NEA Higher EducationAdvocateVOL. 30, NO. 1 JANUARY 2013

Using Assessment Wisely+The story behind WWU’s phenomenal faculty contract

Your solutions to the crazy costs of textbooks

The conservative politics of contingent labor

Forget email: Learn how to lobby more effectively

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE2

BUILDING A BARGAIN 3The story behind Western Wash-ington’s new faculty contract.

THRIVING IN ACADEME 6How a more transparent class canhelp students and faculty.

WHY I AM A MEMBER 10Meet Ed Votes’ top activist.

THOUGHT & ACTION 12The politics of contingency.

THE STATE OF HIGHER ED 13Differential tuition? Please, no.

DIALOGUE 14Instead of assigning expensivetextbooks, consider the options.

CASE STUDIES 15What’s new with voter rights?

OP-ED 16It’s time for you to call your state legislator.

Advocate (ISSN: 1522-3183) is published five times a year, in September,November, January, March, and Juneby the National Education Associa-tion, 1201 16th St., N.W., Washington,D.C. 20036. Periodicals postage paid atWashington, D.C., and additional mail-ing offices. The Advocate is mailed toNEA Higher Education members as abenefit of membership. Postmaster:Send change of address to Advocate,1201 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C.20036. Copyright © 2012 by theNational Education Assoc.

National Education Association

Dennis Van RoekelNEA PRESIDENT

Lily EskelsenVICE PRESIDENT

Rebecca S.PringleSECRETARY-TREASURER

John C. StocksEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

NEA Center forCommunications

Ramona OliverSENIOR DIRECTOR

Steve GrantASSOCIATE DIRECTOR

Mary Ellen FlanneryEDITOR

Alice TruedPRODUCTION

Groff Creative GRAPHIC DESIGN

Prepared withthe assistance ofNEA staff:

Tammy FunderburkRachelle GrantNancy O’BrienSara RobertsonMark F. SmithValerie Wilkand PhadraWilliams-Tuitt

Try this: Your guide to supportingcontingent faculty colleagues

YOU KNOW THE NUMBER OF CONTINGENT

faculty on your campus is growing byleaps, right? And you may also believethat this over-reliance on non-tenuretrack faculty is a dangerous trend thatcontributes to the degradation of sharedgovernance, the erosion of academicfreedom, a lack of support for studentlearning, and so on. Well, that’s all true—

but if you want to do something about it, you’ll need data tomake the case for changing campus policies. To that end, twonew guides from the Delphi Project, a collaborative effortthat includes NEA, aim to help faculty and staff examine non-tenure track faculty practices and issues at the campus level.Each guide, one for campus task forces, the other for aca-demic departments or programs, provides questions around avariety of topics: hiring and employment practices, compen-sation, curriculum, office spaces, etc. (For example, “Arenon-tenure track faculty invited or encouraged to attend fac-ulty meetings?” or “What are the criteria for non-tenure trackfaculty to be eligible for promotion?”) The Delphi tool-kits donot include lists of recommended changes, but rather guideparticipants to their own conclusions. “You can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach,” said Adrianna Kezar, Delphi Project di-rector, to Inside Higher Ed. To learn more or download theguides, visit www.thechangingfaculty.org.

NEA Higher Ed to meet in MarchTHE NEA HIGHER ED CONFERENCE will beheld March 22-24 at the Portland Mar-riott Downtown Waterfront in Portland,Oregon. This year’s conference theme,"Faculty, Students, and the CommonGood," asks, "As our nation becomes increasingly partisan and polarized, especially between rich and poor, and aspublic education becomes increasingly

underfunded and targeted by anti-egalitarian forces, what isthe role of faculty, academic professionals, higher educationsupport professionals and students in creating a more demo-cratic, more decent society? What is the public good, andwhat does it mean to fight for it?" More information is avail-able at www.nea.org/he.

You’re not too late! Keep writing!THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS to NEA’s peer-reviewed journalof higher education, Thought & Action, is January 31. Keep inmind that submissions also will be considered for the $2,500Excellence in the Academy awards. For guidelines, visitwww.nea.org/thoughtandaction.

MISSED SOMETHING?READ PREVIOUS ARTICLES ONOUR WEBSITE

NEW OPTIONS FOR IN-DEBT STUDENTS The federal Pay as YouEarn program seeks torelieve the student loandebt burden of recentgraduates and currentstudents.www.educationvotes.nea.org/2012/11/14/

OBAMA AND HBCUS:MORE THAN WORDS With more than $220million in federal grantsto HBCUs, PresidentObama has shown hisstrong support for theirmission and programs.www.educationvotes.nea.org/2012/11/03/

NEA PRESIDENT TALKSABOUT FUNDINGAs the fiscal cliff loomedlate last year, NEA Presi-dent Dennis Van Roekeltook to the airwaves tomake the case for educa-tors and students.www.educationvotes.nea.org/2012/11/15/

HOW TO HELP YOURCOLLEAGUES IN NJThe NJEA (New JerseyEducation Association)Back to School Fund willbe used to support mem-ber volunteer efforts inthe communities hardesthit by Hurricane Sandy.Find out how you canhelp too. www.njea.org

Headline News

When the United Faculty of Western Washington

ratified their new contract last summer, they hit the mark on almost every

page: academic freedom, intellectual property, job security for contingent faculty, ownership of online work, and salary too. “You are a model for leading the profession in higher

education,” applauded NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. “Is this the best new contract in America?” asked

the NEA Advocate in September. But the more useful question to pose, especially as many staff and faculty

unions prepare for the bargaining table this spring, is this: How the heck did they do it?

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATEIllustration: hunkmax 3

HOW DO YOU GET A REALLY GREAT CONTRACT?

Best BargainBUILDING

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To say that first bargaining was longand hard would be an understate-ment. To describe it as acrimoniousand exhausting gets closer to truth.But it also was valuable. Over the 19-month process, as union membersrallied and union leaders grew morefocused, they developed a deeplycommitted unit. Not every facultymember had wanted or voted for aunion at WWU, but even those whohad loudly opposed ratificationpicked up signs to support the bar-gaining team, recalled UFWW Presi-dent Steven Garfinkle. At one point,UFWW gathered a petition of sup-port that had more faculty signaturesthan the union had original votes.

