Postsecondary Institution Case Study

Running Head: POSTSECONDARY INSTITUTION CASE STUDY 1

Postsecondary Institution Case Study

Richard N. Dettling

University of Phoenix

Postsecondary Institution Case Study

Dr. John Sperling, a Cambridge-educated economist and professor-turned-entrepreneur, founded the University of Phoenix in 1976 (History of Apollo Group, 2011). Sperling projected the merging of technological, economic, and demographic forces that would significantly anticipate the emergence of distance education. Instead of education delivered traditionally at one location, the University of Phoenix catered to working adults seeking higher education by offering convenient class times at local sites and allowing the delivery through innovative methods, including distance education technologies (History - University of Phoenix, 2011). Now the University of Phoenix is the nation's largest private, for-profit higher education institution whose mission is to provide high quality adult education (History of Apollo Group, 2011). Over the last quarter-century, University of Phoenix has come to be regarded as a leader in higher education since becoming accredited in 1978 by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (Questions About Accreditation, 2011). Outside observers often attribute this to the University's dedication to creating real-world professional education for working adults, an academic model designed specifically to facilitate adult learning, and an organizational culture that prizes innovation (History of Apollo Group, 2011). In order to facilitate the education of the University of Phoenix, the Academic Affairs department within the University system provides oversight and administration of the university's mission with respect to quality delivery of classroom curriculum.

Role of Academic Affairs

The role of academic affairs, according to Dr. William Hunter (personal communication, May 13.2011), South Florida Campus College Chair of the School of Business, is to ensure academic quality in the classroom, by way of recruitment, training, development, performance evaluations, those types of activities. Additionally, according to Dr. Gail Ali (personal communication, May 13.2011), Director of Academic Affairs, the role of academic affairs is to ensure faculty adhere to the curriculum and adhere to the accreditation, program standards, and their delivery adheres to all the policies related to accreditation and other governing bodies. Accordingly, for academic affairs, the primacy of student learning has always been clear and self-evident: all academic resources (classrooms) and activities (instruction) are about student learning (Colwell, 2006). Overall, the role of Academic affairs is to promote and a campus wide effort to increase student learning, engagement, and retention (Degen & Sheldahl, 2007).

Faculty governance structure

The president is the highest-ranking executive at the University of Phoenix (UOPX Organizational Chart, 2011). The president generally works closely with a provost, who is responsible for academic affairs (UOPX Organizational Chart, 2011). Each college within University of Phoenix is under the direction of a dean that is centrally located at the main campus in Phoenix, Arizona (UOPX Academic Affairs Organizational Chart, 2011). . Consequently, there are regional Directors of Academic Affairs. At each local-campus is a Director of Academic Affair (DAA) that oversees all local-campus colleges. A Campus College Chair (CCC) and Program Managers (PM) supervise individual departments of instruction (Alexandra Escobar, personal communication, May 11. 2011). Faculty members are ranked, in descending order, as lead faculty area chairs (LFAC) who serve as content specialists and manage lead faculty (LF). Lead faculty are short-term contractual faculty, and associate faculty are instructors who are contracted on a term-by-term or per-course basis (Academic Affairs Staffing Model, 2010).

Associate Faculty

Associate faculty, according to Alexandra Escobar (personal communication, May 11. 2011), Campus College Chair of the College of Education, are considered practitioner/adjunct faculty. Dr. Gail Ali (personal communication, May 13.2011) states, "The university employs practitioner faculty. Practitioner faculty must have full-time jobs somewhere else." University of Phoenix's practitioner faculty blends real-world experience with academic theory. The associate faculty are instructors, as well as dedicated working professionals. They have advanced degrees and substantial experience in the fields they teach. This enables them to bring a powerful combination of theory and practical expertise to the classroom. (History - University of Phoenix, 2011). Therefore, according to Alexandra Escobar (personal communication, May 11.2011), "We have a practitioner work model, so we want to ensure that our faculty is current on what is happening in the workplace." Indeed the entire University of Phoenix faculty has significant business or vocational background. "Thus the adjunct/temporary faculty member can add an important dimension to instructional programs in higher education" (Schneider, 2004, p. 19).

