I have had several concerns expressed about the way in which the entire burden of certain expenses is placed on the department. Global campus expects departments to be prepared to fully fund course redesigns. Departments are expected to fund all expenses for disability-related accommodations, interim measures for CRCI reports, temporary teaching for family and medical leave. These costs are especially onerous for smaller departments, and sadly, many of them might be incentivized to ignore responsibilities because they can’t afford to pay out of their already strapped budgets. These kinds of expenses should be funded centrally, so that all employees and students have access to the same degree of support.
Washington State University
Online courses
I read several concerns in this statement. I did my best to sort and request feedback, shown below:
From CRCI
Regarding interim measures, CRCI typically will work with a department to take steps that are cost effective or do not cost anything at all. We are very careful about making an interim measure request that will cost money, because we are aware that this might hurt our relationship with our campus partners, especially if the cost is excessively burdensome. An example of where this may come up is where the identified risk is high enough that an individual needs to be placed on home assignment during the course of an investigation, which may require the department to identify other resources to cover work. We are cognizant of this burden and make these requests only in limited situations. We are also open to feedback from departments if they can identify a less costly solution.
From Global Campus
Fall and spring tuition dollars for Global Campus courses fund the WSU central administration and the College (or campus of the instructor) offering the courses. The money does NOT flow to Global. Global does not pay for new course development or redesign because the courses do not generate revenue for Global. In addition, funding from Global Campus courses, including financial support for new developments or redesigns varies by College and is considered a college/academic decisions. These courses belong to the department, just as face-to-face courses do.
Global does provide instructional design, media production, course maintenance resources and other support required to deliver online courses, at no cost to the department or college/campus offering the courses. In addition, Faculty are not paid to develop or redesign courses in the face to face environment, this is seen as a part of the workload and could be viewed the same for online courses (and is in some colleges).
From the Access Center
Student accommodations: Although I assume there might be exceptions, almost all monetary costs for student classroom accommodations are covered by the Access Center. The primary cost for a department is the faculty time and attention needed in putting accommodations into place. And although we can all agree there is a cost associated, it translates as time and effort.
College funding for FML replacement
In terms of funding for temporary teaching for family and medical leave, those requests are funded by the college or campus of the faculty member who is approved for FML. For example, in CAS from Sam Swindell
In terms of funding for temporary teaching for family and medical leave, those requests come to me and I consider them the same way that I consider support for face-to-face courses (assuming the person who was teaching the course was someone being paid by the Pullman campus).
If the enrollments in the course are sufficiently high (or if not, offering the course is critical to student progress in the curriculum), CAS works with departments/schools in such cases to provide additional support. I cannot think of an instance in which the costs of hiring someone to cover instructional needs created by FML did not get some support from the college.
Centralized funding for accommodations
CRCI will add the request for centralized funding for accommodations to the ADA Steering Committee agenda this month. This group meets regularly to discuss concerns related to accessibility and disability services, and this is a good topic for them to consider and make recommendations on. This committee can’t make the ultimate decision for the university, but could potentially draft a proposal and recommendations for review by those responsible for the budget. If anyone has any specific information about the costs, that would be helpful information for the committee to consider.