Interview with Marilyn Anderson

September 21, 2004 at 2:00pm

 

 

Staffing Committee

Website (http://www.pc.maricopa.edu/intranet/Staffing-Committee/) provides information on scope of work, length of committee members’ terms (4 yrs.), agendas, meeting minutes, and resource persons.

 

Rating Guidelines

The Chair and the other committee members do not judge or vote on requests from their own departments.

 

The committee is seated in January.  An orientation meeting is held in January.  In Jan. 2004, the President and the Faculty Senate President, and the Dean of Instruction attended the orientation meeting to welcome new members and review processes.

 

Each year, the committee reviews and makes adjustments to the Staffing Request Form.   This is not done within the context of Strategic Planning.

 

Each year, the committee decides on the data that will be incorporated into the review process.  Historically, the IR department has not provided much support in terms of data collection - - beyond 45th day FTSE by department/prefix (SIS reporting). 

Each year, the committee also decides to what extent the RFP guidelines, along with other issues (such as release time for some duties, lab hours, alternative schedules, etc.) will be factored into the ratings.  The RFP formula is open to interpretation and does not adequately account for evening or weekend instruction.  The sections on staffing allocations in the RFP are outdated and do not reflect how colleges do business today nor the need for flexibility in schedules of many residential faculty.   

 

The timeline for the committee’s work is affected by a District Office deadline.  For example, this year the deadline for sending recommendations to the President was September 10, 2004.  This is an earlier deadline than previous years and does not allow for much time to analyze the requests within the broader context [of “preparing for a future shaped by multiple societal and economic trends” (2A)].

Future Trends

Historically, the committee has not been provided with data (environmental scans, workforce reports, FTSE trends, etc) that could have been factored into the decision making.  In the past, committee members have done their own data collection (i.e. FTSE and load hours), which is fairly limited due to the time constraints of the committee members.  The work done by committee members in manipulating FTSE data is especially important to those departments, such as biology, that have many lab hours - - load hours that are not directly connected to FTSE data.  The committee needs better data/trend data/future indicators.  Beginning in 2003-04 the Office of Institutional Assessment and Planning provided data and calculations for the Staffing Committee.  In 2004-05 two-year FTSE and headcount (day and evening) trend data was also provided.  This trend data will continue to be built over the next several years.  

 

Interestingly, the FTSE data that is used is from the previous academic year (i.e., 03-04) for a faculty position for the next academic year (i.e., 05-06).  To overcome the limitation of using old data for future planning, the committee this year looked at FTSE data over time in an effort to observe any trends. 

 

The Department Chair may, when submitting the Staffing Request Form, incorporate “future trends” into their narrative along with any other information or special circumstances pertinent to their request.

 

Within the last three years, the committee has not been provided with any significant insight/direction/vision from key leaders (Dean of Instruction or President), which could  guide staffing decision making to ensure that Phoenix College will be prepared in the future. [Check with Liz O’Brien about her experience.]

 

Last year, the administration made changes to the Staffing Committee recommendations, without providing an explanation for these changes. The more the Staffing Committee learns about why decisions are made (i.e., Why were their discrepancies last year?), the better they can perform their responsibilities in the future.  The Staffing Committee would benefit from more direction/knowledge of priorities from the President and/or Dean of Instruction.  While the Dean of Instruction has been coming to staffing meetings, there is still a gap in leadership or lack of communication about the overall picture.

[Ann:  You may want to be careful with this language.  It would not be fair to the Staffing Committee (made up of faculty) to suggest that they are unable to function without direction from administration.  Keep in mind that the existence of staffing committee’s is because of the RFP language that says each campus will have such a committee.  The intent is that faculty should communicate to administration what faculty feel are the priorities when it comes to allocating or committing operational budget to residential faculty positions.  Also, the Staffing Committee should not feel undue pressure from any direction that may be provided by administration.  The committee’s recommendation should be the result of an independent process.  Information about strategic planning would be very helpful, but the committee could obtain that information from other sources than the President or the Dean.]   

 

The Staffing Committee conscientiously reviews all requests even though some may not appear to be immediate needs because of low or no day FTSE (i.e. real estate/home inspection which is evening and weekend instruction).  It is in these cases in particular where communication with and guidance from the President and/or Dean of Instruction on long-term/strategic plans would help in making the most appropriate staffing recommendations for the future.

 

In preparing for the future, a review of department alignments should be part of the strategic planning process to insure effective and efficient use of limited operating resources for residential faculty staffing.