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APSCUF issued the following release today:

The Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties’ negotiation committee today voted to move a strike-authorization vote to the floor of Saturday morning’s legislative assembly session. APSCUF delegates, who are meeting now in State College, will consider whether to authorize a strike before the end of the semester.

The action follows negative comments about APSCUF during last month’s House and Senate budget-appropriations hearings, as well as a lack of progress during contract negotiations.

APSCUF members have been working under an expired contract for almost a year. The most recent negotiations session was Jan. 8, and the next negotiations session is slated for April 28. Neither the faculty nor the coaches at the State System universities have ever been on strike.

Remarks of Dr. Kenneth M. Mash
Before the Board of Governors

Mr. Chairman, Governors, and Chancellor Brogan,

Today I stand before you prouder than ever to represent the approximately 5,500 faculty and coaches who are at the core of the 14 great universities comprising the State System.

Last month, your faculty and coaches watched with bewilderment and anger as Chancellor Brogan and others represented the System in front of the House and Senate. The comments and questions, particularly in the Senate hearings, we felt demonstrated a shocking ignorance of the workings of the System and displayed a palpable disdain for your faculty and coaches. On the bright side of that, we were defended at the Senate hearing by one current member of this board and afterward by one former member of this Board.

More frustrating even than several senators’ posture was the fact that these unwarranted attacks went unanswered and, in several instances, were fueled by the State System’s responses. While we empathize with the difficulties surrounding giving testimony at a legislative hearing, and I personally sympathize with those difficulties, nevertheless your faculty and your coaches deserve better. Further, our students and our alumni deserve better.

I don’t think anyone should be surprised that hearing one of our colleagues referred to as an “old dinosaur” would be viewed as hostile. I don’t think anyone should be surprised at our frustration when stories are made up about meetings that took place. I don’t think anyone should be shocked to learn that when senators say faculty work only 17 hours a week that we would be irate and that we would expect to be defended. Those comments disparaged my colleagues — Pennsylvania citizens and taxpayers — and the fact that they went unanswered is inexplicable.

The same calculus that leads to the conclusion that faculty work 17 hours a week would be the same that would lead someone to assert that a senator works only on the relatively few session days in a year. However, we know better. We know the job of a senator includes committee work, preparation, constituent service, public speaking, etc., etc., etc. Senators should know that the job of a faculty member extends well beyond the 12 hours of class time and five required office hours. Our work includes countless scholarly endeavors, committee work, advising, and overseeing extracurricular activities. It includes the type of mentoring in the sciences that everyone in this room applauded yesterday. In fact, there is a report filed each year that shows that my faculty colleagues work more than 50 hours a week.

Similarly, a point was made to “educate” a student that a coach made $400,000 last year. That was not education; it was misinformation. The System knows full well that the coach does not make $400,000 a year. That money was the result of an arbitration award spanning years, and it was a one-time award. It happened to go to a coach who runs a summer program that brings thousands of young people to campus and has made his university millions of dollars in the process. So it is that someone’s hard work is ridiculed.

More typical than this coach is the one coach who approached me last week at one of our universities in the western part of the Commonwealth. That coach told me that because of cuts to his program, he was now paying out of his pocket for recruiting trips. Coaches scrambling for money for referees, for scholarship money, for the basic needs of their sports and going the extra mile for their student athletes — these are the common and accurate stories of our system, and they were not told.

We were upset to hear, by implication, Cheyney University compared to a failing supermarket. It was a truly unfortunate analogy. But we were equally concerned by a response that pinned Cheyney’s trouble on a lack of enrollment. That Cheyney’s enrollment is too low is common knowledge. But a truer response would be that a long list of public officials and this Board are culpable for Cheyney’s woes. For decades, this Board substituted stage whispers and scorn for scrutiny. Things were allowed to occur at Cheyney that would never would have been allowed to occur to at any other university. Students at Cheyney have been deprived of the resources that would have been demanded at other universities. And, frankly, the other universities of this System benefited for years from that deprivation of resources. To hear concerns raised now about having to “subsidize” Cheyney ignores a past that was discriminatory and inexcusable.