Tenure. The University of Phoenix does not allow for the employed tenured faculty. Dr. Ali (personal communication, May 13.2011) suggests, the university model does not align with tenure because it would require instructors to be full-time positions with the university. The reason for not using tenured faculty is that the practitioner/adjunct faculty needs to remain current in their field in order to bring real world experience to their students (Alexandra Escobar, personal communication, May 11.2011). In contrast, tenured faculty are very likely to remain employed because of job security and are much more likely to be represented by a faculty union (Schneider, 2004). The university does have full-time faculty, "Which are the dean, the provost, the director of academic affairs, the college chairs, and lead faculty and area chairs" (Gail Ali, personal communication, May 13.2011).

Tenure comes with both pros and cons, according to the Director of Academic Affairs, the main reason for tenure is the ability to do research (Gail Ali, personal communication, May 13.2011). Another pro according to Frank Donohue (2009), "Tenure is a uniform set of protections against unfair or politically motivated dismissal" (p. 601). He goes on to say, "Tenure is the guarantor of academic freedom" (Donohue, 2009, p. 602). Thus, tenure protects faculty from termination in order to pursue academic freedom and research. However, tenure has its cons as well. When benefits of health insurance, retirement, and social security that full-time faculty receive, it costs about three times as much to employ a full time tenured faculty compared to practitioner/adjunct faculty (Schneider, 2004). According to Dr. Ali (personal communication, May 13.2011), tenure tends to get the university some dead wood, where faculty feel they are part of the university for life and there in no real development of knowledge and quality.

Strengths of Academic Affairs

Academic freedom, according to Donohue (2009), is the "Key legitimating concept of the entire enterprise of higher education" (p. 602). Where the notion of academic freedom is a special application of the protection of freedom of speech in the classroom, in speeches, and publication for faculty (Donohue, 2009). Tenure guarantees academic freedom because without tenured faculty the ability to be terminated can easily be unfair or politically motivated. As discussed, University of Phoenix faculty are non-tenured. Therefore the opportunity for academic freedom, according to Dr. Ali (personal communication, May 13.2011), academic affairs grants the power through the faculty's ownership of the final grade to have academic freedom. "No other person within the university can override a grade at the institution" Additionally, faculty have the ability teach their courses with the freedom by introducing any media they like; however they must adhere to the objectives of the course which is laid out by the course syllabus (Gail Ali, personal communication, May 13.2011).

Using practitioner/adjunct faculty, academic affairs is still obligated to ensure that faculty have the same academic qualification as full-time faculty, therefore employment of practitioner/adjunct faculty provides the University significant flexibility. Strength of academic affairs is the ability to secure faculty member who can teach successfully and have students learn (William Hunter, personal communication, May 13.2011). According to the CCC of the college of Education, is the evaluation of faculty towards student success. A review is completed approximately every year in a half, maximum two years. The formal review is unannounced, and it evaluates the faculty's ability to facilitate and their compliance with set university policies. "We look at the feedback and the art of teaching and facilitation within the classroom within that specific visit" (Alexandra Escobar, personal communication, May 11.2011).

Challenges of Academic Affairs

One of the challenges for academic affairs is the availability of qualified faculty. Higher education must consider the availability of qualified adjunct faculty in the geographic area which the university serves (Schneider, 2004). According to Dr. William Hunter (personal communication, May 13.2011), "The major challenges are similar to other universities, and that is you have an increasing challenge in terms of your diverse population and your trying to recruit and retain staff to work effectively with those population." Of course, the major desire is to have a significant number of qualified faculty, this would lend itself to maximum flexibility and continued liberal use of practitioner/adjunct faculty (Schneider, 2004). Unfortunately, the major challenges faced by academic affairs according to according to Dr. Ali (personal communication, May 13.2011), is mostly acquisition of the type of faculty with the correct credentials, academic and industry experience, to support the courses that are developed by the university, having the appropriate faculty in our local areas; this seems to be the most difficult challenges faced in terms of staffing.