How did they do that?LESSON #1: OWN THE MISSION OF YOUR

UNIVERSITY. When the first bargainingteam walked into the room and facedthe most anti-union attorney that thecollege president could find, theyhad three primary goals: Protectworkload, improve compensation,and sustain the quality of educationprovided to students at WWU, aschool known for its teaching ability.“Under tremendous pressure, withincredible discipline, our bargaining

team maintained our goals,” Garfinklesaid. And, in doing so, they demon-strated that the union wasn’t thething that opponents had feared: itwasn’t about protecting mediocrity.

“We’ve been really successful inowning the mission of the univer-sity,” said Bill Lyne, president of thestatewide United Faculty of Washing-ton State, and a WWU professor ofEnglish. “That’s huge. You just keepcoming back to them saying, ‘Youwant this to be a quality institution.If you really mean that, then this iswhere you have to put the money.We are how you guys recruit, retain,and graduate students.’”

This message wasn’t just delivered toadministrators, it also was under-stood by students, parents, and theuniversity’s trustees. “Anytimethere’s a benefit to faculty there’s in-herently a benefit for students,” saidEthan Glemaker, president of WWU’sstudent government. “That why Icame to Western, because of the phe-nomenal caliber of the faculty.”

During this most recent bargaining,UFWW’s goals didn’t change—theywere still all about faculty workingconditions and students’ learningconditions. If anything, because of

current budgetary pressures to in-crease class sizes in some depart-ments, the need to protect facultyworkloads was even more intense,said Leonard, bargaining chair. Butone significant factor had changed:the administration.

“When I first got here, I had peoplestopping me in the hallway andtelling me, ‘Hey Bruce, you shouldknow, this union is about excellencein the university,” recalled WWUPresident Bruce Shepard, who ar-rived on campus five years ago, justas the first bargain was reaching itsend. “We knew this negotiationwould be coming up. We’ve workedhard to make sure we have as posi-tive a relationship as possible. Thatdoesn’t mean making nice. It meansbeing respectful and candid.”

Is that unusual? A college presidentwho respects a campus union’srights? Who thinks a strong unionmakes for a strong university? It’s alittle bit of luck, acknowledged Lyne.

But it’s not just luck.See Lesson #2. LESSON #2: HONOR YOUR STATUS AS A

LEGAL EQUAL. Gary McNeil, the Wash-ington Education Association (WEA)organizer who has advised UFWWfrom the start, speaks convincinglyabout this basic principle of union-ism. You need to respect yourself asa union. “It’s not about bluster. It’snot about ‘beating the man.’ It’s

he story of Western Washington’s contract begins long beforeKevin Leonard, chair of the faculty bargaining team, satdown with his teammates at the table last January. If thiscontract is like a lighthouse, shining a hopeful beam forfaculty across the country, it’s because it was built on thebedrock of basic union principles, which United Faculty ofWestern Washington (UFWW) leaders first struck when theyratified their union in 2006 and then dug deeper duringthe bargaining around their first contract.T

BestBUILDING

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we’re calling that a success—but nobodysuspected we’d be able to do it.”

Is this the best newcontract in America? When the ink was dry and the bottomline revealed, it was the issue of compen-sation that claimed headlines. WWU’steam had agreed to 5.25 percent raisesthis year, 4.25 percent next year, and an-other 4.25 the year after. At the sametime, more than $1 million was set asideto fix salary compression—the problemyou see when the salaries of long-timeemployees are overtaken by new hires.

For his part, Leonard doesn’t dwell onthe salaries—“that’s a place where I haveto give credit to the administration,” hesaid. His team staked its ground else-where. On the primary issue of facultyworkload, new language makes sure itisn’t just about the number of classes, it’salso about the number of students in eachclass. On the growing issue of onlinecourses, “this agreement makes very clear

that decisions about who teaches thosecourses will be made by faculty at thedepartment level, and that those facultywill own their curriculum,” said Leonard.

Academic freedom was enhanced: Fac-ulty now have the explicit right to criti-cize or comment on the internaloperations of the university. Job securityfor contingent (or adjunct) faculty alsowas given a much-needed boost, and anew commitment to increase the numberof tenure-track jobs was secured.

The contract was signed in June, aftersix months and 120-plus hours at thetable. And when trustees put ink to thepaper, student Ethan Glemaker wasthere. “It was this incredibly celebratorymoment, this feeling that something re-ally phenomenal had been accom-plished,” he recalled. “I was just sostoked—because I feel really privilegedto be here, with this faculty.”

BY MARY ELLEN FLANNERYEditor, NEA Office of Higher Educationmflannery@nea.org

about carrying yourself as an equal,”said McNeil. “What if you woke up oneday and you were running the place?That’s what this is about. It’s very seri-ous.” For faculty who are accustomedto shared governance, which confers thelesser power of recommendation, this isa change.

And what it looks like is this: A bargain-ing team comprised of some of the mosthighly respected faculty members oncampus—people who have the confi-dence of both peers and administrators.It looks like stacks of notes, taken dur-ing months of preparation for the bar-gain, as team members examine eachline of the existing contract. “Stevenand Kevin always talk about being pre-pared,” said McNeil. “You’re not sloppy.You’re not late. You’re not flippant.”

“Within this group, there was tremen-dous respect,” said Sandra Alfers, asso-ciate professor and bargaining teammember. “I don’t have experience withother bargains — this was my first—and maybe some others talk about the‘other side,’ but it wasn’t like that. Itwas more like you had two sides work-ing together. Listening skills were a bigcomponent of it.”

“We set ground rules right from thestart,” said Leonard, and among themwas the mutual acknowledgment that“both sides were deeply committed tothe quality of the institution.”

