Going after the accreditors is Keith Hoeller’s latest tactic in his battle to stop colleges from relying on cheap part-time instructors -- like himself.
Since 1990, Dr. Hoeller has taught philosophy and psychology at four community colleges in Washington state. During that time, he has become a crusader for others in his lot, drawing attention to the fact that half of the instruction in the state’s 32 community and technical colleges is done by part-timers; that part-time instructors who teach a full-time load make only 39 per cent of a full-time salary; and that the part-timers outnumber full-timers by four to one. State officials say the ratio is exaggerated, that at most it is three to one.
Lawmakers and higher-education officials in Washington state know Dr. Hoeller’s name well. Recently, officials in Washington, D.C., made his acquaintance.
Dr. Hoeller filed a complaint with the U.S. Education Department in September, asking for an investigation of his region’s accreditor, the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges. He says it has failed to uphold its own standards governing the use of part-time faculty members at the state’s community-college system. A Washington state senator who supports Dr. Hoeller’s complaint filed a similar one with the Education Department.
Officials of Northwest, which accredits colleges in seven states, said they could not discuss the complaints. But Education Department officials say they believe Dr. Hoeller’s is the first of its kind.
Dr. Hoeller’s method of attack is unique, but he’s not the only one asking what the accreditors have been up to while the face of the faculty has changed.
A 1993 survey by the National Center for Education Statistics found that the proportion of part-time professors had doubled over the previous two decades, to more than 40 per cent. Adjuncts account for 64 per cent of the faculty members at two-year colleges, the survey found, but for only about 29 per cent at four-year institutions, which often rely on graduate teaching assistants. The data are the most recent available.
The country’s six regional accrediting associations assess colleges in their respective areas of the country. Colleges pay annual dues to their accreditor and need its approval to participate in federal student-aid programs. The six accreditors, in turn, must have the Education Department’s stamp of approval to operate.
In September, 60 academics, representing 10 learned societies and faculty associations, met to talk about academe’s heavy use of part-time instructors. The group began drafting a document of concern, which, in part, calls on accreditors to “more carefully assess the impact of reliance on part-time faculty on undergraduate instruction” and to “adjust their recommended standards” so that such a reliance doesn’t diminish quality. The document is to be released this month.
People on individual campuses have raised the same concerns. In 1996, another community-college instructor in Washington state, Doug Collins, complained to the Northwest association, but he says he never got a response.
Last year, when more than 100 professors on California State University’s Hayward campus signed a statement protesting the growing use of part-timers there (The Chronicle, March 28), the signers questioned why the accreditor, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, had not raised the issue in its review of the university in 1995. (The accreditor had, in fact. It said, “The large increase in the number of lecturers in 1994/95 threatens to produce a situation in which many students are likely to see only lecturers.” Then it re-accredited Hayward.)
Rutgers University is in the midst of an accreditation review right now. Administrators writing the institution’s self-study report for the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools have pointed to concerns about a reliance on part-timers. Rutgers had raised that issue the last time it was re-accredited, but Middle States didn’t respond, the administrators say.
A professor at the University of Maryland’s University College isn’t hopeful about intervention by the accrediting body. Academics there complained both officially and informally to Middle States three years ago, after the university’s administration had eliminated all full-time faculty posts on the campus despite a Middle States stipulation that full-time faculty members are “essential.” The accreditor renewed its stamp of approval anyway, noting that the college’s mission had changed and that the state had waived its own requirement for full-timers.
“I think that the current situation is kind of dismal with respect to the accrediting agencies,” says Karen Thompson, an adjunct at Rutgers and president of its collective-bargaining unit for part-time lecturers, which is affiliated with the American Association of University Professors. “I think they’ve turned their heads while this problem has been snowballing, and when people asked them to look at it, I don’t think they looked very hard.”
Accreditors have been criticized as weak appraisers of the country’s colleges. The six regional agencies rarely penalize institutions for any reason. When they do, it’s usually because a campus is financially unstable.
Dr. Hoeller had first complained to Northwest about the treatment of and reliance on part-time instructors at community and technical colleges. But the agency never responded. So he took his case to federal officials.
The standards that Northwest uses to evaluate colleges state that “a core of full-time instructional faculty with major professional commitment to the institution ... is deemed essential.” The standards further state that “faculty members, in order to be effective teachers, must have security.” The accreditor calls it “vitally important” for faculty members to receive salaries and benefits “to enable them to live with dignity and comfort.” Northwest has just revised those 1994 standards, but the new ones -- including special rules devoted to adjuncts -- do not take effect until 1998.
However the Northwest accreditor defines a “core,” Dr. Hoeller argues, the community colleges in his state don’t have one. As for the notion of “dignity,” Dr. Hoeller says that earning $25,000 a year (before taxes) for teaching a dozen courses, as he does, doesn’t even feel like death with dignity.
In October, Education Department officials notified Northwest that it had 30 days to respond to Dr. Hoeller’s complaint, which is to be reviewed during the department’s regularly scheduled assessment of the accreditor this month.
