AcademicImpactFundRecommendations

02.17.09.01

From Administrative Affairs and Budget Committee

Dist. Executive Committee 2/23/09

Information Item 3/4/09; Senate Approved 3/25/09

Administrative Affairs and Budget Committee

Recommendations to the Academic Senate

subsequent to the

Ten-Year Review of the Academic Impact Fund

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Following receipt of the Ten-Year Review of the Academic Impact Fund in April 2008 and the AIF Policy change issued in June 2008, the Administrative Affairs and Budget Committee—as the Senate internal committee charged with overseeing the fund—initiated further study of issues related to fund operation. Committee members and the committee as a whole also met with the Provost, the Associate Provost, the Associate Vice President for Academic Administration, and the Vice President of Finance and Planning regarding these issues and to receive clarification regarding the changes to AIF Policy made in June 2008. We recommend the following specific actions, based on those conversations:

1) Program quality and program review: The committee strongly recommends that the Provost follow up on the June policy change with clarifying language within the policy itself that explicitly ties allocation and authorization of both tenure-track lines and temporary instructional capacity dollars to program quality and the program review cycle/process.

2) Internal reallocation of funds to the AIF

a) As soon as fiscally possible, pursuant to Provost Presley’s recommendation, internally reallocate to the fund an amount equivalent to the dollars that have been expended since AIF implementation in bringing the entrance salary in any particular tenure-track line to a level that exceeds the exit salary in that line. This amount is estimated to be approximately $325,000.

b) On an ongoing basis, where the negotiated entrance salary for a vacated tenure-track line exceeds the exit salary in that existing, reallocated, or new line, the difference in dollars expended should ordinarily be internally reallocated to the AIF within one year of the expenditure. Therefore, develop a budget and planning mechanism to allow for timely hiring negotiations in high-salary positions, while preventing excessive fiscal demands by any one department or college.

3) Use of non-tenure track faculty

a) Accurately track and report separately to the Senate by college the AIF tenure-track lines vacated/vacant/permanently closed, and the maintenance non-tenure-track FTE hired through AIF dollars versus the enhancement non-tenure-track FTE hired through AIF dollars. Gradually reduce and then limit the number of non-tenure-track FTE hired through AIF dollars to equal the number of AIF tenure-track lines vacated.

b) Create and enforce a two-year “sunset” rule for the temporary replacement hiring of non-tenure-track faculty.

4) Unplanned reallocation patterns: In order to correct for the unplanned, de facto reallocations that appear to have occurred since the inception of the AIF, carefully examine and compare information provided by PIR and the Provost’s Office regarding the ten-year changes and trends, on a department-by-department level, in i) tenure-track FTE; ii) non-tenure-track FTE, separated by AIF vs. non-AIF funding; iii) census day headcount enrollment; iv) end-of-term credit hours produced; v) degrees granted; vi) ratio of tenure-track FTE to total FTE, including GA, AP, and other FTE; vii) ratio of credit hours to tenure-track FTE; and viii) ratio of majors to faculty. That is, add to the annual Analysis of Productivity Measures ten-year changes and trends in i) tenure-track FTE; ii) non-tenure-track FTE, separated by AIF vs. non-AIF funding; and iii) other instructor FTE.

On an ongoing basis in future years, analyze and utilize ten-year trends and trends since the inception of the fund.

5) Alternative budget mechanisms: Consider eliminating the Academic Impact Fund by 2015 or replacing it with another mechanism for reallocation, maintenance of instructional capacity, and enhancement of instructional capacity. Study these options by enhancing and developing the collaborative, multi-college academic budget planning process toward greater transparency and shared governance and by working with the division of Finance and Planning.

6) Optimum ratios for T/TT-NTT-GA-student in each department: In conjunction with recommendation #5 above, work this year with each department to arrive at appropriate ratios of tenured/tenure-track, non-tenure-track, graduate assistant, AP, and other faculty, based on current numbers and ten-year trends, that can be revised based on program growth, change, or attrition. Such planning should take into significant account the input of the rank-and-file faculty, the recommended disciplinary standards for student/faculty ratios in each profession, and the need for more complex algorithms for reallocation that take into account the complexity of programs serving master’s level, doctoral level, certificate, general education, and/or service-to-other-majors students.

7) Restructuring: Where long-term trends in student demand indicate permanent attrition, consider restructuring within or between colleges.

8) Accounting staff: We strongly recommend that faculty and/or staff be retained by the Provost who have both the educational background and hands-on experience in accounting, finance, and budgeting that such a complex, multi-faceted fund requires.

