[phas-faculty_staff_others] Letter to the Senate from Physics and Astronomy

[Yasemin Atinc]

Hello Carlos,


Thank you for sharing your department faculty concerns. This is a valuable addition to our summer model discussion.


I propose that we address these points during our new summer model discussions today, and then continue our conversation in April to further refine our approach. Would that work for you?


I appreciate your collaboration and look forward to our discussion.

Best,

Yasemin


On Mar 4, 2025, at 12:15 PM, Carlos Bertulani <Carlos.Bertulani at tamuc.edu> wrote:

To:           Faculty Senate
From:      The Faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy
Re:          Priority for Teaching Summer Courses

 We the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy write to request that the Faculty Senate pass and forward a resolution to the university administration demanding that priority for hiring instructors of record for summer-term classes be given to full-time faculty members currently employed in the university’s academic departments.  Our faculty should have right of first refusal for teaching summer classes.

It has come to our attention that the administration has indicated they would prefer that departments hire adjunct instructors to teach summer classes to increase revenue for the university.  We believe this plan is harmful to the faculty and to the institution in the long term.  We are primarily a teaching institution with faculty salaries lag behind most of our peer institutions.  Most faculty when hired were told that there would be summer classes they could teach to provide income during the summer months, and many faculty rely on those summer classes to pay their mortgages and grocery bills.

For the past decade we have used the “Summer Business Model” that was developed to provide a fair distribution of the revenue generated from summer classes.  That model uses the faculty member’s 9-month base salary to calculate a minimum enrollment number for that faculty to receive full pay (7.5%) for that class.  If the department overall meets the minimum, then all faculty receive full pay.  If not, then salaries are pro-rated based on class enrollment for those classes that are under-enrolled relative to the calculation.  This model is transparent, and faculty believe it is fair.

Last year, the administration raised the “floor” of the summer model to levels that evidently caused some units to “lose” money, and they also evidently count department head summer pay as part of the costs that tuition must cover.  This latter change is new and likely the reason that there is a claim of revenue loss, but Department Head salaries should not be considered as a cost to the department, but rather to the university.

While we appreciate that the administration has provided merit raises (typically ~2%) over the years, inflation (and particularly housing costs) has far outpaced merit raises.  Many if not most faculty rely on summer classes to pay for their mortgages and groceries, and making it practice to offer courses to adjuncts when there are faculty in need is cruel and will be devastating for morale.

We therefore request that the university adopt the policy that full-time faculty shall have the right of first-refusal for summer course offerings.

Signed,

The Faculty of the Department Physics and Astronomy.

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