UNLV Faculty Alliance

Nevada college expense in perspective

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:51:00 +0000

President Obama in his State of the Union tonight "put colleges and universities on notice" about rising tuition, proposing to cap federal financial aid eligibility for students at institutions which increase tuition. While this sort of cost control measure clearly has populist appeal, keep in mind that the same approach to capping Medicare reimbursement rates, which is part of federal budget law, is annually circumvented through the so-called "doc fix" precisely because medical providers are in a position to decline Medicare patients if the reimbursement rates are below the cost of providing care.

It would appear from the President's rhetoric tonight that he does not believe the actual cost of providing education at many institutions is rising, only the price charged students. If there are institutions where that is the case, his approach seems sound and salutory.

But as is abundantly clear from the recently published 2011 College Board report on Trends in College Pricing especially the section on "Institutional Revenues -- Public Appropriations", the most significant driver for increases in student tuition at public colleges and universities, not just since 2007 but going back to at least 1998, is declining public support, while the cost of delivering education has risen below the rate of inflation. (Since 2004, the report shows, 4-year public colleges and universities have seem a reduction nationally of about 5% in state and local support, while the national average for increases in student fees over that same period is only 4%).

Thus, the increases in student tuition are not a reason, as the President proposed, for reducing the amount of "public taxpayer dollars" invested in higher education -- but the result of already reduced public investment.

The case of Nevada is telling. According to the same College Board report, as reported in the SF Chronicle and elsewhere, NSHE institutions charged as of 2010-2011 the lowest tuition in the country in their categories, with University of Nevada, Reno, identified as the least expensive public 4-year university in the nation (for in-state fees). The cost of a 4-year degree at UNR, with UNLV only marginally higher, is only a fraction -- as little as 1/10th of some private institutions that were singled out for praise for cutting tuition and about 1/4th of the amounts charged by the University of California system.

The significant increases in-state fees imposed at UNLV, UNR and other NSHE campuses over the past four years have been entirely in response to the over $200 million in state support cut from higher education in Nevada in that period.

So while the President's proposal to cap financial aid in response to tuition increases may have merit, keep in mind that it will apply primarily to those colleges and universities whose high costs result in their students becoming eligible for federal aid, either in Pell Grants or subsidized loans. Nevada's in-state students qualify in much lower numbers than students in other states for Pell Grants and incur significantly less indebtedness due primarily to our low in-state tuition (even after the sharp increases of the past few years). So that this proposed cap would not actually apply to most Nevada students, because students at Nevada's public colleges and universities generally qualify in lesser numbers and for lesser amounts of federal aid due to our comparatively low in-state fees.

The more direct way to keep college affordable is, as he put it in the prior line of his speech, for states to restore the massive amount cut from public higher education allocations in the past few years.

Another would be to revive an idea that only four years ago was supported by most Democratic candidates for President and a majority of 2008 primary voters, making community colleges and public colleges cost-free for all qualified students. Long before he became a national laughingstock for his personal failures, John Edwards proposed a policy of "College for Everyone" that would have given every qualified student aid for full in-state tuition through a combination of direct aid, work-study and direct loans repaid based upon a proportion of future income. While that proposal did nothing to address costs, it did not need to -- because the cost of delivering education is not what is making college unaffordable, especially in Nevada. Declining public support for our colleges and universities is.

(As for the case made by Richard Vetter that colleges and universities spend far too much on non-educational expenses (a case he will make this morning on KNPR), he may or may not be right depending on whether students consider those expenses necessary for their college experience. But either way, as Professor Vetter has acknowleged, those costs are borne on most campuses -- and certainly at UNLV this is true -- by student fees and are funded neither by instructional fees (commonly referred to as "in-state tuition") or by state general fund appropriations. Effectively, students make -- individually and collectively through their student government -- market decisions to pay for those services, and while students could reduce their cost by not paying those fees, those fees have nothing to do with the cost of delivering education and therefore do not reflect any sort of inflation. They simply reflect rising student expectations for services, just as most of us expect more health care services than our parents or their parents did.)

Another way the state of Nevada could cut in-state fees is to reduce state subsidy for out-of-state students who attend NSHE institutions on exchange scholarships, which allow students from California and other neighboring states to enroll for 150% of in-state fees, less than half of regular non-resident tuition. Currently there are more than 1800 such students enrolled at UNR (about 1/8th of their undergraduate student body) and another few hundred at UNLV (about 2% of UNLV's student body). The current discussion concerning a new funding formula for higher education in Nevada is a good occasion to address this problem.

So yes college is getting more and more expensive in Nevada, and that is something the President and our state government ought to stop and reverse. But blaming colleges and universities that have done more with less for years is neither economically sound nor going to solve the problem.

Faculty Alliance member update confirming affiliation with AAUP

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:30:00 +0000

On behalf of the NFA state board, this statement is to clarify some of the confusion arising from AAUP president Cary Nelson's email sent Tuesday.

Wednesday morning, the state board has confirmed, unequivocally, that the NFA remains the Nevada affiliate of the AAUP and its members remain AAUP members. The NFA is indeed engaged, as you know, in discussions about restructuring our affiliation with the AAUP to ensure NFA members get the services they need and deserve -- rather than having more than half our dues used to subsidize AAUP activities in other states. This negotiation was begun with the national officers and staff in the fall of 2010 and is currently being pursued with the AAUP's governing board, its National Council. NFA has indeed, as we have reported to members repeated, withheld dues to AAUP but there has been no action by either party taken to end the NFA affiliation with the AAUP or to expel NFA members from the AAUP.

Let us offer a few additional points of clarification :

1. Nelson's letter is inaccurate in that the NFA's affiliation agreement with the AAUP remains in place until one side or the other withdraws. NFA certainly has not done that and taken no steps towards that, nor have we even discussed that formally on the board. AAUP is governed by its elected National Council, not by one individual. Nevada's representative on the National Council, Candace Kant of CSN, has confirmed that there has been no discussion of ending the affiliation there either. Both legally and morally, NFA members remain AAUP members, and it is incorrect and even irresponsible to suggest otherwise. Our dues backlog is not either out of the ordinary for the AAUP in dealing with its state affiliates nor is it in any way a secret.

2. We have discussed the situation openly with our members repeatedly, including on the front page of the September Alliance and in a letter last month to the statewide membership, also posted on the NFA blog. Here at UNLV it was also covered in the UNLV Rebel Yell.

3. The letter from Cary Nelson is mistaken in several other ways, most notably in the discussion of what services the AAUP have offered to NFA and when. Indeed, he presents the situation as if it were a matter primarily of proposed program terminations at UNLV with no mention of the proposed layoffs of tenured faculty at Western Nevada (which have been successfully rebuffed by their faculty with support from the NFA) and of the actual layoffs of tenured faculty at UNR (which are being challenged currently by lawsuits in federal court against UNR and the System, supported by the NFA).

4. Most especially, his claim that there is no increase in dues for NFA members is belied by the invoices we have received from AAUP, which place all our members in their highest income band and assess all members the collective bargaining dues rate. This only makes sense if one presumes that NFA would absorb the increase in AAUP dues out of its own operating budget. (NFA leaders made this point at the June 2010 national meeting when the dues increase was approved and Nelson himself agreed at that time that Nevada constituted a "special case".)

5. Perhaps most importantly, NFA has set aside and is all holding our back dues in hope of an agreement with AAUP, although no serious offer of additional services or restructured affiliation has been forthcoming for more than a year.