Larger Administrative and Budgeting Issues

In addition to these eight areas of interest, specific to the operation of the AIF, the Committee identified several larger administrative and budgeting issues that deserve further consideration. We advance the following three recommendations:

1) We urge the administration to work through the shared governance process to develop a hierarchy of funding priorities for the future that will strengthen both the highest and lowest cost departments and programs of excellence without jeopardizing the excellence and viability of the university as a whole.

2) We recommend that the administration initiate a complete analysis of human resource dollars allocations for administrative/professional positions, for part-time non-tenure-track faculty, and for non-departmental, library, and lab school faculty positions, given the nearly 500-person increase in these human resource categories since 1990 despite the relative stability of the student population.

3) We recommend that the Senate and the administration create policies and procedures that bring into line our overall hiring practices with the successful recruitment processes that have begun to diversify our tenure-track ranks.

Further explanation of each of these recommendations may be found in the complete report that follows this summary.

Administrative Affairs and Budget Committee

Recommendations to the Academic Senate

subsequent to the

Ten-Year Review of the Academic Impact Fund

DETAILED REPORT

The committee thanks outgoing Provost John Presley for organizing this important self-study and recognizes the incredible challenges that the university administration has faced in managing this fund in the budgetary climate that has developed internally and externally since 2002. The national economy and the state economy underwent severe strain in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 and the 2001-2003 recession that had a major impact on university resources and resulted in hiring freezes, salary freezes, and other pressures on department and unit budgets across the university. It is entering a new phase of uncertainty with the 2007-present recession and its accompanying increases in unemployment as well as unpredictable inflation and deflation pressures; the 2008 credit crisis; the state budget deficit and legislative impasses; and the recent announcement that former Governor Blagojevich has requested a 2.5% reserve on FY2009 appropriated funds.

All on the committee agreed that the original central administration rationale for implementing an Academic Impact Fund—to provide a mechanism for the rational reallocation of tenure-track lines among the colleges—was sound. Other original intentions of the AIF also received unanimous approval: the enhancement of collegial understanding of what other academic units were doing; and the fostering of increased discussion and dialogue among colleges regarding intellectually appropriate budgetary allocations. At the time of implementation and today, the faculty and administration are united in their intent to constrain non-tenure-track hiring, to maintain overall healthy ratios of tenured/tenure-track to non-tenure-track faculty where they existed, and to achieve healthier ratios where they did not exist. Our committee reaffirms this commitment.

Response to the Administration’s changes to the AIF Policy following initial discussions of the 10-year report

It is unusual for policy changes of the magnitude implied by the June 2008 AIF memo to be implemented during the summer. Moreover, this particular policy change was made during a transition from an Acting Provost to a new Provost. We would expect that such approaches to policy will not serve as precedent for future relations with the Senate. However, after meeting with Provost Everts, former Acting Provost and current Associate Provost Murphy, and Associate Vice President for Academic Administration Moss we find that the changes made were responsive to the input received from Senators in the Faculty Caucus in Spring 2008.

We therefore provisionally endorse the direction of these changes, pending the outcome of the FY10 academic budget planning process. However, we believe that these policy changes did not go far enough to restore the Academic Impact Fund to full health and we await necessary clarifications of the policy changes and how they are being implemented.

The committee applauds the administration for its immediate decision in summer 2008 to restore to the AIF the monies in the amount of over $490,000 that were improperly allocated toward the funding of fifteen permanent non-tenure-track lines between 1999 and 2005. All parties are agreed that this activity was explicitly against the intent of Provost Urice’s initial proposal and that the fund was created neither to enhance instructional capacity in the General Education program nor to convert tenure-track lines into non-tenure-track lines. This important step speaks broadly to the good faith effort of Acting Provost Murphy and Provost Everts to ensure both the health functioning of the fund and a commitment to upholding policies arrived at through the shared governance process.

We also find to be very positive Provost Everts’ stated commitment to transparency in AIF allocation decisions. While we understand that definitions, meanings, and implications of items like “productivity measures,” “cost of production,” and “student demand” in the June policy change were intentionally left imprecise so that decision-making about these items could be a result of the annual academic planning process and the input of faculty, chairs, and deans in solidifying their definitions, meanings, and implications, we would encourage the Administration to clarify the language of the policy and the policy memo as soon as possible.

For example, it will be important to reach agreement about whether low program quality will be addressed only by elimination of programs, or by possible infusion of tenure-track dollars to boost quality, or by a combination of these and other strategies, fiscal or otherwise.

