Yikes! So much anger...

“Today, in 2013, a majority of those teaching in academia are working on a contingent basis. Tenure is nearly nonexistent…”

I agree and disagree with this statement from a frustrated and rambling article found at Inside Higher Ed. My entire teaching career has been as an adjunct and my employment has always been part-time so I agree that a majority, 51% or more of all teaching is done by part-time faculty members. But stating that tenure is nearly nonexistent is far from true.

As I look ahead to my Spring Research Project on budgets in higher education I will take a gander at my alma mater, the University of Arizona and briefly look at their tenure percentage as I mull over the ‘nonexistent’ quote.

According to the University of Arizona 2012-2013 Fact Book, there are 1560 tenured faculty (faculty and department heads) out of a total of 3022, or 51.5%. In addition there are 147 research and clinical faculty that would be full-time employees most likely contingent on grant and year to year departmental funding; and 834 Other Instructional Faculty that includes adjuncts. If you include these faculty and the 2984 Graduate Assistants and Associates, although they do not all teach, the total faculty jumps up to 6006 and the percentage of tenured faculty drops to 25.9%. Not being a statistician, and including pretty much everyone, I do not think that 25.9% is equivalent to ‘nearly nonexistent’ at the University of Arizona. But this is just one institution out of thousands and smaller colleges, undergraduate institutions, and community colleges would all drag the percentage of tenured faculty down.

According to another article in the Atlantic that took information from an AAUP report, “since 1975, tenure and tenure-track professors have gone from roughly 45 percent of all teaching staff to less than a quarter.” A little farther down the following numbers were presented, “At public four-year colleges, about 64 percent of teaching staff were full-time as of 2009. At private four-year schools, about 49 percent were, and at community colleges, only about 30 percent were.”

Using the number of tenured faculty at the University of Arizona; 51.1% is lower than the four-year college average of 64% but higher than the private four-year average of 49%.

So what does this tell us? Tenure is not ‘nonexistent’ in America’s higher education. With that said, is tenure changing and will it probably shrink over the next two decades? Yep. Will this create an entire generation of robots (students) who lack critical thinking skills or do not have an appreciation for the liberal arts? Probably not. Are the STEM fields going to take over higher education? As far as funding goes, they already have.

Back to the original Inside Higher Ed article. I understand where this writer is coming from but he needs to focus on just one idea and explain his position. Instead, he jumps around from nonexistent tenure faculty to MOOCs, to Sputnik, to higher education economics, to adjuncts, to the ‘matrix’, to retention tools, to Fitzgerald and Stein, to college being reduced to online education, to 1884, to individualized education, and to Luddites (da capo).

We are all concerned about the future of higher education from tenured faculty members to budgets, from liberal arts education to STEM fields; but nothing constructive is going to happen unless we all step back, breath, and focus on the task at hand.

Big Time College Football: Revenue Criteria and Salary Cap

Designing a professional college football league would require a lot of changes to the current system (to put it mildly). I will first go over revenue criteria, salary cap, and average player salary of my proposed NCAA Football Pro-League. .

What will the minimum revenue  threshold be for the new NCAA Football Pro-League? Using the he Equity in Athletics Data Analysis Cutting Tool, the following chart shows how many I-A programs fell within the following revenue ranges during the 2011-2012 academic school year/season:

Should the new league have 32 teams with a minimum revenue threshold of $30 million; 48 teams with a minimum revenue of $25 million; or 60 teams with the minimum revenue threshold set at $20 million?

For my proposed NCAA Football Pro-League, the minimum revenue threshold should be set at $30 million. Below are the top benefits of a $30 million minimum:

1. There are 32 NFL teams and initially the NCAA Football Pro-League would have 32 teams; nice parallel.

2. $30 million in revenue is nothing to laugh at. Most teams that have $30 million in revenue have large fan bases that reach beyond their localities.

3. $30 million in revenue allows for a solid salary cap.

Because so many changes would be needed to form the Pro-League, a $30 million minimum would just be a start. After the initial 32 teams are set, additional teams would be able to work towards meeting the minimums (not just revenue) allowing the league to slowly grow over time. The league might eventually reach 48 or even 60 teams as long as each team is financially solid and can conduct football operations in the black. The minimum revenue threshold would also be adjusted each year to account for inflation.

