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NCATE Focused Visit Documentation

STANDARD 6. UNIT GOVERNANCE AND RESOURCES

Additional Information on Unit Budget and Resources

 

The information provided in this report is to supplement the data included in the Institutional Focused Visit Report. These data are mainly additional Unit Budget data and comparative data from other academic units within the university.

Budget Sources

The School of Education receives funds from four main sources. 1) State funds are supplied to the School by the College from the funds provided to the College by state allocation and tuition authority. State funds are commonly referred to as Education and General or as E&G funds. 2) Local accounts are used to deposit revenue and expend funds for specific self-supporting projects, such as conferences or student organizations. Unused funds in local accounts carry over from fiscal year to fiscal year. These accounts do not have a specific budget for each fiscal year, and balances can vary over the course of the year. 3) Private funds are the monies raised by the School of Ed ucation 's development efforts that are expendable in a given fiscal year. These funds include cash donations in a fiscal year and the yearly expendable revenue generated from endowments. The Endowment Association of the College sets the revenue percentages for all endowments on a yearly basis. 4) Grant funds are the expendable monies received in a particular year on grants and contracts awarded to the School and its faculty.

To illustrate budget trends, data are presented for the past five fiscal years and for 1996 as a ten-year benchmark. Table 1 and Figure 1 show that current funding for the School of Ed ucation has increased in every category since 1996 and 2000. Table 2 presents the actual percentage increases in each category since 1996 and 2000.

 

Table 1. School of Education Budget Sources 1996 – 2005

Source	1996	2000	2002	2003	2004	2005
State	$3,600,042	$4,645,682	$5,036,708	$4,684,361	$4,684,341	$5,082,285
Local	$131,261	$376,079	$326,403	$916,225	$994,275	$1,043,368
Private	$59,751	$906,000	$365,079	$1,977,824	$957,212	$1,929,772
Grants	$1,610,126	$5,401,474	$4,237,343	$8,146,525*	$4,893,861	$6,041,919
Total	$5,401,180	$11,329,235	$9,965,533	$15,724,935	$11,529,689	$14,097,344

*Note: The total for grants in 2003 is inflated due to receipt of double Gates' funds in that year.

 

Figure 1. School of Education Budget Sources 1996 – 2005

Table 2. Percent Increase for School of Education Budget Sources.

Source	Percent Change Since 1996	Percent Change Since 2000
State	+41%	+9%
Local	+695%	+177%
Private	+3130%	+113%
Grants	+275%	+12%
TOTAL	+161%	+24%

 

There are several important items of note in the tables and figure presented. A first note is that funding in all sources has increased over the period. Total funding from all sources has increased by 161% since 1996 and 24% since 2000. Since the last visit of NCATE in 2004, total funding in the School of Ed ucation has increased by 22%. A second note is that although State funds were decreased from 2002 to 2003, State funding for the School of Education has been restored. The effects of the budget crisis that caused the Commonwealth of Virginia to cut funding to the College have been reversed. Given the accelerated growth in the State economy, the prognosis for continued funding is excellent. Additionally, the Higher Education Restructuring Act of 2005 described later in this report promises more flexible and stable funding models for Virginia's colleges and universities. Third, the School of Education has had a major increase in private funding over the period. The benefit of such funds is their flexibility in addressing identified needs. The School is beginning to raise enough private funds on an annual basis to make considerable differences in specific areas.

Relative Budget

The School of Education is one of five recognized academic units of the College. To illustrate the relative funding of the School, State funding data for four of the units are provided and compared in this section. Budget data for the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) will not be provided since VIMS is a separate agency with extremely different funding. It should be noted that the State portion of the budget is broken into two parts: Personnel Services (PS) and Non-personnel Services (NPS). The PS portion is the salary pool of the unit for state employees. The NPS portion is the part of budget that funds the operations of the unit beyond personnel.

Table 3 presents the dollars per student ratio for the NPS portion of the State budget by academic unit. It is clear from this table that the School of Education is receiving comparable State funding for its academic program. In fact, in 2005 the School of Education is receiving more than Business and Law and nearly twice the level of A&S per FT headcount student.

 

Table 3. NPS State Budget Per FT Headcount Student.

Unit	2001	2002	2003	2004
Education	$1,118.72	$910.36	$892.23	$1,080.62
A&S	$555.25	$534.29	$520.05	$502.82
Business	$1,063.99	$1,011.65	$603.62	$765.54
Law	$942.56	$1,204.99	$992.34	$1,052.06

 

Relative Salary

Direct comparison of the Personnel Services (PS) portion of the unit budgets would be influenced by the higher average salaries for Business and Law. A better comparison, that takes into account the national differences in salaries by discipline, is a comparison to national salary data. To make this type of comparison, salary data from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF) were used. NSOPF is the most comprehensive study of faculty in postsecondary educational settings and provides data on earnings by discipline and rank.

Figure 2 shows William and Mary average faculty salaries by rank and discipline as a percentage of the national salary averages by rank and discipline. For example, the 122% for Assistant Professors in the School of Education indicates that those professors, on average, earn 122% of the national average for Education assistant professors. The figure shows that William and Mary salaries average higher than the national average at all ranks and for all disciplines. School of Education salaries average 22 to 51 percent higher than the national reference group. Compared to other units, School of Ed ucation salaries are higher relative to national averages than those in A&S but lower than those in Business and Law. At the Full Professor rank, School of Education salary averages are about the same percentage above the national average as Law. The data from the figure indicate that School of Education faculty salaries are funded better than the national average for the discipline and between A&S and the other professional schools (Business and Law) within the institution.

