Dear Foghorn,
I am sharing this letter with you because our community deserves to know about the administrative decisions that impact faculty, and consequently, the quality of education and student satisfaction with our institution. To date, I have not received a response from President Aceves. Jeffrey Paris, Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, acknowledged my letter and suggested the administration would “explore” options to avoid these outcomes in the future. When I followed up, requesting a meeting to discuss these options, he never responded.
I am surprised that our institution’s policies make it so that experts in their respective fields are removed from their teaching roles, and that students will then pay for a course taught by someone with no knowledge of the field prior to teaching it. I am further dismayed that our institution would facilitate adjunct faculty training unknowledgeable faculty on these courses, and without compensation.
This is an issue of power, and like most forms of power, it relies on silence. On the contrary, social change relies on the truth being told and witnessed.
Let’s shine a light on these very real problems, so that together we can make our institution align with the values and mission that attract so many of us to choose USF.
Thank you,
Alix Vasquez
Querido Presidente Aceves,
My name is Alexandria Vasquez, and I warmly welcome you as the 29th President of the University of San Francisco. As a first-generation, Latine-Persian educator, it comes with sincere dignity and honor to be a part of an institution you lead. Unfortunately, I am writing to you because this institution desperately needs your help and will certainly face a troubling future if the concerns regarding the ethical treatment of contracted faculty and its impact on the student educational experience remain unaddressed.
As you are aware, our institution is experiencing historic underenrollment. Our customers – the students and their families – are not finding USF appealing enough to invest their money. As a scholar of organizational theory, I have researched and studied the causes leading to organizational decline. Two major factors directly impact USF: the exploitation and mistreatment of contracted part-time and full-time faculty, and the subsequent erosion of a quality product: the expansion of students through higher education. USF is not immune to the problems facing the higher education industry, and the concerns at a societal level are certainly noteworthy.
However, USF, as a Jesuit social justice-oriented university, located in the progressive city of San Francisco, has an opportunity. I believe you are the answered prayer, the leader, that this great institution calls for in being discerning, experienced, authentic, bold, engaged, moral and clear in your faith and efforts to do well by what you have been entrusted to.
As a Catholic, raised here in San Francisco by a Puerto Rican grandmother with a third grade education, I believe that faith and goodwill are more important than any degree one can obtain.
This is the mission of USF, which is reflected in our Community Engaged Learning (CEL) program. And yet, as a CEL instructor, how can I create such resonant educational experiences when administrative decisions push against the foundational needs of an educator like myself?
As the sociologist Hartmut Rosa wrote in Democracy Needs Religion, resonance is the core of what humanity seeks, and it is the discontents of bureaucracy that push against this intrinsic need.
I witnessed firsthand, at USF, the ineptitude of administrative decisions being made that rob all of us of the opportunity to create impactful educational experiences. I speak of the experiences that inspire students to crave coming to class, instead of playing hooky like high schoolers. If we accept sociology and psychology as disciplines, and we do, then we recognize that the environment shapes the conditions for human behavior: USF is creating the problem, and not the other way around. While there may be societal influence, when students come into our institution, we are entrusted to shape them during the critical years of their lives that transition them from their parents’ care to leaders of our society. As educators, this is a vocational calling that many of us do not take lightly.
I believe that when faculty are supported, students are better able to navigate purpose in their education, leading to satisfactory job placement outcomes. Not only this, but we are modeling as an institution how our students should professionally treat their colleagues. Since teaching at USF, I have met some of the most incredible students, whom I am grateful to have been a part of their educational and professional development. They are rather aware of the administrative actions impacting contracted faculty and its impact on the student educational experience at USF.
Through my encounters of being “bumped” from classes I regularly teach (where enrollment was not a problem and students anticipated my presence), I have wisened up to expect that administrators will appoint faculty with no knowledge and experience within a subfield to that course, plucking them out of their respective departments and areas of expertise while simultaneously removing the faculty with background, knowledge and experience from teaching that course.
