March 2019 – Steven D. Krause

Here’s why I will vote no on the EMU-AAUP’s new and not negotiated contract

(This is an extremely insider/in the weeds kind of post about the proposal in front of the EMU faculty union right now, so there’s a pretty good chance that if you are not a member of the faculty at EMU, this will only kinda/sorta make sense. My apologies for that in advance).

The EMU-AAUP sent around news that the leadership wants to agree to terms for a new contract (and this is not an extension— see below) right now, about five months before the contract ends without a single day of negotiations. The Executive Committee has approved this proposal as has the faculty Bargaining Council– the vote there was 53-1. The EMU-AAUP leadership is fast-tracking this, so there will basically be a discussion on March 25 (at a time where it would be difficult for me to go and besides, that’s my birthday) and then a rushed vote to (presumably) ratify this new contract on March 26.

So this looks like it’s a done deal.

I assume I am in the minority of faculty opposing it, but I still plan to vote “no.” Here’s why (and, IMO, more or less in this order):

This doesn’t come close to solving the problems of “equivalencies.” As I’ve blogged about and posted about on Facebook numerous times, the deal struck in the last contract regarding teaching loads (aka “equivalencies”) has been a complete clusterfuck and it has hit the English department hard. Which, by the way, was the intent: that is, former EMU-AAUP president Susan Moeller more or less admitted that a lot of the motivation behind these changes in teaching load was to “get” the English department. For me and many of my department colleagues, the main reason it was important to vote out the former leadership of the union was to have new leadership who would solve this particular problem.

As I understand it, there is disagreement among faculty about what to do with these equivalencies, and the (rumored) deal from the administration of a 3-3 load would actually increase the teaching load of a significant number of my colleagues in the sciences and the College of Business. So I get it’s a problem: it’s awfully hard at this point to negotiate a deal on workload with the administration when you can’t agree amongst yourselves what that workload should be. But look, the current EMU-AAUP leadership has had two years to do this and they haven’t made any progress. So now what they’re proposing is a committee to study the problem– that is, the union leadership just wants to kick the can down the road.

In an email to the faculty, the EMU-AAUP Executive Committee said “Both the President and Provost have expressed a desire to find alternative models to the current workload and equivalencies. We are thus cautiously optimistic that progress can be made in this area.” Riiight… because the administration has been so willing to work with faculty on modifying the rules for equivalencies so far. It is as if members of the EC have never worked with these administrators on this before. This “cautious optimism” is naiveté.

If the language about this workload committee also said EMU would roll back the rules for teaching loads to where it was before the last contract and we’re going to form a committee to try to come up with something smarter and more fair this time, then I’d be all for that. If there was language that the goal of this committee is to get to a 3-3 load or whatever is similar and fair to all departments, I’d agree to that. If the leadership of the EMU-AAUP and the folks in the administration specifically agreed to enact some of the many previously proposed and rejected or ignored solutions my department offered to solve our load problems, then sure, I’d take that deal. If the sentence “Both parties acknowledge that participation on this Committee does not constitute negotiation over workload” wasn’t there I might be more inclined too– and what then is this committee for if not to negotiate over workload? And, of course, if we hadn’t been repeatedly and systematically screwed over by the administration on these issues for the last two years, I might feel differently. But otherwise, no.

In a masochistic kind of way, I’d like to be on this committee both to advocate for my department and to see how the sausage ends up getting made. But if history is at all instructive, this committee is going to be another clusterfuck.

Which brings me to my next point: this isn’t a contract extension. This is a new contract. A two year contract extension would mean the exact same terms as the old contract for another two years, but this new deal includes different pay raises, it includes different costs for insurance, and it includes this new committee about workload. New rules/new language = new contract.

The only reason I can figure as to why the EMU-AAUP and the administration want to call this an extension is because they want to convince (trick?) the faculty that it’s totally cool to accept this extension with no negotiations. Which brings me to my next point:

What’s the hurry? Why not see this as an opening for negotiations rather than a way to bypass them entirely? The contract doesn’t expire until September. Bargaining council isn’t even done yet, and as far as I know there is no actual bargaining team in place. What is the urgency here?

And is this even legal? I’m no lawyer, but isn’t it bad faith negotiating and a violation of collective bargaining rules/norms for the administration to put down a “take it or leave it” offer and for the union to say yes without any counter-offer?