One place where UFWW has been ableto affirm its status as an equal to collegeadministration is Olympia, the state capi-tal. Over the past five years, state fund-ing for public higher education has beencut 50 percent—“a dramatic disinvest-ment,” according to Bruce Shepard. Butwhen it comes to flexing muscle in theoffices of state legislators, there are fewrivals to WEA, the largest labor union inthe state. “We’ve been very cooperativein statewide political work—students,faculty, and administrators, and our ad-ministration has found that we’re muchstronger when we work together,” Lynesaid. “Our big success last year was thatwe had no new cuts in funding. I guessthat shows how far down we are—that

Top row: KevinLeonard, StevenGarfinkle, BillLyne; Bottomrow: EthanGlemaker, Bruce Shepard,Sandra Alfers

REQUIRED READINGWEA organizer Gary McNeil has an assignment for you: Pick up and read Tomorrow is Another Country, by Allister Sparks. It’s the story of negotia-tions between Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress and senior officials in the apartheid government. You’ll see that Mandela walked into the room with self-respect and self-recognition of his equal status, and hewalked out with his opponents’. So can you.

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE6

Transparency in Learning and Teaching

Faculty and students benefit directly from a shared focus on theprocesses of learning and teaching.

Using assessment data to improve teaching and learningIn this world of increasing accountability and shrinking resources, assessments of teaching performance and learning outcomes are commonplace on college and university campuses. But such assessments all too often produce data that all too rarely tricklesdown to sustainable improvements in learning and teaching practices. When was the lasttime assessment data actually informed your teaching? How many of your students under-stand how institutional assessments enhance their learning?

The Illinois Initiative on Transparency in Learning and Teaching is an innovative, grass-roots assessment program that helps teachers and students collaborate to improve theirhigher education teaching and learning experiences through two main activities:

! promoting students’ conscious understanding of how they learn, and...

! enabling faculty to gather, share and promptly benefit from current student assess-ment data by coordinating their efforts across disciplines, institutions and countries.

The Initiative engages students and teachers in explicit (or transparent) conversationabout beneficial learning and teaching practices. First, faculty and students experimentwith various methods of examining learning/teaching processes (see Best Practices onpage 8), and then they measure the results through a four-and-a-half-minute online survey,which asks students about the current and future learning benefits they are gaining. Theiranswers, which quickly point to the most effective learning and teaching methods for particular disciplines and student groups, can be shared and immediately acted upon.

Thriving inAcademeREFLECTIONS ON HELPING STUDENTS LEARN

BY MARY-ANNWINKELMESUniversity of Illinois

Thriving in Academe is a joint project of NEA and the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education(www.podnetwork.org). For more information, contact the editor, Douglas Robertson (drobert@fiu.edu) at

Florida International University or Mary Ellen Flannery (mflannery@nea.org) at NEA.

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATEIllustration: Steve McCracken 7

Assessment Exhaustion?Faculty, students and administrators all feelthe strain of complying with mandated assessments. Unfortunately, so much atten-tion to compliance can deplete our energyfor applying any wisdom gained from assessment data. In a national assessmentstudy conducted by the Wabash Institute,schools readily admitted that they didn’t review assessment data for ways to im-prove students’ learning. [Blaich and Wise2011] But when institutions don’t parse,summarize and share data in ways that benefit learning and teaching, instructors

are on their own with their course data.Consequently, their efforts are usually iso-lated from the larger context of informationabout learning practices that work best forstudents in similar courses in their discipline— the kind of bigger picture that makes theirown evaluation results more meaningful.The process doesn’t need to be so isolatingand exhausting!

To combat these limitations, hundreds ofinstructors from the U.S. and abroad havebegun using the Illinois Initiative for Trans-parency in Learning and Teaching to gatherand share information about how students’learning experiences are improved by

teaching methods that promote their under-standing of their own learning processes.The project also removes other commonbarriers to faculty participation in assess-ment, including lack of control over theprocess, lack of expertise, insufficient time,lack of short-term benefits to teaching andlearning practices, and concerns about privacy. Participating instructors implementone of the suggested methods (see BestPractices) at their own discretion, and then

I TALES FROM REAL LIFE > THE PROCESS ORIENTED CLASSROOM

Meet Mary-Ann Winkelmes

Apriest, a loungesinger and a plumber

walked into a class-room — my classroom,actually. Like many oftheir classmates, theywere “non-traditional”students, ranging fromall walks of life. Whatdid they have in com-mon? They all would beasked to work collabo-ratively to research and

produce a high-qualitymuseum catalogue.

Pedagogical researchtold me they neededspecific examples ofwhat such work lookedlike. So I hunted downmuseum catalogue entries and articles andshared those with thestudents. Step by step, I identified the requiredtasks, in sequential

order. Despite my bestefforts, the studentsfloundered. What wasstanding in the way oftheir progress?

Publications on hownovices and experts approach intellectualproblems helped meunderstand that the students’ thinkingprocesses might be hindering their work.

And conversations withthe students revealedoverwhelming self-doubt in their ability tosucceed at this sort ofwork. But it wasn’t untilwe explicitly and franklydiscussed how and whynovice learners strug-gled in new disciplines,or how and why theirlearning processesmight be different, thatbreakthroughs occurred.

One outcome was ascholarly museum cata-logue—the goal of thecourse. The other, moreimportant outcome wasmy own learning aboutthe benefits of beingtransparent with stu-dents about the howsand whys of the learn-ing and teachingprocess.

Mary-AnnWinkelmes is Campus Coordinatorfor Programs onTeaching and Learning, an Administrative

Provost Fellow, and an affiliatedmember of the faculty in the Collegeof Education at the University ofIllinois in Urbana-Champaign,where she has responsibility forproviding innovative professionaldevelopment opportunities for new and veteran faculty membersthrough fourteen discipline-basedTeaching Academies. She recentlycompleted an elected three-yearterm of service on the Board of Directors of the Professional andOrganizational Development (POD)Network in Higher Education, andas chair of its research committee.

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE Illustration: Steve McCracken8

Discuss assignments’ learning goals before students begin each assignment

• Chart out the skills students will practice in each assign-ment in the course.

• Begin each assignment by defining the learning benefitsto students: skills practiced, content knowledge gained.

• Provide criteria for success in advance.

• Offer examples of successful work, and annotate them toindicate how criteria apply. This discourages copyingand encourages original work.

Gauge students’ understanding during class via peerwork on questions that require students to apply theconcepts you’ve taught

• Create scenarios/applications to test their understandingof key concepts during class.

