Human Resource Directors and Employee Unions

Tomorrow afternoon, the Faculty Senate at UW-Madison will hear from Bob Lavigna, the institution's Human Resources Director. Lavigna will be discussing HR Design, a new plan I've covered several times recently on this blog. It's a controversial proposal, in part because it shifts the focus on setting compensation from internal equity towards external markets.  It also reduces some of the benefits held by classified staff, who are currently unionized, and for whom perks like substantial vacation time slightly dull the pain stemming from the terrible wages.

I was therefore intrigued when this morning I delved into my Inside Higher Ed backlog of reading and found the results of a brand new national survey of HR directors and their opinions about the future directions universities need to take.  The results help to at least partially set the broader stage on which HR Design is occurring.   (Partially: the response rate for this survey is 15% and with just 324 participants, 42 of whom were at public research universities, who knows if Madison is represented.)

Here are some key highlights related to HR Design:

• Concerns about salary equity are losing ground. Nearly 32% of HR Directors at public research universities said they are paying less attention to equity in faculty and staff salaries than they did five years ago, and just 17% are attending to those issues more often, despite the strong likelihood (given austerity practices) that inequities are growing.

• Almost all HR Directors take a dim view of unions. Close to 90% of HR Directors at public research universities contend that unions inhibit their ability to re-deploy people and define job tasks, discourage pay for performance, and inappropriately protect poor performing employees.   Less than 1/3 of such Directors acknowledge unions' demonstrable roles in securing better salaries and benefits and ensuring fair treatment of employees.

• Few HR Directors seem able to ground their assessments in data. Just 28.6% of HR Directors at public research universities report that they have good data on employee performance, productivity, and satisfaction, and only 21.4% say they use such data in campus planning and policy decisions.  (Sidenote: Oh. My. God.)

• And yet somehow, HR Directors are able to attribute low morale among employees to recent budget cuts. 74% of those at public research institutions agree that budget cuts did major damage to staff rationale, and 20-30% say their offices are unfairly blamed for cuts to employee benefits and services and even layoffs.  The frequency of these statements is twice as common at public research institutions as compared to elsewhere.

These will undoubtedly form a nice backdrop to tomorrow's discussion. I'm hoping Lavigna keeps his statement short and sweet, to allow plenty of time for questions. I'm told this hasn't been the case at recent campus events; for example at last week's Academic Staff Assembly meeting the members were not given responses to ASEC's previously issued comments.  But I'm sure tomorrow will be different-- faculty like to talk, at least as much as we like to listen.

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Faulty Inside Higher Ed Survey Demonizes Faculty

This morning's Twitter feed was rife with news of a story from Inside Higher Ed directly relevant to the UVA fiasco. President Teresa Sullivan was reportedly canned for failing to push an agenda for online education at UVA, standing in the way of so-called "progress."  Is this because she catered too much to faculty, who are increasingly described as the main obstacle to reform?

It seems some people want you to believe yes-- the real problem isn't the rampant excitement over a fairly untested pedagogical approach to education, but the resistance of the educators.  So today IHE shares a new survey: Conflicted-Faculty and Online Education, 2012.  The story's lede reads: "Faculty members are far less excited by, and more fearful of, the recent growth of online education than are academic technology administrators."  Professors are described as lacking optimism, having a "bleak" view of the quality of online education.  The survey report wonders "why"-- rather than praising profs for their skepticism, something faculty are widely known and respected for.


So-- big finding, right?  WRONG.  This story doesn't belong in a respected publication like IHE.  Here's why:


The survey, conducted by a team known for its studies of distance learning, and including advertisements by online educators, obtained a 7.7% response rate among faculty, and a less than 10% response rate among administrators. 
Yes, you read that right. About 60,000 professors were surveyed and just 4,564 provided enough of an answer to be included in the study.  For real? This isn't nationally representative of anything. It's a horribly biased little subsample, and yet the RR isn't even mentioned in the reporting!