One of the challenges academic affairs is facing is the climate surrounding the perception of the University of Phoenix being a for-profit institutions. According to Alexandra Escobar (personal communication, May 11.2011), "Dealing with the media and the scrutiny that goes along with that, but at the same time it is also an opportunity for us to ensure that we have all our I's dotted and our T's crossed and we're very proud of what we have been able to accomplish." The scrutiny which Alexandra Escobar discusses is highlighted in an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education that was recently published on May 8, 2011 called Faculty at For-Profits Allege Constant Pressure to Keep Students Enrolled. The bulk of the article focused on two former Kaplan University, a for-profit school, instructors who say they have been encouraged to dumb down courses, falsify attendance records, forgive plagiarism, and change failing grades in order to retain students so that Kaplan can continue collecting Federal student aid. The perception is for-profit school is more concerned with the bottom line rather than the education of its students.

Recommendations to Improve Academic Affairs

Ensuring the students meet the course objectives is very important, since it means that students understand the content and subject matter of the course. Facilitating in dynamic ways and in a relevant way so that students can grow professionally from their experience in the classroom, and to empower students to believe in their goals. At the same time, academic affairs needs to always keep that rigor in place and the alignment with the objective. According to Dr. William Hunter (personal communication, May 13.2011), "In the best of all worlds, the role of a faculty would be to make sure that at the end of the course, the students have met the course objective." Faculty should also as part of their role is be committed to developing themselves, attending meetings, our trainings, so they can be active members of our faculty and up to date on all current events and issues and changes in the university (Alexandra Escobar, personal communication, May 11.2011).

Conclusion

Academic Affairs is a department within the University of Phoenix that provides oversight and administration with respect to the goals of the university's mission and vision. Academic affairs ensures the quality delivery of classroom curriculum. Academic affairs focuses on student learning, engagement, and retention. The delivery of the course curriculum is mainly in the hands of the associate faculty whom are instructors who are contracted on a course-by-course basis. The faculty at the University of Phoenix has significant business or vocational background. This is why they are considered practitioner faculty. Practitioner faculty are considered part-time faculty and could not be considered tenured faculty. This combination of elements provides considerable strengths for academic affairs. Practitioner faculty provide significant flexibility. Additionally, academic affairs performance evaluations ensure compliance with academic affairs policies and procedures. Academic affairs have a few challenges. Finding qualified faculty in specific subject matter areas is a significant challenge. Additionally, facing a climate surrounding for-profit education is presenting a significant challenge as well. Recommendations for academic affair focus on meeting the course objectives by facilitating in dynamic ways. Additionally, faculty need to continuously develop themselves.

References

Colwell, B. W. (2006). Partners in a community of learners: Student and academic affairs at small colleges. New Directions for Student Services, (116), 53-66. doi:10.1002/ss.225

Degen, G., & Sheldahl, E. (2007). The many hats of teaching in small colleges: The seamless web of student and academic affairs. New Directions for Student Services, (117), 47-56. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Field, K. (2011, May 8). Faculty at For-Profits Allege Constant Pressure to Keep Students Enrolled. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/Pawns-in-the-For-Profit/127424/?sid=at&utm_sour...

History of Apollo Group (2011). Apollo Group. Retrieved from http://www.apollogrp.edu/History.aspx

History - University of Phoenix (2011). University of Phoenix. Retrieved from http://www.phoenix.edu/about_us/about_university_of_phoenix/history.html

Questions About Accreditation (2011). University of Phoenix. Retrieved from http://www.phoenix.edu/about_us/accreditation/faqs.html

Schneider, J.M. (2004). Employing Adjunct Faculty from an HR Perspective. Phi Kappa Phi Forum, 84(4), 18-19. Retrieved May 22, 2011, from Research Library. (Document ID: 750867221).

Staffing Model (2011). Academic Operations. Retrieved from http://upx/AA/aom/Staff/StaffResources/Sta(UOPX Organizational Chart, 2011). ffingModel/Shared%20Documents/AA%20Staffing%20Model%20Requirements%202010.pdf

UOPX Academic Affairs Organizational Chart (2011). Welcome - Office of the Provost. Retrieved from http://upx/AA/Pages/Welcome.aspx

UOPX Organizational Chart (2011). Welcome - Office of the Provost. Retrieved from http://upx/AA/Pages/Welcome.aspx

Appendix A: Organizational Chart

(UOPX Organizational Chart, 2011)

(UOPX Academic Affairs Organizational Chart, 2011).