Next, the NCAA Football Pro-League would require a salary cap. The NFL salary cap in 2011 was $120 million and using the revenue of the bottom four teams as a guide, 50% of their revenue went to player’s salaries. Using the NFL as the precedent and with the minimum revenue threshold at $30 million, this would allow for a $15 million salary cap (simple but effective). Rosters would also be reduced from the current blotation of up to 120 players to the NFL norm of 75 including the practice squad.

The following chart shows how much salary and benefits would cost an NCAA Football Pro-League team if the salary cap was set at $15 million. Option A is a team that meets the salary cap exactly at $15 million and Option B is a team that is at 75% of the salary cap. I included how much normal employment benefits and additional player costs would add to the salary.

At team like Ohio State, which made in $58.1 million during the 2011-2012 could easily go with Option A because after paying player salaries, benefits, and additional costs Ohio State would still have $37.1 million left. A team like Georgia Tech, which made $32.1 million would go with Option B because after playing player salaries, benefits, and additional costs Georgia Tech would have $16.35 million left versus $11.1 million with Option A. That additional $5.25 million for a team like Georgia Tech would pay for the all the coaches salaries and allow them to operate in the black rather than the red.

With the minimum revenue criteria and salary cap established we can look at how much players will be making. The minimum salary for an NFL rookie in 2011-2012 was $375,000. If the NCAA Football Pro-League has salaries that vary between options A and B, the salary range would be between $100,000 to $300,000, or between 30% to 60% of an NFL rookie. A player on the practice squad could bring in $100k while a highly recruited high school phenom could make $300k. This would allow a player like Johnny Manziel, A.J. MaCarron, or even Ka’Deem Carey to make $300,000 a year rather than around $18k according to one source (high end).

Big Time College Football: NCAA Pro-League

There have been numerous articles and blogs calling for the formation of a new subset of college football and basketball where the players get paid to play. Each article has a slightly different scenario from the mild to the radical. For the rest of my series on big time college football I am adding my voice to the choir and call for a professional football league at the ‘collegiate’ level that I am calling the NCAA Pro-League.

The following is the crux of my proposed NCAA Pro-League: teams will be able to make money and be financially viable, players will get paid and are able to prepare for the NFL and NBA, and cooperating academic institutions will have a solid relationship both financially and academically with their pro teams. The rest of the NCAA will stay the same, allowing for most of the big time hypocrisy to disappear from college sports.

The first thing to ask about an NCAA Pro-League; do any other sports at the college level need to go pro?

Baseball? No.
Soccer? No.
Ice Hockey? No.
All other sports? No.

One could discuss and debate forever which sports could form pro leagues but collegiate pro leagues should not be formed to compete with pre-existing minor league organizations. The NFL and NBA do not have viable professional minor leagues in the US like MLB, the NHL, and MLS. If a good 18 year old baseball, soccer, or hockey player wants to go pro, he could be drafted by one of the minor league teams (also called developmental) and work his way up to the pros while getting paid to play. 18 year old football and basketball players are ‘forced’ to go to college because NCAA I-A football and basketball are the minor leagues for the NFL and NBA.

Next, I will discuss the revenue criteria, the salary cap, the academics, and the effects both positive and negative of an NCAA Pro-League.

Addendum:
After I have completed my big time college football series I will look to see if an NCAA Pro-League should be formed for women’s basketball.

Big Time College Football: English Football (Soccer) Comparison

Using the foundation of my college football research project, the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis Cutting Tool at the DOE, I will do exactly what the DOE website says you cannot do, compare big time college football programs to the NFL and English Football (soccer).

In English soccer there are four main levels (or divisions; there are many lower divisions, mostly non-professional) with the Premier League at the top, followed by Championship, League 1, and League 2 (92 teams). Each league is populated by professional clubs and players that get paid to play. The revenue distance from the top of the Premier League (first division) to the bottom of the Championship (second division) is vast but when you look closer there are revenue similarities between the NFL and college football.

