Sent on March 8, 2013
Leslie and I are both Steely Library faculty and we attended a number of the strategic planning sessions; they were extremely insightful. We believe the library should play an important role in student success and went to the sessions with that goal in mind. In order to stay relevant, we know the library will need to align its goals with the university's and hope the library will be considered in this strategic process.
We are also highly impressed with how strategic planning has been approached and commend you all on a well-organized process and comprehensive website.
Laura Sullivan and Leslie Hammann
Faculty members
Sent on March 8, 2013
NKU should focus on professional development and advancement - this is one of the areas at the university that is practically non-existent. I have been in my current position for over 5 years and have done very well. There are no advancement opportunities for me to go up in my career unless a person in a higher position departs. It is hard to stay motivated when there are no opportunities to advance.
There are so many initiatives on campus that the university staff implements and then supports. We usually get new responsibilities on top of our existing duties. NKU has been able to implement huge projects like SAP system implementation with a fraction of resources than other universities had. The most valuable resource NKU has is its people. People used to want to work here because of benefits. Benefits have dramatically decreased over the last 5-6 years - a lot of people choose high deductable insurance because they cannot afford any others. Our holidays keep shrinking - I am in disbelief that we will have to work on Christmas Eve this year, as I am sure many other people.
NKU has much lower salaries than the corporate world. Benefits are not what they used to be. Holidays are shrinking. How is NKU planning to attract and keep talented human resources? I am considering looking for another job myself because of the lack of advancement opportunities. We do not make widgets here, and therefore to have highest productivity, you have to keep your human resources motivated. If you keep the people happy, we will keep accomplishing things that other universities cannot even dream of.
In terms of profressional development, there is a lack of training opportunities across campus. Most of the time, it's due to the fact that there are no funds available for that, especially if the training is off site and offered by a 3rd party. Why don't staff have the opportunity to be trained and get the knowledge to do their job better? There seem to be funds available for various conferences where people go to and then come back saying they did not even learn anything. There seem to be funds for fancy lunches and dinners that take place in the SU every week. There needs to be better management of professional development budget where funds are devoted to professional opportunities where there are direct benefits to your job.
On top of low salaries, decreasing benefits, shrinking holidays, and complete lack of advancement opportunities and professional development, I see a lot of misuse of power where people are hired or promoted or just kept in their job because they are friends with someone in the power. This kills the morale and needs to stop. I see motivation and morale on the downhill. I hope NKU finds methods to attract and keep talented human resources and provides its employees with better compensation, benefits, professional development, and advancement opportunities.
There is a perception among NKU staff that the university does not listen to our voices. I have served on Staff Congress - probably 90% of concerns that are expressed in Staff Congress never get resolved. Even if you look at the Strategic Planning Committee members, there is no staff representation there - regular staff and not a director level. There are student and faculty representatives, but no staff.
I hope NKU turns things around where NKU staff feel appreciated, and we can attract and keep talented human resources here and motivated.
Faculty or staff member
Sent on March 6, 2013
I was at the session on Mission/Vision statements and had this comment on learner-centered teaching. This certainly does imply learner-centered teaching in our classrooms. If you want to broaden it to include the entire university you could try "learned-centered environment."
Faculty or staff member
Sent on March 6, 2013
There was no time at the March 1st session to add this comment at the end.
I think it is interesting that NOWHERE in the statements were athletics mentioned. I think that is as it should be, or are we not an academic institution? Why then do we spend money to have select students play sports?
I'm curious how big a piece of the budget pie is spent on athletics, when they are not part of our mission, vision or core values. I hope you will give that some serious thought.
Faculty or staff member
Sent on Feb. 22, 2013
Just came from the student success meeting. Thanks for conducting an open meeting that was appropriately lighter on the agenda side and heavy on listening to constituents talk about enhancing student success.
I wanted to follow up on a question about re-investing funds that may be gathered by increasing student retention. And I have to give credit to the Provost for leaning over and sticking this one in my ear. I would use those funds to hire more tenure-track faculty. Here's why:
My son is a high school senior who is seriously considering NKU for college. When I asked him "why NKU?," he very sincerely said it was because I knew most of my students' first names. While just an anecdote, it may speak volumes about one of the best ways to retain our newer students - put more full-time faculty into introductory courses, and even see if you can limit the seating in some, in order to allow up-close and personal to occur the first time a student steps into an NKU classroom.
At the risk of sounding grandiose (you can tell I am not an administrator), if there were some room in the budget, we would do well to put up the money first and then collect it later when we DO retain more of those students due to a proactive strategy.
Thanks for considering these comments.
Mark Bardget
Faculty member
Sent on Feb. 15, 2013
At yesterday's meeting, president Mearns asked if anyone had an issue that was not raised, and I did not think fast enough to respond. Here is mine.
We worked very hard for the last few years with the student credit hour per full-time equivalent (SCH/FTE) initiative. Since president Mearns has arrived, I see this metric de-emphasized and I applaud that de-emphasis.
This singular measure of efficiency/productivity made A&S look terrific. Even though we have science labs, foreign language and writing intensive courses which are not compatible with larger classes we sustained the highest SCH/FTE ratios. The results we achieved were largely to eliminate classes taught by adjuncts, which certainly did not save much money. If we want faculty flexibility in canceling under-enrolled classes, we should ask each tenure/tenure-track faculty to always be prepared to teach a general education, or other high demand course. That would also be more effective in gaining senior faculty involvement in core curriculum.
Long-story-short, thanks for de-emphasizing SCH/FTE. It was a misguided initiative with questionable results. It should be kept as one of our metrics, with much less emphasis.
Thank you.
Bill Attenweiler
Faculty member