6. On behalf of the NFA state board, this statement is to clarify some of the confusion created by AAUP president Cary Nelson's email sent Tuesday.

Wednesday morning, the state board has confirmed, unequivocally, that the NFA remains the Nevada affiliate of the AAUP and its members remain AAUP members. The NFA is indeed engaged, as you know, in discussions about restructuring our affiliation with the AAUP to ensure NFA members get the services they need and deserve -- rather than having more than half our dues used to subsidize AAUP activities in other states. This negotiation was begun with the national officers and staff in the fall of 2010 and is currently being pursued with the AAUP's governing board, its National Council. NFA has indeed, as we have reported to members repeated, withheld dues to AAUP but there has been no action by either party taken to end the NFA affiliation with the AAUP or to expel NFA members from the AAUP.

Let us offer a few additional points of clarification :

6. The problems in the AAUP are by no means limited to Nevada. For the past several years, academic publications such as the Chronicle of Higher Education have reported on areas in which the organization has become less effective than it once was. The AAUP has worked hard to address some of these issues, but the issue of excessive focus on the national office at the expense of state and campus chapters was brought to light recently by Gary Rhoades, former AAUP general-secretary, who just this week published an op-ed in the Chronicle of Higher Education denouncing the AAUP's "inward-looking perspective that detracts from the mission of serving members" and calling for more focus on cultivating chapters and state- and local-level leadership. The AAUP has announced that it is working to resolve this problematic issue, with state organizations believing that they could work harder. We support any progress that they make in this area.

Any comments, concerns or questions may be addressed to the NFA state board directly at info@nevadafacultyalliance.org. Additional updates will be emailed to members directly and posted on http://nevadafacultyalliance.org/News.

Faculty seek to restore adequate health care coverage

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:13:00 +0000

This post is reproduced, with permission, from the Nevada Faculty Alliance news blog :

In response to the very high concerns voiced by faculty and staff across the Nevada System of Higher Education, NFA remains actively involved in the System's efforts to restore adequate health coverage as quickly as possible. In this story, we report on two, related developments: 1. the work of the NSHE Task Force on Health Coverage seeking alternatives to current PEBP coverage through a short-term supplemental benefit for NSHE employees (possibly as early as next year) and considering a longer-term alternative outside of the Public Employees’ Benefits Program (which raises some legal and financial challenges to achieve), and 2. this Thursday's PEBP board meeting, where an alternative to current coverage will be considered for next year.

NSHE Task Force update: Legal and Financial issues related to seeking improved coverage

At last week's Board of Regents meeting, the NSHE Task Force on Health Coverage presented an update on its work, which included the following:

data from research (with the help of an external consultant) on current costs, coverage and insurance utilization of NSHE employees within PEBP
discussions with the PEBP board of improvements that we hope to see in both customer service and coverage
an exploration of longer-term alternatives to current coverage for NSHE employees through a self-funded insurance program outside of PEBP

The report did not discuss another aspect of the task force's charge and earlier report, the exploration of an NSHE-funded supplemental benefit for faculty and staff for next fiscal year, as a stopgap measure. The board discussion showed a great deal of concern among regents about the current state of affairs and longer-term solutions, but no formal action was taken.

In light of this discussion, and the high priority that faculty and staff place on this issue, it is worth explaining some of the legal and financial issues involved in this discussion.

First, neither the board of regents, the chancellor nor the campus presidents have the authority to seek insurance for their employees outside of PEPB. That would require approval of the PEBP board and/or legislative action. That approval is not assured and would require a careful effort by the System as a whole to educate the legislature and the governor, and to convince them that this would lead not only to better coverage for us but be cost-effective for the entire state.

Under current PEBP board policy, any group of employees that leaves the program must demonstrate that the withdrawal of those participants would not have a negative financial impact on the overall program of greater than 5 percent. If PEBP determines that the withdrawal would have an adverse impact of greater than 5 percent, the group withdrawing is responsible to cover all costs of its departure on the remaining participants.

One question the NSHE consultant will study is whether the withdrawl of NSHE participants as a group would have a negative financial impact on PEBP of greater than 5 percent of its total program budget. If that were the case, then we would need legislative action to change that rule before we could pursue alternative insurance. (It would also mean, of course, that NSHE participants had paid significantly more over the recent past than we have received in benefits. If that is the case, it would mean that the reserve funds held by PEBP came disproportionately from NSHE participants – and this would be an argument for letting NSHE withdraw without having to pay for the cost to remaining PEBP participants.)

At the November PEBP board meeting, NSHE leadership (namely, then vice-chancellor Bart Patterson, and now Renee Yackira, director of government relations for NSHE) testified to the PEBP board to express our concerns. They urged PEBP to consider, as early as next year, a "middle tier" of coverage between the current high-premium, fee-for-service HMO and the much-derided high deductible "consumer-driven" plan that replaced the old PPO.

However, such a "middle tier" may not be financially feasible for PEBP to offer, because the costs to the program have increased at a rate of roughly 10 percent per year for each of the past several years. These rising costs are the main issue in the question of whether NSHE – and the state – could get better coverage for the same money than PEBP currently offers. The question of whether PEBP reimburses health care providers at higher rates than other insurance plans has been posed going back to the 2009 legislature, but has not been fully answered. (The PEBP board and staff have stated publicly that rising costs are due to over-utilization of service by participants and that the "consumer-driven" high-deductible plan will curb that over-utilization and cut costs. Critics of PEBP's coverage have maintained that the roughly 10-percent annual increase in the cost of the program has been passed along almost entirely to state public service workers, rather than reducing the rates it pays providers. This claim is hard to verify, however, because reimbursement rates to providers are considered proprietary information and are not publicly available to participants.)

There is then the separate issue of supplemental benefits within NSHE. The task force was charged to consider this possibility and recommended consideration in its report of last January and has continued to discuss this in meetings this fall. This issue was not explicitly presented in the task force's report to the board on Dec. 2, but several regents did ask about whether immediate action would be possible.

A supplemental benefit for NSHE employees would not require legislative approval or, based on what the task force has researched, PEBP approval. It would, however, require NSHE to spend its own money on supplemental benefits. The issue then becomes whether 1. NSHE wants to spend between $5 million and $15 million of its aggregate $1.2 billion budget on a supplement to bring health coverage for faculty and staff up to a minimally acceptable standard, and 2. there would be negative political consequences for the System for doing so that might outweigh the negative consequences for its staff of not doing so.

PEBP board update: Middle tier of coverage to be considered this Thursday

This Thursday, December 15, the Public Employees Benefit Program governing board, composed of gubernatorial appointees, will hold its regular monthly meeting (for agenda, backup information and links to view or listen to the meeting, click here). As part of this meeting, the PEBP board will consider adopting a "middle tier" of coverage option for next year. Such a "middle tier" would be more comprehensive than both the new (and much-maligned) "consumer-driven" plan – which offers choice of doctors but limited coverage until a high deductible has been met – and the health maintenance organization – which charges lower fees for each service, but charges higher premiums and offers limited choices. The proposed "middle tier" would restore deductibles to near-2009-2010 levels ($500 per year for individuals and $1,000 per year for families) and fixed-cost co-payments for office visits ($15 for a primary care visit, $25 for a specialist, $45 for urgent care). It also would restore low, set-priced fees for generic drugs ($4 for 30 days supply) and reduce co-insurance costs to 10 percent for many services. On the other hand, participants in this plan would not be eligible to contribute to a Health Savings Account, so they would receive no "seed money" to offset costs incurred during the year. Moreover, the premiums are likely to be much higher – and will not be known until February 2012.