Further, any suggestion that Cheyney should be closed proposes a disservice to the hundreds, if not thousands, of potential students in the Philadelphia area who not only could be potentially served by Cheyney, but who need the type of community and alumni network that only Cheyney can provide. The time has come to stop beating up on that university. It is time to build it up.  It is time to provide access.

Speaking of access, a question was raised about why my association opposes the per-credit tuition plans. I call them plans and not pilots because, in the academic world, they would not be considered a “pilot.” We oppose those plans — some may argue counter to our combined self interest — because we believe in public higher education. We believe in our legislatively mandated mission to provide a quality education at an affordable cost. Stripped of the false advertising, these pilots amount to substantial tuition increases.

One does not have to be a mathematician to do the simple arithmetic — it takes 120 credits minimum to graduate. Over the course of eight semesters, that is 15 credits a semester. Charging per credit means a 16, 25 or even a 50 percent tuition increase for our students. At one time, the Commonwealth subsidized 75 percent of a student’s education. Now it is less than 25 percent. What will it be after these plans? At a time when the issue of student debt is a matter of national debate, our universities will be substantially increasing that debt. How many students will be priced out of their universities? We have now heard several administrators talk about how their universities could lose students but still bring in more money. Somebody has the notion of public higher education terribly wrong, and I don’t think it is my association.

Rather than preventing students from “grazing in the academic vineyard,” these plans are likely to discourage double majors, push students to drop out, discourage them from taking difficult courses that they may not do well in, and cause them to avoid major disciplines that require additional credits.

I could continue on about the tone, the attacks, the failures to respond about issues, but I know I have already taken some time.

Next year will be the 80^th anniversary of APSCUF’s existence. Throughout those years, my association has been partners with the legislators, governors, and administrators in turning normal schools into colleges and then into great universities. It seems the reward for that endeavor is now to demean our work and to ridicule our members. It seems we can expect no adequate defense from our System.

We have been working without a contract for nearly a year. We were surprised to learn of the System’s concerns with our contract expressed during the hearings — items that have never been raised during this past year of bargaining.

This weekend, delegates from each of our universities will be attending our legislative assembly. We will learn together what steps my Association may be willing to take in reaction to the lack of respect demonstrated toward our members.

Thank you for your attention.

–

Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties members have been working under a contract that expired in summer 2015. Despite APSCUF offering contract compromise during negotiations with the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, the two parties have not reached an agreement. The most recent negotiations session was Jan. 8, and the next negotiations session is slated for April 28.

Upset by rhetoric emanating from the state legislature and the prolonged negotiation, APSCUF leadership plans to discuss the possibility of a job action when delegates convene Friday, April 8, for legislative assembly in State College.

 

Putting it all on the table: Communism, socialism, old dinosaurs, your 17-hour workweek, struggling universities and supermarkets, APSCUF bashing, per-credit tuition, and more

APSCUF live-tweeted this month’s State System budget-appropriations hearings before the House of Representatives and Senate. Last week, we compiled a list of what caught our attention during the House hearing. The Senate session, which you can watch in its entirety here, provided even more fodder. Here’s what we thought was of most interest to APSCUF members. Click on the images to watch clips.

Chancellor Frank T. Brogan began the Senate hearing with similar remarks as in the House. He described student demographics and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education’s economic impact in the Commonwealth. He also outlined the System’s funding issues:

He again mentioned future changes:

“Our board has made a critical, strategic decision that we are beginning to look over the next six months or so at a reorganizational and modernization effort,” he said. He did not detail what those changes would encompass.

Sen. Lloyd Smucker asked Brogan to expand on the need for a 20 percent increase in state funding:

Brogan referred to rising cost of healthcare, pensions, and general rates of inflation.

Smucker lauded the per-credit tuition pilot at Millersville University, which he called “very innovative”:

“To date, outcomes have been outstanding, have been satisfactory, there’s been no negative impact on students,” Smucker said. “In fact, students seem to be better, more savvy consumers in the choices they’re making in terms of the courses they’re selecting.”

(We are still waiting to see these outcomes. This pricing program means most full-time students are paying 25 percent more in tuition than they did previously.)