Appendix B: POST-SECONDARY INTERVIEW

Interviewees:

Dr. William Hunter, Campus College Chair for the School of Business at the South Florida Campus, Plantation Florida.

Dr. Gail Ali, Director of Academic Affairs, South Florida Campus, Plantation Florida.

Alexandra Escobar MSED, Campus College Chair for the College or Education at the South

Florida Campus, Plantation Florida.

-What is the role of academic affairs?

HUNTER: The role of academic affairs is to ensure academic quality in the classroom, by way of the things that we always talk about, recruitment, training, development, performance evaluations, those types of activities.

GAIL: The role of academic affairs is to provide a quality, student academic experience, and to do that we have to ensure that we provide qualified faculty in the classroom, and we provide tools to monitor the faculty, that they are doing the right things as far as adhering to the curriculum, and adhering to the accreditation and program standard, and their delivery adheres to all the policies related to accreditation and other governing bodies we must report to.

ALEX: To ensure academic quality and integrity in the classroom and we do that by recruiting, developing and coaching our faculty, and we go into the classrooms and we conduct our review, we have that training faculty workshops, we empower area chairs or lead faculty also to do coaching so we are on top, of all aspects of what goes on in the classroom and curriculum wise so that we can ensure students have the best experience.

-What are the roles and responsibilities of faculty?

HUNTER: In the best of all worlds, the role of a faculty would be to make sure that at the end of the course, the students have met the course objective.

GAIL: The roles and responsibilities of faculty is to support the student in their learning of content, and in their areas of discipline, so they are responsible to deliver their knowledge base in their specific discipline, both in terms of classroom, when they're face to face delivering in terms of facilitation of knowledge during class time, as well as provision of feedback to the students, both qualitative and quantitative, and even off class time through the online learning system if they wanted to expand the knowledge through online weeks if they choose to do so. It's not mandatory but they can submit additional resources to students to enhance the discussion during the week.

ALEX: They have to meet course objectives which is very important, and do so in a dynamic ways, and a relevant way so that students can grow professionally from their experience in the classroom, and also to empower students believe I them, believe in their goals, but always keep that rigor in place and the alignment with the objective. They should also as part of their role is be commited to developing themselves, attending meetings, our trainings, so they can be active members of our faculty and up to date on all current events and issues and changes in the university.

-Does the institution offer tenure? Why? What are the pros and cons of tenure at the institution?

HUNTER: The obvious answer to that is "no." This university does not offer tenure. There are pros and cons to everything, I think, we think of, so think of the negative aspects of it initially. It would impact faculty members who have tenure, who are in an area called non-performance, because they are now by tenure, they have a permanent position, very difficult to remove an individual. Of course they could do it for cause, but it's very difficult. That would be on the negative side. On the pro side, which is the positive side, which most people try to stress, it would be to ensure that you have a certain amount of expertise, within the university, in terms of policy, procedures, and teaching methods, to ensure you provide the best to the students.

GAIL: The institution does not offer tenure as a traditional school does, and the reasoning for that is that the university employs practitioner faculty. Practitioner faculty must have full-time jobs somewhere else and that really does not align right with tenure, cause tenure requires you to be a full-time position with the university. However, the university does have full-time faculty which are the dean, the provost, the director of academic affairs, the college chairs, and lead faculty and area chairs. The pros and cons of tenure at an institution, tenure does provide for research, that's the main research for tenure, however the cons of tenure, you tend to get some dead wood, and it becomes a process where people feel that they are part for life, there really is no development of knowledge or quality. So that's a con to tenure. The way University of Phoenix works is using practitioner faculty in the classroom. The students are engaged and exposed to the latest trends of their industry at all times so that's one of the reasons why they don't really focus on tenure as a traditional institution does.

