President Fred Finks and Provost Frank Pettigrew presented recommendations to the Ashland University Board of Trustees Executive Committee regarding extensive changes to the university’s academic program, recommendations that were made without input from faculty or college deans.

These recommendations, which came in the form of a one-page document titled “Recommended Actions by the Board of Trustees,” are now before the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board.

The document, which was given to The Collegian on Tuesday, was written by Finks and presented along with Pettigrew to the Executive Committee on April 10, according to Faculty Senate President Jim Rycik. The Collegian distributed the document to 17 different faculty members, including several department chairs, Faculty Senate leadership and some members of the Faculty Senate Welfare Committee, seeking comment.

On Thursday afternoon, Rycik announced a special executive session of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee for Wednesday at 3 p.m. with all faculty members invited. The purpose, according to Rycik’s statement, is to discuss a resolution to the Board of Trustees in response to the recommendations.

The president and provost’s recommendations included restrictions to tenure-track hiring, reducing the Core, replacing department chair positions with full-time administrators, establishing a separate Adult and Online College outside normal faculty channels and returning to the 24-hour load for tenure and tenure-track faculty and 27-hours for non-tenure-track faculty.

Thursday afternoon the Faculty Senate Executive Committee released a statement saying faculty are open to the examination of the academic program in hopes of improving it.

“Appropriate faculty loads, offering high quality programs to diverse audiences, the role of the department chair, the centrality of the Core in each student’s education, and the role of tenure in the teaching profession are all topics the faculty has discussed and will continue to discuss in an open and candid dialog,” the statement said. “What is disconcerting about the memo is that it circumvents that dialog and recommends that the Board of Trustees take specific actions that would be fundamentally destructive to the academic mission of the institution. We also take exception to the tone of the memo that appears to question the integrity and dedication of the faculty. We do not believe that the faculty is the cause of the problems AU has been facing. In fact, we believe that we will be a vital part of the solution if we are given the opportunity to do so.”

The recommendations, presented to the board by Finks and Pettigrew on April 10, included “support[ing] a movement to hire more non-tenure track faculty. Where accreditation is an issue or for the integrity of a major, exceptions may be made for a tenured track position.”

This recommendation runs contrary to a previous statement from Finks in an interview with TV-20 in February.

“Our commitment to academic excellence and the academic freedom piece that is in our core values has helped shape the leadership of the provost, who led that initially with faculty and deans to build a very strong academic program here,” he said.

Faculty are concerned reductions to tenure-track hiring will compromise AU’s potential for academic excellence.

“The stature of a university is reduced the degree to which its tenure-granting capacities are reduced,” William Vaughan said. Vaughan is the chair of the Philosophy department and the University Core Director. “The administration should always think about what tenure means to an institution of higher learning before it reduces tenure track positions to save cash.”

The report also called for a reduction in the Core requirements. According to the report, “Reducing the Core would reduce the number of faculty needed. Most of the core resides within the College of Arts and Sciences. Some would say that the Core requirements insure job security for certain faculty, mostly within the Arts and Sciences.”

Dawn Weber, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said Ashland’s core is achieving its goal of making Ashland students better critical thinkers.

“Our Core curriculum is rigorously assessed in a variety of ways including the use of the Collegiate Learning Assessment,” she said. “AU students ranked well above the national average for value-added achievement, scoring in the 85th percentile… These scores validate that our primary institutional and academic missions are being met.”

Gary Levine is an associate professor of English and the director of Ashland’s first-year composition program.

“Our 85th percentile value-added score on the CLA is terrific; in comparison Kent’s is 17^th,” he said. “We don’t want to see that disappear–you can lose a lot of weight in the short term by cutting off part of your leg.”

Recommendations for eliminating the faculty chair position were also found in the report. Four full-time administrators, one for each college, “would be able to do as much if not more than the current faculty chairs,” according to the report.

Mason Posner, a professor in and chair of the Biology department and the Convener of the University’s Chairs Council, called the recommendation “ludicrous.”

