship between Family Responsibilities and Employment Status Among College and University Faculty', The Journal of Higher Education, 72 (5), 584-611. Schneider, Joseph M. (2004), 'Employing adjunct faculty from an hr perspective', Phi Kappa Phi Forum, Fall 84(4), p.18. The Sloan Consortium (2005), 'Sizing the Opportunity: The Quality and Extent of Online Education in the United States, 2002, 2003.' Visited on November 25, 2005. Smith, Daryl G. (2000), 'How to Diversify the Faculty', Academe Online, 86 (5), September-October, 2000. Visited November 23, 2005 Todd, James G. (2004). 'Adjunct faculty: a crisis of justice in higher education', Phi Kappa Phi Forum, Fall 84(4), 17-18. Toutkoushian, R.K. & Bellas, M.L. (2003), 'The Effects of Part-Time Employment and Gender on Faculty Earnings and Satisfaction: Evidence from the NSOPF:93', The Journal of Higher Education, March-April 2003, 74 (2.), 172-195. University of California, "Faculty Family Friendly Edge: An Initiative for Tenure-Track Faculty at the University of California, Report." February 2005. University of Phoenix (2005), 'About Us - Our Faculty'. Visited November 23, 2005. Van Dusen, Gerald C. (1998), 'Technology: Higher Education's Magic Bullet', The NEA Higher Education Journal, Spring 1998, 59-67. Visited November 23, 2005. World Conference on Higher Education (1998), World Declaration on Higher Education for the Twenty-First Century: Vision and Action. 9 October 1998. Yodof, Mark (2002), "Is the Public Research University Dead?" The Chronicle of Higher Education. 11 January 2002, B24.
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