TERRE HAUTE —
Indiana State University President Dan Bradley has attempted to assure faculty that next year’s suspension of sabbaticals and increases in teaching loads are a temporary response to current budget challenges.
“I have no goal to change the fundamental character of the university,” he said during a Faculty Senate meeting Thursday. Bradley said he remains committed to faculty research as part of the university’s mission.
“People were afraid we were talking about systemic change,” and that’s not the case, Bradley said after the meeting.
But with the current state of Indiana’s economy, he also told faculty that ISU must remain cautious with its budget and be prepared for possible additional state budget cuts in the future.
State revenues continue to fall significantly behind projections. If that situation doesn’t change in the next two to three months, “The governor will take some sort of action,” Bradley said.
With K-12 public education and higher education comprising more than 60 percent of the state budget, while the governor has indicated he doesn’t want to cut education, “If there are further cuts, they almost have to come from education,” Bradley said.
The Senate dedicated part of its meeting to discussion of a March 1 memo written by Provost Jack Maynard in which he outlined the decision to suspend sabbaticals next year as well as the need to increase faculty teaching productivity.
The memo prompted much discussion and controversy on campus. Faculty expressed concerns that those measures would allow less time for research, which is what makes ISU an academic institution and differentiates it from a community college such as Ivy Tech.
Faculty also have said that less research can impact the quality of teaching and learning because faculty won’t have as much time to stay current in their field and bring those new ideas into the classroom.
The Faculty Senate had no input on the suspension of sabbaticals, or paid professional leaves.
During Thursday’s meeting, some faculty said they feel more comfortable knowing the measures related to sabbaticals and that teaching loads are intended to be temporary.
Faculty member Robert Guell said he was initially “jolted” by the provost’s memo. But after additional discussions with the ISU president and provost, he said he is “much more comfortable” that the president does not intend to change the character of ISU faculty’s research mission.
The president has “affirmed the important role of scholarship, the need for faculty to have time to do that scholarship, the need for faculty to have sabbaticals available to them to conduct intensive study and that four-course [teaching] loads when applied permanently and across-the-board are anathema to that mission of scholarship,” Guell stated.
Guell said he does recognize that with the state’s declining resources, universities, including ISU, have had to make unpleasant adjustments. One of those adjustments will be a period, “probably the remainder of the biennium and into the next, where we have to work longer, harder or at least differently,” Guell said.
He said he’s willing to do that “for a while. I hope you, my colleagues, will consider what you can do to help ISU work through this.”
Faculty member Kevin Bolinger said he understands the need for some Draconian cuts and that the budget is “a very critical issue.” However, he believes budget challenges could have been addressed in other ways before adversely impacting faculty research time.
Other faculty had specific questions for the president and provost related to teaching loads and sabbaticals. Maynard said he’s charged deans and department chairmen to find the best way to increase faculty productivity.
He said he never mandated a four-course-per-semester teaching load; instead, he said he suggested it as an option.
“We must meet our instructional responsibility next year,” Maynard said. “This is a crisis we need to work our way through.”
Another faculty member asked about backlogged sabbatical requests and how that will be handled. Bradley said he and the provost would want faculty input on that.
Steve Lamb, Faculty Senate chairman, believes faculty have been assured that ISU “values research productivity,” he said after the meeting.
Also, after discussions with the president and provost, “If there is a means by which we can add to the drastically cut adjunct budget, that means will be sought,” Lamb said.
Those cuts in the adjunct budget were identified early last year, well before ISU learned it would have to cut another $10.4 million because of the state’s current economic challenges.
Maynard cautioned that before ISU could return money to the adjunct pool, it must have a better idea of what will happen with fall enrollment and whether the governor will make further cuts to higher education.
In his March 1 memo, Maynard said the university expects to have far less funding for temporary, adjunct staff next year. Currently, it spends between $3 million and $4 million annually on adjuncts, but next year, he estimates ISU will only have $1.7 million for adjuncts.
Sue Loughlin can be reached at (812) 231-4235 or sue.loughlin@tribstar.com.
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