Moreover, look at the questions-- where'd they get the "fear vs. excitement" answers? Because they only provided those two options.  Gee, am I fearful or excited about a new untested pedagogy being pushed on me?  Well...neither. But I'm not stupid enough to jump on a bandwagon, so I will choose "fearful." By which I mean skeptical.

I have such respect for folks like Doug Lederman and his crew at IHE, that I am honestly shocked this is running in that publication at all. It shouldn't.


Take it down.


Update: I have already heard from Doug Lederman, and he will be adding the response rate to the text of the article and to the PDF of the study. He feels a low response rate is a non-issue here, doesn't imply selection bias, and it is an achievement to get 4,500 faculty to do any survey at all. Moreover, he does not agree that the study demonizes faculty.  We can agree to disagree on that. 

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Why Reverse Transfer?

Today's Inside Higher Ed covers an article I wrote with UW-Madison doctoral student Fabian Pfeffer on the topic of reverse transfer. The basic gist is this: reverse transfer may be more common now, but it's certainly not benign. Students who reverse transfer tend to have parents who aren't highly educated, and therefore not as informed about how to navigate the game of 4-year college life. And in turn, the degree completion rates of these students-- who move from a 4-year to a 2-year school, are correspondingly low.

The article responds to anecdotal evidence suggesting that a lack of money drives the decision to leave a 4-year college for a community college. While we're the first to admit that money matters-- probably a LOT (see my other investigation into this) our national data indicates that the underlying reason has to do with a lack of information (since the greatest SES disparities are based on parental education not family income).

To illustrate this point, here are some examples:

Despite reasonably strong academic preparation, Joe has a C average in the first year of college. He's working nights at the local grocery store, and falling asleep in class. He doesn't see a way out-- when he calls home, Dad says he hasn't gotten any money to help, and Joe keeps working. Eventually, lacking a better solution, he leaves and moves back home to attend community college.

Mary also feels she doesn't have enough money to persist in college. Her family financial situation has changed when her mom lost her job, but she doesn't know that her financial aid officer can help. Instead of submitting a new FAFSA (a complex process), she switches to the less-expensive local community college.

Suzanne did well in high school, and has enough financial aid to get by. But when her initial grades freshman year were low B's, her feelings were hurt and she didn't know what to do. Her parents didn't go far in college, and couldn't help her understand what might explain those grades (one possibility is grade deflation; another might be her writing abilities). Demoralized, she leaves to go to a school where she thinks she can do better.

In each case we might mistake the underlying reasons for the student's reverse transfer decision. In Joe's case and Mary's it looks like money. In Suzanne's, it looks like grades. But when we look at thousands of these students, and begin to look closely- comparing apples and apples-- a common theme emerges. The underlying issue is a lack of information.

What if an advisor or a professor helped Joe find a job that let him sleep at night? What if Mary's financial aid officer checked in with her, and explained there was more aid available? What if Suzanne's professor called her in to discuss her grade, and explain how she could improve?

In each case, the information provided by the 4-year college could help fill in information these students couldn't get from their parents. Note: I do NOT fault the parents for not having more education. Since we know many students in need do not access already available services for good reasons (e.g. they are working long hours, etc), we need a multi-pronged approach (involving both faculty and staff, for example) and likely a mandatory one. How about a required check-in every term, or twice a term-- during class time? It could help.

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A Topic Deserving of a Thesis

Attention graduate students: good thesis topic here. Take note!

Inside Higher Ed reports a growing interest among colleges, particularly those in the South, at recruiting Jewish students. Wow, has the world changed. (For more on that, see Karabel's The Chosen.)

Why is this happening? Here's what the colleges say: "...We’re seeing a lot of other schools recognize the value and recognize the contribution that these students are making to a college campus..."

But of course, we must ask, what does "contribution" mean? Thankfully, the reporter does raise this issue--might colleges, faced with declining enrollments and revenues, be acting strategically to target a population with high rates of college-going, and relatively higher incomes?

It would be great to know more. Specifically: How widespread is this trend? What are the discussions like inside administrative offices? Which schools are successful at upping Jewish enrollment? What are the effects? How do the Jewish students feel on these campuses? That and so much more.

So, student-- go for it! And report back on your findings, please.

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