After being warned in January that the school would lose accreditation because some faculty members weren't qualified to teach their subjects, administrators conducted a 215-person firing last week.
It wouldn't be the first raw deal for ACC faculty. The Texan reported in 2002 that faculty members were angry at the college for cutting around 300 classes because of a $2.1 million budget shortfall. A faculty pay increase in July was the first step in years toward raising lagging salaries to the state average, according to the Austin Chronicle. In September, an announcement on health benefits was misleading enough that 40 faculty members signed up for insurance they could not get.
Now, at least 140 faculty members will be unemployed in September. An ACC official told a Texan reporter 75 of the 215 saved their heads by making plans to get more training; even those will not be teaching in the fall, however, when the accrediting agency conducts a new review.
Assuming ACC's only choice was to give an ultimatum, an obvious question is why, with a September deadline for the review, officials waited until now to act.
Advance notice wasn't exactly lacking. Inadequate faculty training meant the college's accreditation went on warning status in December. After a consultant studied the problem, officials said, they informed faculty in April whether their credentials held up to scrutiny.
If instructors have dragged their feet since April in filling gaps in their credentials, administrators certainly took their time (four months) analyzing a problem against a deadline that threatened to cost jobs.
Now it will.
Alternatively, if the administration had said in April to get qualified or get fired, effective this summer, more than 75 of 215 might have worked out plans to save their jobs.
But with the axe landing so close to the fall semester, people's plans must be reworked with little time. It's unlikely faculty members whose incomplete credentials require anything from a new transcript to a new degree can resolve those issues before September. For those missing courses or degrees, it could be impossible to fix things by the spring semester.
The college's best option, the one it didn't take, was suggested by the ACC teacher's union president at a May trustees' meeting, according to the Chronicle:
Stand up for the faculty.
The administration could have negotiated persistently with accreditors to allow faculty to continue teaching while becoming qualified, as the state has allowed some public school teachers to do while finishing master's degrees. Instead, it bent at the threat of tough sanctions.
With a recently hired president and the recent conclusion of a trustee election, ACC's leadership is changing. As the college tries to secure its accreditation and become financially stable, it needs to get rid of officials and faculty members who pulled ACC into a mess. And those who hired unqualified faculty deserve more heat than the faculty themselves.
The ACC president should tell accreditors these faculty members aren't going anywhere until they've been granted a fair chance to save their jobs.
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