Tenure and promotion datasets updated

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UHPA Members can access tenure and promotion data that includes 2016 and 2017 academic years.  Members can access both graphs and the tables producing those graphs published within a Google sheet.

UHPA Executive Director Kristeen Hanselman said, “Each year UHPA gathers information on faculty success in obtaining tenure, increased compensation with promotion, and completion of probationary periods thru contract renewal. These indicate that UH continues to replenish some tenured faculty positions and faculty members are successful in their career path. ”

This content is made available to UHPA Members only via our Google Drive files. If you’re not a member, signup is quick and easy via our online form.

 

Go to Tenure and Promotion page now

2018 Hawaii State AFL-CIO Scholarships

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Thanks to American Income Life (AIL) for their generous donation of $3,000 for the 2018 Hawaii State AFL-CIO scholarships. There will be three scholarships awarded in the amount of $1,000 each. High school students planning to attend post-high school study on a full-time basis will be considered for the three scholarships. Please see the details and the criteria below that will be used in determining the winners.

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The Hawaii State AFL-CIO has established scholarships that will be awarded to students who are currently attending high school in the state of Hawaii and plan to pursue post-high school study on a full-time basis at a university, college, community college, vocational or trade school.

The following criteria will be used in determining the awarding of the scholarships:

  1. An essay of not more than 1000 words as to the importance of labor unions in Hawaii. The essay may be written from a personal point of view or from a historical perspective.
  2. Completing a cover letter with relevant information: name, address, phone number, e-mail address and what type of school you plan to attend.

The scholarship is open to any graduating senior and having a family member in a union is not required. There will be three scholarships awarded in the amount of $1,000 each.

All submissions must be received or postmarked by Friday, April 20, 2018. Applications can be sent by e-mail to: aflcioscholarship@gmail.com or by mail to: 345 Queen St., Suite 500, Honolulu, HI 96813. Please direct all questions to Jason Bradshaw at 597-1441.

A decision will be made by Friday, April 27, 2018 and winners will be notified shortly thereafter.

 

Senate Bill Puts Quality of Higher Education at Risk

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SB 2328 proposes that all courses at all UH campuses be required to use instructional materials exclusively from the OER at the UH, beginning with the 2020-2021 school year.

As the chief advocates upholding the quality of the education at the University of Hawaii, UHPA and faculty members submitted testimony against SB 2328 for a hearing before the Senate Higher Education Committee held on Tuesday, Jan. 30. Legislators were urged to defer or reject the proposed bill for sound reasons.

Our Top 10 Reasons UH Faculty Oppose Open Educational Resources Mandate:

1. Infringement on Academic Judgment

Restricting the resources that faculty can and cannot use for their courses infringes on the academic judgment of faculty. Is this a new definition of a state-run university?

2. Impact on Quality of Education

Open source information is usually generic and basic; it is not the cutting-edge information Hawaii university students deserve. Textbooks are written by national experts and contain up-to-date resources on specific subjects. They become future resources for graduates in their vocation and part of their library for life. Putting constraints on what faculty members must use to conduct their courses hampers their ability to educate students with the latest information. An OER mandate will decrease the quality and amount of information students can receive in their classes.

3. Lack of Important Resources

Higher education is a time for students to spread their intellectual wings and delve deep into subjects with passion. Unfortunately, not all instructional materials are available on open access. This limits academic rigor and holds back students from fully exploring subjects. Libraries continue to play a significant role in universities, but at the UH even our libraries have been subject to budget cuts.

4. Significant Funding Requirements

There are other costs associated with OER that on the surface may not be as readily apparent. Even under the best of circumstances, OER cannot provide instructional and research materials without a substantial investment to develop materials and purchase academic resources that are not subject to open access.

5. Cost of Course Development

The cost to construct course content and the methodology for delivery are also worth noting. Depending upon the area of study, specialized technology and software-based resources are required to meet OER standards.

6. Technological Constraints

Eliminating textbooks creates access challenges for both students and faculty members. With the rapid changes in hardware and software, some may have a challenge accessing online materials because of a lack of appropriate tools, internet access, security, access to technical support, and other obstacles. This creates an uneven playing field for student learning.