This is the part of this I really don’t get at all. It seems to me that a better response from the union would be to take this as a starting point for talks rather than a way to end them. Why hasn’t the EMU-AAUP said something along the lines of “Great! This is a great place to start! Here are these other issues we want to see if we can work out– workload, for example– and let’s work amicably together toward those goals with the intent to wrap up negotiations and the next contract some time in July or August.”

I will say it is probably true that the deal being presented by the administration in terms of salary, insurance, and benefits is about as good as we’re going to get. We’re probably not going to get better raises and benefits than what’s being offered, especially as the combination of demographics and bad decisions drives our enrollments lower and lower. I get it.

At the same time, taking this deal with no discussion and so quickly makes me think that the union leadership is unwilling or too scared to negotiate. Why? What is the elephant in the room that the Executive Committee of the EMU-AAUP and the administration can see that the rest of us can’t?

Like I said, I expect this new contract (not an extension) to pass. It will be a relief to not have to have a contentious negotiation– I totally agree with that– and both the union and the administration will cheerfully pat themselves on each others’ backs. But it also sets the stage for an even more shitty contract negotiation in 2022.

My prediction is that by the time the next contract negotiations come around, this workload committee will have been declared a failure. Faculty will present offers for “alternative models” for teaching workloads to the administration, all of which the administration will reject for the same reasons they’ve rejected them before. Faculty within the bargaining unit will also still not be able to agree on what is a “fair” teaching load across all units. Faculty in my department– and I presume other departments– will continue to be in a crazy situation where it is not always clear how many courses I am going to be teaching from term to term.

Further, all of the problems that EMU has right now in terms of finances will be just as bad– probably worse since we’ll be out of things we can try to sell off or outsource. Enrollment will continue to fall, and the President and the Provost will continue to be unable to do anything about it. Healthcare will be more expensive, there will be more pressure to mess with TIAA contributions, and there will be even less money for a salary increase. The one thing that we will continue spending money on is the one thing that matters to the Board of Regents, which is football.

I hope I’m wrong about all this, but I also fully expect to link to this post in a similar “I told you so” post in two years.

Let’s not throw out all “merit” because of the “Admissions-Bribery Scandal”

My goodness, people have gotten very excited about the “Admissions-Bribery Scandal” that’s involved eight universities and 45 or so kids of very very rich (and frankly not very smart) parents. Frank Bruni finds it both galling and not surprising. John Warner says its a reason to eliminate all “competition” within higher education. Many many folks on Twitter and Social Media are using this story an example of how all college admissions is a crock and based entirely on how much money you have, it’s all corrupt, burn it all down, etc., etc.

As a thought experiment, I thought I’d contemplate some ways in which merit and admission to college in this country isn’t completely broken.