At the end of the 2012 season, the top of the Premier League was Manchester United with its global brand and two decades of unbridled success; Manchester United made £320 million while at the bottom Wigan made £53 million. On a side note, Manchester made around $500 million (£320 million) while Dallas, the highest revenue producer in the NFL, made $406 million during the 2011-2012 season. The difference between Manchester and Wigan is 6x revenue, which is a much greater distance than the NFL, 1.85x from Oakland to Dallas, and MLB, 2.98x from Florida to New York.

For starters, I will look at the distance between the the bottom four NFL teams and the top four college football programs during the 2011-2012 season/academic year:

* 2011 revenue is provided by Forbs for the NFL teams and the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis Cutting Tool for the BCS teams. The table to the right, BCS to NFL, shows that Detroit’s revenue is 3x that of Auburn, et cetera.

The next chart shows the bottom four Premier League teams and the top four, non balloon/parachute payment Championship teams (left out were West Ham, Birmingham City, Blackpool, Hull, and Burnley). Revenue is in English pounds; multiply by 1.63 to get the amount in US dollars (the currency exchange rate in May 2012).

* The Premier League numbers are from the Guardian and the Championship numbers are from a blog about the finances of soccer (I could have gone to each team’s financial statements but these are close enough). The table to the right shows that Queens Park’s revenue is 3x that of Southampton, et cetera.

Why I am I looking over the revenue of the bottom four NFL teams, the top four college football teams, the bottom four English Premier League teams, and the top four (non balloon/parachute payment) English Championship teams? The distances between these teams and leagues are very similar:

• Southampton to Queens Park: 3.05x; Auburn to Detroit: 3x
• Alabama to Oakland: 2.6x; Leicester City to Wigan: 2.48x
• Leeds to Wigan: 1.71x; UT to Oakland: 2.1x

At this point you might ask yourself; why does this matter? It matters because in England there are multiple levels soccer that are fully professional and pay their players to play. The revenue distance from college football to the NFL is similar to that of the Championship to the Premier League (actual revenue amounts is different).

This brings me to the point of this article and my series on big time college football; top I-A football and basketball programs can turn professional, still make money, educate students, and support their affiliated academic institutions. Will a lot need to change for college football and those universities affected to turn pro? Yes, everything will need to change.

No Brainer University of Chicago

Not providing adequate lactation stations at University of Chicago is an odd problem to have and last time I checked the year was 2013. It seems to me, as an outsider to this world class and illustrious institution, this is an easy fix.

Note: for this article I will not comment on the drive to unionize graduate teaching assistants or to increase pay and benefits (not to mention adjuncts), but I will ask this simple question; what should University of Chicago do to do the right thing for its students?

As stated in the article, federal law requires, “a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public, which may be used by an employee to express breast milk.”

Having a one-year old, I know all too well what my wife has gone through when trying to breastfeed in public or pump at work. Luckily her work has been supportive in providing a place to breastfeed even though she is not a full-time employee, but when she has been out, stores and other locations have been far from supportive. First of all, a bathroom is not an adequate place to breastfeed or pump; feel free to read the spirited discussion of first hand accounts in the comments section of the Inside Higher Ed article. Next, pumping is very different than breastfeeding; you need a quiet, private place to pump with no interruptions or fear of being walked in on. Besides the modesty aspect of pumping, you need to focus on the task on hand and relax; something you cannot do if you are nervous about someone walk in on you or if the person next to you in the bathroom is doing their business.

A quick background on University of Chicago. University of Chicago is highly ranked by all the ranking organizations; Times Higher Education, QS World University Rankings, Academic Rankings of World Universities, Washington Monthly, Forbes, and US News & World Report (I am sure I forgot some). University of Chicago has an endowment of $6.5 billion with around 14,000 students; the majority being graduate or professional students.

Because of the rankings, endowment, and everything else, Univesity of Chicago attracts highly motivated and accomplished students, faculty, and staff. I assume University of Chicago wants to be known as an employer of choice and offer excellent support and benefits to all their faculty and staff; even institutions like University of Chicago, Ivy League institutions, Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, and the like around the world have to compete with each other for talent. I will state the obvious, University of Chicago is not Chicago State University, a public institution 5.5 miles south with a small endowment (not to pick on Chicago State University); they can afford to update or add a few lactation stations to meet the needs of their students, faculty, and staff.