7. Need-Based Subsidies

With the increase in the cost of textbooks and other instructional resources, there needs to be a corresponding increase in funding for textbooks through subsidies. By decreasing the out-of-pocket expenses for books, the net effect is lower educational costs for students. This can be accomplished through allocations made by the legislature.

8. Legislative Overreach

Simply commanding faculty members to turn over their intellectual property is not only offensive to academic practice, but also fails to recognize that the content may be subject to peer review. Asserting that faculty are required to make their work available to all is contrary to academic protocols. Already, many faculty members voluntarily share their work among their department and students. It is substantial legislative overreach for the legislature to act as the employer by assigning specific duties to faculty members.

9. Alternative Solutions

OER is not a black-and-white, either-or issue. Textbook manufacturers seek to maximize their profits by releasing new versions of books each year with minor changes, such as reordering exercises and adding modest material, and have reduced the number of books that could be used for several semesters. UH faculty, on the other hand, search for the best mix of quality and cost when choosing textbooks. Some use past editions, available on Amazon, halving the cost of a textbook for students. We should encourage OER material when it makes sense and think of more creative ways to lower the costs of educational materials for students.

10. Non-OER Books Facilitate Dialogue

At a time when so many scholars are engaged in writing about social justice and look to publish their work in the near future, this bill unintentionally subverts attempts for students to become scholars who offer a critical lens about race, class, and gender. By mandating what a faculty member may or may not include for course material, we set back the clock on educational resources for the 21st-century learner. At a time when people of color and women face daily harassment and persecution, recent, cutting-edge publications become increasingly crucial for students, teachers, staff, and administrators to engage in dialogue.

Faculty Speak out against proposed OER mandate (SB 2328)

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SB 2328 proposes that all courses at all UH campuses be required to use instructional materials exclusively from the OER at the UH, beginning with the 2020-2021 school year.

Of course our UHPA Executive Director Kristeen Hanselman testified against this bill.  We also asked for your feedback and faculty responded.  Some of their public testimony is below:

David Duffy

Bill Could End Academic Freedom In Hawaii –  “Senate Bill 2328 is a strong disincentive to teach and will politicize the University of Hawaii.”

Matthew Tuthill

Dear Senator Kahele,
I am contacting you to oppose the proposed SB 2328 concerning OERs be implemented for all UH courses.

As a former student and instructor within the UH System for over 20 years, I have been on both sides of the class and intimately know what works, and what doesn’t for courses. As professors, we choose the best resources for courses, and some of these include OERs, while often times they do not.

I strongly disagree that those not in the classroom or discipline dictate what is best for the course and student. How one teaches and what tools they use have been crafted by examining a multitude of possibilities. I am a professional that works very hard to make the most engaging course for my students, and the STEM student success numbers (of degrees, transfer rates…) at Kapiolani Community College attest that we are achieving and surpassing goals.

OERs can be useful, but often hard copy resources provide more active learning by students… therefore greater success. Numerous studies show that internet/online courses and resources at best equal face-to-face course, but in many cases result in lower student scores. Using OERs is done strategically, but is not the complete answer to many course settings.

More importantly, the UH and the State government should move towards allowing equitable journal access across all of the UH System. Currently an undergraduate student at UH-Manoa has better journal access than a Ph.D. professor at any Community College. VP Morton (and M.R.C. Greenwood before him) are aware of this two-tiered platform and vowed to level the playing field of online resource access. To date though, nothing has changed.

Although the cost of student tuition is stated as a justification of OERs implementation in SB 2328, the reality is that Community College tuition in Hawaii is amongst the cheapest in the nation. These students are just testing the waters of their career and academic lives, and forcing them to use more “passive” methods of OER learning is a disservice to all.

Please consider addressing equitable electronic (journal) access across the UH System, but leave the teaching tools at the instructor level. We do have a driving professional integrity and constantly experiment to find the perfect resources for student teaching and success… and in many cases they are not OERs.
Simply put, I trust you are an expert in your area and discipline, and therefore would not dictate what resources you use to accomplish your work… and neither should elected officials do so for professor’s instruction.

Earl Hishinuma

I oppose this bill because it will decrease the quality of teaching to students at the University of Hawaii by restricting the resources that faculty can utilize and the bill infringes on the academic judgment of faculty. While we should be deeply concerned about the overall rising cost of higher education for our youth and young adults, this bill is not the solution. The broader issue is the “starving” of our one and only state university system for the past several years. Reversal of this “starvation” could result in need-based subsidies of required textbooks/materials for students.