As a different alternative for creating a "middle tier," PEBP will also consider offering three plan choices: two CDH plans and an HMO plan. Under this scenario, participants could choose the HMO or one of two CDH plans with differing deductible, coinsurance, maximum out-of-pocket and HSA seed money amounts. One option would offer a lower deductible option ($1,200 per individual, $2,400 per family) that would also have a lower out-of-pocket maximum ($3,000 and $6,000) and a lower co-insurance (20 percent), but would offer only $400 (individual) or up to $700 (family) in seed money to the Health Savings Account. The other, higher-deductible option would require individuals to pay $3,000 ($6,000 for families) before receiving coverage, and insureds could incur higher out-of-pocket maximums ($4,500 for individuals, $6,000 for families) and would pay a higher co-insurace rate (25 percent). However, participants would receive a higher amount of seed money ($1,100 per individual, up to $2,000 per family) and, presumably, pay a lower monthly premium.

In all cases, premium rates will not be determined until February so it is very hard to know how costly each option might be for an individual or family.

Membership update on NFA and AAUP

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:03:00 +0000

Dear NFA members,

I am writing you to update you on the status of our negotiations with the AAUP, which have been on-going for more than a year.

In late January 2010, when we first learned that the System of Higher Education would have a second round of cuts in state support, of 7% - beyond the first 25% reduction in state support passed by the 2009 legislature, it was clear immediately that this would lead to program eliminations and terminations of faculty. With the authorization of the NFA state board, I contacted the AAUP's Department of Organizing and Member Services and requested AAUP support in three areas: legal support for the defense of faculty contract rights, membership recruitment and chapter development, and communications.

And that's where it has stood to this day - NFA requesting support from AAUP whose response has been to propose actions that we did not ask for and which we doubted would help our situation. Of course, the AAUP did impose a new dues policy in July 2010 which would increase the total NFA dues bill by at least 15% and require more than half of our members' annual NFA dues to be sent to Washington. Paying such a dues bill would leave the NFA in the red -- even after having reduced our annual overall expenditures by nearly 20% in the past few years, while enhancing services in communications, legal defense, and government relations,

Clearly the AAUP's demand that we pay such a level of dues is not viable. Is there an alternative? We believe so, but the AAUP has yet to agree to a serious discussion that recognizes the NFA's unique organization and set of member service we think are needed in Nevada higher education.

NFA members are asking, rightly, are we still AAUP members? To be clear, yes you are. No change in membership status with respect to the AAUP has been or will be initiated by NFA.

I think the more pressing question is what it means to be an AAUP member when the Association staff has been unresponsive to our needs, since January 2010, during the gravest threat to quality affordable higher education and to faculty employment rights in our organization's history?

On legal defense, the AAUP has never contributed any funds or legal research to the NFA's legal defense program. Our legal defense efforts are entire the work of our members and, when outside counsel is retained, paid for by our members' dues. There is simply no AAUP support there.

The AAUP's investigative authority of potential violations of academic freedom and tenure is supposed to be its most valuable service to members, but even as we've worked hard, and with some success, to fend off or reduce layoffs of tenured faculty on two NSHE campuses in the past two years, we've received little follow-up from the AAUP aside from letters sent to the president on one institution.

On membership recruitment and chapter development, the NFA needs help, because our campus chapter presidents have been unable to undertake sustainable membership drives in recent years. We asked the AAUP staff organizer who came in 2010 - for all of two days - for ideas on how restructure and re-energize our campus chapters to be more effective but received no follow-up. (Indeed, our longstanding concern with the AAUP over its acceptance of Nevada members who enroll directly in any campus chapter -- and who do not pay dues to the NFA -- has never been addressed.)

Most frustratingly, the AAUP seems to prefer to focus its communications efforts on causes that generate national headlines but are not in service of our members. It took the AAUP only days to issue a statement of support for "Occupy Wall Street protestors" but despite repeated requests, not any public statement or public communication has ever been made about the steep budget cuts or their impact on faculty in Nevada.

Certainly the AAUP publications, including Academe, are tangible benefits to members, but the total annual cost per member for an Academe subscription is $35. However, the dues assessments we have received from the AAUP - but which we have not paid - assess almost all our members at the highest of the AAUP's seven rates , an average of over $150 per member per year.

This situation is why the NFA state board voted last January to suspend dues payments to AAUP until a more reasonable balance could be struck between actual services rendered and the dues demanded. We have proposed, in writing and in face-to-face meetings with national representatives, that our dues be put into an escrow account to be used to pay for those services actually rendered to members in the state of Nevada - whether by AAUP or the NFA. The per capita cost of Academe and any actual leadership training by the AAUP would of course be paid out of this fund. But in the absence of an AAUP presence in the state, those funds would be used to continue to professionalize our operations, as we have done with communications very successfully in the past year.

To prove our seriousness of purpose in devoting 100% of dues money to member services, we have cut our expenditures significantly. For instance, we have in the past year reduced the cost for state board members to travel to meetings by over $5000 by opting for videoconferences and conference calls. Moreover, we have cut staff expenses by nearly $10,000. And we have cuts in our communications, while greatly expanding the scope and influence of our communications, by consolidating print and electronic publications into a single production process and by reducing the number of excess copies of the Alliance sent to each campus. Moreover, we continue to benefit from professional work provided by state board members without compensation above a stipend to cover modest expenses and release time.

But the AAUP's response has been, repeatedly, that "there is no alternative" to the exorbitant dues, and they have asked us to pass that cost along to our members through higher in-state dues. Our Board has refused to consider that option.

We are now applying for what the AAUP terms a "State Conference Grant" which would reduce our per capita assessment, so this application would seem the perfect opportunity for the AAUP to work with us to help refocus members' dues into badly needed improvements in services in the state. We must improve the available services in the state, because we cannot continue to function on a "kill the volunteer" model in which the highly demanding tasks of Legal Defense, Government Relations, operations and, most importantly member recruitment and chapter development, are borne entirely by our members who also have full-time jobs and lives to attend to. Certainly we need more of our members to become engaged. But even so, we cannot continue to rely on members to function as full-time volunteers for the NFA in capacities such as board president, legal defense chair, or government relations officer (as we have done for years).

To find that support and put the NFA on a sustainable footing for the future, we must have a response from the AAUP that addresses concretely our members' needs. We are hoping and expecting such a response during the first quarter of 2012. If it is not forthcoming, we will have to decide then on our next step. Should we seek another affiliation? Or should we set our own course and use the money that we have been holding effectively in escrow to hire a part-time or full-time executive director to oversee member services and chapter development? Other state conferences have field staff to assist their members and officers. I believe that in the next few months, the NFA ought to act definitively to plan for the future by budgeting for and contracting an organizing director.

Many NFA members, including myself, value greatly our AAUP affiliation, but the fact remains that the NFA provides all its own legal defense, government relations, communications, member services and chapter development work with no financial, logistical or even moral support from the AAUP. Certainly there is much we cannot do on our own - and especially without a more engaged and active membership. So there is a need for AAUP support to expand and energize our membership if they can do that. In the next few months we hope to hear from them a proposal to provide the support and services we need, at a dues price we can afford.

If such a proposal is not forthcoming, then we will consult the membership on the alternatives we as individuals and as a state conference have to achieve these goals, either in affiliation with or, if need be, separate from the AAUP.

