Finally, after five years of research, meetings, resolutions, and debates, the Academic Senate was successful in getting counseling and library faculty included in the full-time/parttime faculty (75/25) ratio calculations. The Board of Governors at their November 1997 meeting approved the regulations making this change. Current counseling and library faculty will be included in the base year number for each district beginning Fall 1998. This base year number is the mandated "maintenance of effort" number that is the full-time faculty hiring obligation which cannot be reduced without the penalty of $40,000 for each position lost. New counseling and library faculty hired from January 1, 1998 on will be included in these numbers as they are hired.
The increase in the base year numbers is beneficial toward new faculty hiring. As the system receives growth money the requirement for hiring faculty increases by the percentage of growth. For example: a district whose base year number is 293.2 and has 20 full-time counseling faculty and 6 fulltime library faculty will now have a base year number of 319.2. If growth is declared by the Board of Governors at 3%, at 293.2 (.03 x 293.2 = 8.79) the district is required to hire an additional 8 full-time faculty. Now with the counseling and library faculty included making the number is 319.2 (.03 x 319.2 = 9.57). This shows that the district's full-time faculty hiring obligation for that year requires an increase of one additional faculty hire.
In addition, the full-time counseling and library faculty numbers will be included in the 75/25 ratio calculations. The hours of Counseling and Library faculty services will be counted the same as the hours of instruction of a full-time instructor load. For example, if the number of full-time plus parttime hours of instruction are 300 and the number of full time hours of instruction alone are 100, then only 33% of the hours of instruction in that district are delivered by full-time faculty, a ratio of 33/67 or 50%. This number is obviously way below the required goal of 75% of instruction/services provided by full-time faculty. If the district has 3 full-time counseling faculty ( 3 x 15 lecture hour equivalents) and 2 part-time counseling faculty hired at 60% (2 x 9 lecture hour equivalents), the numerator and denominator would increase to 363 and 145, respectively. This would change the ratio to 40/60 or 67%. This example, shows a benefit of moving toward 75%, however, the numbers will vary greatly depending on how much parttime faculty are used in the counseling and library disciplines.
In spite of the regulation change, faculty are reporting that, while including these two disciplines increases full-time faculty hiring, there is still a struggle to get counseling and library faculty hires prioritized. The Academic Senate worked diligently to get the regulations changed because student success depends on student access to full-time faculty in ALL disciplines. Also recognized by the Academic Senate through a number of resolutions is that student retention and success depends greatly on the enhanced educational and personal skills counseling and library programs provide to students who participate. With the change in these regulations the Academic Senate continues to believe that faculty must prioritize the hiring of faculty, that priorities are based on student and program needs, and must be that ALL disciplines be given equal consideration in order to meet student needs and achieve the mission of the CCCs.