Similarly, higher costs of “production” in one department versus another should not necessarily imply that these costs can or should be lowered rather than maintained or increased, particularly in the absence of genuine discussion about disciplinary standards regarding class sizes, significant instructional activities and hours not captured in credit hour calculations, differences in departmental mission, contribution to university identity, or identification of disproportionately low tenure-track to total faculty ratios.

Following discussions with Provost Everts and examination of AIF history, we understand “productivity measures” to include all measures of productivity, particularly including those assessed through ASPT processes for tenured/tenure-track faculty, not just teaching productivity as very narrowly defined and reduced to the number of credit hours produced per instructor. Similarly, productive lines will be defined by more than just the total quantity of students taught per new faculty member.

Important as well is the administration’s plan, as a result of the June policy change, to reallocate temporary instructional capacity dollars and tenure-track lines out of departments and programs where long-term trends in student demand show a disproportionate drop-off compared to overall university numbers and department history, in order to free these lines and dollars for reauthorization as tenure-track lines in departments of need.

The committee strongly recommends:

1) that the Provost follow up on the June policy change with clarifying language within the policy itself that explicitly ties allocation and authorization of both tenure-track lines and temporary instructional capacity dollars to program quality and the program review cycle/process.

Specific recommendations for AIF policy and procedure changes, supplementary to the 2008 Policy change

As a result of our investigations and discussions regarding the ten-year AIF report, we also make the following specific recommendations to the Senate and ask that the Senate endorse these recommendations and forward them to the Administration for response.

2) Internal reallocation of funds to the AIF

a) As soon as fiscally possible, internally reallocate to the fund an amount equivalent to the dollars that have been expended since AIF implementation in bringing the entrance salary in any particular tenure-track line to a level that exceeds the exit salary in that line. This amount is estimated to be approximately $325,000.

Explanation: When the AIF was first implemented, one of its underlying assumptions was that faculty would generally retire or resign from the university at salaries that would exceed those negotiated by faculty being hired into their vacated lines. While this assumption has held true in the majority of cases, it has not proven to be universal. The result has been an unanticipated strain on the resources of the AIF, identified as early as Fall 2006 by Provost Presley. While conditions impacting these exceptions are unpredictable, the intermittent failure of the underlying assumption puts the viability of other faculty lines in the fund at risk and has the potential to create an overall decrease in the number of faculty lines and their proportionate distribution that has the potential to put the university mission at risk.

Explanation: We recommend that the administration establish an explicit procedure for authorizing the use of non-AIF funds to enhance the AIF in cases where the incoming salary exceeds the money in the line, or where a post-counteroffer salary exceeds a predetermined percentage. Consideration should be given to limiting increases in the number of tenure-track faculty in departments where such overages are routine and the major/faculty ratio is not excessive. The university’s priority must be to present a balanced, comprehensive educational profile and provide for excellence in student experiences across all colleges.

3) Use of non-tenure track faculty

Explanation: Before the AIF was implemented, the 1995-96 Academic Impact Fund Review Committee anticipated that one of the main potentials for abuse of fund dollars lay in the use of part-time or temporary (non-tenure-track) faculty. In examining the history of use of fund dollars, it became apparent that immediately upon implementation, the number of non-tenure-track faculty began to rise disproportionately to the number of lines vacated. At times, the increase in non-tenure-track faculty has been nearly double the number of tenure-track lines vacated, suggesting that the AIF was being used to fund many of these lines. Given that most non-tenure-track FTE teach more courses per year than the tenure-track faculty whose vacancy they are hired temporarily to cover, the proliferation of non-tenure-track FTE indicates that the fund may have been being used to enhance instructional capacity to the detriment of its higher priority purpose: to serve as method of maintaining and reallocating tenure-track dollars toward the programs of highest excellence, need, and demand. The anticipated abuse seems to have arisen in two of the three areas identified in 1996: the beginning of widespread use of non-tenure-track faculty and the failure to evaluate the balance of TT to NTT to maintain overall program integrity, including but not limited to teaching. The result appears to have been a deferral of tenure-track dollars toward non-tenure-track hiring that was against the intent of the policy guidelines for the AIF. This deferral has appeared to result in erosion of program integrity in a number of departments where research, service, administrative, and other programmatic contributions only available through tenure-track assignments have been discounted in favor of teaching capacity.

