[Sly Fox]

I have been anticipating somebody bringing up this topic. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't believe they have announced which professors will be moving from classroom to online duties. But it certainly appears to be a significant number.

Without all of the details, the best I can tell is that the explosive growth of LU Online has put a tremendous strain on resources and the university is making adjustments as a result.

Bottom line, there will be some profs who are not going to be pleased about the decision. And those still teaching in the classroom will likely have larger class sizes as a result.

I have had a number of different profs contact me since Godwin made the announcement in his typical fashion. Hopefully the reality of the news is nowhere near as ominous as the way it was delivered.

[flamesfan30]

but didnt Godwin say class sizes will get SMALLER in the future with his convo announcement?

why dont they just hire more proffessors?

[Sly Fox]

I hadn't heard names listed as of yet. The profs I have chatted with have all indicated their departments would be informed soon of the names.

[From the class of 09]

I didn't know this was such a wide spread thing. I heard of the ones at the Law School and of one from the Helms School of government. I'm not sure what to think of this...

Edit: demoted=fired for the profs talked about here

[flamesfan30]

so it sounds like Godwin just lied to the entire student body with what he said in convo last week.

[BJWilliams]

He may have...which would be a bad thing...but Id wait and let things work themselves out before passing judgement or speculating how it will undermine "academic credibilty"

[Hold My Own]

To the best of my knowledge this is only happening to professors that do not have their doctorate. I may not have enough information on this particular instance to actually give an opinion but I will anyways

If you work for a University then you should have your doctorate. Liberty will also provide assistance if not completely pay for it! (depending on the amount of degrees that have been obtained through this process I believe) This is something the education department did years ago and I couldnt agree more to be honest....even though a few very loved prof's were let go through the process. I'm sorry but if you're instructing future educators you need to have a doctorate.

The only thing through this process I would be some what disappointed in is if these professors were not given a notice to make them aware this COULD be happening to allow them to begin the process (I understand how long it would take to obtain a doctorate). I'm sorry but if I'm in this field and know my current level of education and havent taken the steps to correct it, deep down I have to know this fun cant last forever.....right?

BUT with all this said it might not have been determined based on credentials so its a moot point.

[From the class of 09]

I believe the problem with the profs at the Law school was similar in that they didn't have anything published recently. I guess thats something they are supposed to do, I'm not sure how often they are supposed to write, but reguardless they weren't doing it. Anyways one or two of the fired profs went off on Dean Staver (at least through a serious of emails sent to students and others). Needless to say it is an ugly situation when we can't settle our differences as believers with more civility. I'm sure one of our friends from the school could shed some more light on that situation.

[BJWilliams]

Something tells me that there may be more to this BYD so Id be rather careful what you say (or hint at saying) and Im gonna wait and let this work itself out and let the facts make themselves known.

[BJWilliams]

If that is how you feel then that is up to you. Im just letting you know where I stand on the matter

[From the class of 09]

If that is how you feel then that is up to you. Im just letting you know where I stand on the matter

Did anyone questions this???

[JLFJR]

I asked our Provost, Dr. Ron Godwin, and his staff about one year ago to carefully review all of our existing academic programs before we proceeded with the launch of new programs and the construction of new academic facilities. I believed this audit was the prudent course to follow before a major expansion. I didn't really expect much to come of it, but what Dr. Godwin's staff discovered was alarming. Although they found that a large number of very worthy changes had been made to shore up Liberty’s academic credibility, unfortunately they also found many inefficiencies had crept into our academic programs.

For example, Godwin found a significant number of courses with fewer than five students; yet these same courses were meeting every single semester. He found a significant number of programs (strings of courses) with less than 20 students. Many “pilot” courses had been initiated but no process existed to evaluate their success or lack of same and very few "pilot" courses had ever been cancelled.

Large amounts of release time had been granted to many professors for a wide variety of reasons. This means that these professors were being released from teaching some or even most of the hours required by their contracts for reasons like serving on a committee or performing some administrative function or doing personal research. While many of these reasons were justified, the sheer amount of the release time that had been awarded had become enormous One problem regarding release time is that many of the releases were being continued long after the original purpose for the release was gone. Dr. Godwin found the equivalent of 60 full time professors in the residential program on release.