Karla Hayashi

While well intentioned, SB 2328 will result in University of Hawai’i students losing access to current and comprehensive information and resources which provide them with information vetted by credible academic bodies as well as being reduced to relying only on one person’s point of view.

By mandating students use only open educational resources (OER) the breadth and depth of academic information will be severely restricted and handicap our students. OER is still in the infancy of development and of those currently available, not all are appropriate for academic study in all fields. Those academic disciplines where open source materials are unavailable or limited in number would mean students would have no texts and materials to read, review, and learn from.

Additionally, mandating students rely only on instructor-created materials can literally mean students in some academic disciplines will only have access to information in the public domain due to copyright laws. This means students would only be able to learn from information that is minimally 75 years old and older. In a discipline like literature, courses that focus on contemporary literature would be wiped from the catalog. Exploring ideas and hearing voices of contemporary artists would be impossible. Students would be relegated to reading and discussing literature and responses to literature that only exists in the public domain. Students would not be able to further their literary studies through an examination of contemporary issues, a critical component of literary studies.

SB 2328 will severely handicap our students and prevent them from engaging with, reviewing, and learning from carefully vetted, current information as well as reduce their ability to learn from multiple points of view. Limiting students’ access to different opinions also reinforces the growing national voice disparaging facts as “false” as well as policies that call for elimination of words from official communication because one group of people find these words objectionable. Students’ perceptions, understanding, and knowledge will be limited to the point of view of the individual instructor. This defeats the purpose of obtaining a university education, as students’ ability to learn how to think critically will be severely compromised.

SB 2328, however well intentioned, takes our state’s public higher education backwards by decades and can result in our students falling significantly behind their peers nationally and globally.

Glenn Ioane Teves

This bill is ill-informed and will decrease the quality of education. Textbooks are written by national experts and contain up-to-date resources on the subject. They become future resources for graduates in their vocation, and part of their library for life. I still refer to text books I purchased in college. This bill will hamstring the teachers ability to educate students with the latest information and will decrease the quality and amount of information students will receive in classes. Open source information is usually generic and basic, and not the cutting edge information Hawaii college students deserve.

Lynne Wilkens

I oppose SB2328. As a UH faculty member, I am irate at the rate of inflation in college textbooks, which has been 4 times the consumer price index. Therefore, I applaud the desire to lower educational costs for students. However, while some of the UH faculty can and do produce stellar educational material, an all UH-derived material approach will not produce a uniformly quality product that the students of Hawaii deserve. Faculty have been working to reduce costs. However, textbook manufacturers have moved to maximum their profits. They are currently releasing new versions of books each year with minor changes, such as reordering exercises and adding modest material, and have reduced the number of books that could be used for several semesters. Faculty at UH search for the best mix of quality and cost when choosing a textbook. Some use past editions (available on Amazon), halving the cost of the book for students. We should encourage OER material where it makes sense and together think of more creative ways to lower costs for educational material for students.

Amy Nishimura

At a time when so many scholars are engaged in writing about social justice and look to publish their work in the near future, this bill unintentionally subverts attempts for students to become scholars who offer a critical lens about race, class, and gender. This bill does not consider how disciplines or courses that attempt to teach critical thinking skills in relation to social justice, disciplines such as Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science, Hawaiian Pacific Studies, History, Literature, Philosophy, and many others, ask students to reference and cite the work of Noenoe Silva, Jonathan Osorio, Amy Stillman, Lisa Kanae, Dorothy Fujita, Sara Ahmed, Cornel West, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and countless others. While I support some facets of OER and look to attend a workshop on our campus this March, by mandating what a faculty member may or may not include for course material, we set back the clock on educational resources for the 21st century learner, and at at time when people of color and women face daily harassment and persecution, cutting edge and recent publications become increasingly crucial for students, teachers, staff, and administrators to engage in dialogue.

 

 

Dividends of your hard work – OER Mandate (SB 2328) on hold!

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There was no individual or organization supporting this proposal.

The testimony sent by UHPA faculty members was well received by the Senate Higher Education Committee which has deferred decision making until February 6 at 1:20 pm.

