Testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education

Thank you Chairman Kolkhorst for the opportunity to address this Subcommittee. TFA is an association that represents faculty and staff in all sectors of public higher education.

In my duties as Executive Director, I visit many campuses annually. Over the last several years, I have been impressed with the higher education infrastructure that the state of Texas is constructing. Whether I am visiting Texas State University, South Texas College or the UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, just to name a few, I have marveled at the wonderful new buildings recently completed—and at others still under construction. As I walk through the buildings, I see students sitting before banks of brand new computers. And professors tell me that they are increasingly using high tech equipment provided by the state to educate their students. Distance education courses, for example, are growing in number annually.

The House Appropriations Committee is to be congratulated for making the funds available to help construct this infrastructure. Our students deserve nothing less than to be educated in modern buildings and with the latest equipment. There’s no doubt that the new buildings and new equipment will contribute to the quality of their education.

However, bricks and mortar (and, yes, computers) alone do not make for a first rate education. In fact, by far the most important factor contributing to the quality of a student’s education—whether it is at the undergraduate, graduate or professional school level—is the quality of the faculty. It is the teaching-learning process, after all, that is at the center of any college education. TFA is concerned that unless our institutions of higher education are able to recruit and retain our fair share of the nation’s best and brightest faculty members, our students will not receive an education that meets or beats that provided by the other forty-nine states.

Many factors contribute to why a faculty member decides to accept a position at one of our institutions of higher education and also why they decide to stay for the long haul. For example, I have been impressed over the years by the number of native Texans who initially found employment at an institution of higher education in another state; but, whom, when the opportunity presented itself, came back to Texas —sometimes suffering a significant reduction in their compensation to do so.

However, we cannot depend on native Texans returning to their home state to recruit the faculty that we need. Professors love what they do, but when the bills arrive they must have the money to pay them. The number one factor in recurring and retaining a high quality faculty is compensation.

In this regard, Texas has been making some progress in recent years, though much more so in our four-year institutions than in our two-year institutions. Based on the latest salary figures from the National Education Association, the average salary in 2005-2006 for full-time faculty on 9/10 month contracts in the United States was $67,909. In Texas four-year institutions, the average was $67,077. That’s $832 or 1.2 percent below the national average. In two-year institutions, the average salary in the United States was $55,380. In Texas two-year institutions, it was $49,253. That’s a huge gap of $6,127 or 11 percent.

It is urgent at this point in time that we strengthen faculty salaries in all sectors of higher education. When it comes to recruiting and retaining faculty, many of our institutions are being hit by a double whammy: (1) massive faculty retirements are now occurring on many campuses; (2) enrollment surges are causing many institutions to scramble to find the faculty they need to teach all their students. With a healthy economy, Texas is in a good position to invest in the development of its faculty. The result of that investment will be an educated citizenry and a workforce second to none.

TFA recommends that the 80th Legislature should appropriate funds to close the gap between the average faculty salary in Texas and the national average by 2009.

Of course, TFA has many items on its legislative agenda in addition to faculty salaries. Because of the press of time, I will only mention them. TFA would be pleased to provide members of the committee with more information upon request.

• Strengthen health insurance benefits by including adjustments for inflation and rising costs.
• Do not impose "proportionality" on our community and junior colleges.
• Improve retirement benefits for participants in ORP and TRS. Raise ORP to 8.5% of salary for all participants. Increase funding for TRS to at least 6.4 percent of payroll.
• Improve compensation for part-time faculty, temporary full-time faculty and staff. Approve funding for health insurance for long-term adjunct faculty.
• Support more accountability for higher education administrators in state universities, colleges, and community colleges.
• Increase the 10 percent teaching experience supplement to 20 percent in the next biennium to encourage public universities to place more tenure-track and tenured professors into lower division undergraduate classes. Extend the teaching experience supplement to the state’s community, junior and technical colleges.

Thank you. I would be happy to answer any questions.

 

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