THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1999

Professors face deadline pressure

By Matthew L. Green

On-Line Forty-Niner

While some students are pounding their keyboards until their fingers are arthritic, California State University faculty will do the same to eke out their final projects due Monday.

To be considered for a merit-pay raise, all CSU faculty must submit reports explaining what they have done to deserve raises.

Because the CSU informed faculty of this April 16, some are comparing this deadline to a professor assigning a term paper the week before final exams.

"It's all rushed, dictated, not well-prepared or organized," said Hamdi Bilici, California Faculty Association spokesman and professor of finance. "I think we [the CSU and faculty] should quit all this nonsense and sit down and negotiate like grown-ups."

The CSU will not give faculty members extensions to write the reports, said Gary W. Reichard, associate vice president for Academic Affairs. If faculty members do not write the reports, they will not get merit-pay raises.

In addition to writing these reports, many faculty members have to deal with grading term papers, providing extra office hours and preparing final exams and lectures. Some faculty feel this deadline snatches away time they would be spending on their teaching duties.

"It takes time away from what we are suppose to be doing," Bilici said. "There are only so many hours in the day.

"They [faculty] have 2,001 things to do. I don't believe what we are doing is good for the faculty or the university."

After more than a year of stalled labor contract negotiations between the CSU and the CFA, a labor committee for the CSU Board of Trustees in March forced all CSU faculty to accept a labor deal.

In that deal, faculty received an across-the-board raise of 2.5 percent. Also, the contract stated that faculty get merit-pay raises, which could lift their total raise to as much as 14 percent.

The CSU wants to deliver these raises before the end of this academic year, Reichard said.

The reports were mentioned in late March when the CSU mandated the labor contract, Reichard said. But officials did not specify how to write these reports until April 16.

Some faculty members are required to write two reports. The first one explains a faculty member's activities over two academic years, 1996-97 and 1997-98, while the second covers the fall 1998 semester.

In these reports, faculty must mention courses they have taught, results from student evaluations and time spent advising or supervising students. Faculty are to note any books or articles they have written, grants received, university committees served on or any other academic or professional activities they have done.

"I think the timing is terrible," Reichard said. "I feel sympathetic toward faculty. But I think they will produce the reports. We understand the frustration.

"I hope it [the report deadline] would not have a negative impact. That wasn't the intent at all."

The CSU considered the work load most faculty members have during the end of the semester, said Cordelia Ontiveros, senior director for academic personnel for the CSU. The CSU scheduled the reports to be due May 3 because they wanted to give the faculty the raise before the end of the semester.

"Everything about this imposition is unreasonable," Bilici said.

Each report must be no longer than four pages, but a minimum number of pages is not set, Reichard said.

If the Academic Senate passes a resolution, a faculty committee will evaluate the work of faculty from that department.

If it does not, no faculty committee will be set up, and then the first person reading the reports will be the department chairman.

To decide if faculty are worthy of a raise, a committee of department members will first read the reports, then the department chairman, then a college committee, and then the dean of that college. The campus president has final say over whether faculty get a raise.

The CFA recommends all faculty write the reports and file complaints if they do not get raises and urges faculty committees to give all faculty merit-pay raises.

All the reports are expected to be read and evaluated by May, though the CSU does not know when results on decisions regarding merit pay will be available.