Report of the WSU Faculty Advisory Committee for the Proposed WATC-WSU Alliance

December 07, 2015

On October 8, 2015, the Committee was charged by President Bardo, through Provost Vizzini, to: 1) discover any major impediments to the proposed alliance and 2) provide guidance regarding moving forward about it with the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). The Committee was also asked to provide an outline of questions and concerns from the faculty about the possible benefits and risks of the proposed alliance.

We fulfill that charge with this preliminary report.

Overview
It is understood by the Committee that the proposed alliance between WSU and WATC is a work in progress and that many of the questions that arise can only be answered speculatively. Over the past eight weeks, the Committee has sought, through interviews, consultation with key administrative offices, and open discussion in meetings, to uncover any major impediments that, from a faculty perspective, would meaningfully obstruct an alliance between WSU and WATC. With the exception of potential financial consequences, no such impediments were found.

The current efforts of the Committee was to find 鈥淪howstoppers.鈥 No showstoppers were found to prevent the institutions from taking the next step in working out the details with HLC guidance. As noted in the appendix, several issues are present that if not addressed properly could become showstoppers down the road.

Statement on Financial Aspects of the WATC-WSU Alliance
The Committee feels that there is significant concern for the financial aspect of an alliance with WATC, as it may specifically impact matters related to the WSU Strategic Plan. In particular, consequences adversely affecting quality and number of research/creative projects, salaries of WSU/WATC faculty and staff, support for travel and professional development, community partnerships, and opportunities for continued development of diversity initiatives, innovation, and interdisciplinary work pose potential obstacles to the alliance. The faculty would appreciate more information about the projected economic effect on programs.

Respectfully Submitted By:
Victoria Mosack (chair)
Ted Adler
Mehmet Barut
Lisa Belt
Denise Celestin
Alex Chaparro
Rachel Crane
Janice Ewing
William Hendry
Ray Hull
Michael Jorgensen
Kevin Keplar
Jay Price
Bob Ross
Mehmet Bayram Yildirim
Appendix

The following stakeholders were interviewed: Career Development Center, Metro: Adult & Continuing Education, Office of the Registrar, AAUP, WSU Faculty Senate: General Education, Faculty Affairs, Academic Affairs, WATC Faculty Senate, Unclassified Professionals Senate, and Human Resources. More effort needs to be made on how the merger/alliance would work.

Questions/Concerns Organized by Theme

鈥 Curriculum
鈥 How will the alliance change the fabric of courses currently offered at WSU?
鈥 How will all duplicated courses between WSU/WATC be addressed?
鈥 Would adequate scrutiny be applied to the transfer of credit hours from WATC to WSU?
鈥 Would all course plans remain intact at WATC? What systems would be in developed to determine the viability of course plans and remove or change those when appropriate? What if WATC faculty and administration favor one course of action and those at WSU favor another?
鈥 If the alliance starts to erode enrollment in courses, how will this be addressed?
鈥 What will the impact be on LAS, Gen Ed and Unclassified Professionals?
鈥 How is that impact kept manageable?
鈥 The experience would not be the same to take Gen Ed from WATC faculty as from WSU faculty. WATC classes are already transferrable to WSU. Should Gen Ed courses be dropped by WATC and taken on by WSU? Are they only there because of Shocker Pathway or are they there for a specific reason?
鈥 What about overlap in Gen Ed or in additional courses like calculus?
鈥 Bringing the two institutions together would certainly increase the number of students in the short term but questions remain about whether enrollment would go up, stabilize, or even fall over the long term.
鈥 If enrollment goes up how will campus life/campus culture be impacted?
鈥 WATC is more flexible in turning around their programs to meet workforce needs this might work well with the Innovation Campus

鈥 Student Transition
鈥 How will the student transition between WATC and WSU be supported?
鈥 Would this impact WSU completion, retention, and placement ratings?
o WATC is 49% completion and 85% placement. Their retention rates are low. How would this factor impact WSU鈥檚 statistics on completion and placement?
鈥 Would students at WATC need to change degree plans and majors to become a part of WSU? This is particularly a concern in those areas where students have flexibility on selecting their curriculum.
鈥 There is a higher retention rate expected by the international and student groups. How would any differences between international student retention at WSU and WATC be reconciled?
鈥 There is a strong sense that cost benefit to students may not be as significant as initially supposed.
鈥 There are benefits in terms of connections to industry beneficial for co-op internships and the creation of a pipeline of students into WSU. That said, the Committee felt that care needed to be taken in determining whether the alliance creates one co-op program with two institutions or two related co-op programs.