In closing, please know that the spirit of the AAUP - the defense of faculty rights and the advocacy for quality, accessible higher education -- is not in Washington or in our state board or our chapter officers; it is in each and every one of you as members. Your actions, your energy and your involvement, more than ever, are needed for the future of higher education in Nevada.

In solidarity,

Gregory Brown
NFA President

What the funding formula committee can do for Nevada students and faculty

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:22:00 +0000

In the winter issue of The Alliance, we report on the most important development in Nevada higher education news this fall: the Interim Committee on the Funding of Higher Education. This is good news, especially for students, who have faced significant increases in fees and tuition due to reductions in state investment in NSHE. These students have a right to know that the money they pay stays on campus and is not funneled indirectly back to the General Fund or to another campus through a flawed formula that holds back state support as tuition revenue increases.

Beyond fairness to students, what does this mean for faculty?

First and foremost, we should support this effort. It is our best chance for the state to consider seriously how it can address the education deficit. Just as Nevada trails the nation in economic recovery, we lag behind in the proportion of our population that attends, and graduates from, institutions of higher education. We all know that the Nevada System of Higher Education cannot hope to improve on that score without a serious conversation about how to better allocate scarce resources. Because the challenge is so great, faculty ought to support a thoroughly new approach to higher education funding, not just a revision of a formula that has been in place, with only modest changes, since the 1980s.

We also ought to support a formula that better reflects the real cost and the real diversity of the work we do. The existing formulas are both too imprecise in their calculations of cost and too rigid in how they fund instruction. In current form, the formulas are supposed to allocate resources to match the type of instruction and the cost of the program. However, they are not based upon the actual cost of instruction of any program (in terms of either capital expenses or the actual market cost of hiring faculty in that discipline). Nor do they make any allowance for what we might call the "value added through instruction" -- that is, what students learn. So the formula ought to address the actual cost of instruction and the value added; because this will vary from campus to campus, introducing those factors will help support our differentiated missions. Our System is much too large – and more importantly our faculty is much too diverse in its training, its job responsibilities, and its performance – for a one-size-fits-all formula.

Although faculty-to-student ratio is a part of the current formula on paper, no campus currently actually targets its faculty size to the faculty-to-student ratio for which it is funded. This results in a negative incentive for a campus to under-staff and over-enroll programs designated as “high cost” – and more generally to achieve the highest enrollment with the fewest and cheapest faculty. That incentive to overburden faculty is no formula for student success, and the new formula must correct this.

Moreover, there is at present no component of the current formula for faculty work other than instruction, meaning the costs of a research infrastructure that supports economic development and technology transfer is not reflected. The lack of a research component to the formula burdens all faculty at all levels, and worse, it holds back Nevada’s economic recovery.

Finally, the Chancellor has made it clear that Nevada will move at least some of its formula to performance-based allocations, which reward campuses that produce more graduates. Faculty ought to support that goal, since graduating students is our vocation as well as our mandate.

But we ought to be cautious about performance-based allocation based not on total number of graduates but metrics that are believed to correlate with graduation rate. Such "progress measures" have not been studied sufficiently, in Nevada or nationally, for us to know which variables contribute most directly to degree completion. We need to study the data to know, for instance, if the ratio of students who complete their first year courses or who enroll on a full-time basis, actually correlates, on NSHE campuses, to more graduates.

Until we can study what the data concerning retention, first-year course completion and other progress measures actually tell us about how we help students succeed, faculty will rightly be wary of a performance-based formula with too many progress measures. Unintentionally, it could create administrative pressure to inflate grades and otherwise “water down the drinks,” in terms of student outcomes, in order to raise retention rates.

That said, NSHE faculty ought to embrace and support a data-driven overhaul of our funding formula that makes student success, rather than just enrollment, our priority.

NSHE Faculty Senate Chairs statement on system strategic planning

noreply@blogger.com (NFA-UNLV) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:15:00 +0000

On behalf of the NSHE Council of Faculty Senate Chairs, to the Board of Regents, October 21, 2011

Thank you for welcoming us, the faculty senate chairs, to today's meeting in which the important topic of strategic planning for state higher education will take place.

So far, the system and the institutions have developed a number of goals, including, for example, the goal of more degree holders across the state. Strategic planning, as you know, addresses the issue of prioritizing and achieving goals. No one in the system is better placed to understand how to achieve these goals than the experts, Nevada's capable and dedicated higher education faculty.

As chairs of the several institutions, we come before you today to say that we are here to be involved in the process of strategic planning. We are here to help. We might even go further and say that we are the only ones who can help in this situation. We are the people who will carry forward the vision of a better educated, more enlightened and more economically sound Nevada.

We might begin with differentiation. One cannot seriously hope to enhance the number of graduates or the quality and value of degrees without a serious look at how to differentiate our institutions' respective missions to better serve our respective student populations; we are not all the same and too much standardized and centralized policy making will not serve the system's or the citizens' best interests.

We must discuss allocation of resources as a strategic principle, especially what portion system-wide and on each campus is spent on instruction and research versus student services or academic support functions. Faculty/student ratio is another important consideration. Can we expect to increase the number of graduates with our current faculty size? How do we assure quality, transparency, productivity and accountability across the system as well as in individual academic units. System governance should be a central issue for strategic planning.

Finally if we are to improve student success we need to stabilize our situation with respect to employment rights of faculty in the context of program review and eliminations. Budget concerns and program review have taken and continue to take an inordinate amount of faculty time and energy. Faculty must drive this effort.

Moreover, the state of Nevada must make a commitment to higher education. As senate chairs, we understand that the economic future of Nevada depends on the state's dedication to and develop of its higher education system. Further cuts to faculty pay and benefits run contrary to our mutual goals and to the best interests of the state. An energized faculty can carry forward your vision. A demoralized faculty will be unable to do so.

Census data: Sharp decline in Nevada higher education instructional staff

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:04:00 +0000

The Sun reports today on a recently published Census Bureau report on public service staffing, which finds -- unsurprisingly -- a sharp decline in all public service workforce in Nevada. Higher education faculty sustained the sharpest decline, of over 18% across the state.

Education represents the largest public employer at the local and state levels. The biggest hit was taken by higher education, whose ranks were trimmed to 10,128 positions last year, 1,174 less than in 2009 for an 11.4 percent decline. The sharpest decline was felt among professors and instructors, who went from 3,369 to 2,758, an 18.1 percent drop. Support staff fell from 8,067 to 7,370.

Note that this is based on 2010 census data, before the 2011 round of layoffs and cutbacks. As for 2011, recall that the Sun last June 30 that fewer than 40 state public sector workers had been laid off, but did not include the 161 NSHE layoffs. That is, higher education sustained more than 4 times more layoffs last year than all other state agencies combined -- after the 18% decline in full-time equivalent instructional workforce reported in the Census data!

Update: The NSHE audited financial reports for 2009 and 2010 show total state payroll and benefits actually went down $22.5 million from $950,335,000 to $927,755,000. It is unclear why the Census bureau found an $1.7 million increase in total state higher education payroll for that same period. Perhaps the payroll for Sierra Nevada College and the private, for-profit institutions grew by nearly $25 million in a year?

Western Nevada College faculty protest layoffs of tenured faculty

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:26:00 +0000

Inside Higher Ed reports on NSHE faculty response to announced layoffs of 5 tenured faculty (out of 62) at Western Nevada College.