ALEX: No tenure. Our faculty, the majority of all the faculty, are associate faculty. The reason why we chose that is we have a practitioner work model so we want to ensure that our faculty is current on what is happening in the workplace and in order to remain current they need to remain in their fields so they are able to bring that real world experience to their students. WE do have limited, full-time faculty which are administrators and they oversee the faculty and the curriculum.

-Usually when somebody has tenure, that means they have the ability or they have academic freedom, meaning the university can't easily get rid of them. Since this university does not have tenure, how would that affect academic freedom?

HUNTER: Well, just what you just said. The absence of tenure, it would mitigate a person having the academic freedom to uh, because they're confined, therefore, particularly individuals under our current system who are basically contract. So by being contract, their status is not even at the level of a full-time employees, which is even lesser-than, if you want to say lesser-than, cause they're not even, so if someone says "How many faculty do you have?", well, they're contract faculty members. RICH: Right, so even within that scope do you see them having academic freedom? HUNTER: Based on your definition of tenure representing academic freedom, the absence of tenure would lessen the degree of academic freedom.

GAIL: Academic freedom is allowed through the faculties' ownership of the grade, that is their academic freedom, no one can override a grade at the institution, but also the objectives of the course are laid out by the course syllabus and the faculty member must adhere to that objective and the topics, however within those boundaries they can have their academic freedom once they meet those objectives, so they can deliver they course content in any media they like, or they choose to, so that's their academic freedom.

-What is the role of teaching and learning in faculty evaluations and student outcomes?

HUNTER: That question is uh, probably the question of the century, the role of faculty in terms of student outcome. The answer is simply this, faculty members teach successfully and students learn. The faculty performance process through the faculty performance report, which is your gpa, your different visits, that's how you ensure you that you have a successful student outcome.

GAIL: We look at various measures. One of the measures we look at is a report called the Faculty Performance Report and it identifies GPAs. It's a guiding tool, GPAs s tells us if, and standard deviations, if a faculty member has high GPAs for example, that means that he maybe, be grading too loosely and there's not enough rigor in the classroom, if the GPA is too low, then it could also indicate the faculty member may have too much rigor and grading too difficult on a course. The standard deviation will also identify if the grading is not spread across equally so that's another measure. We also look at, in terms of student outcomes, whether we have final exams. The final exams identify if, based on the exam grades, how the students are being, how their results measure to the objectives of the course, because the exams are aligned to the objectives of the course so if the students are performing well on those exams it tells us the faculty members are teaching to the objectives of the course. We also look at things such as are their faculty members using, CATs (Classroom Assessment Techniques) to assess if the students are really knowing what they should be doing such as one minute papers and the chairs which are to plan for the CAMS, Content Area Meetings, which the lead area chairs facilitate with their faculty, and those are four times a year for each college.

ALEX: Well part of the faculty evaluation process is a review that's done approximately every year in a half, maximum two years. It's a formal review that's unannounced, and in that we evaluate the faculties' teaching and their compliance with set university policy, so we look at the feedback and the art of teaching and facilitation within the classroom within that specific visit. We also do more informal evaluations through their review of their online learning system, and seeing how faculty are giving feedbacks to students, how timely they are in responding to questions, so that's another form. We also do periodic class visits and just checking in with students and with faculty and we can also hear from students what their getting from the classrooms and see if there's any issue of concern so that's another way to measure the both the teaching and learning that's in place. With student outcomes we have some colleges that have set finals that are done across the board throughout the country that are created through Phoenix, and some programs have portfolios who really want to have a benchmark of where are students are at and so that we can compare them across campuses and areas of opportunities in terms of our programs and curriculum.

-What is the faculty governance structure?

HUNTER: Well, there's two ways of answering it. The structure at the local campus is the DA to CCC, the PM to CCC, the lead faculty, the associate faculty, and you have that by way of different meetings. You have your academic council, you have your campus, your CAMs, your different meetings.