Brogan said that program will continue in the fall.

“We found that it was having either no impact, negative, or positive impact in some of the issues that we reviewed,” he said.

Sen. Andy Dinniman, who attended the Underfunded We Fail rally in February, asked about the System’s reserves, and Brogan explained (video) how universities use reserve funds to counterbalance the risk of unfunded liability.

They also can be used for deferred maintenance, Brogan said (video).

The discussion about reserves continued, and Brogan again mentioned the upcoming changes in the System:

“Markets change. Needs change. Higher education changes, and that might mean necessary change in our system,” Brogan said. “What that will look like by way of recommendations, it’s too early to tell, but I do know this. We cannot continue to function the way we are functioning as a 14 state university system with all of the issues that we are dealing with, and that includes the very dramatically changing face of higher education in the country.”

Sen. Mario Scavello asked Drew Johnson, East Stroudsburg University senior and Student Senate president who attended the hearings, what besides money he would like the committee to look at that it hasn’t:

Johnson said the loss of professional tutors has been difficult. More people need to take a bigger stake in retention of students, he said.

Scavello mentioned his background in supermarkets, saying that if a supermarket is doing poorly, he must raise prices at others to offset the loss, resulting in lost sales for the well-performing markets. He drew a parallel to the State System:

He specifically focused on Cheyney University:

“Are you looking at some of these schools, like I saw one here, 700 students?” Scavello asked. “The graduating class of my daughter’s high school was 700. I just can’t for the life of me figure out how in the world that that school is going to be able to survive. … If that school was in my area, I’d probably be saying the same thing.”

Brogan’s response:

“For the first time in the history of our system, it is one university, and we are headed toward more. We have right now universities that are eating through their operational reserves and are going to run out of operational money within the next year to two years … “

The Chancellor focused on enrollment issues, but he did not mention funding issues or the years of mismanagement that was allowed to continue by the System.

Scavello revisited his grocery-store example:

“To go back to that supermarket scenario, how it turned out was they ended up closing that store and two others because they lost a tremendous amount of volume because of the increase in retails,” he said. “And you’re pretty much describing that at the State System. I think that it’s something that you need to look at. Because personally I think that we probably could reduce tuitions in the other schools if possible because those extra dollars would be going there.”

Scavello went on to suggest other staffing cuts. Brogan explained the State System employs 900 fewer people than it did eight years ago.

Sen. Lisa Baker asked about pension and healthcare costs and the System’s pension obligations:

Brogan answered that half of employees participate in a defined-contribution plan, such as TIAA.

The discussion turned to distance education.

“This system desperately needs to look at our online education, not the individual offerings as much as how we offer online education in what I believe needs to be a much more organized and efficient manner than we do,” Brogan said, “while still maintaining the integrity of the faculty, the curriculum, the assessments, and the quality of work that comes out of the pipe.”

Sen. Richard Alloway II, a Shippensburg University graduate, said, “We need to have a serious conversation”:

Alloway’s monologue touched on communism, socialism, professors, distance learning, and the APSCUF contract:

“This system is a communist-style system, and, Frank, stop me when I’m wrong,” Alloway said. “You interject here. I want to have a dialogue with you. OK. This system is designed to be one unit. Right? One unit. And the motto is, ‘From each according … to each according … ’ That’s the motto, right? That’s how it is. So what I found a little shocking through many of these dialogues with some of my colleagues is when they become indignant about the fact that money is taken by the central office from a ‘have,’ a school that has and given to a school that doesn’t have. It blows my mind because I think, ‘What do you think a socialist-style philosophy is?’ That’s what it is. Look, we can agree or disagree whether it’s good or bad, but that’s what it is. We take from one. We give another.

“A couple, maybe about two years ago, I was called, summoned, to a meeting with the APSCUF professors at Shippensburg University. And they sat there, and they were just indignant that how dare the central office take money from them to prop up other universities. And I looked them dead in the face, and I said, ‘But isn’t that what your philosophy calls for?’ Boy, you should have seen them. They got real huffy with me after that. But this is the truth, OK?”

(Shippensburg faculty members say that four years ago, the senator was invited to a lunch. They do not recall the senator making these statements.)