• Allow discussion in pairs, instructor’s feedback, andmore discussion.

• Provide explicit assess-ment of students’ real-time understanding,with further explanation if needed, before moving on toteach the next concept.

Engage students in applying the grading criteria thatyou’ll use on their work

• Share criteria for success and examples of good work(as above in #1), then ask students to apply these criteriain written feedback on peers’ drafts.

Explicitly connect “how people learn” data withcourse activities when students struggle at difficult transition points

• Offer research-based explanations about concepts ortasks that students often struggle to master in your discipline.

See additional methods at www.teachingandlearning.illinois.edu/components_of_transparency.html

I BEST PRACTICES > SOME TRANSPARENT METHODS WITHPROMISING RESULTS

measure the impact on students’ learningexperiences with an online survey thattakes students about four and a half minutesto complete. Time-consuming tasks likeconducting data analysis and obtaining ethical research approvals are completedby Transparency staff, so faculty can focustheir time on students. Since 2010, thisgrassroots project has involved more than18,000 students at twelve institutions in five countries.

Because participating faculty share their results quickly and broadly (and anony-mously, with appropriate approvals), it isalready possible to identify ways that anexplicit focus on learning and teachingmethods can benefit students in specificdisciplines at the introductory, intermediateand advanced levels.

In the Social SciencesIn introductory, undergraduate social sciencecourses, at least three methods have shownstatistically significant benefits (p < .01) forstudent learning. They are: discussing theassignment’s learning goals and design rationale before students begin; using in-class peer work to gauge students’ under-

standing of new concepts; and conductingin-class discussions about graded tests andassignments.

However, their efficacy depends in classsize. As class size grows from 66 to 300, the second method, “peer work,” seems tobecome less effective, while the first growsmore so. In classes above 300, “debriefing”seems most effective.

At the intermediate level in social sciencecourses with 30 or fewer students, anothermethod seems beneficial. That is explicitlyconnecting the data around “how peoplelearn” to course activities at difficult transi-tion points. (For examples, see Bass, Bloom,Bransford, Gregorc, Light, Perry at:www.teachingandlearning.illinois.edu/components_of_transparency.html.)

In courses at this level, students also reportthat “gauging of students’ understanding” is

significantly less helpful. This suggests thatexplicit discussions about understanding atthe intermediate level may be redundantand unnecessary. For graduate students,“debriefing” appears to be the most effec-tive method for enhancing learning value.

In the Physical SciencesHere in the U.S. in introductory, undergrad-uate physical courses, some of those samemethods also work well. Specifically, theyare: explicitly connecting “how peoplelearn” data with course activities at difficulttransition points, and discussing an assign-ments’ learning goals and design rationalebefore students begin those assignments.

In introductory physical science courses,students also report benefits from themethod of “gauging students’ understand-ing,” but less so when class size tops 300.

Current and FutureLearning BenefitsLast weekend, a colleague bumped into aformer student who said, “Your course wasso hard, I dreaded it. But now I use what I

AN EXPLICIT FOCUS ONLEARNING AND TEACHING

METHODS CAN BENEFITSTUDENTS.

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE

learned from you all the time!” Wouldn’twe all like to measure students’ views ofour courses years later? Like my col-league, many of us wish we could meas-ure students’ views of our course yearslater. Well, now we’re in luck — almost.The Transparency Initiative has indicatedtwo benefits that its recommended meth-ods can offer: 1) current value of the stu-dents’ learning experience, and 2) futurelearning benefits (based on students’ iden-tification of lifelong learning skills theygained from a course). The latter providesa “win-win” for teachers and students.While instructors get a satisfying indicatorof their long-term impact, students gainawareness of how the skills they are prac-ticing in class assignments may benefitthem long after course completion. Thoselong-term skills include communication andcollaboration, as well as analytical thinking,synthetic thinking and making evaluativejudgments about ideas and evidence.

Changing How Size MattersMost instructors notice that as class sizesincrease, the quality of students’ engage-ment and learning often decreases. But in courses with 300-plus students whereinstructors built awareness of the teachingand learning process, students felt morevalued by instructors than students inmuch smaller classes where transparencymethods weren't implemented. For exam-ple, in large social science courses at theintroductory level, students exposed to themethod of “in-class debriefing discussions”responded significantly more positivelythan students in control group courses tothe question, “How much does the instruc-tor value you as a student?” Results aresimilar in intermediate and advancedphysical science courses using the debrief-ing and other transparency methods. Evenin very large classes, explicit discussion ofthe learning and teaching methods canmake students feel like they matter.

Promoting Best PracticesNot only does the Transparency Initiativeshare data that informs teaching/learningpractices, it also implements good practicewhile it collects that data. This makes theprocess of researching the methods valu-able even before the findings are shared.

The recommended methods (see BestPractices) are compatible with the “Prin-ciples of Excellence,” “Essential LearningOutcomes” and “High Impact Practices”defined by the Association of AmericanColleges and Universities’ Liberal Educa-tion and America’s Promise initiative, andwith research on learning and teachingpractices. [Ambrose 2010, Nilson 2010]

REFERENCES & RESOURCES:Ambrose, Susan A. et al. How Learning Works:Seven Research-Based Principles for SmartTeaching. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2010.

Bembenutty, Héfer, ed. Self-Regulated Learning. Spec. issue of New Directions forTeaching and Learning 126 (Summer 2011).

Blaich, Charles and Kathleen Wise, “From Gathering to Using Assessment Results: Lessons from the Wabash NationalStudy.” NILOA Occasional Papers 8 (January2011): 11.

Bransford, John D., Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking, eds. How People Learn:Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. Wash-ington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2000.

Calkins, S. and Marina Micari. “Less-Than-

Perfect Judges: Forty Years of Discourse onthe Value of Students Rating Teachers inHigher Education.” Thought and Action 26(2010): 7-22.

Dunlosky, John, Douglas Hacker and ArthurGrasser, eds. Handbook of Metacognition inEducation. New York: Routledge, 2009.

Gold, Larry, Gary Rhoades, Mark Smith, andGeorge Kuh. “What Faculty Unions Say AboutStudent Learning Outcomes Assessment.”NILOA Occasional Papers 9 (May, 2011).

