CoReq Staffing Protocol

I’m promulgating this LAHC policy concerning the staffing of CoReq sections, primarily to deal with what I consider arbitrary administrative barriers to staffing CoReq sections in ways that prioritize the student experience. One of the most significant obstacles is eStaffing itself, because the basic concept of eStaffing is to allow adjuncts to express preferences for and be slotted into sections for which they are eligible — but eStaffing does not recognize CoReq as one of the eligibility categories.

Fundamentally, eStaffing was implemented to provide a measure of protection to adjuncts against arbitrariness in assignments. Nevertheless, there are some areas in which we recognize a different and legitimate type of “arbitrary” consideration having to do with requisite skills and other factors. Consider dual credit: We staff almost all our dual credit sections manually, outside of eStaffing, because there are additional criteria and considerations at play in assigning people to teach college courses on a high school campus.

Similarly, I argue that we have a similar pedagogical interest in assigning adjuncts to CoReq sections, even if that means staffing CoReqs outside of eStaffing. Among other considerations, the very project of CoReq courses requires collaboration between the INRW and credit professors — collaboration that is impossible when the sections assignments are subject to outside factors.

As dean—and in the absence of any institutional solution—  I’m issuing the following guidelines on how we’re going to operate, for the good of the CoReq project (and ultimately for the good of our students).

First and foremost, we have an obligation to make the decision process transparent and fair, and to that end, we will treat CoReq teaching the way we treat special modalities like DIL. As you know, not anyone may just decide one day to teach DIL; there are criteria to meet, like QM, etc. For our division, we will adopt a similar philosophical approach to CoReqs. We will create and publish a list of all those faculty (FT and adjunct) whom departments have vetted to teach CoReq courses, and we will staff CoReq sections manually based on this list.

CoReq Staffing Protocol

• CoReq Eligibiility List
  • Departments will define a process for establishing eligibility to teach CoReq sections
  • Departments will forward eligible faculty (FT and Adjunct) to the dean for review and publication
• Staffing procedure
  • Reserve all CocReq sections in eStaffing (so they aren’t available for the preference window or for lottery/assignment)
  • Staff eligible FT faculty first, then eligible adjunct faculty
  • Staff CoReq sections manually, based on a strategic plan
    • By this I mean, for instance, if we have partner-pairs of profs, we will keep them together in future assignments, to the extent possible. People gravitate into partner-pair for a reason, and we should facilitate those relationships for the good of the students.
  • As is the case with DCAA and DCred assignments, no bumping
    • We’re working on minimizing bumping and easing the process of bumping anyway, so I don’t think we’ll really see a problem if I make this rule.
      

These measures should help ensure that we maintain stability and desirable practices for our CoReq project.