One of the most amazing things to me was that certain professors who had the most release time — up to 30 hours — were still teaching the most overload courses. Now, this might be the norm at older, established universities but it is a pattern that we want to avoid here at Liberty. We will only continue to grow and achieve as long as we keep bureaucratic overhead under control and continue to operate efficiently.

After these discoveries were made, Godwin spent months working with his academic leadership and deans to correct the problems. At most universities, the only fix would have been mass terminations but, because Liberty has a booming online program (240 percent growth in the last few years), we were able to offer every resident professor not being fully utilized by Liberty a job at the same pay and benefits they are now earning, teaching a mix of online and residential courses. Not one professor has been terminated as part of this plan. Instead they have been reassigned where they are urgently needed and where their experience and spiritual maturity will greatly benefit the faculty teams they are reinforcing. And, as our residential program grows over the next few years, many of them may very likely move back into full time residential teaching.

The dean of each school chose which professors to move to Flex contracts, meaning that most will teach a mix of residential and online courses. I am not sure what all the criteria were that the deans used to choose which professors should go to Flex. But I do know they purposely attempted to choose seasoned faculty with solid skills and mature spiritual qualities so that we would be shoring up and strengthening the online teams these reassigned faculty are, in part, joining. The idea that the professors chosen were considered to be somehow inferior is simply a myth. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have to rely on our deans to make these decisions because they best know the teaching strengths of each faculty member.
The bottom line is that Liberty was able to reassign a certain number of professors without impacting negatively the size of classes or the faculty/student ratio in the resident program. If any programs with fewer than 20 students enrolled are eliminated, all existing students in those programs will be able to complete their degree requirements. In the long run, this is a very positive thing for Liberty and its students. Now, we can move forward to develop new programs and improve the programs we have with our resident house in order and our online division newly infused with veteran talent.

Dr. Godwin did a phenomenal job in my opinion of reassigning faculty without negatively impacting any faculty members financially. One of the components of these positive changes is a new College of General Studies. This will allow us to deploy faculty members to the CGS who feel called to remediate students we accept that have special needs for help in one course area or another. Not all faculty members have this calling and the ones that do not will continue to teach in upper level specialized courses. I feel that the CGS will also help more students graduate on time.

For students, the changes will mean an enhanced academic experience across the board, plain and simple. We have to remember the students are the reason we are here. As administrators, we have a fiduciary obligation to students to operate the university as efficiently and as effectively as possible. These changes were necessary to accomplish that goal.

[bravo269er]

Gotta love this site. You get the info straight from the source. I'm a online student, and I love the idea of having top notch professors teaching me. Thats just me though.

[Hold My Own]

So, after these discoveries were made, Dr. Godwin spent months working with deans to correct the problems. At most universities, the only fix would be mass terminations but, because Liberty has a booming online program (240% growth in the last few years), we were able to offer every professor not being fully utilized by Liberty a job at the same pay and benefits they are now earning teaching a mix of online and residential courses. And, as our residential program grows over the next few years, many of them will move back into full time residential teaching. (No online professors lost their jobs either. Because of the growth, we simply will hire fewer new online professors this year.)

I had no idea....amazing


I imagine the "online" world takes some adjustment for some of our more seasoned professors. I remember hearing stories about when Liberty first announced it's online program (I guess the at home institute?) Doc wanted to have some of the offices on campus but some of our professors had a couple "concerns" about them being that close to residential and they ended up having offices off campus. Our online program has done a remarkable job adapting to the demands of culture over the years. I believe professors have seen that an online education can be legitimate and are more accepting now than the past, but still have a few hesitations. Just like any cultural change it takes time to come to grips with the change...sometimes generations.

That really is impressive that they were all able to be placed in another position. In today's economic times we're a 1 percent'r to be able to pull this off. I'm also a big fan of more checks and balances...heck the quote that is my signature is the ultimate check and balance!!!

Also, if we (as Alumni) are serious about wanting a more academic institution these are some of the things that have to happen to get there. This (in a far more serious sense b/c it's dealing with peoples lives) reminds me of our objection to having to pay high ticket prices to go to the NC State game. Out of one side of our mouth we want to be division I and get to the "big time" but then out the other side of our mouth we're complaining about the traffic at the NC State game or the parking or the high ticket prices....which all are a result of being "big time." We cant always have the best of both worlds.

I've said it before, only at Liberty could you have the Chancellor of the University address a message board. I hope that sense of community/family is something we never lose.