“So let’s not kid ourselves,” Alloway continued. “We’re not gonna shut down universities, right? We’re not gonna shut down Mansfield. We’re not gonna shut down Clarion, these struggling universities. OK? We’re not gonna do that. So, what are we gonna do? We need to get serious about what we’re gonna do, and I know that’s what you’ve been saying this whole meeting. We have to talk about what we’re gonna do, and I don’t know what the answer is, but the market calls for a shift, just as Sen. Scavello very aptly put, when one of the markets is going down, and here’s the other thing, too: Resentment grows between the universities from the haves and the have-nots. That’s just the reality of it, OK? So we have to have a serious conversation about what we’re going to do. This system is awesome. I’m a product of this system. I love the State System. I think they put out incredible value at education. I really believe that. I look around and I see the cost of other universities, and you guys do a fabulous job, but it cannot continue, and we can’t sit here as senators and pretend that this system is gonna work. Because we can’t continue taking from West Chester and Ship and Millersville to prop up these other programs, OK? That’s the one thing.

“The second thing is, and you talked about it again: Doing what the market demands, changing these programs, shelving some of them, starting new programs. That all sounds great, but we know on the board the fight we’re gonna have ahead of us. With who? With the union, of course. Because every time you try and change the System, the union steps in and says, ‘Aw, no, you can’t do that. You can’t shelve that program because that’s a professor’s job.’ OK, well then we need to move the program from this university to here, where it can be viable. ‘Aw, we can’t do that!’ OK, then what are we gonna do? I mean, these are the realities that the members of this committee need to understand, that this is what we’re facing, OK?

“So also in that meeting at Shippensburg University, I had this one old dinosaur of a professor just sit there and rail on online learning, how awful it was and you didn’t get the college experience, and I’m sittin’ there going, I looked at him, and I said, ‘Sir, you’re gonna be run over and left in the past.’ Of course, he didn’t like that, either. But that’s the reality. But that’s the reality.

“The world has changed, and we have to change with it, and we need to untie your hands and the hands of these presidents to be able to change with the market with what the consumers want. I mean, the union fought us on this per-credit thing. Why? We’re trying to make the System strong, so it can serve everybody, and yet we get pushback and fought at every turn, every turn. ‘Well, that’s someone’s job. We can’t end that program.’ Well, tough crap.

“So, I want to have a serious dialogue. I care about this system. That’s why I asked to be on this system’s board: because I want to see the System be strong, and I want to see it serve people. It provides a great value, and I want to see it continue well into the future. Thank you for what all of you guys have done to continue to push this ball forward. I’ll be a voice for you. Thank you.”

Brogan, after seconds of silence, responded:

“As we take this new look at the System, everything has to be on the table,” he said. “If we start this process by first determining what are the sacred cows, what are the traditions that cannot be changed, what are the rules and regulations that keep us from making changes that have to be preserved moving forward, you still won’t be able to change a damn light bulb in this system without asking somebody’s special permission to do so.

“I am convinced we’ve got to unshackle these people, we’ve got to let them organize their universities in a way to serve their student population and free them up of many of the obligations that they have been bound to for 40 years that are not only not taking us forward any more, they are holding us back and, in some cases, driving us down. Everything has got to be on the table, or this will be an exercise in complete futility.

“What would we want from you all? We need you to be partners. We’re going to be going through a very emotional set of conversations. We’re going to be going through a very political set of conversations, unintentionally, but it’s unavoidable. We’re gonna need advocates who are willing to stand up and say, ‘If it is (in) the best interest of the System and ultimately the students who will be served by this system, then we’ve got to put that emotionalism and that politic aside and do what’s right. We’ve all got to be singing off of that page. …

“I was in a meeting with some council of trustee members, and when we presented their budget, they said, ‘Gee, to we really need 14 universities in this system?” Now, I know over their head was a little white bubble that said, ‘Well, I know we need ours, but do we need those 13 as members of our system?’ And that would be replayed 13 other times. Everything has to be on the table, and people need to be ready to have adult conversation about where this system goes, or we will all be wasting our time. And we’ll be having those conversations. We will involve people in those conversations. We’ll be looking at best practice around the country.