It is not the intent of this recommendation to limit the fiscal flexibility of college deans, department chairpersons, or school directors by prohibiting the lowest priority function of the Academic Impact Fund—enhancement of instructional capacity—from operating. Rather, we are asking the administration in its reports to the Senate and the Colleges explicitly to separate the temporary instructional capacity dollars allocated to maintaining instructional capacity upon the departure of a tenured/tenure-track faculty member from the dollars being allocated for enhancement of instructional capacity. We would like to be reported annually: the departmental origin of the line, the renewed or new departmental home of the line and its maintenance instructional dollars, and the amount of the line being used for enhancement as well as the college/department locations and the actual uses of those enhancement dollars. These details will help identify areas needing either new tenure-track or permanent, full-time (non-AIF) non-tenure-track lines.

In addition, decisions regarding both components of instructional capacity (maintenance and enhancement) should not only be data-driven (and therefore in part on the basis of credit hour generation, degrees granted, census date enrollment headcounts, number of majors, minors, masters and doctoral students, and students of other programs served), but based on program quality as defined by internal and external review criteria and on faculty expertise and teaching services needed for curricular integrity.

b) Create and enforce a two-year “sunset” rule for the temporary replacement hiring of non-tenure-track faculty.

Explanation: AIF Policy guidelines between 1996 and 2006 included an expectation that the hiring of temporary faculty with AIF dollars would end as soon as the sick leave payout for the faculty member who had vacated that line had been accomplished. Since approximately 2002, department faculty have increasing witnessed tenure-track lines lying vacant for more than 2 years, even in departments where student demand and other pressures on the department and its programs have increased. In most cases, the sick leave payout has been accomplished during the year after the line is vacated. Despite what the ten-year report and the initial administrative response to questions surrounding it implied, our funding of instructional capacity does not prevent the authorization of a tenure-track search for that line during the year after it is vacated, so long as decisions about keeping lines open are made promptly through long-term planning and clearly communicated by the Provost’s Office to the Senate and the campus community. With the understanding that a small number of vacated lines may be reallocated to other departments or colleges with greater need, we recommend that the hiring of temporary replacement faculty for any one tenure-track line end after two years (more than enough to cover current sick leave payouts) through reauthorization of that line for tenure-track hire when fiscally possible in the vacated department or elsewhere. (After the second year, failed tenure-track searches should be the sole reason for extension of the hiring of temporary replacement faculty.)

4) Unplanned reallocation patterns:

In order to correct for the unplanned, de facto reallocations that appear to have occurred since the inception of the AIF, carefully examine and compare information provided by PIR and the Provost’s Office regarding the ten-year changes and trends, on a department-by-department level, in i) tenure-track FTE; ii) non-tenure-track FTE, separated by AIF vs. non-AIF funding; iii) census day headcount enrollment; iv) end-of-term credit hours produced; v) degrees granted; vi) ratio of tenure-track FTE to total FTE, including GA, AP, and other FTE; vii) ratio of credit hours to tenure-track FTE; and viii) ratio of majors to faculty. That is, add to the annual Analysis of Productivity Measures ten-year changes and trends in i) tenure-track FTE; ii) non-tenure-track FTE, separated by AIF vs. non-AIF funding; and iii) other instructor FTE. On an ongoing basis in future years, analyze and utilize ten-year trends and trends since the inception of the fund.

Explanation: Preliminary examination of this data (see table) indicates that a majority of departments in the College of Arts and Sciences, selected departments in the College of Applied Science and Technology, and Milner Library have lost tenure-track faculty disproportionately to the original and renewed intent of the AIF to operate as a rational mechanism for reallocation. In selected cases, loss of tenure-track faculty has accompanied a disproportionate rise in both non-tenure-track faculty and student demand, indicating that more tenure-track faculty lines may be needed. Considering ten-year changes in tenure-track and non-tenure track FTE, headcounts, credit hours, degrees granted, and ratio of tenure-track to total instructor FTE, particular scrutiny should be paid to Family and Consumer Sciences, Technology, Economics, English, History, Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Mathematics, Philosophy, Politics and Government, the programs offered by Biology and Chemistry, Curriculum & Instruction, and Milner Library regardless of whether they appear on the list of Unmet Demand for Majors. We cannot assume that programs that have not successfully capped their major enrollments are not suffering from unmet need for tenure-track faculty.

5) Alternative budget mechanisms:

Consider eliminating the Academic Impact Fund by 2015 or replacing it with another mechanism for reallocation, maintenance of instructional capacity, and enhancement of instructional capacity. Study these options by enhancing and developing the collaborative, multi-college academic budget planning process toward greater transparency and shared governance and by working with the division of Finance and Planning.