Senator Kahele has indicated he is rethinking this proposal and will be reaching out to UHPA.

Community College Benefits Extend Beyond Economics

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Star Advertiser Editorial (posted 8/17/16) by Matthew Tuthill, an Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Microbiology at Kapiolani Community College.

The recent front-page headline — “Report hails community colleges’ affordability” — substantiated what is often overlooked: that our local community colleges (CCs) are the most affordable institutions of higher learning in the nation.

However, the article only scratched the surface: There are a great deal of other metrics besides tuition costs that illustrate the value of these two-year schools.

For example, less obvious associated costs for students at four-year colleges include semester parking fees (none at CCs), books (CCs often use freely available online open resource material), and course and student fees (typically nonexistent and much lower, respectively, at CCs).

The accessibility of CCs extends beyond simple economics; they are also physically integrated into communities throughout the state.

Their greater accessibility also relates to student-teacher ratios, with class sizes smaller and more likely to be taught by professors rather than either adjunct faculty or graduate students. Moreover, these professors are hired and trained as educators first, and their tenure and promotions are coupled to their successful delivery and engagement with students.

In terms of expertise, about a quarter of CC instructors hold Ph.D.s, and are responsible for educating 54 percent of college students within the state.

Traditionally, community colleges are viewed as institutions that provide workforce training needs or serve as a pipeline for transfer to four-year campuses.

With regards to the former, CCs provide a array of career and technical education pathways that include community service providers (i.e., physical therapy, dental hygiene) that many of us utilize.

As for the latter, CCs have done an excellent job in preparing students for university transfer, as shown by grade-point-average analyses of Kapiolani CC pre-engineering transfer students to the Manoa campus.

On top of teaching loads, an increasing number of CC instructors (both locally and nationally) are engaging students outside of the traditional classroom setting.

For example, many STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) faculty actively engage in research pro bono on top of their teaching duties. Benefits of this work have been numerous local and national student awards (when competing against those from four-year campuses), as well as the quantity of STEM-related grants received locally.

This early and often integration of student research is part of current best practices, and studies consistently show that this engagement is effective in increasing both STEM retention and graduation rates.

Given that the U.S. is currently witnessing a brain drain in STEM fields, it shows how pivotal community colleges are in shoring up this decline.

And, with a greater proportion of females and under-represented ethnicities (relative to those enrolled nationally in U.S. four-year schools), these campuses serve as essential feeding grounds to address these exacerbated disparities in STEM fields.

Taken as a whole, this is not meant to take anything away from other forms of higher education; each has its place in the continuum of lifelong learning.

Fifteen years ago I couldn’t imagine leaving cancer research for CC teaching, let alone encourage others to begin their pathways at these campuses. But now, having witnessed firsthand the dedication to teaching, the amazing results of the students and the overall high value opportunities provided at community colleges, I couldn’t imagine why prospective students wouldn’t want to explore this option first.

UH Manoa Microbiology–Its fight for survival

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Department Chair Stuart Donachie demonstrates the impact of the loss of tenured faculty positions on instruction and research along with the dysfunction in facility planning for a new science building. Other departments experience similar circumstances. UHPA is experiencing an increase in grievances and complaints due to faculty members being impeded in their ability to advance student instruction and research.

Response from the Department of Microbiology to the Manoa Planning Committee’s ‘Preliminary Program Documents.

Rate My Administrator – Vice Chancellor Edition – has been published

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The second in series of Rate My Administrator surveys (this one focused on vice chancellors) is available for all UHPA Members to download as a PDF. Our next survey will give our members a chance to rate UH vice-presidents and you will be invited to participate via email.

“These results give faculty members the opportunity for a productive discussion on advancing a better relationship with their respective vice chancellors”, said UHPA Executive Director Kristeen Hanselman. “The results have been shared with President Lassner consistent with UHPA’s commitment to engage in efforts to improve working conditions for faculty members.”

You will need your UHPA Private Member website login and password to access this content

UH Anticipated Hire – 2016

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UH presented over 400 pages of budgeted documents.  UHPA has provided two exhibits that may be of interest to our faculty members;  Table 13 anticipated hires for 2016 and Table 14 personnel who left the University from July 1, 2014 – November 30, 2015.

The entire UH budget can be reviewed here.