“As I mentioned, Georgia right now … they have 34 state universities in Georgia, Mr. Chairman. They are merging two of them every 18 months. They have a process and a practice they’ve put in place, and they are merging two campuses, two universities, into one every 18 months, and they’ll do another two coming up very soon. I’m not suggesting that’s the way. That’s the way they’re doing it, and that, can you imagine, the guts. Two sets of school colors become one set of school colors. Two mascots become one mascot. Unless it’s a puppy monkey baby, you’re gonna have to find a creative way to get people to satisfy the emotionalism of moving from a badger to a wolverine. I’m being silly to make a point: These are emotional and political issues. … Not just for the survival but for the flourishing of our universities, we’ve got to engage in those sorts of conversations, and everything has to be on the table to do that.”

Sen. Judy Schwank, who also spoke at the Underfunded We Fail rally, reminded the entire group that the discussion must be inclusive:

“I will remind all of us, not just you (the chancellor), that everybody has to be part of the conversation,“ she said. “And we can rail against certain entities or groups, but they’ve got to be part of this because they are a key factor in making sure that our students get the education that they need. … But you look at a Cheyney or you look at a Millersville or you look at, for example, Kutztown. They are vital parts of our community. They are great economic contributors, but they’re also a part of the institution, too. So those entities also have to be involved in this conversation as well.”

She continued.

“And I will remind you, too, that you know we had the opportunity not too long ago, for example, to appoint a retired professor to the board of governors, and that didn’t happen for whatever reason, and I was disappointed in that because I think there’s some expertise there that we are perhaps not bringing. We don’t always want to hear everything that people bring to us, but that’s got to be part of this process, too. So I do want to remind everybody that that’s the case as well.”

(Thank you, Sen. Schwank.)

Schwank later asked Johnson how tuition increases are affecting students:

“From my perspective, the conversations don’t lead down the path of how expensive tuition is,” he said, “but more so, ‘I qualify support, and the support that I am told that I’m entitled to isn’t coming to me,” referring to grants stalled by the budget impasse.

“We are juggling — whether or not we want to buy this book during syllabus week, when I have two chapters due next week, or do I want to pay my rent for this month?” he said. “ … It fosters a lot of frustration and a lot of concern for students,” he said. “It keeps many from coming back.”

On campus crime:

State System campus crime statistics generally are lower than the surrounding municipalities, Brogan said.

More than one senator asked how many State System students stay in Pennsylvania after graduation. The answer 90 percent are from Pennsylvania, and more than 80 percent stay in Pennsylvania:

Sen. Pat Vance asked how how much employees pay for their healthcare:

Brogan referred to the “modifications to contribution rates”:

Vance went on to ask how many hours faculty members teach in a week:

Brogan’s answer: 17 hours, including office time. He mentioned release time for APSCUF chapter presidents and curriculum-committee chairpeople.

Sen. Scott Wagner began his time by warning Johnson: “Drew, you’re gonna get a little bit different education today.”

“I have a different spin,” Wagner said. “I appreciate your comments, but you made one comment, and it was very interesting, and I’m glad you told us that young people feel their pockets are being picked. And you are exactly right, and you are in the building that is doing it, and we’re doing it good.”

“We have no more runway here,” he continued. “I will tell you that where I’m coming from I will not vote for any tax increases. I will lobby my colleagues.”

Wagner was blunt about what he called underperforming or unprofitable schools:

“If you have schools that are technically, in my world, underperforming or unprofitable, they should be closed, and they should be closed quickly, and we don’t need a task force, and we don’t need to micromanage or analyze and become caught up in analysis paralysis. So what I’m doing is I’m taking a 40,000-foot view. So I’m going to start running through your financial statement.”

Wagner went on to ask questions about the System’s reserves and interest.

Wagner asked about the System’s changes to healthcare costs. The System’s average employee contribution is 15 percent, Wagner said, citing a State System-provided chart. He said the U.S. average was 28.2 percent.

“If you were to use 28.2, the national average, against your healthcare contributions on the part of the people in your system, it’s $42 million,” Wagner said.