In the most recent course where this occurred for me, I was the only one qualified to teach it, and I conducted unpaid training hours to advise another faculty member who was not only outside our department, but had admittedly never read any of the material, nor was aware the subfield existed. I was informed of this change 19 days before the start of the semester, and I, as a single mother of a child with special needs, was left without expected income and a gap in my schedule I dedicated towards excitedly teaching this class. Yes, I prepared for it all summer, and meditated on the nuances that would bring thrills to my students. I ought to mention that my past reviews reflect above department and university averages. I had graduating students who expected to take this course with me, who waited for opportunities to see my name appear in the course schedule. In this class, Social Problems, my mentor, Dr.Sarah Jane Brubaker, is now the President of The Society for the Study of Social Problems, and I am the only faculty member at USF who has presented at this conference, let alone is well-read and versed in the material. This truly shouldn’t have occurred, and the administration had options that they did not exercise.
President Aceves, unfortunately, there are many other examples of situations like this, and it gets even more – dare I say – problematic. I have also learned that expert faculty – some of the best, with their educational training from prestigious institutions, such as Princeton University (e.g. a first-generation Latino scholar) – had their degrees used on the front-facing marketing agenda of USF, while paying them less than enough to make rent. I want to acknowledge that many incredible faculty leave USF because they realize that the institution is not embodying its values and mission in the core premise of how administrators treat their contracted faculty.
Now, to business. I highlight these examples to articulate how this problem is leading to disinterested students. They are experiencing not just a disillusionment with our university, but also with their futures. Imagine a student who sees an intelligent, noble, and sophisticated Princeton-trained professor who earned his PhD, and yet is treated this way by our administration, let alone cannot survive to live off his adjunct income. This example directly impacts how the student internalizes and makes sense of the value in the fruit of their labor. “Will working hard and achieving success materialize into tangible career outcomes, let alone a livable salary? It doesn’t seem that way,” she may conclude.
I co-founded a nonprofit at MIT for job seekers, wrote my dissertation on this problem, impacted public policy under President Barack Obama, and have taught Career Exploration and Planning at USF and am confident I am well-informed on the issues beyond lived experience. I am here to extend an invitation to open the dialogue of how, together, we as a community can build a regenerative, sustainable institution under your leadership. One where educators are valued and respected, and treated with the dignity they deserve, because it is not just our values, but a smart investment. Yes, it can be both.
I am here to shine a bright light on the apathy of sweeping the contracted faculty issue under the rug, while we watch the institution sit at a delicate financial edge and erode its reputation, all the while leaving students underemployed, mismatched, disenchanted and in debt. I come with an open heart, and I come with no expectations for how this will be received. And, I would not write this letter if I did not have full faith that you are wise with a listening heart (1 Kings 3:9). You, President Aceves, are the leader bringing hope and change to this new era for USF.
Lastly, I want to draw awareness to the idea of legacy as we contemplate the sustainability and regeneration of our institution. When I think of institutions, I think of people: people who are qualified and considerate to collaborate and make decisions for the health, growth and longevity of an organization. Therefore, legacy rests in creating the foundations that prepare future generations to build upon as they face the challenges of their times, too. When in doubt, it ought to be our mission and values that we use as a foundation. Therefore, upholding what we stand for is indeed our legacy.
USF has become too comfortable a place for salaried administrators making decisions that are not in alignment with our mission and values, which is impacting the students, faculty and our institution at large. It is not just from the heart, but the principles of social science and business strategy that give us the roadmap to success. History shows us how institutions fail, and how they thrive. The opportunity and crisis exist at one time: here and now.
You have my full support, and I wish you well in your endeavors. May God be with you, and in everything you do. May your clarity be inspired by rest and ease. May your audacity be met with confidence and grace.
Truly yours,
Dr. Alexandria Vasquez