[bravo269er]

Online learning is becoming more accepted. Every public university offers some degrees by distance, and a majority of private schools do too. Liberty is a trend setter in that field, and the fact that they are private non-profit is a big deal to me. People hear of the negative stories from major for-profits like UoP, etc. and assume that all of online learning has those issues. It just isn't true, and the incidents are more isolated than people think. Online learning is becoming the norm amongst younger adults, and will be common place in the next 10 years. Once these professors dive into it i'm sure they will enjoy it, and relize it IS a good thing.

The fact that the Chancellor posts messages still amazes me, and makes me even prouder to be associated with Liberty.

[JLFJR]

Thanks BYD. Change is always scary. I know some folks are upset but this is the right thing to do.

[alabama24]

I am glad the Chancellor took time to reply. It sounds like a fair solution to a serious problem. Thank you!

[BJWilliams]

Isnt it so much better to wait for more information than to make a knee jerk reaction? (Not saying you did BYD but it does help when you can get more information from people who are on the inside)

[JLFJR]

Cider Jim asked me to clarify that not all of the release time was being misused. Some professors are receiving very minimal release time in order to perform very time consuming duties. The release time that is justified will continue. It was really just a coincidence that the number of professors being moved to FLEX contracts is the same as the number of full time equivalents that were released from teaching. The other inefficiencies I mentioned all contributed to the number of professors who could be moved to FLEX contracts. Thanks for clearing that up, CJ!

[flamesfan30]

pardon my ignorance here but what exactly is release time? is it the same thing as having time off? like how Dr. Baggett stopped teaching PHIL 201 (and some other classes im sure) for awhile to write his book for oxford press?

[phoenix]

I just hope that the professors who are moving to distance learning are aware of the differences inherent in teaching an online course. Most of the time, just taking what you do in the classroom and putting it on the Internet doesn't work well.

(I say this going into Week 8 of EDUC 631, which is Foundations of Educational Technology and Online Learning. We've spent a LOT of time discussing the pitfalls of moving standard classes to an online format.)

Online learning is huge. Most major education programs have a masters in ed tech that focuses on distance learning (LU does).

[Purple Haize]

pardon my ignorance here but what exactly is release time? is it the same thing as having time off? like how Dr. Baggett stopped teaching PHIL 201 (and some other classes im sure) for awhile to write his book for oxford press?

Essentially you are correct.
Here is a quick case of the problem being addressed.
Assuming that 3 hrs = 1 class.

Prof A is under contract to teach 15 hours (5 classes) a semester
Prof A is the department chair, so subtract 3 hrs (1 class) in release time for those duties
Prof A is also on the Widgets for Wisdom Comittee which also carries a 3 hour (1 class) release
Prof A is now teaching 9 hours (3 classes)
HOWEVER....Since LU...er...Liberty ... is booming there are courses that need taught but no prof to teach them!
Prof A rides to the rescue and decides to teach one of these classes.
Prof A is only "Obligated" to teach 3 due to the release policy
Prof A is now teaching an "Overload" and being paid over and above the contract to teach the class

I will let those who know more about the specifics comment on whether this or the solution are good ideas. HOWEVER, as a former occupant of a corner office in Shilling, let me just say I would LOVE to teach Online Classes. Are you kidding me? Your students are generally going to be older, more mature and most likely better motivated. Also, I could STILL leave all the grading to the department secretary!!

[Sly Fox]

Once again, thanks to the Chancellor for manning up and explaining the decisions. His candor and forthrightness is greatly appreciated particularly since he is not compelled to do so by outside forces. That's how you earn respect.

I also believe that many of those involved felt the way the news was delivered exacerbated the circumstances. I wasn't there so I can't speak to the subject. But perhaps some lessons can be learned from the experience.

As the university goes through some growing pains, there are going to be decisions that are not always going to be popular. But when leadership steps up and takes responsibility it helps keep things in perspective.

[01LUGrad]

Way to go, JFJR. You just ruined 4 or 5 pages of wild speculation followed by online witch hunts!

[Hold My Own]

(Edit)

BuryYourDuke, I have a question that I don't feel is appropriate for JLFjr to answer because he already addressed the criteria issue saying he's leaving it up to the deans (wise move, let the daily managers of the individuals make that decision). Are the professors that you're referring to have their doctorate? It's not fair to ask anyone "in the know" for Dr. Godwin's/Deans algorithm or anything but more or less just curious if they are based on your conversations with the professors first hand.