Illinois Initiative on Transparency in Teachingand Learning in Higher Education

Jaschik, Scott. “Can Students Learn toLearn?” Inside Higher Ed (January 31, 2011).

Kuh, G., & Ikenberry, S. More than You Think,Less than We Need: Learning Outcomes Assessment in American Higher Education.Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and IndianaUniversity, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, 2009.

Nilson, Linda B. Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors. 3d ed.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010.

Provezis, Stacy. “Regional Accreditation andStudent Learning Outcomes: Mapping theTerritory,” NILOA Occasional Papers 6 (October,2010): 7, 13.

I ISSUES TO CONSIDER

Illustration: Steve McCracken 9

TAKE CHARGE!MAKE ASSESS-MENT BENEFITYOU AND YOURSTUDENTSCAN FACULTY HAVEMORE POWER OVERASSESSMENT?Absolutely! And theright time is now. Six of the seven regional accrediting bodies in theU.S. have codified thenecessity for faculty in-volvement in assessment,especially to connect assessment with educa-tional improvement.[Provezis 2010] Represen-tatives from three majornational faculty unions— American Associationof University Professors(AAUP), American Feder-ation of Teachers (AFT)and National EducationAssociation (NEA) —have agreed that faculty

must be included in deciding how to assessstudents’ learning out-comes and how to useassessment results. [Gold,et al. 2011] And eightypercent of chief academicofficers surveyed at U.S.research universitiescited “more faculty engagement” as the toppriority for improving assessment efforts ontheir campuses. [Kuh andIkenberry 2009]

WHAT CAN YOU DOABOUT IT? You can stay informed of the most recent discoveries by the Trans-parency Initiative, andmake those tiny adjust-ments to your coursesthat have the greatestbenefits for students inyour discipline at yourstudents’ level(s) of ex-pertise. Updated findingsare posted continually

on the project’s website.You can also join hun-dreds of your colleaguesto help the TransparencyInitiative’s current focuson a question of crucialimportance to higher education: how to promote retention andgraduation rates for allstudents, and especiallynon-traditional and underrepresented under-graduate students. Findout more about theTransparency Initiativehere (www.teachingandlearning.illinois.edu/transparency.html),where you can join theproject and invite yourown students to completethe 5-minute online survey.

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE10

WHY I’M AMEMBER

KUDOSProfessors of the YearNEA Higher Ed applauds all of the stateand national winners of the U.S. Professorsof the Year program, sponsored by CASEand the Carnegie Foundation for the Advance of Teaching. They include:

MICHAEL W. MORROW. aprofessor of biology atUniversity of Montana—Western, arrived on campus in 2002. Sincethen, a fantastic experi-ment has taken place:What happens when one

professor brings his enormous passion forresearch (the “ultimate experiential learn-ing experience”), mixes it into UMW’sunique block schedule, and adds a few hundred thousand dollars in new federal research dollars? You get an invigorated biology program that has grown from justfive students in 2002 to nearly 130 during Morrow’s tenure.

REES SHAD is coordinatorof the media design pro-grams at Hostos Com-munity College in NewYork, and also an ac-complished musicianand producer. His pro-gram, which he put

together, offers AAS degrees in graphic design, animation, music production, audioengineering and game design. Recently, hehelped win a $610,000 grant from the National Science Foundation around multi-media game design, which will help engagemedia design students in STEM subjects. Ina statement, Shad said he was honored bythe award, calling it a testament to his students who “strive to compete in the newdigital world we live in.”

John JacksonYOUNGSTOWN STATE UNIVERSITY, OHIO

We can thank Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the architect of themost anti-worker bill of 2011, for turning John Jackson intothe most active member of the NEA Education Votes networkthis year. Not only did Jackson participate in more than adozen phone banks and nearly as many voter registrationdrives, but he also canvassed homes, knocking on doors andtalking to voters, on a whopping 51 days in late 2012. “Sen-ate Bill 5 (Kasich’s bill) was the turning point for me,” he recalled. “It was the first time my government had attackedme!” The organic chemistry professor was moved to get involved—and stay involved. “Once you start, once you breakthat ‘activation barrier,’ it gets easier,” said Jackson. “Sure,you can say you’re too busy. But the question is, what arewilling to sacrifice?” This year, Jackson was much more will-ing to sacrifice his time than his rights. And, while his well-worn walking shoes aren’t likely to stand up to anotherelection, Jackson already is looking ahead to the state legisla-tive sessions of 2013 and the Ohio governor’s race of 2014. “Ittook something that directly affected me to get me in-volved… But I’ll say it’s added up to the most rewarding ex-perience of my life.”

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The Terms of Accountability

BY THE NUMBERS

Colleges and universitiesare facing additionalpressures to BECOMEMORE ACCOUNTABLEto state legislaturesand the federal govern-ment for resources pro-vided to them, and alsoto BECOME MORERESPONSIVE to thehuman capital needs ofthe economy. Thisreflects the sweepingup of the public dis-course of higher edu-cation funding into alarger social and mediamovement towardsviewing public institu-tions almost entirely interms of their SERVICETO ECONOMIC MAR-KETS, and has led toattacks on traditionalforms of shared gover-nance among boards,administrative leaders,and faculty, on tenuredor tenure-track faculty positions, and on collective bargaining.

While the public discourse focuses onsimplistic calls forincreased “accountabil-ity,” the concept ENCOMPASSES AHOST OF QUESTIONS:who is going to be accountable to whomand for what processesand outcomes? To clarify the issues, AliciaC. Dowd and LindaTaing Shieh delineatethe political terms usedto justify the varioustypes of accountabilityin their upcomingarticle in the NEAHigher Education Al-manac, “CommunityCollege Financing:Equity, Efficiency, and Accountability.”