Faculty leaders at Western Nevada College are hopeful they have found a new way to oppose layoffs of five tenured faculty members. The Faculty Senate has passed a resolution calling on colleagues not to participate in any new hire search committees until the tenured positions are restored. ....The eight Nevada state colleges and universities were facing a proposed 31 percent cut in appropriations this academic year. This is what kickstarted the curricular review process in March, said Mark Ghan, the college’s vice president for human resources and legal affairs. The curricular review committee recommended that seven faculty positions should be terminated. Two of the seven took a buyout from Western Nevada, while five await a termination notice, he said. ...
But it’s the final appropriation number that has faculty members at Western Nevada scratching their heads. The college ended up having about 18 percent cut from its state appropriations, instead of the potentially disastrous 31 percent reduction. So it is puzzling that the university is still laying off the same number of faculty members as officials said would be necessary when it appeared that there would be a 31 percent cut, Strange said.
The five tenured faculty members facing layoff have taught at the college anywhere from 12 to 30 years, Strange said. ...The senate also passed a resolution calling on the administration to restart the curricular review process now that the budget reductions are no longer up in the air.

Statement of NSHE Council of Faculty Senate chairs on health benefits

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 08:53:00 +0000

Today I delivered the following testimony to the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents:

I am Gregory Brown, chair of the UNLV Senate and speaking for the Council of Chairs. We want to express the great importance that faculty and staff across the System place on the issue of health coverage. Specifically, we want to express our support for the efforts of the Chancellor and Vice-chancellor Patterson and of the Chancellor’s Task Force to address, immediately and for the longer term, the need for an alternative to the current coverage offered by the Public Employees Benefit Program.

To support the assertion that this is among the highest priorities for our faculty and staff – let me give just one data point. The letter sent by the Chancellor in December 2010 to the PEBP board posing a series of questions, to which I linked on my website, generated 300% more traffic in a 3-month period than any other item I have ever posted. We thank the Chancellor for writing that letter and would remind the Board that the questions he posed remain largely unanswered by the PEBP Board to date.

We urge the Board to support the efforts of the Task Force to explore more cost-effective and more market-competitive alternatives are readily available for the longer term. We also urge the Board to consider as soon as possible the prospect of a supplementary plan for NSHE faculty and staff. The substandard benefits and limited customer service available from PEBP not only creates additional work for our HR staff and for our faculty leadership who are being asked by faculty and staff to provide information on the new plan that they cannot obtain from PEBP – but also and more problematically are a consistent factor in efforts to retain and recruit faculty and staff.

In short, the priority that the Chancellor, vice-chancellor and presidents have given this issue is shared by the faculty and staff, and we urge the Board to consider this a topic for action in the very near term.

Statement of NSHE Council of Faculty Senate chairs on curricular review

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 05:41:00 +0000

The Nevada System of Higher Education Faculty Senate chairs delivered the following statement at the Board of Regents meeting Thursday, Sept. 8.

Dear Chancellor, Chairman, and Regents,

Over the past three years, we have all experienced great turmoil on our campuses as each institution sought mechanisms to deal with extreme budget cuts. Part of this process has been employment of Curricular Review.

The Curricular Review process within the code is not well-defined, leaving much to be determined at the institutional level, and thus it has been implemented differently by different institutions. For example, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, used a previously established institutional curricular review process, and tenure rights and contracts were protected. Faculty at Truckee Meadows Community College, who enjoy the protection of a collective bargaining agreement, were involved in the development of an institutional curricular review process, and tenure rights and contracts were protected. And at Western Nevada College faculty were not involved in the development of the curricular review process, and tenured faculty are slated to be terminated – despite adequate class loads to justify their positions and the filling of vacancies in other, administrative positions.

Such discrepancies have led to real apprehension on our campuses. The Nevada System of Higher Education Code sets forth just one set of contractual rights and due process to protect faculty, including tenured faculty. Any potential breach of those rights of tenured faculty on any campus is therefore a threat to the contractual rights of faculty across the system.

Actions of the faculty senates have already begun to take place on some of our campuses this year – such as resolutions passed at WNC demanding tenure contracts be honored and requesting a new curricular review process be jointly developed by senate and administration – and more faculty senates are expected to take action this fall.

We, the faculty senate chairs, request continued diligence in the repair of the code, Title 2 Chapter 5, section 4.6, such that explicit instructions can facilitate a more consistent process. We also once more urge the Board and System leadership to give the potential termination of tenured faculty without a declaration of financial exigency the full and careful scrutiny that such a grave development for higher education warrants.

Robin Herlands
Faculty Senate Chair, Nevada State College
On behalf of the NSHE Council of Faculty Senate Chairs

NFA Summer News Update for NSHE Faculty

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:22:00 +0000

Important news coverage since the end of the spring 2011 semester has focused on organizing and advocacy, and budget issues.

ORGANIZING & ADVOCACY

July-August issue of AAUP journal a must-read for faculty and staff seeking change (Academe)
Legal Defense procedures for NFA members (Faculty Alliance blog)

BUDGET & ECONOMY

NSHE funding formula out of step with national trends in higher education (UNLV Faculty Alliance)
Sun takes in-depth look at higher ed funding (Las Vegas Sun)
USTAR exec: 'You have to have a strong educational system' for economic growth (Vegas Inc.)
CSN closes Caliente extension (Las Vegas Review Journal)
UNLV abolishes rolling admissions, makes deadline a month earlier (Las Vegas Sun)
UNR Athletics expecting $1.5 million deficit (Reno Gazette Journal)

CAMPUS NEWS

CSN to offer solar training in Laughlin (Laughlin Times)
UNR gives 50 high schoolers entrepreneur lessons (Reno Gazette Journal)

LV Weekly: NSHE funding formula out of step with national trends in higher education

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 05:41:00 +0000

This week the Las Vegas Weekly takes an extended look at the issue of the NSHE funding formula, with particular attention to how the state of Nevada handles student fees and tuition.

Although the headline is a bit sensational, and some important lines of inquiry are left out entirely (such as the discussion of equity funding for CSN in the last legislative session), the story is really worth reading by anyone interested in the state's future.

My personal view is that the story doesn't consider as fully as it might have the need for mission differentiation and careful strategic planning by the System (nearly as much as it opts to play up perceived regional rivalries). But that it goes much farther into the details of higher education funding in Nevada than any other publication has been able to this year (or, perhaps, any year).

AAUP Summer Leadership Training Institute

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 21:52:00 +0000

This is from the AAUP. NFA members who might be interested in attending should contact their campus chapter president.

Registration for this year's Summer Institute has been extended through July 9; visit http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/about/events/SI/SIReg.htm to sign up now!

This year's conference will take place at Suffolk University in Boston on July 21–24 and will feature workshops on bargaining, organizing, shared governance, communications, government relations, and advocacy, plus a four-part series on how to conduct a financial analysis of your institution. In addition, the Institute offers social events and the opportunity to network with other faculty activists from across the country.

If you have never attended a Summer Institute, now is your chance to experience one of the best events the AAUP has to offer. If you have attended before, then don't pass up the opportunity to come back for a refresher.

For a complete list of workshops, see: http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/about/events/SI/SISched.htm

Legal Defense procedures for NFA members

noreply@blogger.com (NFA-UNLV) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 06:24:00 +0000

The Nevada Faculty Alliance Legal Defense Program ensures that NFA members are provided appropriate legal assistance to facilitate due process in employment-related matters.

NFA members seeking legal advice on an employment-related matter should complete the NFA Legal Defense intake form.

Completed forms should be sent to your campus chapter president or legal defense committee. Alternatively, completed forms may be sent directly to the NFA immediate past president (Scott Huber), who also serves as co-chair of the state Legal Defense Committee with the Vice-President for Legal Defense, Professor Rob Correales of the UNLV Law School.