It seems the crux of the article, from the author’s perspective, is for colleges and universities to recognize graduate teaching assistants as employees because they would then be eligible for benefits. I am not sure if graduate students are considered part-time employees not eligible for benefits or if they are contract employees (not eligible for benefits), but University of Chicago should do the right thing and provide private lactation stations not only to their employees but students.

If University of Chicago provides more private lactation stations they will create a truly family friendly campus and get a lot of marketing mileage out of this simple benefit. But if they don’t and if enough women and men are affected by this along and other non-family friendly issues, real or perceived, then highly motivated and qualified students, faculty, and staff will go somewhere else to study, teach, and work. And if this happens enough times, University of Chicago’s world academic standing will take a hit, and even a modest hit in the rankings will upset the board of directors and the alumni association forcing University of Chicago to do the right thing.

Mergers in Georgia

Public higher education in Georgia is a flurry of activity. North Georgia College and State University merged with Gainesville State College to form University of North Georgia. Georgia Health Sciences University and Augusta State University merged to form Georgia Regents University. Macon State College and Middle Georgia College merged to form Middle Georgia State College. South Georgia College and Waycross College merged to form South Georgia State College. And recently announced, Kennesaw State University will merge with Southern Polytechnic State University.

All this activity in Georgia is interesting from an outsider’s perspective; here is a state trying hard to deal with the new budget realities in higher education by merging institutions to create budget efficiencies to save money. The problem with these mergers is that, “‘the system expects the first round of mergers will save between $5 million and $7.5 million this year,’ Nickel said. That’s about 0.1 percent of the total $7.4 billion operating budget for the 31-college system.” Nickel is Shelly Nickel, the Associate Vice Chancellor, Planning & Implementation for the University System of Georgia.

Before I go on I must as a few questions about the University System of Georgia. Of the 31 campuses:
- Where can cuts be made to reduce redundancy?
- Can any one (or multiple) campus totally be shut down?
- Which programs can be cut because of low enrollments? How many faculty members would be let go if programs were cut; how many administrators and staff would be cut if programs were eliminated?
- Which programs can be cut to reduce geographic redundancy? How many faculty members would be let go if programs were cut; how many administrators and staff would be cut if programs were eliminated?
- How many student support/success initiatives can be cut? How many administrators and staff would be cut if these initiatives were eliminated?
- Which athletic programs can be cut due to the mergers? How many administrators and staff would be cut?
- Can statewide online courses help save money?
- Can statewide online courses help save money with general education courses?

I can only assume this first round of mergers with the 0.1% savings is only the beginning because for all the heartache caused by these mergers, 0.1% is not good enough. If University System of Georgia is going reduce costs and save money then they need to actually do it. Colleges and universities for the last few decades have been adding and adding to their offerings, their size, and their budgets. Even Harvard, with its huge endowment, stated it needs to watch its budget and not simply be additive.

As stated in my previous articles about music in Arizona and Physics in Maine, Georgia can find many places to cut amongst its 31 campuses and $7.4 billion operating budget. Maybe this is why Nickel said during the first round of mergers, Kennesaw State University and Southern Polytechnic State University being the second round, only $5 to $7.5 million was saved.

We will see if the University System Georgia starts making real, substantial, and painful cuts during the next round. These cuts will cause a lot of heartache but if done thoughtfully, strategically, and without bias or political wrangling (I know...naive), higher education in Georgia will be transformed into a stronger and highly competitive system of colleges and universities.   

Big Time College Football: Numbers

Before I started looking at college football I had no idea how much money teams pulled in; I assumed some made a bunch of money but most just got by. But because of the high profile nature of college football over the last 20-years and the numerous deals with ESPN, the main networks, and the roll-out of conference specific networks, college football is truly big time.

For my series on Big Time College Football, I am using the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis Cutting Tool provided by the Department of Education to analyze how much money each program brings in (the 2012-2013 numbers are not out yet). This is self-reported data by all institutions that receive Title IV funds (how it is self-reported is up to the discretion of each institution).