Dr. Hoeller has tried to broaden his complaint beyond the personal. “I don’t think the accreditors understand the negative effects on the colleges of having these large numbers of part-time faculty members,” he says. He notes that at Green River Community College, one of the institutions where he teaches, two full-time professors must handle all the advising, curriculum planning, and governance in the philosophy department, because the eight part-timers who work there are not allowed to.
Accrediting guidelines governing an institution’s faculty “are being violated on a wholesale level in our state and throughout the country,” he says.
Frank Martino, provost at California State’s Hayward campus, thinks a little perspective is in order. The issue of part-timers on his campus is “a matter of ongoing concern,” he says. But, he asks, “in the vast panoply of pressures that are facing higher-education institutions in the United States, where does this rank?”
The Western association, Hayward’s accreditor, says it is concerned about the issue. But rather than penalize several institutions for their use of part-timers, the agency has worked with them to improve the situation, it says. It has not, however, counseled Hayward.
Accreditors assess colleges on a range of topics, involving finances as well as faculty members. Their goal is to focus on how that range of issues comes to bear on the quality of education.
It’s easy to demonstrate that the use of part-timers has ballooned. It’s harder to document whether that trend has had a negative impact on the quality of education.
“I just don’t think the degree of part-timeness or the degree of full-timeness, in and of itself, is a quality issue,” says Charles M. Cook, head of the college commission of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, which reviews colleges in six states. His concern is whether enough faculty members, whatever their status, are involved in non-teaching duties, such as advising, curriculum planning, and evaluations.
He and other accreditors think that some professors are more concerned with protecting their jobs than with the quality of education. “The New England association is not an employment agency,” Dr. Cook says. “Accreditation is not a mechanism by which individuals can be guaranteed employment.” He adds: “If there’s evidence that this is a problem as an issue of quality rather than an issue of guild, I’d be happy to consider it.”
Each regional accreditor handles the topic of adjuncts differently. Most require similar credentials for all faculty members. Beyond that, some require that institutions employ “a sufficient number” of full-timers. Some call for a “core.” Others say colleges are to avoid “undue dependence on part-time faculty.”
Most accreditors require colleges to include a faculty roster in course catalogues, delineating whether individuals are full-time or part-time. Few colleges actually do so -- catalogues usually are published far ahead of the time that adjuncts are hired, and the publications generally outlive the part-timers.
But no accreditor stipulates a formula for achieving the right balance between full-timers and part-timers. The agencies believe that the right mix depends largely on an institution’s stated mission. And in the accreditation business, after quality, mission is everything. At a time when technology is changing the role of the faculty, accreditors question whether they should make blanket faculty requirements. They don’t even count books in the library anymore; why should they count full-timers on the faculty?
“The worry, perhaps unfairly, is not about the part-time faculty, but about the students,” says Minn F. Weinstein, executive associate director of the Middle States association. “Are the students being apropriately served? That would be our test.”
Steven D. Crow’s concern is a bit broader. As head of the college commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, he knows that the role of the faculty is changing significantly. “I’m an ex-faculty member,” he says, “and I’m extremely sensitive to the concern that faculty are being written out of the picture -- and that the accreditors are going to step aside and let it happen.”
He doesn’t think that that will happen. “I’m convinced that our institutions will flourish in relationship to their commitment to full-time faculty,” he says. “But I’m not sure we know the ratio.”
Washington State Senator Ken Jacobsen thinks that state legislatures will continue to ignore the issue, unless an outside group, like an accrediting agency, says a particular college is weak because of its use of adjuncts. Mr. Jacobsen is the senator who sent his own complaints about the Northwest agency to the Education Department.
His daughter attended a community college in the state, he says, and he “steered her away” from any classes listed in the course catalogue as being taught by “staff.” He knew that that meant a part-timer would teach the course, and he believed that his daughter would get less attention as a result.
The state Legislature last year set up a committee to recommend “best practices” for employing adjuncts, and the community colleges have begun trying to respond to some of the panel’s ideas.
Sandra E. Elman has headed the Northwest association’s college commission for a year. She won’t discuss Dr. Hoeller’s complaint. She notes that the accreditor’s newly revised standards include rules devoted to adjuncts. “I think our new standards are far more explicit, rigorous, and definitiveon the treatment of part-timers,” she says. For example, the new standards require institutions to “periodically assess policies concerning the use of part-time faculty in light of the mission and goals of the institution,” she says.
But the idea of a “core” faculty has been dropped from Northwest’s new standards, except when measuring graduate programs, and the notion of “dignity” and “comfort” for faculty members has also been abandoned. Dr. Elman says the new policies set specific rules that will give part-timers dignity in their work. She says that’s more important than a general call for dignity.
The new standards are really “very forward-looking,” she says. “I would think that would make the Dr. Keith Hoellers very pleased.”
He’s not: “If they’re not going to enforce the existing guidelines and then get wishy-washy when you ask for definitions, I’m not hopeful about them enforcing future guidelines.”
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