Relative Support Staff

Tables 4 and 5 display the ratio of academic support staff relative to faculty and student counts. For these tables, only academic support staff and faculty funded from State budget allocations are counted. Both of the tables show the School of Education to be between A&S and the other professional schools (Law and Business). With the addition of the new positions in the 2005 academic year, the support personnel per faculty member is back to pre-budget-cut levels in the School of Education. The support level in the School of Education is comparable to those of the other units given the relative size of the student bodies and the faculty.

 

Figure 2. William and Mary Faculty Salaries Compared to National Averages by Rank and Discipline

Table 4. Faculty per Academic Support Position by Unit.

Unit	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Education	4.2	5.0	5.1	6.0	4.2
A&S	5.4	5.6	5.7	5.4	5.6
Business	3.1	2.8	2.3	2.2	2.4
Law	1.9	1.9	1.6	1.4	1.4

*Note: Positions in this table represent State funded (E&G) personnel.

 

Table 5. FT Headcount Students per Academic Support Position by Unit.

Unit	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Education	30.4	33.6	46.0	44.1	35.3
A&S	74.0	71.7	75.3	75.6	72.7
Business	43.6	40.1	36.3	27.8	27.8
Law	31.3	33.4	33.4	31.6	27.3

*Note: Positions in this table represent State funded (E&G) personnel.

 

Faculty Professional Development

The College emphasizes its expectation that faculty will renew and expand upon their professional expertise throughout their careers. Toward that end, numerous sources of professional development support are available to faculty through the College and academic unit. Some types of support are awarded through competitive application processes, while others are part of a faculty member's basic terms of employment or compensation for a leadership role in faculty governance. Figure 3, below, details the School's professional development expenditures during fiscal year 2005 and may be considered representative of recent years. School of Education faculty received a total of $144,181 in professional development support, with $104,556 of those dollars coming directly from the School of Education 's budget. These expenditures fall into four general categories:

1) Annual Allocations
The School of Education provides a base of $1,000 in professional development funds per faculty member each fiscal year, with eminent scholars receiving at least $1,750 per year. Faculty who serve as area coordinators and undergraduate student advisors also receive additional funds. Professors expend these funds at their discretion, but most choose to put them toward conference travel; professional organization memberships; and books, software, and other educational purchases. Additionally, each tenure-eligible professor receives $6,000 to be used over the course of his or her pre-tenure years. Faculty have opted to use these funds for expenditures such as course releases, summer stipends, computer peripherals, etc.

2) Competitive Programs
The flagship professional development programs at the College are the Faculty Semester and Summer Research Grants. These awards, reviewed and selected by a College-wide committee of professors, provide a semester's leave with pay or summer stipend to enable faculty to focus on their research. The College also has created a number of Term Distinguished Professorships to recognize teaching and research excellence among mid-career faculty. These highly selective awards provide recipients with special titles, stipends, and professional development funds for a set period of time, typically three years.

3) Faculty-Initiated Programs
The School of Education's Faculty Affairs Committee organizes a variety of smaller professional development events, such as brown bag lunches and book discussion groups, each semester. Some of these events require small purchases, such as books or refreshments, which the School has funded.

4) Special Requests
Professors occasionally submit to the Dean one-time professional development requests that fall outside the categories outlined above. These requests vary widely, but examples from recent years include coverage of the cost of the National Board Certified Teacher exam and a course release to offset an exceptionally heavy governance load.

 

The Higher Education Restructuring Act of 2005

In fall 2003, the presidents of the College of William and Mary, University of Virginia, and Virginia Tech advanced a proposal to the Governor and leadership of the General Assembly to address the chronic underfunding of higher education in Virginia and enable more effective long-term planning. The “Charter Universities Initiative” was conceived to redefine institutional relationships with the Commonwealth, return authority to Boards of Visitors, establish more stable funding models, provide greater flexibility in operations, and focus on post-audit oversight and accountability. Following extensive negotiations to tighten alignment with statewide higher education goals and extend benefits to all institutions through a three-tiered eligibility process, the Virginia General Assembly passed the re-titled Higher Education Restructuring Act of 2005. The bill was subsequently signed into law by Governor Mark Warner.

Under the legislation, all public colleges and universities remain state agencies, and their employees remain public employees. In exchange for meeting certain requirements developed by the Commonwealth (called the “state ask”), the legislation provides a more reliable funding model and enhanced authority for the Board of Visitors in the areas of finance, capital outlay, human resources, procurement and information technology.

To apply for restructuring benefits at the third level which grants the broadest authority for the Board of Visitors, the College was required to develop several documents, including an overall academic plan showing how William and Mary will meet the state's requirements, an enrollment plan covering the next six years, and a financial plan. Over the summer, the College developed and submitted an enrollment plan that was approved by the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV).

College officials then completed an Academic Plan that was available for campus review and discussed at a variety of meetings for faculty, staff and students. The Board of Visitors approved the plan on September 16 for submission to SCHEV. The Six-Year Academic Plan is included on the College's Restructuring site.

The College is now developing a financial plan indicating how the specified programs will be funded. The package will be considered by the Board of Visitors November 17-18 and submitted to the State later this fall. The plan will be reviewed by the Governor and the General Assembly, and will be voted on by the close of the legislative session ending in March 2006. Universities with approved plans and other relevant policies will be granted Level III status on July 1, 2006.