EXAMPLES OF ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS, BY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT AND THE KEY TERMS OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Bureaucratic Market Professional

LOCAL Performance reporting to governing boards

Contract funding

Extension (non-credit; recreational) courses

Shared governance

Tenure and promotion standards

STATE Performance reporting to governing boards

Performance funding(emphasis on efficiency and equity in access)

Performance funding(emphasis on employers’ needs for human capital inhigh demand fields)

Shared governance

FEDERAL Annual reports required for receiptof operating grants

Institutional responsi-bility for student loandefault rates

Semester time restrictions on use of Pell grants

IPEDS data

Student Right toKnow (SRTK) Act

Accreditation

TERMS OFPOLITICALDISCOURSE

Rules

Regulations

Compliance

Instructional delivery

Human capital.

Responsiveness.

Customer.

Client.

Flexibility.

Transparency.

Expertise

Peer review

Inquiry

Community of Practice

Best practices

Adapted from Tables in “Community College Financing: Equity, Efficiency, and Accountability,” by Alicia C. Dowd and Linda Taing Shieh. NEAHigher Education Almanac, to be published in March 2013.

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE12

The Politics of Contingent Academic Labor

By Claire Goldstene

The conditions of academic labor reflect the mission of universities. Should they be defined by a commitment to intellectual inquiry—sites to explore the nature of know-ing, to acknowledge and then endeavor to clarify the complexities of the natural and

social worlds, to expose students to alternative perspectives and to propose new ways of thinking—all of which requires

their ability to attract “customers,” increaseendowment funds, reduce labor costs, andact as businesses in a market-driven econ-omy? This latter, neoliberal view, increasinglyembraced by a growing cadre of administra-tors, has yoked corporate values to a longer-term conservative assault against tenureprotections manifested, in major part,through a greater dependence on adjunct andcontract faculty.

In this brave new world of contingent faculty,threats to tenure and its complement, aca-demic freedom, are occasionally overt andfrequently subtle, but with similarly disturb-ing consequences. Some administrators havesought to eliminate tenure altogether, notablyCharles Reed when he served, from 1986 to1998, as chancellor for the State UniversitySystem of Florida, an effort that ultimatelyfailed. Many newly formed, non-profit univer-sities do not offer tenure and the ballooningnumber of for-profit colleges typically offeronly part-time faculty appointments. A 2011survey of college presidents conducted bythe Pew Research Center in association withThe Chronicle of Higher Education foundthat 69 percent of respondents would preferto govern a university comprised of mostlycontract, non-tenured faculty.

Yet less direct administrative maneuvers alsoundermine tenure and academic freedom. Agrowing number of academics are employed

on a year-to-year or multi-year basis, either asterm faculty or post-docs, and occupy a mid-dle ground between adjunct and tenure-track/tenured faculty. Essentially, this groupof contingent faculty fulfill the requirementsassociated with achieving tenure without thepossibility of attaining not only its economicsecurity but, more importantly, those politi-cal protections that encourage and supportacademic freedom.

The political fallout

While these new realities of academic lifemost immediately affect job seekers, contin-gent faculty, and their students, the long-termconsequences permeate the atmosphere ofthe university. Though conservative criticshave overplayed the perceived liberal bias ofuniversity faculty and curriculum, they havecorrectly identified higher education as con-tested political terrain. Education should provoke skepticism and promote exposure toviewpoints that question traditional ways ofthinking. Given this, for those dedicated toprotecting existing inequalities of power thestakes are quite high. Adjunct and contingentacademic labor are integral to this larger political drama. Current trends in academiclabor are not merely a response to an imme-diate economic crisis. The expansion of contingent faculty corresponds to a decades-long effort to abolish tenure and curtail aca-demic freedom in the interests of advancinga conservative political agenda. These arecrucial matters of power.

THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL

EDITOR’S NOTE:This is an excerpt of a

new Thought & Actionarticle by Claire Gold-

stene, a lecturer atAmerican University.

For this work, Goldstenerecently won the NEANew Scholar Prize, a2013 Excellence in the

Academy Award. To readthe article in its entirety,

and also to view thejournal’s current call for

papers, visitwww.nea.org/

thoughtandaction.

academic freedom, a freedom historically protected by tenure? Or,should universities be defined according to corporate values, that is,

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE 13

CaliforniaIn a major victory for students, after monthsof work by California Faculty Association andCommunity College Association members,voters opted to raise state income taxes onthe wealthiest residents and temporarily increase the state sales tax. Without this newrevenue, public schools and colleges wouldhave faced another $6 billion in cuts thisyear, on top of $20 billion over the past four.

FloridaFaculty members at the University of Floridaare protesting a differential tuition plan pro-posed by Gov. Rick Scott’s task force on statehigher education. Under their plan, studentswould pay more if they majored in “non-strategic” majors, presumably humanities,and less if they majored in “high-skill, high-wage, high-demand” programs, such as STEMor health programs. “In the short term, Ithink we run the risk of demolishing ourprestige as an institution,” said UF associateprofessor Lillian Guerra to Inside Higher Ed.In the long term, such a move likely woulddecimate liberal arts in Florida and the essen-

tial (and transferrable) skills taught in thosesubjects. To join your Florida colleagues invirtual protest, go here: www.change.org/petitions/governor-rick-scott-protect-higher-education-in-florida.At the same time, Scott also has followedTexas by recently calling on Florida’s publicinstitutions to provide a bachelor’s degree for$10,000 or less, including books.

MichiganSo-called “Right to Work” legislation was rammed through the state legislature in earlyDecember. These laws, which undermine theability of unions to organize and representtheir members, also have been shown to cor-relate with decreased state productivity and increased poverty. To support your colleaguesat the Michigan Education Association, visitwww.mea.org.

New YorkYour colleagues at the City University of NewYork (CUNY) are asking for your support inprotesting “Pathways,” a system of movingstudents through the college more quickly, to

be implemented in the fall of 2013. Basically,its effect would be to cut class requirementsand student time with faculty, endangeringthe traditional quality of a CUNY education.To sign the Professional Staff Congress’ peti-tion of protest, go tohttp://action.aft.org/c/521/p/dia/action3/common/public/.

WisconsinAfter suffering a 30 percent budget cut lastyear, Wisconsin’s technical colleges surelyneed a boost. And with the state projectingan additional $1.5 billion in revenues overthe next two years, they hope to get it.“Schools have done their part to get throughtimes of economic downturn, even thoughthere’s no better return on taxpayer dollarsthan education,” said WEAC President MaryBell. But at a speech in November, Gov. ScottWalker said he plans for major changes inhigher ed funding. The number of studentsor degrees awarded shouldn’t matter, hesaid. Instead, funding should be tied to jobplacement rates.