Access to education at any level has never been universally fair, and people who are wealthy have always had better access to education. I’m not just talking in the U.S. and I’m not just talking about the last 20 or 50 years. I mean it has never been fair anywhere, it has been that way for thousands of years, and it has been that way everywhere. Sure, there is better access to higher education in some other places in the world, notably European countries with a Democratic-Socialist tradition of funding education as a societal good. Though it is also worth pointing out that in most of these countries, students are “tracked” into a path that leads to either trade school or university in the American equivalent of high school. There isn’t much of a tradition in these places of community colleges or open admission universities.
I’m not saying this inequity is justified (it’s not) and I’m not saying we should do what we can to eliminate it (we should). I’m just saying it’s not at all new. The rich have always gotten richer. And as long as we’re talking about access and inequity issues relative to history: don’t forget that 100 years ago in this country, lots and lots of public universities in this country did not admit women or people of color.
The details of this particular scandal are pretty gross. The details about the daughter of Lori “Aunt Becky” Laughlin are particularly icky. Olivia Jade doesn’t seem particularly interested in being in college, though she does seem to like to hang out on a yacht in the Bahamas with one of her friends who happens to be the child of a billionaire who happens to be chair of USC’s Board of Trustees.
But paradoxically, the fact that this small group of super rich people (about 50) felt compelled to break the law to get to get their kids (about 45 total) into some selective universities is evidence that the admissions systems mostly works. This is the exception that proves the rule.
Let’s also not forget that there are few “selective” institutions in this country. That’s what makes them “selective,” and thus not the way that most of higher education works. In his excellent book A Perfect Mess, David Labaree says of the 4700 or so institutions that count as “higher education” in this country, there are only 191 that are “selective” to the point where they accept less than half of the students that apply. So again, the eight universities involved in this scandal (and more specifically the rogue-operating people at these places and especially the University of Southern California) are outliers.
I cannot imagine any scenario where anyone would pay a bribe of any amount to get into EMU, but let’s think for a moment about the idea of rich people giving huge donations to get rich kids into the right college. Let’s take the example of Jared Kushner’s father paying Harvard $2.5 million to let him in. On the one hand, that’s unethical, slimy, and maybe not illegal but still wrong. Especially when we’re talking about a place like Harvard, this is just the rich getting richer. But at least that donation to the university does end up benefiting other students, at least indirectly. And I have to say: if someone offered to donate $1 million to EMU on the condition that all of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were automatically admitted to the university, I sure hope we’d take that deal.
But yes, people who have resources have a significant advantage in accessing higher education, and that problem is made all the more acute in this country with the dumb way we fund K-12 schooling, mostly with local property taxes. I do not think this is fair either, and it is also why real estate in communities that are known for its good schools costs more– and vice versa. It’s also probably the easiest and most common way for families with modest means to improve the chances for their children to get into a good college: move to a town with good public schools.
I live in Ypsilanti, a town with so-so public schools. For reasons too complicated to go into here, my wife and I sent our only child to an expensive private school in Ann Arbor. We did this because education (not surprisingly) is a high priority for us, and we were fortunate/lucky enough to be able to afford it (barely) because of our jobs, because of some help from our families, and because we only have one child. I do feel a tinge of guilt once in a while regarding this decision, but besides the fact that it has turned out well, I don’t think it is at all unreasonable for any parent to try to do the best they can for their children’s education– as long as it’s legal.
This kind of access to private schooling was new to me (I went to some Catholic grade schools but mostly public schools), and it revealed a lot about how even a modest amount of wealth can dramatically change the game. The private school we sent our child to had shockingly small classes, highly professional faculty, a progressive curriculum not bogged down by an overemphasis on testing, and extra-curricular experiences for all students regardless of abilities. This school carefully groomed students for elite higher education from sixth grade on, and by the time actually applying to college rolls around, the level of support in terms of writing entrance essays, taking exams, contemplating different schools, meeting with recruiters– it’s all a completely different world.
I also saw the extreme anxiety these affluent parents had about making sure their kids got into an elite college. I’ll never forget this event my wife and I went to for parents of kids who would be applying to college the following year. It was a “Q&A” session put on by the college admissions advisors. Among other things, they talked about the need for test prep, for working carefully through those essays, about strategies for taking the SAT multiple times, and about how it was important to apply to eight to twelve schools to get admitted to the right one. All of these rich and super-earnest parents were just so tense, and I just sat there thinking of my own experience of taking the ACT once and applying to exactly one state university which didn’t require anything beyond a simple application. Like I said, a different world.
Which, to circle back to this specific cheating scandal, makes this situation all the more bizarre and what I still do not understand. With all of the advantages these rich people have, why did they have to so brazenly break the law to get their kids into modestly elite colleges? I’ve heard the argument before that folks like Lori Laughlin didn’t know any better because she didn’t go to college herself. I don’t believe that at all, but besides that, most of the parents involved with this were business executives, and I presume most of those people had college degrees. Or maybe they cheated their way into college in a similar fashion?
Last but not least: if universities eliminated measures of merit as a way of deciding who to admit– that is get rid of all test scores, grades, application essays, whatever else– how would universities decide? We should continue to strive to make the process more fair of course, but shouldn’t the process be based at least in part on merit in the form of grades, test scores, extracurriculars, etc.?

#4C19 Conference Prelude/Presentation

Here’s a link to my upcoming presentation at the Conference for College Composition and Communication, “Performing the Role of ‘Teacher’ in Online Writing Courses (or It’s All About Affordances).” It’s online at http://bit.ly/Krause4C19

I made this slideshow version for two related reasons. First, since I’m presenting as part of an 8:00 AM on Friday panel– a time slot with 45 sessions, many featuring folks who I would personally like to hear talk– I am kind of assuming it’s going to be an “intimate” gathering. Second, this is my solution to the accessibility challenge: anyone who needs to/wants to read this should be able to access this Google Slides show.

We’ll see how the conference goes.