鈥 Faculty.
鈥 How will the two disparate groups of faculty be addressed, in terms of workload, salaries, hiring, promotions, and scheduling? For faculty, this was perhaps the greatest level of concern and unless addressed at the outset, will be a serious challenge in terms of WSU faculty buy-in.
鈥 The two institutions鈥 tenure and promotion systems would need to be reconciled.
鈥 Decisions will have to be made regarding instructors with only Associate and Baccalaureate degrees.
鈥 How would instructor benefits be affected?
鈥 How would WATC faculty and staff be connected to WSU? Would some stay within WATC while others would assimilate into WSU in general? In other words, would there be two faculties or one?
鈥 How would faculty rates be handled for the different schools?
鈥 Based on conversations with stakeholders, the Committee strongly opposes the creation of a new tier of faculty because of this alliance.
鈥 How would the issue of faculty lines be addressed? There was considerable concern that efforts to meet the needs of WATC might limit the ability of WSU鈥檚 already curtailed ability to hire more faculty lines.
鈥 Need to hold constant, for current faculty, the effects of any experienced erosion.

鈥 WATC faculty does not 鈥渂uy in鈥 as much as WSU because of structure differences. Is that arrangement going to change?
鈥 The ownership of curriculum by faculty should be addressed as it is different in the two institutions.
鈥 WATC faculty is required to take attendance because of their financial aid funding while WSU鈥檚 is not. Would that change?
鈥 To whom would WATC staff report? Should each institution keep their own structure in faculty or is there a single system? Regardless, how does the new relationship impact issues of hiring, evaluation, discipline and grievance procedures and teaching loads?

鈥 Finances
鈥 Should tuition factors arise, and how would that be addressed, i.e. Junior College and Technical College rates compared to University rates?
鈥 The money that WATC receives from current funding would go into WSU general fund, not stay within that college. How does that change the nature of what is funded and not?
鈥 How would tuition rates for all duplicated courses classes be handled between the Colleges? Would location and/or tuition rates impact where students will take certain classes?

鈥 Conversations with stakeholders revealed areas where an alliance might facilitate opportunities but also concerns that costs involved would be even greater, especially if financial arrangements currently in place at WATC were to change. In particular, there is concern over whether the county would continue to support the Webb Road campus.
鈥 How would the issue of Out of state/In state tuition impact the two institutions?
鈥 The Committee would have appreciated more detail of what to do with the campuses and about financial aid requirements.

鈥 Logistics
鈥 Would the three WATC campuses remain open?
鈥 Would this action build versatility that is not currently present?
鈥 Would WATC be like the Honors College where there are different levels of expectation? Or would it be considered a different degree path? Will there be a two tiered education where top students get a better education and those who were less prepared went to WATC?
鈥 Questions about space and equipment 鈥 need to clarify NIAR鈥檚 position in WATC
鈥 Would resources at WATC stay at WATC or would they transfer to NIAR? If NIAR takes over the space will WSU faculty and students still have access?
鈥 Would all students, faculty, and staff have equal access to all facilities?
鈥 What happens specifically to WATC programs?
鈥 Which WATC courses would be count for programs?
鈥 Although basic infrastructure such as the Banner system should not be an issue, care should be taken for reconciling support services such as IT, registration, admissions, advising, libraries, foundation, international office, career development services, and physical plant to make sure already stretched staffs and budgets would not have to take on additional significant responsibilities with few or no additional resources.
鈥 The International Office brought up the issue Visa standings 鈥 WATC is approved to host M-1 Visa students 鈥 temporary for students in vocational training, WSU Visa typically F-1 鈥 there are differences what would have to change?

鈥 Image
鈥 How would the WSU 鈥渂rand鈥 be affected by this action?
鈥 Would WATC keep their identity or would they become a college within WSU?
鈥 Would WATC be considered a 鈥渇eeder鈥 to WSU, and would it work in reverse?
鈥 This alliance could affect accreditation of some programs. This needs to be addressed and those programs need to be consulted early on in the process.
鈥 The image of WSU needs to be protected from a 鈥溌槎蛊平獍 Tech鈥 or 鈥淗illside High鈥 perception. Is this making WSU look more like 鈥渁 tech school?鈥