The Off-Site Reaffirmation Committee (the Committee) reviewed evidence provided by Auburn University (the university) of faculty and administrative oversight of academic programs and academic processes, including data that show the distribution of full-time and part-time faculty by academic program. The Committee determined that it is not fully clear how the institution considers whether a certain number of full-time faculty is appropriate for a program. This response will first clarify the university’s rationale for determining whether a certain number of full-time faculty is appropriate for a program. Secondly, this response will provide context for the examples mentioned by the Committee—the number of faculty for the minors in Women’s Studies and Africana Studies. Lastly, this response will discuss details regarding programs with no faculty and no graduates.

Determining Program Faculty Sufficiency

The Committee determined that it is not fully clear how the institution considers whether a certain number of full-time faculty is appropriate for a program.

Rationale

The university grounds its expectations for faculty sufficiency in its mission. As a land-grant institution, the university assumes the responsibility of providing "both theoretical knowledge and practical skills” that will “educate our students and prepare them for life.” This responsibility is echoed in the 2019-2024 Strategic Plan, which calls for relevant curricula that reflect the content of "today and tomorrow" (emphasis added). The Auburn Creed also reflects this perspective when it affirms that students will inhabit a “practical world” that will require knowledge to work wisely and training of the mind to work skillfully.

In the great majority of the university’s educational programs, virtually all instruction is delivered by full-time faculty members. However, to meet these commitments of a balanced education, the university also has long deployed a mixture of full-time and part-time faculty. In general, full-time faculty bring theoretical and scholarship-based knowledge while part-time faculty bring applied and practical skills of the day. To reflect its primary nature as a research institution, but one that also values practical education, the university has long held to an overall 80% threshold for full-time faculty sufficiency. In other words, the university expects that 80% of its faculty will be full-time and that they generate 80% of all credit hours. For some programs that are significantly more practical, the percentage of credit hours generated by full-time faculty may be lower. To monitor adherence to the credit hour production threshold, the university primarily reviews credit hour production by course prefix and secondarily reviews student-faculty ratios by program. A discussion of each follows below.

Credit Hour Production by Course Prefix

Threshold of Acceptability

The percentage of credit hours taught by full-time faculty for the overall university and the majority of programs exceeds the 80% threshold. For those programs falling below the 80 percent threshold, the university determines full-time faculty sufficiency by considering multiple factors including the Auburn University Mission as well as discipline-specific specialized accreditation recommendations, such as those by the National Architectural Accrediting Board for professional degree programs in architecture. Through this rigorous process, the institution concludes that it employs a sufficient number of full-time faculty to support its educational programs.

Methodology

The university’s method to illustrate this dominant pattern—and to highlight unusual cases—is to display instruction for a recent semester, measured at the course level, in terms of three variables: the full-time status of the instructor, the discipline of the course (indicated by a four-letter course prefix), and the number of student credit hours generated. In all cases, the percentage of credit hours taught by full-time faculty in a program is an indicator of their sufficiency to ensure the quality and integrity of the academic programs that require the courses in that area. Details are provided in supporting documentation, a table derived from records in the institution's student information system. This table also provides counts of full- and part-time faculty by department and headcounts of majors, by location of instruction (on-campus vs. online).

Student-faculty Ratio by Program

As a secondary measure, the university also considers student-faculty ratios. The ratio between an institution’s full-time students and its full-time instructional faculty is a widely used approach in determining sufficiency of full-time faculty. Auburn University’s overall student-faculty ratio is 20:1 for Fall 2021 and is right at the mean for all SACSCOC doctoral universities. Further, student-faculty ratio is a key performance indicator included in the current Strategic Plan. The attached documentation, Table 6.2.b-1, shows the following information for Fall 2021:

• Number of full-time instructional faculty for each program
• Number of students enrolled in each program
• Student-faculty ratio for each program

Table 6.2.b-1 shows the number of full-time instructional faculty members to support each educational program for Fall 2021. Faculty are included in this list if they teach courses in the program of study, and most of these faculty members are within the department offering the program. On occasion, faculty members outside the department may also contribute to a program. These faculty members are included in the counts by the department. All departments at the university offer more than one academic program, and faculty typically teach and support multiple programs. Therefore, each faculty member is counted in each program to which they contribute.

Based on the data from Table 6.2.b-1, 93% of the university’s programs have student-faculty ratios of 20:1 or below. Further, 89% of programs have ratios below 10:1. For the few programs that are above the 20:1 threshold, many are general pre-major placeholders for undergraduate students who have yet to declare a major within a degree program. These students cannot earn a degree from that program and will ultimately declare a major within that department or academic unit.

Women’s Studies and Africana Studies

The Off-Site Reaffirmation Committee expressed concern that the evidence provided indicated that there is only one full-time, non-affiliate faculty member for the minors in Women’s Studies and Africana Studies.

The university offers 506 academic degree programs at the baccalaureate, master’s, specialist, doctorate, and professional levels and academic certificates at undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels. These programs are offered within one of 65 academic departments or schools housed in its 12 colleges. All academic programs are offered on the main campus in Auburn, AL, through distance education, or at off-campus instructional sites.

The university’s complete listing of credit hour production by course prefix provided as evidence (see Methodology) erroneously included three minor offerings, including Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana Studies. Neither offering leads to a credential; therefore, they are not considered educational programs. Nevertheless, in response to the Off-Site Committee’s concerns, we submit that these two examples are robust options for students, as they both draw from expertise across multiple disciplines. The curricula for both minors are primarily comprised of elective courses, with two required courses for Women’s and Gender Studies and one required course for Africana Studies taught by full-time faculty within each discipline,,.

Programs With No Faculty and No Graduates

As mentioned by the Off-Site Reaffirmation Committee, the evidence provided indicated that a number of programs have no faculty and no graduates. Further review shows that two such instances have no faculty and no graduates: General Education and Community and Civic Engagement,. Both of these listings were included mistakenly as they do not lead to a credential; therefore, they are not considered educational programs. Nonetheless, below is additional information regarding each instance.

General Education

The university’s general education is comprised of approximately 41 credit hours and is taught by numerous faculty members across multiple units on campus. General education does not result in a credential or degree; therefore, it is not considered an educational program. As presented in the Auburn University Bulletin, the purpose of the Auburn University Core Curriculum is “to foster the knowledge, skills, and perspectives that are hallmarks of an Auburn graduate. By completing courses that represent a range of disciplines, students will begin to acquire an educated appreciation of the natural world, of human life, and of the interactions between them.” More comprehensive information regarding the university’s general education is discussed in Standards 8.2.b and 9.3, which were both found compliant by the Committee.

Community and Civic Engagement

The university offers a minor in Community and Civic Engagement, which is housed in the College of Liberal Arts. This 15-credit hour minor requires all students to take one capstone course—CCEN 3000: Capstone in Community and Civic Engagement—as a culminating experience. The course is taught by the university’s Director of the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities.

Conclusion

The University offers approximately 500 academic degree programs at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels. Each academic program is overseen and predominantly delivered by full-time faculty—1,443 in total—regardless of where or by what modality it is offered. Detailed analysis of the student-faculty ratios and percentage of credit hours taught by these full-time faculty within each program demonstrates that the university employs a sufficient number of full-time instructional faculty to ensure the curriculum and program quality, integrity, and review of each academic program offered, including those offered through distance education and at the university’s off-campus instructional sites.