PSU Magazine Spring 1993

Doingmore with less fter raising tuition here and cutting programs there, the State is now trying a third approach to conserve precious dollars in an already strapped higher education system. This time, the Governor's office has called on the state's faculty to become 15 percent more efficient and productive. It does not state how this is to be done, nor does it offer a measure or a definition of productivity in the state's colleges and universities. But because of the constraints on every dollar the state spends on everything from roads to schools, everyone has to work har– der. That includes college instructors. The issue is the focus of a task force assigned by the Chancellor of Higher Education last fall. The group, which includes representatives of each of the state's colleges and universities, is look– ing into what exactly college instructors do with their time, and how that time might be used to educate more students. The Chancellor will tum those find– ings over to the Legislature this session, and out of that will come a game plan for higher efficiency. It might come in the form of professors teaching more classes, or holding bigger classes, or using telecommunications to take the place of some in-class instruction. ILLUSTRATJON BY DENNIS ADLER At the very least, it will spark a debate about the value of what college professors do for a living. And in con– ducting this debate, Oregon is not alone. As in Oregon, higher education budgets across the United States are being pinched, and when dollars become scarce, the question of how those dollars are being spent is raised. States such as Nebraska, Ohio, Arizona, Wyoming, Texas and California also are scrutinizing the issue of faculty productivity in an effort to make state monies stretch farther. But fiscal austerity in Oregon may be worse than in the rest of the country, says Shirley Clark, a liaison between the Chancellor's office and the Legislature. To call into question the efficiency of col– lege faculty at a time when budget cuts are eliminating or undermining programs in the state system is "very demoralizing for faculty," Clark says. "They feel very tom between competing demands for their time and effort. There is some feeling of being unappreciated and undervalued." But the issue is being forced by Bal– lot Measure 5, the property tax cutting measure passed by Oregon's voters in 1990. The Measure is prompting cuts in all state services, including higher education. No one is spared. Oregon's governor calls on the state's colleges and universities to become 15 percent more productive. By John R. Kirkland "We have a very serious funding situation, and all of us have to bear part of the burden," says Gwenn Baldwin, a spokesperson fo r Gov. Barbara Roberts. Increasing faculty productivity was raised last year as part of a mix of proposals by the governor's office, the Legislature and the State Board of Higher Education in their effort to balance a budget for the coming bien– nium. It was decided that balancing the education budget would require both a tuition hike and an increase in produc– tivity. The State Board offered a 10 per– cent increase in productivity, which, when coupled with a 15 percent tuition increase, would have done the job. But the Governor wanted to keep tuition increases to a minimum, Baldwin says, and asked for a 15 percent increase in productivity. With that, a tuition increase could be kept to 7 percent. In the meantime, the Chancellor's task force has been working since December to define the typical workload of the state's higher educa– tion faculty as a starting point for discussing improvements. It's initial findings, according to Robert Tinnin, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and PSU's representative on the task force, show that Oregon colleges are much like schools in other states in terms of the amount of teaching and research their PSU7