Sorry but can anyone explain what this means?

noreply@blogger.com (NFA-UNLV) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 13:30:00 +0000

In this morning's Review-Journal, Jane-Anne Morrison appears to be calling for the Millenium Scholarship program (which provides high-achieving Nevada high-school graduates with a credit of $10,000 towards a college degree at any accredited institution in the state) to be cut, arguing the state can't afford it. Of course, this comes on the heels of a very parsimonious state budget which nevertheless funded the program through 2015, when presumably the state's finances can't be worse than they are now.

Keep in mind that the program was created to address not only what was in 1998 the state's lowest-in-the-nation rate of college participation (ie proportion of our population holding degrees or attending college towards a degree) but also to keep our brightest students in state, as many other states have done successfully in the last generation.

So its a fair question to ask how we finance it, but what in the world is the meaning of this conclusion? It appears to read that because our state's economy has created so few jobs for college graduates, we should cut the program. On the heels of several years of repeated spikes in resident fees for Nevada's colleges and universities (ie in-state tuition is already up by nearly 50% since 2007 and will increase again 13% this fall), cutting back on Milli further would only push more of the cost of higher education onto our students.

This will result in ...what exactly? Our best students leaving the state, right? Or staying but not getting jobs. This is an improvement?

But can they find jobs in Nevada these days? We don't know except anecdotally, but many are moving away for better job prospects. Who can blame them?
If Guinn still lived, he'd try to come up with solutions. State officials need to do the same without dismantling the Millennium Scholarship, yet by being fiscally prudent.

And of course if we wanted to be fiscally prudent, we'd address our state's structural budgetary problems and not just kick the can down the road as we just did, once more.

Making students pay more, if it is fiscally prudent, has already been our policy for 5 years straight. Cutting state investment in our future has been our policy for far, far too long.

Maybe its time to try something different?

Passing of beloved UNLV colleague Richard Brooks

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 22:50:00 +0000

Although Richard and Sheilagh Brooks had long retired from UNLV, they have remained friends of UNLV-NFA and we mourn Richard's passing, which was announced this afternoon.

We are deeply saddened to inform the UNLV community of Dr. Richard Brooks' death, Thursday evening, June 23, 2011. Richard, as many of you will remember, was our Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, whose retirement, some years ago, now, followed the death of his beloved wife, Sheilagh Brooks, also Emeritus Professor of Anthropology. In 1987, Sheilagh Brooks was the recipient of the very first UNLV Distinguished Professor award and title. The Department of Anthropology invites friends and colleagues of Richard and Sheilagh Brooks to a memorial reception in celebration of both of their lives and distinguished careers on Sept. 1, 2011, at 3:00, in the Sheilagh Brooks Research Laboratory, Wright Hall. We will have additional details available as we draw closer to the Brooks' memorial celebration. In the meanwhile, additional information may be sought through the Department of Anthropology's office, 895 3590.

Statement of NSHE Faculty Senate chairs on termination of tenured faculty

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 20:44:00 +0000

The Council of Faculty Senate chairs of the Nevada System of Higher Education (on which UNLV is very ably represented by Senate immediate past chair Cecilia Maldonado) today made the following statement to the Board of Regents on the prospect of the termination of tenured faculty through curricular review. These terminations are part the System's reduction of $85 million annual operating expenses as part of the state budget just passed by the legislature earlier this month.

The termination of any staff and faculty is of great concern to everyone in the NSHE community, but the termination of tenured faculty is a particularly significant line for any academic institution or system to cross. To terminate tenured faculty without a declaration of financial exigency is worth careful attention, as this will attract scrutiny from the national higher education community, and in the future will very likely impede our efforts to retain and recruit the very best faculty. In fact, NSHE has already received negative national publicity for adopting this practice.

Therefore, we, the Faculty Senate chairs, note that at this meeting, for the second year in a row, the Board will be asked to approve a plan for termination of tenured faculty, without declaration of exigency, under curricular review. Without commenting on the specific curricular review plan, which is the prerogative of each campus, we simply ask on behalf of faculty that the Board give careful scrutiny to the issue of terminating tenured faculty.

UNLV Town Hall liveblog

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 22:03:00 +0000

President Smatresk opens campus town hall before packed Student Union theater: "Its been a tough year ...tried many of us ..." Thanks to campus for having faith in what we do and to the region for valuing what we do."

Will present an administrative proposal to be consulted by faculty consistent with UNLV by-laws.

UNLV total cut in state support for coming biennium is $20,594,313. The resulting state allocation for UNLV is $135,911,9454 reduced from $156,506,258 in 2010-2011 biennium.

NSHE total cut is $85,560,561 for a total state general fund allocation of $472,379,729 from $557,940,290 state general fund support in 2010-2011.

In short, a 15% cut.

Of the $20.5 cut from UNLV, roughly $5.4 is accounted for by reduction in salary for tenured faculty (the reduction for classified, professional staff and untenured faculty mostly being absorbed already in prior biennium).

The result is a cut of $15.26, of which $9.2 will be cut from academic areas, representing 97.5 state-funded positions in academic areas. A total of 215 state-funded positions will be cut from the campus.

"This will result in real pain and real people will lose their jobs."

9 Departments, 18 degree programs will be eliminated. 48 positions in academic lost through voluntary retirements.

86 academic positions cut beyond voluntary retirements include 14 positions from College of Ed, 9.5 positions from Liberal Arts, 9 positions from Fine Arts, 9 positions from Urban Affairs, 8 positions from Business, 6 positions from Sciences, 5 positions from Engineering, 5 positions from Hotel and 2 positions from Community Health.

This plan will avoid termination of tenured faculty and could avoid involuntary separation of faculty, though final details not clear yet.

Program terminations and college reorganizations will be consulted through Academic Council, Faculty Senate Program and New Program Priority Committee, and Presidential Advisory Committee (to consider impact on diversity).

Are campuses "sensitive places" or "criminal empowerment zones?"

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 22:44:00 +0000

At yesterday's hearing on SB 231, the bill that would strip NSHE's Board of Regents and campus presidents of all authority to oversee the carrying of concealed guns on NSHE college campuses, the bill's sponsor suggested the bill was necessary because NSHE campuses are currently "criminal empowerment zones".

This is worthy of some thought.

On the most obvious level, it is painful to hear a state legislator discuss our campuses as if they exist primarily to encourage criminal behavior. In fact, this is simply a reiteration of a cliche promoted by the National Rifle Association, and no one at the hearing seemed to take this term seriously.

It is worth noting however that it is empirically incorrect, insofar as both national and local statistics show there is significantly less violent crime against persons on college campuses than in society at large. Clearly, those intending to commit violent crimes with illegal guns do not target college campuses but instead look elsewhere -- to places where concealed weapons permit-holders are presumably already carrying.

To those national organizations who have become involved in this issue, and encouraged our local leaders to view our campuses as "criminal empowerment zones," we welcome your interest in campus safety and in our students. We regret that you have been unable to help support the much more significant threat facing students on our campuses, that of severe tuition hikes and diminished access to courses, due to steep cuts in public support.

To turn to the bill itself, the most salient issue is not whether or not CCW-permit carriers are dangerous (no one maintains that) or whether students are in danger on NSHE campuses (statistically, they are not, but even one crime is too many, without a doubt). The issues are

1. whether the current situation, in which CCW-permit holders may carry concealed guns on campus if they apply for and receive permission from the campus president, is a restriction of the rights of CCW-permit holders

2. if so, whether the proposed legislation is the best way to remedy that problem.