THE STATE OF HIGHER ED

I TWO-MINUTE INTERVIEW > U.S. REP. JOHN TIERNEY

I teach at a public collegeand our budget has beensavaged. What do you seeCongress doing about it? When I was at Salem StateUniversity [a public four-year college in Massachu-setts], I contributed about 20to 30 percent of the cost ofmy education, and the restwas paid by tax dollars.Those percentages areflipped now, and it meansstudents are carrying around

an enormous amount ofdebt. In last year’s StudentLoan Affordability Act, I insisted that states mustmaintain their efforts. Theycan’t just take federal moneyand send theirs out the backdoor.

Speaking of student debt...When Democrats were inthe majority from 2007-2010,we cut interest rates in halffor Stafford loans. We need

to do that for other federalstudent loans. We shouldn’tbe filling the Treasury withstudent payments. Wealready made sure we increased Pell Grants... but there are some peoplewho want to take that in the other direction and that’s going to be a seriousproblem.

What can you tell us aboutjob training efforts?The Workforce InvestmentAct of 1998 is long overduefor a reauthorization—times have changed, tech-nology has new impact. Iwas glad to put together theDemocratic version [of the

proposed reauthorization].Unfortunately we didn’t getit done last year, but I thinkwe’ll get back to it. Whatwe’re looking at is identify-ing industries that are goingto have jobs in a particular region, and then workingwith community colleges toget people the skills they’llneed to get those jobs andmove up the ladder.

What do you think aboutunions for graduate students? They don’t get paid well andthey don’t get a lot of bene-fits. It makes perfect senseto me!

U.S. REP. JOHN TIERNEY of Massachusetts recently won re-election to the House, where he serves on the educationand labor committee—and now he’s got some work to do.This year, Congress may reauthorize the Higher EducationAct and the Workforce Investment Act. In November, during a tele-town hall co-hosted by MTA and NEA, Tierney answered these questions.

ALINE SOULES: Gordon Clantonis rightly scandalized by the costof textbooks; however, I take ex-ception to his proposed solu-tions, which all cost something.Instead I propose these:

Find some good articles in your li-brary’s databases and providestudents with instructions on howto access them. (Your librarianwill be happy to help.)

Develop your own open-source“textbook.” To find sources, trythe library (databases, e-books,etc.), MERLOT (merlot.org),Scholar Google, or other Websources. If you are in doubt aboutthe reliability of the materials,once again, consult your librarian.

For some examples, visit the CSUEast Bay website for the alterna-tive textbook project at alttextcsueb.wordpress. com.

All it takes is a little investigation.

MICHAEL ASH: I agree with muchof what Gordon Clanton writes,but it’s essential to be clear aboutthe causes of the problem. Therehas been enormous consolida-tion in the textbook market. Thisis obvious from the long, hyphen-ated names, such as Addison-Wesley-Longman-Pearson. We’realso seeing high consumer prices

for products that have very lowproduction costs, frequent modelchanges (13th editions!), aggres-sive bundling of books and work-books, and the profusion of“special editions” —all signs thatmonopoly is the proximate causeof high textbook prices.

The underlying reason, which un-derpins the monopoly, is the intel-lectual property (IP) regime ofcopyright. Copyright rules havebeen repeatedly expanded to thebenefit of the few at the expenseof the many. Academics and theirlibraries have been intimidatedfrom invoking the fair-use doc-trine for the educational uses oftexts. The result is an IP regimethat makes monopoly and associ-ated practices an attractive strat-egy for publishers.

Although monopoly is a seriouspolicy matter, the government re-sponse has been anything but se-rious. And, in most cases,individual efforts are a drop in thebucket.

Collective action is needed. Sharemodules and course materialsthat you have written. Join opentextbook projects, such as theOpen Learning Initiative (oli.cmu.edu.)

Finally, we can use our collective

power as a union to lobby electedofficials to take real action. In theshort run, we can take on the mo-nopolies, regulating prices asneeded. In the longer run, we canmake fair use and open sourcefundamental counterweights tothe copyright-monopoly regime.

PETER ARVANITES: When Istarted to teach statistics again afew years ago, I was planning togive open-book exams, but manystudents informed me that theycould not afford to buy the text-book. So I accommodated thestudents by allowing them tobring one sheet of paper to theexams with formulas written on it.This seems to be working fine. Iam not sure where the blame liesfor the dramatic increase in text-book prices, but I know that revis-ing textbooks every three yearsor less is not helping. Especiallyin mathematics, there is no needto revise a textbook every threeyears.

PETER LOEHR: I began usingtrade books which cover thesame aspects of leadership thattextbooks do—at a fraction of thecosts. Texts may be $120, whiletrade books might be $30—andeven far less at Half.com or Ama-zon.com. Plus, the trade booksare more enjoyable to read be-cause they are written to be read,rather than just sold.

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE14

In a recent issue of The NEA Advocate, San Diego State lecturer Gordon Clanton remarked onthe “major scandal of our times,” the rising costs of textbooks, which provide yet another stum-

bling block for poor students on their way to degrees. While every student should have theirown text, Clanton suggested professors can reduce textbook costs for students without reduc-

ing the number of pages students read by (1) assigning an earlier edition of a textbook, (2)teaching from three or four short paperback books, and (3) constructing customized course

readers. Since then, we have heard several additional ideas from NEA Higher Ed members. !

PETER ARVANITIESProfessor of Mathematics Rockland CommunityCollege, New York

PETER LOEHRAssociate Professor of Educational LeadershipSUNY—Buffalo State

The crazy costs of textbooks:Are there less expensive

alternatives for your students?

This discussion tookplace on an NEA HigherEd discussion board. Ifyou want to add to theconversation, visit it athttp://public-groups.nea.org/discussion/topic/show/541904.

DIALOGUE

ALINE SOULESLibrarian Cal State East Bay

MICHAEL ASHProfessor of Economicsand Public Policy ChairDepartment of EconomicsUMass Amherst

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE 15

Voting RightsWas this recent election the last of its kind?