On unions representing State System employees, specifically, he said (video), “You’re also challenged because you have roughly 10,000, 11,000, unionized employees.”

“Your compensation costs are going up at least 10 percent a year. This is a trend that cannot continue,” he said, referencing 2015 wage increases for represented employees.

Wagner went on to comment on salaries, bringing Johnson in to the fray:

“You gave us a list of all new hires since July 1 of 2015, and compensation,” Wagner said. “Is it possible to get a list of all people in the System? Because I was looking through here … and Drew, I didn’t know if you knew that the swim coach at West Chester made $420,000 last year. I didn’t know if you knew, so you might want to consider swim coaching as your new career.”

(The compensation to the West Chester swimming coach was a one-time payment to make up for years of contract violations by the System.)

Wagner asked what the average college professor earns, so he could calculate what amount a professor would take home in retirement. Again, he addressed Johnson in his remarks:

“So, Drew, for your education, the professor that’s in your classroom that’s getting ready to retire after 25 years that maybe is making $125 a year, he’s gonna retire with $100,000 a year for the rest of his life. That’s where your pockets are being picked. … I would start wearing pants with zippers on because your wallet’s about ready to be taken away from you.”

Brogan replied, “That’s one of the reasons that we say when we talk about a reorganization and modernization, that’s why I use the phrase, ‘Everything has got to be on the table, not just some things, or it won’t work.’”

With no preamble, Sen. John Eichelberger jumped into commentary on professor salaries:

“At 97 grand, these are the people that are working 17 hours a week. Wow,” Eichelberger said, “Can I get a signup list here, going in the senate?”

Have an urge to contact some legislators after reading this? Find their contact information here.

Grazing students, funding, CBA bashing, your healthcare, release time for APSCUF chapter presidents, diversity hiring, struggling universities, per-credit tuition, and more

APSCUF live-tweeted last week’s State System budget-appropriations hearings before the House of Representatives and Senate. If you missed those tweets, you can catch up here.

If you have a bit more time, we’ve post both sessions on our YouTube channel for your convenience. Together, though, they’re almost five hours, so here are segments we thought were of most interest to APSCUF members.

Today we’ll start with the House session, which clocked in at almost three hours. Click on the images to watch clips.

Chancellor Frank T. Brogan set the stage with a recap of Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education’s funding situation:

“We have about the same funding as we had in 1997 … but we do have 13,000 more students today,” he said.

Brogan explained how the System has dealt with funding cuts and flat funding, and he mentioned upcoming changes:

“We’re 900 employees less today than we were eight years ago, through a variety of activities that have gotten us there,” he said. “We are leaner and meaner in that regard. … We’re more efficient in terms of our primary function, which is to graduate students with marketable degrees. We are working, however, today and into the months to come on what we’re calling an operational and organizational modernization plan. What should our system, our 14 universities, our system, look like for the next 25 years?”

Rep. William Adolph, Republican chairman of House appropriations committee, asked Brogan how funding cuts have affected the State System.

Here’s Brogan’s response, in which he mentions tuition hikes and budget cuts:

Indiana University’s president, Michael Driscoll, seated next to Brogan, added that IUP has eliminated more than 40 positions:

Rep. Sue Helm asked which of the universities have struggled the most with enrollment and may be the most financially vulnerable. Brogan’s answer: Cheyney and Mansfield.

Rep. Stephen Kinsey inquired about Cheyney University — specifically its interim president:

“We are still trying to get our arms around some of the major issues that Cheyney is dealing with,” Brogan replied, “so that by the time we post that job for a permanent president, we’ll be as attractive as possible to the most attractive candidates.”

Rep. Warren Kampf asked what cost savings the State System has made and is planning on implementing. The answer: cutting more than $300 million and 900 employees in the last 10 years.

Brogan said the System is examining faculty release time and its costs to the universities. He singled out the contractual release time for APSCUF chapter presidents for his example:

Rep. Madeleine Dean asked Drew Johnson, an East Stroudsburg University senior and Student Senate president, how the budget impasse has affected students:

Students have had to reprioritize, Johnson said. In the case of off-campus students, that might be a matter of choosing between rent and books, he said.

