Q. Why is CCA eliminating chair positions and consolidating more departments under fewer chairs?

A. After a detailed analysis, CCA determined that it has too many chair and assistant chair positions relative to the number of students we serve. By reducing the number of chairs, we can increase chair salaries to be commensurate with the full scope of their responsibilities, increase the number of faculty whose primary focus is teaching students, and streamline our operations—all of which helps ensure CCA remains competitive.

In total, we will move from having 34 lead chairs and 7 assistant chairs to 23 lead chairs and 4 assistant chairs. This also means an increase to the number of ranked faculty who are eligible to join the union.

Q. Are any active ranked faculty being laid off?

A. No. Under this plan, we are not reducing our ranked faculty—and we are increasing the number of ranked faculty who are eligible to join the union. Some of the faculty who had been serving as chairs will return to more teaching lines, providing an important boost to our overall ranked faculty involvement in our classrooms and contributions to college-wide service.

Q. How did CCA determine the best number of chairs, given that the school has had roughly 41 chairs for many years?

A. CCA leadership looked at our leading peer institutions, including AICAD schools nationally and peer institutions in the Bay Area, and assessed a few different metrics, including: college-wide enrollment; average course enrollment; total teaching lines; number of program areas; and ratio of chairs and assistant chairs to enrollment.

The results of this analysis were clear, AICAD schools with student enrollments similar to CCA have, on average, a total of 14 program chairs—compared to CCA’s current 34 chairs and 7 assistant chairs. In fact, prior to this reorganization, CCA had more chair positions than any other AICAD school—including those with student enrollments that are two to three times greater than ours.

By rebalancing the number of chair and assistant chair positions, our goals were to increase the number of ranked faculty whose primary focus is teaching students, improve collaborative pathways between chairs and staff, streamline operations and enhance support for the chair group.

Q. What specific institutions were used for comparative analysis in the study?

A. Here are some of the schools we looked at:

• AICAD schools: Parsons, Pratt, SVA, CalArts, OTIS, Art Center, SAIC, MICA, Ringling, Cornish, and MassArt
• Bay Area private non-profit colleges: Mills, Dominican, Holy Names, Notre Dame de Namur and Saint Mary’s.

In addition to data sources such as IPEDS reports and AICAD data reports, there were direct conversations with provosts and Institutional Research directors at dozens of peer colleges.

Q. What does it mean that some of the chairs will have expanded portfolios? Will workloads be manageable?

A. Expanded portfolios means that some chairs will oversee more than one program, this is something that some of our chairs were already doing. To account for these changes, the percentage of full time employment associated with some chair’s administrative duties has increased and the expectation for teaching and service has decreased to ensure that these chairs will have the appropriate workload balance and compensation for the new roles.

Q. How will adjunct faculty teaching opportunities be impacted by the restructuring of the program chairs?

A. The impact on current adjunct faculty lines will be minimal. We have a large number of ranked faculty retiring this year, for which CCA may need adjunct faculty support in next year’s course schedule. Additionally, on average teaching lines assigned to new adjunct hires are 73 per an academic year; this creates plenty of opportunity to assign the former chairs to the scheduled course lines while also leaving opportunities for adjunct faculty.

Q. Is this process being driven by the need for budget cuts?

A. The process is driven by several factors, including: our ongoing process of reviewing and increasing faculty compensation, to ensure we are a competitive employer; evaluating our mix of programs, to ensure we are competitive to potential students; aligning operations with current student enrollment; and seeking out opportunities for cost savings, which benefits CCA’s long-term financial health. We would have completed this review regardless of CCA’s current budget.

Q. Are there other considerations that are informing the decision to restructure CCA’s chairs?

A. We have had a large number of ranked faculty retirements in the last four years, including 9 faculty this year alone. We also hire anywhere from 3-5 dozen new adjunct faculty in any given year for a variety of reasons. Both of these facts allow us to return ranked faculty to teaching lines without a big impact on unranked faculty teaching opportunities.

Q. What other steps has CCA taken to address faculty salaries?

A. Over the last two years, CCA has taken multiple steps to increase faculty salaries, including:

• Since FY21, we have raised the entry-level ranked faculty salary from $50,000 to $72,000 by FY23 — a 40% increase.
• Implemented a minimum annual base salary at 100% FTE across all professor ranks with parity between Ranked Renewable and Tenure Track.
• Increased starting salaries for each rank by over 30%.
• Applied pay compression adjustments to 30 ranked faculty in FY22 and 79 in FY23, with a total of 94 ranked faculty receiving adjustments over the two years.

Q. CCARFU and SEIU have expressed concerns about this reduction in the number of chairs and its impact on faculty. Aren’t they right that CCA should be bargaining for cuts that would affect studios and classrooms and have an impact on students?

A. We understand that CCARFU and SEIU have expressed concerns. However, there is a misunderstanding about the impact of these changes—which will actually increase the number of full-time teaching faculty and improve the experience for our students, and also increase the number of ranked faculty eligible to be in the union. CCA is able to implement these changes because they affect management—that is, chairs, who are not members of the bargaining unit—rather than ranked faculty who are members of CCARFU.

Q: Who do I contact over the summer if I have a question or concern for a program chair?

A: Current program chairs remain in their roles over the summer months and are contracted until August 15, 2024. 

Q: When will we know who the program chairs are going to be for the next academic year?

A: Academic Affairs will share an email with a comprehensive update on all chair, assistant chair and program lead appointments by mid-July. This will also be updated on the program portal pages soon after the email goes out.