Increasing debate surrounding the Faculty Handbook

By: Sydney Umstead, News Editor

The Canisius University Faculty Senate passed a resolution on Feb. 5 surrounding discrepancies with the Faculty Handbook following President Stoute’s discussion at the November student senate meeting.

The resolution titled “Resolution Regarding Violations of the Faculty Handbook” was written by the Faculty Welfare Committee, then sent to the faculty senate and passed from there.

It has since been sent to the full faculty.

This comes at a time when the Institutional Sustainability Task Force is set to publish their review for the $15 million cut from the budget, which will be unveiled in March.

The resolution opens with a quote from Stoute from the student senate meeting. In talking about the 4/4 teaching load, he states, “It doesn’t mean you’re not breaking the law because something is not enforced,” meaning that even though the 4/4 is not enforced, the handbook expresses that it should be. However, the resolution is introduced with a statement regarding these quotes from Stoute.

They write, “We on the Faculty Welfare Committee and Faculty Handbook Subcommittee, are happy to hear that Stoute believes that we all ought to follow the laws of the Faculty Handbook,” adding, “And so, we indicate other sections of the Handbook that the management is currently in violation of.”

Medical Insurance

The first section details the medical plan established by the University in the Handbook, and argues that it was something that upper management is allegedly in violation of. Taken from page 92 of the handbook, it reads, “For those hired and eligible to participate in Canisius University health insurance prior to 01 July 1998, the University will pay 90% of the premium of the participant’s elected plan, not to exceed 90% of the premium University’s ‘Deductible’ plan.”

However, the welfare committee writes that “university management practice is currently to offer only high-deductible plans.” This has “[g]iven every employee a pay cut of a minimum of $1,600 per year,” as the two plans available range from between $1,600 and $3,200, or between $2,500 and $5,000 for “individual/family coverage respectively.”

The “contributions are now divided by salary, and (for example) for a person making a salary between $50-99K, the University pays 75 percent and the participant pays 25 percent,” according to the committee. The average salary for a professor at Canisius is estimated to be $75,424, according to Glassdoor. Yet, the average salary for a professor in Buffalo is reported to be $157,860 per year.

Retirement benefit

Retirement benefits are another portion of the faculty handbook discussed by the welfare committee, and its relationship to the bylaws of the handbook, which it alleges upper management is in violation of. The handbook, on page 90, details how each faculty member with full-time status is offered “the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-University Retirement Fund (TIAA-CREF) retirement plan.” With this, “the faculty member contributes a minimum of 2 percent of contract salary and the University contributes 8 percent.”

Current management policy, the committee states, is that “the university will only mirror the contribution of the employee to the 403b plan up to a maximum of 4 percent.” Meaning, “if a faculty member contributes 2%, the university will give 2%.” At the maximum, “if the faculty member contributes 4%, then the university will contribute 4%.” Which, they write, is “more than a 50% loss in this faculty benefit.”

Typical benefits for university professors have been on the rise at other universities. In 2018, Pension Research Council found that “There has been a slow but steady growth in total benefits for faculty over time” after “adjusting for inflation.”

Payment for independent studies and theses

The committee moves to discuss the pay for faculty members who add on to their typical workload. In relation to the handbook, the guidelines for payment as established on page three are that “faculty members who, in addition to their basic teaching load, teach directed reading, independent study, or tutorial courses shall be compensated at a rate equal to the tuition of one credit hour for each student.”

The resolution alleges that the current university management practice is that faculty are not paid for “independent studies, theses, or directed readings at all.” The exception is “if a faculty member is the primary advisor for an Honors thesis, which is a flat rate of $450 per student, whereas the tuition of one credit hour is currently an average of $1,307,” according to the committee.

Faculty Retirement Program

The fourth section of the resolution highlights the retirement program, as established by the Faculty Handbook. Page 91 of the handbook establishes that the “phased retirement program,” called the Faculty Resource Program (FRP), is “available to tenured faculty who are sixty years of age or have ten years of full-time service at Canisius University.”

The program “enables faculty to prepare for retirement by reducing the teaching load to half-time or quarter-time over a maximum five-year period.” This means that the “schedules available are half-time at half-salary or quarter-time at quarter salary.” The teaching “may be all in one semester or spread over the full academic year.” Entering the program is “voluntary, irreversible, and commits one to retirement, and commits one to retirement no later than the end of the fifth academic year in the program.”

Current management policy, the committee claims, is for the FRP to be able to start “at age 60 and continue through the age of 76.” They write that it is “available for half-time only, and for a maximum term of three years.”

Tenure and Financial Exigency

Regarding tenure, the handbook shows on page 27 that academic tenure is defined as “indispensable to the success of an institution in fulfilling its obligations to its students and to society.” Continuing, “After the expiration of a probationary period, teachers or investigators should have permanent or continuous tenure, and their service should be terminated only for adequate cause,” except in cases of “retirement for age, or under extraordinary circumstances because of financial exigency,” which Canisius has not declared.

The committee writes, “Stoute claims that he will cut programs and people in promising to cut $15 million from the operational budget, the Handbook specifies that bona fide financial exigency must be demonstrated prior to the cutting of tenured faculty.”

The end of the resolution details how “the Faculty Welfare Committee, Handbook Subcommittee, and the Faculty Senate, stand prepared to work in good faith and negotiate with those wish to alter the policies in the Handbook according to the proper process.”