Explanation: Upon its endorsement by the Senate in 1996, the Academic Impact Fund was meant to fulfill in priority order only four narrow functions: 1) Payouts associated with tenure/tenure track faculty leaving the university; 2) Maintenance of instructional capacity to maintain the quality and quantity of academic instruction available to students, to be judged by four criteria; 3) Summer school support; and 4) Enhancement of instructional capacity through three narrowly tailored mechanisms. In 2007, priority number 3 was eliminated from the fund by President Bowman’s allocation of permanent summer school dollars to the colleges. Given the change in sick leave policy implemented in 1997 and the minor impact of the addition of vacation leave payouts in 2008, the need for priority number 1 will all but disappear by 2015. Under these new conditions, it is questionable whether such a budget mechanism for reallocation and distribution of instructional capacity dollars will still be necessary. Instead, the university is likely to need to build upon the collaborative budget planning processes already in place to ensure that rational reallocation among colleges and enhancement of instructional capacity may occur while predictable maintenance of instructional capacity receives priority attention. While immediate reauthorization to rehire in a vacated tenure-track line in the same department is not desirable in the absence of careful planning, program needs assessment, and program quality assessment, the disappearance of large sick leave payouts eliminates the fiscal rationale for one-to-two-year wait-out periods. Thus, an expedited process for reauthorization should be considered for departments that have maintained or increased their program quality and student demand, in order to maintain the continuity and good repute of those programs.

6) Optimum ratios for T/TT-NTT-GA-student in each department:

In conjunction with recommendation #5 above, work this year with each department to arrive at appropriate ratios of tenured/tenure-track, non-tenure-track, graduate assistant, AP, and other faculty, based on current numbers and ten-year trends, that can be revised based on program growth, change, or attrition. Such planning should take into significant account the input of the rank-and-file faculty, the recommended disciplinary standards for student/faculty ratios in each profession, and the need for more complex algorithms for reallocation that take into account the complexity of programs serving master’s level, doctoral level, certificate, general education, and/or service-to-other-majors students.

Explanation: Given the reallocations between 1996 and 2008 described in #4 above, it is important that we do not move into a more data-driven reallocation process without a clear understanding of unique program needs as they may vary by the nature and status of the student and the nature of the profession/field, as well as how they have been impacted by a not-always-optimally-healthy AIF.

7) Restructuring:

Where long-term trends in student demand indicate permanent attrition, consider restructuring within or between colleges.

8) Accounting staff:

We strongly recommend that faculty and/or staff be retained by the Provost who have both the educational background and hands-on experience in accounting, finance, and budgeting that such a complex, multi-faceted fund requires.

Explanation: There is a huge onus on the Provost’s office for competent operation not only of the Academic Impact Fund, but its other major human resources budgets, as well as those in the other three major divisions of the university. We strongly recommend that faculty and/or staff be retained by the Provost who have both the educational background and hands-on experience in accounting, finance, and budgeting that such a complex, multi-faceted fund requires. This recommendation should not be read as a critique of current or past fund managers, but as a recognition that the ten-year review revealed significant gaps in the record keeping, data analysis, and policy analysis necessary to make rational and planned allocations of personnel dollars. These gaps may have been due to insufficient staffing or other factors. It is imperative not only that the Provost’s office work seamlessly and cost-effectively with the division of Finance and Planning in the future tracking of the fund, but that personnel are retained within the Provost’s office where necessary to ensure sound management of the fund.

Overall, the data that the Administrative Affairs and Budget Committee examined showed that the Academic Impact Fund has in the last seven years faced extraordinary budgetary pressures that have disrupted our ability to keep up with the dynamic vacancy rates and fill needs experienced by many departments and schools. Attrition from the tenure-track faculty ranks of most departments appears not always to have occurred because of planned, rational reallocation but because of a variety of other factors. For example, in higher compensated fields with more rapidly increasing salaries, the fiscal incentive to refill a vacancy immediately is greater than in lower compensated fields. As a result, many of the departments fundamental to the university’s identity have experienced decreased attention to their tenure-track hiring needs. Even though their hires are “cheaper,” the cost of waiting is less for them than in other departments. Similarly, in fields where demand for tenure-track faculty of excellence is high and national mobility is less constrained, high turnover rates have compounded the more predictable problem of faculty retirements. Likewise, the unusually long nature of the tenure-track search process, and its higher rate of unsuccessful searches in any given year, has likely put some departments behind as attrition outpaced caution. The result has been that while rational planning and reallocation has occurred, there are also many imbalances of priority and a much less planned and data-driven reallocation process than would be optimal for university integrity, fiscal strength, and adherence to the collective wisdom of the faculty and administration ten years ago.