“They’ve had to do a lot of nail-biting,” Johnson said of fellow students waiting on state money.

Rep. Keith J. Greiner asked about per-credit pilot at Millersville University. He said he was impressed with the preliminary data and sees advantages to the program:

“Millersville is the first but not the last university to move to what is called a cost-per-credit system,” Brogan replied. He said about half the universities in the country use such an approach.

“It also has the net effect of having students take a more serious look at how many credits they are taking and the need to graduate on time, lest you face the additional cost of lingering at a university,” Brogan said. He went on to compare students to livestock: “Some people don’t like that idea. They believe that grazing in the vineyard of higher education for a prolonged period of time is the way to go.”

Brogan continued: “We do, to end, have a number of universities that have asked for the ability to do that and are preparing to implement that for the fall of this next year, in some cases.”

Rep. Donna Bullock asked about student and employee diversity within the State System.

Driscoll mentioned the collective-bargaining agreement, specifically, in his response. Ignoring the obvious answer that freezing hiring stifles the ability to diversify, Driscoll chose instead to focus on the CBA:

“We have a collective-bargaining agreement that provides very little flexibility in starting salaries for new faculty hires that doesn’t allow us to address market considerations very well,” he said, “and that makes us less likely to be able to bid effectively on some of those great candidates.”

Brogan continued an assault on the CBA in the same vein:

“I come from a system before this one where when you wanted to go out and hire a chemistry professor, you could go out and look for the best chemistry professor in the country and be able to decide how much you were able to pay that particular potential chemistry professor for their experience and their qualifications,” he said. “We don’t do that here. We can’t do that here. We … are stuck to a schedule, and it does make it hard to vie competitively against all the others in state and across the country for some of the best of the best. It’s a very difficult challenge to face when you’re trying to get the highest quality faculty that you possibly can.”

Rep. Kevin Schreiber asked the chancellor to discuss funding cuts:

Brogan discussed tuition increases but also mentioned future changes to the System as a whole:

“We have turned to the only thing we’ve got, and that is ourselves,” he said. “ … We cannot and should not any longer just operate the way we’ve operated for the last 100 years.”

He continued: “We have two obligations to reinvent, reorganize, and modernize our system.”

Rep. Marguerite Quinn asked about the System’s healthcare costs.

“Our board has taken a very emphatic position on costs associated with healthcare and recently made two decisions and have implemented those with those we can implement them with.”

Those two decisions:
1. Ending annuitant healthcare for all new nonrepresented hires.
2. Changes to healthcare plan for nonrepresented employees as well as represented employees with me-too healthcare language in their contracts. (That’s the plan the System proposed during negotiations in November.)

“We believe if that were instituted systemwide, with everybody, and it has to be through the collective-bargaining process in some cases, we could save as much as $12 million a year on those costs alone that could be plowed back into the system.”

Rep. Seth Grove asked if any state funding goes to the health, safety, and well-being of students and faculty members:

Brogan gave an “on-the-ground example.”

“Recently, the general assembly passed a lot of good legislation on the protection of minors, and most people didn’t think that had anything to do with higher education because, gosh, we’re all adults,” he said. He elaborated on the background checks taking place on State System campuses.

Next time: the Senate hearings.

State employees and contractors under Gov. Tom Wolf’s jurisdiction got good news this afternoon when the governor signed an executive order raising their minimum wage to $10.15 an hour.

Gov. Wolf’s 2016-17 budget proposal calls for raising the statewide minimum wage to $10.15 as well, he said.

APSCUF supports both the new and proposed increases, which strengthen Pennsylvania’s workers and bolster the Commonwealth’s overall economy.

Under the current state minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, a full-time minimum-wage earner makes $15,080 annually — below poverty level for a family of four. Such a household income leaves families struggling to afford necessities, let alone higher education.

As students and their families strive to pay ever-rising tuition and fees at our underfunded universities, an increased minimum wage is an important tool in helping working students and their families obtain quality, affordable higher education.

Gov. Tom Wolf signs the executive order March 7. Photo/PA.gov