The first set of numbers are the revenue numbers for the six BCS conferences and Notre Dame for 2011-2012 academic school year with the multipliers between the highs and lows (SEC has revenue 3.92 times the Big East). On a side note, this is before the Big East became the ACC for football and before the Big-10 and Big-12 realignment.

The next table contains the revenue of the largest (high) and smallest (low) programs per conference:

The median and mean per conference:.

This table contains the revenue, median, and mean for all I-A and I-AA programs combined, I-A by itself, the BCS, non-BCS I-A, and I-AA by itself:

The final table shows individual programs starting with the top revenue producing program in I-A, followed by Notre Dame, the program closest to the mean for the BCS, the median for BCS, the program closest to the mean for all I-A, the median for I-A, the lowest revenue producing program in the BCS and the lowest revenue producing program for all I-A with the multipliers between the highs and lows (Texas has 28.93 times the revenue of Louisiana-Monroe). 

Each team in I-A; from Alabama to Arizona, to Texas to Tennessee, and USC to the University of Central Florida have to deal with individual market issues that only pertain to their programs, their localities, and their market reach. Some programs have a true national following such as Texas, Notre Dame Michigan, and Alabama allowing them to generate tens of millions in revenue each year. But most programs like Clemson, University of Miami, Indiana University, Baylor, and the University of Connecticut are regional players that desperately try to compete in I-A football but are still able to make a good chunk of change. 

Big Time College Football: Why?

Why? Why are certain schools part of big time college football?

Why is Berkeley part of the BCS? Berkeley’s six-year graduation rate is crazy high because of the exclusivity of the school, its endowment is in the billions, and like Stanford and the University of Washington, it is a true international university. In the last 20 years, half of Berkeley’s seasons have been been above .500 with the other half being extremely disappointing. What does the Berkeley’s football program add to the academic outcomes of the school and graduate research that drives all of Berkeley’s international acclaim?

Why is Arizona State University part of the BCS? ASU’s six-year graduation rate is disappointingly low and it is the largest school by campus enrollment in the US. In the last 20 years half of ASU’s season were above .500 and ASU has been a little more competitive than Berkeley. With such a low graduation rate and an on campus enrollment that is the largest in the country, why does ASU need big time college football? Do they need football to help drive their research dollars or to entertain a large undergraduate population? Do they need the program to keep alumni engaged so they buy season tickets and donate to the university? Even if this is the case, ASU’s endowment is not nearly as large as other institutions and their endowment per student is the lowest in the PAC-12. They also have a lot more work to do because of the realities at ASU; total enrollment of around 73k, Tempe Main Campus enrollment is at 60k, and a goal to get online enrollments at 100k means that ASU has a lot of non-football work to do.

Moving away from my beloved PAC-12; why is Vanderbilt part of the SEC? I understand that Vanderbilt was a founding member in 1932 but they have been hardly been competitive in the last 20-years. Does Vanderbilt need to play I-A football; they don’t need any help with their endowment or academic outcomes? Vanderbilt is ranked 88 in Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, the highest in the SEC and it has a quarter of the student population and 2.8x the endowment than the University of Florida, the next highest THE ranked team from the SEC (ranked 128; Texas A&M is 158).

Why is the Mississippi State in the SEC? Like Vanderbilt they were a founding member but have been not been competitive over the last 20-years. Mississippi State occupies the bottom of the SEC when it comes to graduation rate and has the smallest endowment of the bunch. Why is Mississippi State trying to compete with the likes of Florida and Alabama when its core mission is to “provide access and opportunity to students from all sectors of the state's diverse population, as well as from other states and countries, and to offer excellent programs of teaching, research, and service.” Without being cute, there is nothing in the mission about providing quality entertainment to students and alumni by fielding a competitive football program that was last SEC Champion in 1941.

In my opinion this article is not particularly brilliant but like my previous article about the Time Higher Education’s world rankings we need to ask the question: why? Why do  schools feel the need to have big time college football (and basketball) programs? At this point I could go through all the BCS conferences and other I-A conferences and pick and choose high performing schools and low performing schools and ask the questions; why?

*For this article, I used facts and figures from the current academic year rather than 2011-2012 like my previous articles about big time college football.