“The work of department chairs is extensive and requires an understanding of that department’s academic disciplines and a close working relationship with department faculty and students,” he said. “I see no way that these diverse duties could be merged under a full-time administrator without significantly affecting student recruitment, retention and the academic quality of the Departments.”

The recommendation to establish a separate Adult and Online College was made to “allow the University to be much more nimble in developing and designing programs.”

Levine, who has taught two online classes, is skeptical of this possibility.

“It would be great if someone in the next administration had more personal experience developing and teaching online courses,” he said. “The idea of buying a canned course cheaply is very tempting, but the data we have so far shows that most people don’t learn well from that kind of instruction, especially in terms of writing and critical thinking.”

The final recommendation proposed by Finks and Pettigrew was a return to the 24-hour teaching load for all tenure and tenure-track faculty members and a 27-hour load for non-tenure-track faculty. This would amount to a one class-per-year increase for all faculty.

For the 2014-2015 academic year, all tenured faculty who were on the 21-hour-load have been moved to a 24-hour-load to reduce the number of adjunct professors needed in a cost-cutting move.

About seven years ago the University began transitioning towards a 21-hour-load for tenure and tenure-track faculty. Since then, all new faculty hires have been hired on a 21-hour-load and 74 faculty members have applied for and received the reduction to a 21-hour-load.

Posner said the load reduction allows faculty more time to work with students outside the classroom.

“The current 21 hour teaching load was instituted to provide faculty additional time for academic scholarship, much of which in many departments involves the participation of undergraduate students,” he said. “Yet, the University does not consider the time spent working with students on independent research projects when calculating our work loads. In effect, faculty are volunteering countless hours of their time for this important work with our students. The 21 hour-load is a way of providing some of this time.”

These recommendations are currently before the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees. That committee is chaired by Trustee Tom Whatman.

“The Academic Affairs Committee will thoroughly and thoughtfully consider any issues that may make Ashland University a stronger institution,” Whatman said. “We should not fear informed debate and discussion of ideas, no matter how controversial, as long as the debate is transparent and not biased toward a particular outcome. This is how we will conduct the Academic Prioritization process and review the additional issues that have been put before the Committee.”

Dawn Weber, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said she thinks these recommendations address important issues, but faculty need to be included in the dialogue.

“The Academic Council was not consulted and had no knowledge of this document in advance of its presentation to the Board of Trustees,” she said. “It is my understanding that the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees will investigate these issues. I believe it is critically important that these issues be thoroughly discussed by faculty and administrators and understood in the context of how such actions would impact the academic quality and reputation of Ashland University.”

Finks and Pettigrew released a statement to faculty at 10:30 a.m. Thursday responding to the circulation of their recommendations.

“The intent of the document was to informally respond to a Board request to the President for areas in the academic division to be reviewed during the Board’s restructuring project,” the statement said. “It was our intent to present areas that had already been discussed previously in some form with the University Community including the review of all academic programs. We did not want the Board to expand its review into areas that had not been previously discussed as a community.  Our intent was not to provide conclusions nor circumvent a collaborative review process but instead guide the Board into areas of consideration for review.  It is our desire that the Board of Trustees will implement an appropriate process of review for all the areas of the University during the course of the next academic year.”

The statement was also sent to The Collegian in response to several questions regarding the recommendations. The Collegian sent several follow-up questions in response to the statement, but neither Finks nor Pettigrew responded.

Gordon Swain, professor of Mathematics and the vice-president of Faculty Senate, said he is surprised the administration would make these recommendations.

“I hope the Board will disregard the document altogether, and that other administrators will reject this method of influencing the Board,” he said.

Jeff Sikkenga, an associate professor of Political Science and the incoming vice-president of Faculty Senate, is disappointed by the document, and fears the potential results of these recommendations.

“Their dismissive tone toward the faculty is outrageous, and they would move AU in exactly the wrong direction academically,” he said. “If we are going to thrive in our competitive market, we need to be distinctively excellent, which is only possible if we root all of our programs in the great principles of liberal education. These proposals would do the opposite. They would undermine liberal education at AU and make us just like every other place. We need to understand that we will attract and retain good students not by being easier or more convenient but by being better and more serious. Students deserve not just a degree but a real education.”