We believe, without a doubt, that the answer to both questions is no. And we testified to that effect yesterday.

Case law clearly supports what Justice Scalia in District of Columbia v. Heller called "reasonable restrictions" on an individual's right to bear arms under the 2nd amendment and moreover specified schools as an example of "sensitive places" where such restrictions may be imposed. Moreover, in a decision issued in January 2011, Digiacinto vs Visitors and Rectors of George Mason University, the Virginia state supreme court upheld a complete ban on guns on the George Mason campus (much more restrictive than current Nevada law) under that doctrine.

The term "sensitive places" refers not to an emotional sensitivity, but to the sensitivity of maintaining public order in such places as college campuses, due to the wide range of populations and activities which take place there -- early childhood education, primary education, youth summer camps, senior citizen activities, gymnasiums, dormitories, parking lots, sports events, performing arts events, fraternity parties, and of course classrooms, libraries and laboratories. All of these are spaces that are fully public in the sense that no individual can withdraw from them, and all of these spaces overlap and coincide to such a degree that it is very difficult to separate out where one ends and another begins.

Precisely because the proposed bill seeks to exempt from those spaces where concealed guns may be carried some of these spaces and activities -- dormitories and sporting event venue in particular, as well as what are vaguely described as "public buildings on public school property" -- and because existing legislation exempts others -- early childhood preschools and elementary schools in particular -- it is not at all clear what this would mean on any given campus. This would make the problem of policing campuses, and enforcing this law, much more complicated and expensive for our campus police forces. And it will create a great deal of difficulty for administrations and faculty in making policies governing policing and gun use on campuses.

In short, the proposed bill does not remedy an untenable situation, because existing restrictions on CCW-permit carriers are constitutionally valid, and the proposed bill does not clearly enhance or protect those rights, because it is not at all clear where it would be in effect. If there is to be a clearer determination made, it will require much greater study of the geography and police strategies on each campus, which is simply not possible for the legislature to take up in the final days of the session.

Such study is better undertaken by the Board of Regents in conjunction with the campuses, and we urged the legislature to refer this matter where it belongs, constitutionally and procedurally, with the Regents.

The ACLU and some of the more thoughtful advocates for the bill have pointed out that there are not clear procedures for CCW-permit holders to apply for permission to carry on campus or clear procedures for the adjudication of such requests. We believe that if it is necessary to make such a clarification, it should be done -- again -- in consultation with campus police authorities, campus administrations and yes faculty representatives. It is to us a sign of the lack of seriousness of the bill's proponents that such consultation did not take place prior to the introduction of the bill and still has not taken place at this late date.

For all these reasons, we urge the Assembly Judiciary committee not to advance the bill, which would impose a one-size-fits-all solution on all parts of all eight NSHE campuses, and instead instruct, by resolution if necessary, the Board of Regents to take up this matter.

That is a reasonable compromise, and one which we believe the legislature ought and will adopt.

This just in: UNLV Campus Town Hall Meeting- Wednesday, June 8 at 3 pm

noreply@blogger.com (NFA-UNLV) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:03:00 +0000

All NFA members and faculty are urged to attend.

All members of the university community are cordially invited to join President Smatresk for a campus town hall meeting on Wednesday, June 8 at 3 pm in the Student Union Ballroom. The president's agenda will include an update of the budget situation and a discussion of other campus developments.

Action Alert from GunSafeKids.org on SB 231

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 16:16:00 +0000

A national advocacy group for school and campus safety has launched an action alert against SB 231.

Please read this alert and contact key legislators indicated to urge them to oppose SB 231

Update on SB 231: "Campus Concealed Carry" bill

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 14:53:00 +0000

On Wednesday, as the final details were being hammered out on the state budget, the Assembly Judiciary committee held a hearing on SB 231, the bill that would strip the Board of Regents and campus presidents of all oversight authority on the carrying of concealed weapons on college campuses.

This bill is part of a national effort, sponsored by the National Rifle Association, to push comparable bills through state legislatures. This effort, however, has met with resistance from college administrators, students and conservatives (including Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and republican caucuses in the Texas and Florida state legislatures) who oppose a one-size-fits-all approach to such a difficult issue and who believe campus safety and student rights are best addressed on campus.

A group representing the families of victims and survivors of the Virgina Tech campus shooting submitted testimony in opposition to the bill, as did the NFA in the form of an analysis by two UNLV criminologists and a CSN student showing campuses are considerably safer and less likely to be the sites of violent crimes against persons than the rest of society

At Wednesday's hearing, the bill's sponsor, Senator John Lee, presented the bill as being "not about campus security but about student rights," and invited a UNR student who had been the victim of a horrific assault on campus, and her father, to testify. These opening remarks generated great emotion but little discussion of the specifics of the bill, and Senator Lee and the victim's father expressed significant hostility towards faculty, whom Senator Lee referred to as "elite intellectuals ....who work for us".

Much of the hearing consisted of testimony from campus police (UNR, CSN and UNLV in person and TMCC police by written testimony) and from local law enforcement agencies around the state, who oppose the bill. Their testimony was received rather hostilely by some members of the committee, leading to some very interesting (and lengthy) exchanges.

However, most of the specific testimony on the bill itself came from representatives of the System, including Chancellor Klaich, the above-mentioned campus police officers (the UNR captain was particularly informative and all were lucid and detailed in their testimony), several faculty members (most notably Leah Wild of UNR) and students (notably Amee Riley of CSN). Several NSHE leaders, including NSC president DiMare and NSC student government president Sebring Frehner, and UNLV Vice-President for campus services Juanita Fain, attended but had to leave before they could testify.

I testified, as did Jim Richardson, formally on behalf of NFA, to express our opposition to the bill in its current form. We focused on the legal issues that have been raised -- notably that current NRS and NSHE Code does not in fact ban concealed weapons but requires CCW-permit carriers request and receive permission from campus presidents to carry concealed weapons on campus.

We also focused on problems in the current bill that does not clarify which parts of campus would be open to concealed carry and which parts (such as schools, day care centers, performing arts venues, dormitories, fraternities/sororities of campus -- all discussed at the hearing) should be considered what the case law calls "sensitive places" that are exempt from all concealed weapons. We emphasized that with only six says left in the session, there is not adequate time to study the specific geography of each campus and discuss the policing strategies of each campus sufficiently to craft effective legislation.

So we urged the legislature to leave this issue where it is best addressed, and where it constitutionally belongs, with the Board of Regents and campus presidents.

I will post a fuller account of our testimony.

This morning, a national advocacy group for school and campus safety launched an action alert against SB 231.

Faculty, students, staff and community members concerned about SB 231 should please read this alert and contact key legislators indicated to urge them to oppose SB 231

What the budget deal means for NSHE faculty and staff

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 14:25:00 +0000

This report is slightly updated from an update to the NFA board filed from Carson City last night by Jim Richardson

The agreement reached yesterday by the Governor and Democratic leaders sets state general fund support for NSHE at the level approved by the legislature on May 24 -- which is to invest in NSHE an additional $40 million more each year of the biennium than the Governor had originally recommended and to replace the $120 million in Clark and Wahoe County property tax revenues with General Fund dollars. This means that instead of the original 29% cut in state general funds proposed by the Governor, the cut will be 15% from the 2009 level.

Make no mistake: this is a still a very severe budget cut, the largest of any state agency. And it comes on top of the 20% cut from state support in 2009-2010.