BY JASON WALTA

IN THE WAKE OF A NATIONAL ELECTION fraught with trans-parent efforts to suppress minority voting—from dis-criminatory redistricting in Texas, to voter-registrationpurges in Florida, to early-voting restrictions in Ohio—the protections of the Voting Rights Acts (VRA) are asrelevant as ever. But three years ago, in NorthwestAustin Municipal Utility District #1 v. Holder (“NAMUDNO”), the Supreme Court put a key provisionof the VRA on life-support. Now, with the announcementthat it will hear the case Shelby County v. Holder, theCourt appears ready to pull the plug entirely.

Congress passed the VRA in 1965 to deal with massiveand violent suppression of Black voters. Section 5 of theVRA—the provision at issue in both NAMUDNO andShelby County—specifically targets certain recalcitrantjurisdictions, particularly in the South, that resisted enfranchising minority voters, by singling out these “cov-ered jurisdictions” and requiring any changes to votingrules in those places to be cleared by the Justice Depart-ment before taking effect. In 2006, Congress reautho-rized Section 5, with overwhelming support in both theSenate and House, and left intact the same list of cov-ered jurisdictions that has existed since 1982.

In both NAMUDNO and Shelby County, the plaintiffs argued that Section 5 is unconstitutional because it imposes burdens on covered jurisdictions that are notjustified by an ongoing threat of increased discriminationin those places. In NAMUNDO, the Court punted on thatissue by making it easier for jurisdictions to obtain an ex-emption—or “bailout”—from covered status. But inreaching that result, the Court questioned Section 5’s on-going vitality by observing that "Things have changed inthe South,” and that “The evil that [Section] 5 is meant toaddress may no longer be concentrated in the jurisdic-tions singled out for preclearance.”

Now, in Shelby County, the constitutional issue is un-avoidable because the plaintiff is not eligible for bailout.If the Court concludes that Section 5 is unconstitutional,

its ruling will be based on two pieces of legal dogma thatconsistently guide the Court’s conservative majority.

The first is a deep mistrust of Congressional authority toenact civil rights laws. Although the Constitution specifi-cally authorizes Congress to pass legislation enforcingthe Fourteenth Amendment’s right to “equal protectionof the laws” and the Fifteenth Amendment’s guaranteethat the “right of citizens of the United States to voteshall not be denied or abridged … on account of race,”the Court has imposed rigid limits on that authority. Injust about any other area, federal legislation need onlyhave a minimally rational connection to some conceiv-able problem. But the Court has required legislation en-acted under Congress’s civil rights authority to bejustified by an extensive record of Congressional find-ings and a showing that the law is a narrow (or, in theCourt’s phrasing, “congruent and proportional”) solutionto a specific problem.

The second dogma that could jeopardize the VRA is theelevation of the interests of non-persons—such as statesand corporations—over the rights of living, breathingAmericans. A glaring example of this is Citizens United,where the Court held that the “speech” rights of corpora-tions trumps the rights of actual voters to elections thatare free from the corrupting influence of corporatespending. Similarly, the VRA’s opponents argue that therights of historically disenfranchised minority votersshould yield to the desire of state and local governmentsto operate without additional federal oversight.

It is an audacious argument, especially considering thevital role the VRA has played in fighting voter suppres-sion. Yet, ironically enough, it may be the dramatic results of the 2012 election—where, despite efforts tosuppress turnout, minority voters successfully mobilizedin record numbers to re-elect the nation’s first Blackpresident—that give the Court’s conservative majorityjust enough cover to reach an audacious result.

Jason Walta isan attorney inthe NEA Office ofGeneral Counseland an adjunctfaculty member at American University’sWashington College of Law.

CASE STUDY

How to talk to your legislatorTHEY DECIDE HOW MUCH TO FIND HIGHER

EDUCATION. They make rules about howwe are to behave in the workplace. Theyshape the details of our fate. They are ourstate legislators. How can we approachthese elected leaders effectively?

For some faculty members this meansleaving a comfort zone for how contactsand arguments are made. Faculty oftenuse email to make long, carefully con-structed arguments they hope will prevail.Unfortunately, with lawmakers this tacticis useless. A staff member reads emailsand merely tallies the results (pro andcon).

Building relationships through personalcontact is what it is all about. It beginswith a brief visit to the local district office.Legislators need to know that you andperhaps one or two other faculty mem-bers who are with you are constituents—that you live or teach in their legislativedistrict.

Legislators want to know what con-stituents think, and you are there to con-vey what faculty care about. Keep itpleasant: state just one issue on yourmind, and leave quickly. Never makethreats. You have all the power you needby being a constituent. Combine the grav-itas of a faculty member with the friendli-ness of someone they like. You aremaking a connection that you can refer tolater when an issue comes up. Make sureevery faculty member stays on message.

Focus on expressing concerns aboutthe quality of the education students are

receiving and give examples of whatthreatens this quality. Every argument isabout what is good for students or for thestate’s economic growth. A losing strat-egy is to focus on why something is badfor faculty.

When the legislature is in session, theywill have only a few minutes for you tosay what you care about. In office visits,be ready to say it in three minutes. Handthe legislator a single sheet with data andtalking points on the issue of the nextweek.

Email your colleagues and ask them tocontact their legislators by phone (a 30second call) to say what matters to them.(They should say their names and wherethey live or work in the district.) In onesentence tell the receptionist what theysupport or oppose that week. Less effec-tive, but better than nothing, is to emailone sentence to the legislator.

Other points: 1) Discard assumptionsabout Republicans and Democrats. Legis-lators do not want to be seen this way byconstituents. Showing respect for theirwillingness to do the right thing is persua-sive. (2) Within the limits of the law, en-list student organizations in contactinglegislators.

NEA’s Office of Higher Education isnow on Facebook. To keep up withcurrent news and discuss events

with your colleagues find us at www.facebook.com/neahighered.

Tom Auxter is president ofthe United Faculty ofFlorida, and professor ofphilosophy at the Universityof Florida.

NEA HIGHER EDUCATION ADVOCATE16

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