Do WNC’s degree-seeking students need fewer course offerings in ”computer education, developmental reading, music and drama and teaching education,” the disciplines affected by the tenured professors’ dismissal?  Will WNC produce more graduates by hiring new instructors “with other specialties,” such as “the automotive and construction fields”?  Are new automotive and construction faculty going to be offered tenure-track positions, or will WNC insist that they accept market-hire contracts without the prospect of earning tenure?

Stay tuned.  Meanwhile, read the whole Inside Higher Ed news story here.

The report starts with the assumption that the Nevada legislature will not in the foreseeable future allocate further dollars to fund community college education.  This premise unfortunately skews the report’s findings and recommendations.  Because of this assumption, there is no discussion of historical defects in Nevada’s tax structure and only little mention of the dysfunctional higher education funding formula.  As these issues have been discussed extensively in the past two legislative sessions, for the Task Force to provide scant commentary on one while essentially ignoring the other weakens the report’s legitimate arguments for reform.

Further, while the report cites consultation with faculty and students, it lists fewer than five faculty and students in the Appendix under participants.  This discrepancy adds another layer of doubt that leads one to conclude that other parts of the report may also be misleading.  The College of Southern Nevada has about five hundred full time faculty and over 40,000 students, a significant number of whom could have and mostly likely would have participated if the Task Force or the Chancellor’s Office had asked.  It would seem logical to ask those who are in the classroom—students and faculty alike—on a daily basis to contribute their insights to such an important endeavor such as this study.

The focus of the report is also problematic.  The main center of attention is on the link between community college education and job training.  The Task Force does not mention anywhere that educators are also tasked with the civic responsibility to create an educated citizenry.  Democracy is dependent on active voters who can think critically and who have a basic understanding of our constitutional system of government.  To make job training the only mission of our community colleges would strip out the elements that our founders would have expected to exist, and that community colleges always have existed to serve.

Moving to the report’s recommendations, the solutions are all geared toward improving graduation rates.  While the Task Force acknowledges this subject’s complexity, the report addresses only a few of the related variables.  Faculty agree with the general conclusion that more students need to complete their intended college goal, whatever that may be, but disagree over some of the Task Force solutions.  Areas of agreement include expanding the number of students participating in the dual enrollment Community College High School, in which high school students take community college classes that count for both their high school requirements and core requirements for an associate degree.  Faculty also agree that too many students require remediation and a solution to that problem is better and more extensive cooperation between the K-12 and community college systems.

Where there is divergence is obviously where faculty are removed from the equation.  Outsourcing online classes to for-profit institutions that are paid based on student success as well as to private companies that provide canned, self-instructed courses is not a solution faculty can support, nor is it a solution that anyone who truly believes in quality education can justify without surrendering the principles in which they claim to believe.  Would faculty lose jobs because of these decisions and therefore have a self-interest in blocking this recommendation?  Perhaps, but there are many other arguments to be made against these two proposals.  First, any community college faculty member can tell you that what our students crave is more personal contact with their instructors, not less.  Unlike the universities, the community colleges have small classes taught only by the main instructor.  So, instead of having to speak to a teaching assistant in a one-hundred-plus lecture course, at the community colleges students can maintain contact with their main instructor inside and outside of the class quite easily—and vice versa; community college faculty are almost always easily available to their students.  The other thing a community college faculty member will tell you is that our students, especially our online students, need a lot of human contact in order to learn. 

Today, community college instructors provide students with a base of information and then we engage them to pull out what they already know to combine it with what they have recently learned.  Creating a virtual university where students digest electronic information without interaction with a professor and other students will subtract this human element from the equation and worsen the success rate this Task Force was dedicated to improving, and it will especially worsen the success rate of the most vulnerable students.

In conclusion, community college faculty agree that higher education in Nevada must engage in a new evolutionary stage.  But we are puzzled over decisions to map out that evolution without our direct participation..  In our eyes, that’s one of the main things that needs to be reformed.  We want bottom up reform processes, not just top-down decisions and questionable solutions.

Both Regents Wixom and Melcher came out strongly against outsourcing online education.  You can thank them at:

Michael_wixom@nshe.nevada.edu

Kevin_melcher@nshe.nevada.edu

Governor Sandoval’s senior advisor Dale Erquiaga spoke and conveyed the Governor’s continued support for higher education.  The Regents invited the Governor to take a more active role in higher education and Regent Page invited the Governor to visit NSHE campuses to see faculty, staff, and students in action.

The Regents then heard a very good report on strategic planning and engaged in a very productive discussion on how to better address NSHE needs now and in the future.

Vice Chancellor of Administrative and Legal Affairs, Bart Patterson reported on current problems with the PEBP health care changes.  He said that things are already at a crisis level.  He said the Chancellor’s Task Force on Benefits will continue to operate and it will look into asking PEBP to provide a greater range of insurance plan options (adding back in a PPO plan), having NSHE offer supplemental health care services, and even having NSHE leave the PEBP.  He stressed that all of these things are happening now and that the Chancellor’s office is not waiting until the next legislative session.

If you would like more details, you can read my Twitter feed from 9/9/2011 @SondraCosgrove.

Voting ends Monday, May 16, at 5 p.m. If you did not receive a ballot, please contact Brenda Talley, CSN-NFA VP Membership.

CSN voters, in particular, should support Regents who understand the special needs of community colleges.  Two such incumbents are up for election now: Ray Rawson in District 7 and Andrea Anderson on District 12.  If you live in these districts, please talk to your friends and neighbors and help them to understand the Regents’ role in higher education and the dedication our current Regents have shown to preserving our college and our System.

And get out the vote!

Examine the graph. In particular, study the detrimental effects on our debt of the supply-side economics that took hold of budget politics during the Reagan and both Bush administrations.  Consider that arguments to preserve the wealth of business conglomerates, big corporations, and the top 2% so that jobs can be created never acknowledge that millions more jobs were created during the Clinton era of higher taxation than the Bush era of tax cuts or that our nation’s phenomenal industrial growth in the 1950′s and 1960′s also occurred when tax rates on the wealthiest were higher than during Clinton’s presidency.

Given these facts, why is the “tax increases kill jobs” message so persuasive?  With so many teachers’ jobs in this state dependent on Nevada government collecting adequate revenue, isn’t the real message “tax cuts kill jobs and the public services on which we all rely“?