During the ongoing negotiations between Eastern’s chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois and administration, UPI/EIU members have raised Tuition Recovery Model use concerns.

If there is a course that will not make the student enrollment quota, a faculty member can agree to be compensated at the Tuition Recovery Model rate in order to make up the costs for the course to take place.

This means a professor may be asked to teach for lower payment if a course does not reach a certain number of students enrolled and the professor still wants to teach the course.

Chemistry professor Jonathan Blitz, UPI/EIU chief negotiator, said the union wants a compensation model that makes sense that would be negotiated, rather than “being imposed.” He said faculty and staff want language so that Tuition Recovery Model is applied consistently across campus if needed.

“We don’t mind the university managing this fiscal reality, but some of the programs that are using (the tuition recovery model) are grossly unfair,” Blitz said. When the 2002 to 2006 UPI/EIU Agreement was negotiated, the faculty and staff agreed to language that provided the administration the right to apply a Tuition Recovery Model rate.

When using the Tuition Recovery Model, faculty members receive an overload rate plus per-student stipend – $30 for a one-semester-hour course, $50 for a two-semester-hour course and $70 for a three-semester-hour course.

Of the additional recovered tuition, 60 percent goes to the university, 20 percent goes to the university and 20 percent goes to the school of continuing education.

When introduced, the Tuition Recovery Model was intended for circumstances when a faculty member wanted to teach an experimental or study abroad course, Blitz said.

Faculty-led Study Abroad Programs are also offered through the TRM, according to Internal Governing Policy 56. Faculty salaries, travel, tours, lodging, meals, publicity, tuition and fees are assessed to recapture all of the costs of the program.

The School of Continuing Education develops the program budget and determines the minimum number of students required to recapture the costs. If a program does not enroll the required minimum number of students to recapture the costs, it may be canceled.

Financial aid does not cover tuition and fees for tuition recovery courses. Scholarships, waivers, and discounts also cannot be used to cover tuition and fees for these courses. In 2006, the university began applying the Tuition Recovery Model to reduce compensation, rather than, an incentive to teach innovative courses, Blitz said.

Robert Wayland, chief negotiator for the administration, said, “UPI has made proposals in the past, but the administration is saying that they are not willing to change right now — that’s where the disagreement is.” Blitz said the problem with agreeing to teach at the Tuition Recovery Model rate is often the professor may have to make the decision before enrollment is closed.

Theoretically, a professor could agree to the lower compensation early on, but later find out that they had enough students to negate Tuition Recovery Model use, he said.

“(The compensation) is much less,” Blitz said. “I essentially have to make the decision before all of the information is available to me.”

English professor John Allison, president of Eastern’s chapter of UPI, said the most serious repercussion of Tuition Recovery Model use is that it appears to be age discriminatory.

Allison said in order to get at full salary, the professor has to have enough students in the class early in the semester, most often by the first day, to cover the professor’s full salary. “Sounds reasonable enough, except that means in most cases a more junior person can get full salary with significantly fewer students,” Allison said.

He explained a real life example occurred when an assistant professor with only nine students at full pro-rata salary taught a regular summer salary around $6,300 per month.

A full professor who had been at the university for 25 years had to get 14 or 15 students to get at the pro-rata level. That person was only making $3,200, even though they had more students.

Allison said the difference was the person who was getting the lower rate under Tuition Recovery Model was older with more pay increases and more promotions through performance.

“We think that’s a very unfair way to go about things,” he said.

Blitz agrees. “We’re not going to get knocked down to make (TRM) viable,” Blitz said. “We can’t carry it all on our backs.”

However, Wayland does not believe that age discrimination is a concern in Tuition Recovery Model application. “I just cannot see how that is an issue,” Wayland said. “I think (it’s up to a student) to decide which class to enroll in. I don’t think age is a factor.”

Documented concerns and differences with regard to tuition recovery date back to 2005 at the International Programs Advisory Committee on Nov. 4, 2005, according to the meeting minutes.

A challenge to the Tuition Recovery Model is that it places responsibility for securing the financial resources for the course with the faculty member, the minutes reported.

Blitz said he recognizes the fiscal reality of the university but not at the cost that Tuition Recovery Model applies.

“(The university) is not a business, but there is an economic reality to make ends meet,” Blitz said. “We have to pay the bill.”

Blair Lord, vice president for academic affairs, did not comment because of the ongoing negotiations.

Shelley Holmgren can be reached at 581-7942 or meholmgren@eiu.edu.