The academic reorganization saga has largely come to an end.
Negotiations between the Keene State College Education Association (KSCEA), Union for KSC faculty, and the school have finished.
“The discussions were very fruitful,” said James Beeby, provost and vice president of academic affairs.
Plans to reduce administrative staff have been part of the main focus of the academic reorganization, as The Equinox previously reported on Sept. 14, 2022.
According to KSC President Melinda Treadwell, the school now has one school, one dean, and four assistant deans. That is compared to previously being two schools, four deans, and eight support administrators.
Looking at how departments are organized was considered the “remaining piece” of academic reorganization, said Treadwell.
Department Mergers
Among those negotiations was the decision to not merge departments like previously planned.
“Academic departments as they currently exist will remain the same,” said Beeby.
Departments will not merge unless the departments choose to do so, Beeby noted.
On Mar. 31, 2022, The Equinox reported plans were being made to merge departments.
An email was sent to faculty on Mar. 25, 2022 outlining updates and announcements on the status of the reorganization. Part of those updates was a plan to have departments merge, with the target having been to reduce academic departments by 50%.
Also included within the negotiations was to cut department chair stipends in half.
In an email received by the Equinox sent to the Journalism, Multimedia and Public Relations (JMPR) faculty from KSCEA negotiation chair and professor of economics, Patrick Dolenc, explained, “The tentative agreement we have reached, if ratified, reduces all chair stipends from $4000 a year to $2000 a year.” – note that the email was sent pre-finalization.
“All of this was really motivated by cost savings, because of the existing collective bargaining agreement that we have if the administration or the college was trying to achieve a similar level of cost savings without renegotiating the contract really the only thing they could have done in terms of reorganization would have been to merge departments and then to have a reduction in the total number of chair stipends because there would be fewer chairs…as a union and as I think faculty generally viewed that as a far more disruptive and impactful solution,” said vice president of the KSCEA and associate professor of economics, William McColloch.
In total the savings that the school would receive amounts to “roughly” $100 thousand annually, according to McColloch.
Amongst the agreements there were also changes in the reassign time for department chairs “meaning the amount of course releases that department chairs get,” said McColloch. The formula was changed to mean that there is a reduction of the total amount of reassign time the chairs get. There are some cost savings within that as well, said McColloch
Course Cutting
Now KSC, specifically the Provost and Department Chairs, will be looking at the curriculum and the courses that are offered.
In an email received by The Equinox, originally sent to JMPR department chair and Equinox advisor Julio Del Sesto from the Dean’s Office, stated, “Our college-wide curriculum reduction target is to trim a minimum of 100 course sections from the schedule by next year.”
The classes that will be cut will be voted on by the college Senate, according to Treadwell.
Working with the curriculum will be the first part, then deciding which courses to cut will come after.
“Start with the curriculum, we don’t start with a sledgehammer on course selection,” said Treadwell.
She said she was not able to justify credit-intensive majors because it makes it more difficult for students to have minors.
She added the Huron Visit from 2019 to 2020 that gave a roadmap to KSC on savings; they found that there was the ability to save $6.4 million by optimizing how they offer courses. However, according to Treadwell, it was overestimated by about $3.2 million.
“I don’t think there’s $3.2 million available, but maybe $2.2 million in the curriculum,” said Treadwell.
She added that going after only low-enrolled sections harms everyone, until they look at degree requirements.
In addition, the goal of course cutting is to make it easier for students to get into classes.
She said they are trying to diversify classes so that students do not end up in a class with the same people every time.
Beeby said part of the outcome would be raising class caps to allow for more students to enroll in a class.
“What we were seeing is we were having a lot of classes where there was no room and then we were having a number of classes where there was not enough demand,” said Beeby.
Course scheduling is another thing that will be looked at – plans to spread out the time slots at which courses will be offered are in the works. Beeby stated there were too many courses offered within specific time slots. He found that students were having a hard time getting into all the courses they needed because of this.
Integrative Study Program (ISP)
The Integrative Study Program (ISP) is also to be looked at.
Treadwell said that she sat with external reviewers of the ISP. She asked what is the “north star of the curriculum?” She added that they have to figure out what the curriculum is and how they integrate it into the overall curriculum.
“Holding The Line” on the 20:1 Ratio
While courses might be cut, Treadwell stated that they will be “holding the line” on the 20:1 student-to-faculty ratio.
She stated that they are now the right size for their enrollment numbers, and now is the time to smooth out the edges and balance departments that might have higher numbers of enrollment with low faculty and higher numbers of faculty with lower enrollment.
She said that three years ago when they were looking at departments and faculty, which led to majors being turned into minors, she went “further than I wanted to go in that action so that we wouldn’t have to go back to that.”
One solution to balance out the departments would have been the mergers, but now that will not occur unless departments choose to do so.
Treadwell said another way to stabilize is by looking at the course selection and the curriculum, noting that course cutting is not going to be the way to get there.
She also said that when faculty steps down or decides to move up and become a dean, they need to backfill those roles.
“We have to make sure we offer people a pathway and then make a term investment to let them hire someone in…and if we are not doing that, then we are undercutting our department’s ability to deliver courses,” said Treadwell.
She noted that they can’t hire a tenure track, but could hire a two-year position to help those departments.
Timothy Bruns can be contacted at
tbruns@kscequinox.com