We would like to observe, then, that despite assertions to the contrary in recent years, the Academic Impact Fund is not yet healthy and was not healthy at the time of the ten-year report. The actions of the Provost’s Office since April 2008 are moving it toward a state of better health, at which it has not yet fully arrived.

Larger Administrative and Budgeting Issues

We identified three larger issues that the administration should consider as it approaches the next decade’s attempts to match budgetary allocations to institutional priorities:

First, there are at least five departments/schools in two colleges on campus where salaries are not only the highest overall for tenured/tenure-track faculty, but that are currently experiencing the highest percentage increases in human resource costs for these faculty and significant compression and inversion issues. Individual lines in at least two other departments may also be affected. In addition, so far the university has continued to reauthorize tenure-track hires in these areas at a rate equal to or greater than their numbers a decade ago. Non-tenure-track FTE in most of these areas has also increased. In some cases, non-tenure-track faculty in these areas receive salaries approaching tenure-track salaries in the lowest compensated departments. Major to instructor ratios often remain high despite these increases. Just as families have recently experienced pressure on their budgets due to increased gasoline, home heating, and grocery prices, the university faces an unwelcome challenge to its strategic planning decisions as it faces the possibility of having to choose among several high priority items currently perceived as “necessities.” Meanwhile, in some departments/schools where salaries are some of the lowest overall for tenured/tenure-track faculty and where percentage increases in human resource costs are average or low, the cost of instruction is relatively quite high. Program excellence in many case indicates that the high cost of instruction merits the expenditure. We urge the administration to work through the shared governance process to develop a hierarchy of funding priorities for the future that will strengthen both the highest and lowest cost departments and programs of excellence without jeopardizing the excellence and viability of the university as a whole. Like those cash-strapped families, we cannot continue to pull money from our groceries budget to pay for gasoline to drive to work every day. We need a new plan and a careful reassessment of our income, our expenditures, and how we go about getting our work done.

Second, despite the hiring freezes of recent years, there has been a significant increase in the FTE allocated toward faculty and administration overall. While the number of tenured/tenure-track faculty decreased between Fall 1990 and Fall 2008 with the number of full-time non-tenure-track faculty remaining steady, the number of part-time non-tenure-track and other faculty rose 62% and the number of administrative professionals rose almost 79%. Overall, we now employ nearly 500 more people in these positions than we did eighteen years ago. Yet the number of students at the university rose only about 105%, or by just over 1000 students. Meanwhile, there seems to be a nearly universal sense that workloads have increased for individuals in all ranks across the board. These allocations seem to beg the question of whether our overall human resource dollars are being wisely allocated. Attention to the overall decrease in service productivity that necessarily results from a decrease in tenured/tenure-track faculty and an increased reliance on faculty with instructional duties only is clearly a major part of the picture. Yet examination of the tenured/tenure-track faculty to A/P ratio should also be initiated, particularly for the higher ranking, more costly A/P positions. Within the ranks of administrative professionals, there may also be misallocation of resources, either in the upper ranks or in the lower ranks, or other types of unplanned allocation and/or the belated need for a thorough review of our human resources classification system.

Finally, it deserves note that one of Provost’s Urice’s original desires for the AIF was to provide incentive funds for the recruitment and retention of underrepresented and international faculty. Over the past decade of the fund’s operation, the percentage of these faculty in the tenure-track ranks has increased from 9.9% to 16.6%. However, these gains have been mitigated significantly by our enormous reliance on non-tenure-track faculty, where the percentage of underrepresented and international faculty has actually decreased (also decreasing among administrative/professionals). Since NTT and A/P employees form the first face of the university for many of our students in their roles as instructors of lower-division courses, advisors, and student services personnel, it is imperative that we correct this situation if we are to fulfill the goals of our strategic plan, Educating Illinois, in recruiting and retaining a diverse student body. ISU students today may actually experience less faculty diversity in the classroom than they did twenty years ago. A better functioning AIF through which more tenure-track hires may be authorized is one important step in reversing these trends. But our overall procedures in hiring must also be brought into line with the successful recruitment processes that have succeeded in beginning to diversify our tenure-track ranks.