The agreement means that the Chancellor and Regents’ “four point plan” was accepted in large part, so the proposal bore fruit, and offers a guide about how NSHE and its institutions can proceed with restructuring and operating over the next two years.

Things certainly could have been worse, as we all know, but they also could have been better. Fifteen per cent is still the largest budget cut on any entity for which the State is responsible, and hundreds of faculty and staff positions will still be cut, permanently, though we have some hope that through careful budget planning by administrations (in consultations with faculty leadership) the number of outright layoffs on each campus should be greatly reduced from the worst-case-scenarios we have been planning for.

Still, many educational opportunities will be lost for students, thousands of whom will not be able to get classes they need, and student fees will still have to be increased markedly -- perhaps as high as 28% over the biennium.

Four-Point Plan

The NSHE four point plan has not been widely reported upon and may not have been well understood , so it is worth reviewing the key points here. It is based upon a principle of shared sacrifice among state, students and faculty, and all four points are equally important to achieve fairness and financial stability.

Part one was the “smoothing” that has been discussed whereby the budget cut is larger in the first year (requiring some internally developed “bridge” funding) and resulting in there being about $35 million more in the base budget at the end of the second year than the governor originally recommended. The smoothing was approved in the budget closing, and was included in today’s budget deal.

Part two of the plan involved a commitment from the Chancellor that NSHE campuses would make a total of $40 million in permanent reductions in operating expenses each year of the next biennium. This means we will have to consider, on a campus by campus basis, program reductions, loss of positions and potentially further layoffs. This will be necessary even with the level of funding in the final agreement. But the cuts will have to be deeper if the other points are not adopted as well.

Part three included significant additional contributions from students in the form of additional fee increases of 13% each year of the biennium, which amounts to a total increase of 28% over 2007 levels. This is a steep increase, but a necessary one. After roughly 15% of additional revenue is set aside for financial aid, this point would generate an estimated $21 million in additional revenue in fiscal year 2011-2012 and then an additional $43 million the second year, as the two separate tuition increases were to be compounded. The student leadership agreed reluctantly to support this increase, in an effort to save jobs, classes, and entire programs, and the student leadership reiterated that support in a letter to legislative leaders this week.

However, the closing documents approved last week included only the first 13% increase, which the budget committees had voted to cap at a time when they were voting to add back $100 million in state funding -- thus covering the hole. Also at that time, the budget committees made clear their intent that a cap in student fees should not result in additional cuts to instructional programs (and thus deeper faculty layoffs), as they were under the impression at the time that the System had adequate uncommitted reserves to cover this hole.

In fact, a cap on student fees -- as desireable as that might be -- still leaves a significant hole in the NSHE budget and shifts the balance in the four-point plan from shared sacrifice to steeper cuts in faculty and staff and thus in instructional programs.

We have urged legislative leadership to reflect the full intent of the budget committees in their communications to the Regents, and NFA will call upon the Regents to exercise their constitutional autonomy and revisit this issue at their June 16-17 meeting, as they will have to balance the desire to limit fee increases against the impact this loss of funds would have on instructional programs on our campuses. A rough estimate is that the loss of those funds could mean up to 200 more people losing jobs System-wide.)

Part four of the Plan was that the State would put in $40 million additional funding each year. This funding is apparently included in the agreement reached yesterday, and for this, we all should be grateful.

Still, the budget includes significant additional sacrifice from faculty and staff: All faculty and staff will see a 2.5% salary cut, plus a 2.3% cut in pay due to a six day per year unpaid furlough. Retirement contribution will be paid on the 2.3% portion, but not the 2.5% salary cut. And the 2.5% salary cut will be reduced from base pay. And there will be no COLA or merit pay for another biennium.

There are other aspects of the NSHE budget closing which are worth noting, such as consolidation of accounts, which should give greater authority to campus presidents to prioritize instruction moving forward.

Importantly, there seems to be agreement for the legislature to fund a study of NSHE funding formulas during the interim, an important goal for the entire System.

Some issues remain unresolved. One is the Millennium Scholarship funding, which has yet to be approved. If what the governor recommended is not approved the Fund will run out of money within months, which would be a severe problem for many students seeking an education.

Also, the Knowledge Fund that is in AB 449, the economic diversification bill, still has no funds. We can only hope and assume that someone has a method of infusing some funding apart from forcing NSHE institutions to produce the funding needed.

Finally, there are still bills outstanding that would allow NSHE campuses that do not currently maintain reserve accounts to retain year-end money and/or establish a rainy day fund.

Health benefits

PEBP will be cut severely, an action we have long opposed. The element added in yesterday's agreement is to make any staff or faculty (or other state public service workers) hired after January 1, 2012 ineligible to earn any credits at all towards retirement subsidies for health coverage after retirement. Those individuals will have to rely on personal resources to participate in PEBP or anther health plan after retirement. During their working life time they would be expected to accumulate funds in their Health Savings Account for use in their retirement years for health care.

Other PEBP issues were approved as presented by the PEBP Board, so the plan will be considerably different this coming biennium, and Medicare eligible retirees will be shifted off PEBP into the private market, but with at least a modest subsidy.

Tell your Assembly representatives: NSHE campuses need investment for education, not concealed guns

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Tue, 31 May 2011 22:51:00 +0000

ACTION ALERT! Contact the Assembly today about concealed gun bill being heard tomorrow.

The Assembly Judiciary committee will hear Senate Bill 231 tomorrow morning, Wed. June 1, at 8:30 a.m. It is critical that you tell lawmakers to keep the responsibility for student safety on campuses, where it belongs!

NFA urges all students and faculty concerned with SB 231 to attend the hearing, either in Carson City or in Las Vegas. Be prepared to testify. For details on attending, click here.

If you cannot attend, please communicate your views to your Assembly representatives, especially Judiciary committee chair William Horne and members of the Assembly Judiciary committee:

William Horne, Chair
whorne@asm.state.nv.us

James Ohrenschall
johrenschall@asm.state.nv.us

Steven Brooks
sbrooks@asm.state.nv.us

Richard Carrillo
rcarrillo@asm.state.nv.us

Skip Daly
rdaly@asm.state.nv.us

Olivia Diaz
odiaz@asm.state.nv.us

Marilyn Dondero Loop
mdonderoloop@asm.state.nv.us

Jason Frierson
jfrierson@asm.state.nv.us

Tick Segerblom
tsegerblom@asm.state.nv.us

Scott Hammond
shammond@asm.state.nv.us

Ira Hansen
ihansen@asm.state.nv.us

Kelly Kite
kkite@asm.state.nv.us

Richard McArthur
rmcarthur@asm.state.nv.us

Mark Sherwood
msherwood@asm.state.nv.us

For an article by two UNVL criminal justice professors on why SB 231 is bad policy, click here. Inside Higher Ed also covered the misguided proposals in an article yesterday. The NFA's official statement of opposition to SB 231 is available here.

Please use this information to contact committee members today. This bill is not about the right to carry guns; it's about keeping the responsibility for student safety where it should be: on campus!

Families of Virginia Tech campus shooting victims, survivors oppose "campus concealed carry" bill

noreply@blogger.com (gregory brown) — Tue, 31 May 2011 22:40:00 +0000

The families of the victims and survivors of the Virginia Tech shooting have sent a letter to members of the Nevada state assembly opposing the proposed legislation that would strip NSHE campus authorities of any oversight over the carrying of concealed weapons on campus.

The letter is available here