ALEX: At our institution we have several layers. One, we have our deans that are in Phoenix, and under those deans, we have regional deans that cover those areas, director of academic affairs that oversee the academic affairs at each campus, college campus chairs and program managers that are responsible for their particular college at their campus. We then have our lead faculty that have been teaching for at least two years, that really are exemplary faculty that assist us in managing the other associate faculty. We meet on a quarterly basis, formerly meet on a quarterly basis and academic council meeting and that is where lead faculty and the campus college chairs, the director of academic affairs come together and discuss issues pertaining to the operations of the college and make recommendations. The lead faculty are also responsible for holding quarterly content area meetings for their responsible area for each of the colleges they oversee.

-What is the academic structure? How are new courses and programs approved?

HUNTER: What a structure will be similar to, I guess a followup to the question you asked initially, but, if you look at our structure, we have a dean, each college has a dean, and then it flows down to your local campus, and then it flows on to the different things we talked about earlier, the director of academic affairs, ccc's, and pm, but that's the structure. Now in terms of course approval, each college is approved through the deans, but there's a second level which is each state has different requirements for approval, so that the final approval for courses are at the state level where you find some campuses where you have certain courses, other campuses you can not because of state requirements.

GAIL: The academic structure is based on each college, based on each college, has a supporting dean with a supporting college chair, either owning the college or supervising the college. New courses and programs are created, new courses are created by a combination by the dean, the faculty, and outside consultants, developing those as joint venture, and programs are also designed as that method as well. They are approved through the accrediting bodies and the programmatic bodies as well, and new courses must also go through that approval process as well.

ALEX: Well the curriculum is created through Phoenix, through our central administration office, and that is done through a curriculum team however each campus provides updates from their content area meetings on things on curriculum enhancements and we also have faculty who are actively involved on the creation of those courses and assist in program development, and those are part of associate faculty and full-time faculty which are administrators, but it's something that we really focused on so we make sure that faculty is involved so it's not something that is removed from actually what is educationally sound and so the practitioners are giving their feedback through the content area meetings so that's the process for the information to be shared and developed and then once programs are rolled out we go through the same process when there's feedback we send that to the deans and we make modifications as necessary. It's a pretty dynamic process compared to other institutions.

-What are the major challenges faced by academic affairs?

HUNTER: The major challenges are similar to other universities, and that is you have an increasing challenge in terms of your diverse population and your trying to recruit and retain staff to work effectively with those population.

GAIL: The major challenges faced by academic affairs is mostly acquisition of the type of faculty with the correct credentials, academic and industry experience, to support the courses that are being rolled out, having the appropriate faculty in our local areas. That seems to be the most difficult challenges faced in terms of staffing.

ALEX: I see a couple and I see there's also some college specific challenges. One of the challenges we're facing right now is the climate people perceive for-profit institutions and kind of dealing with the media and the scrutiny that goes along with that, but at the same time it is also an opportunity for us to ensure that we have all our I's dotted and our T's crossed and we're very proud of what we have been able to accomplish, and I think in spite of that, or because of that, we are really high-quality and run a tight ship, in terms of that. Another challenge I would say is the communication that exist with the department. There's sometime some conflicts of personality or different styles and some challenges with faculty for some high need areas, so when you have high need areas it makes it difficult in all areas for schedulers to schedule those classes, and the conflict that sometimes can come from wanting to grow the campus, but also having the faculty to grow in the most critical need areas.

-How does academic affairs choose who will teach which courses?

HUNTER: That's an ongoing process, and evolving process, which is we look at all the things we talked about earlier in terms of faculty performance, the types of things that represent the best practices, those are individuals you want to be working with your students. So you work through a process of seeing, conduct an annual survey, in terms of whom has taught certain classes, who is interested in teaching certain classes, who has certain competencies, and you do go through a process of assimilating all your data and it matches up to, that's the best faculty to be in a classroom, cause you want a class to have a certain number of faculty who have taught the class and a certain number of time until they build an expertise.

GAIL: Academic affairs first must screen the faculty first based on their transcripts. The transcripts identify what degree and what courses the instructor has, that qualifies that instructor based on what the course approval cluster has defined, is approved as required to, so that first has to be the academic must be the first area to be aligned with and second has to be the industry experience based on what that card says so those two items must be first screened. Then second thing is once we have the faculty members approved is that faculty member willing to teach in that location, and we look at the third thing in terms of how well is that faculty member performing in that course.