Since last week’s Inside Higher Ed article, there have been many questions raised about APSCUF’s knowledge and position on CAEL (Council for Adult and Experiential Learning; sounds like a green vegetable no one wants to eat). Hopefully, this posting will answer some of that.
On Friday, Executive Council approved APSCUF’s filing either an unfair labor practice (ULP) charge with the state labor board or a grievance, whichever our legal people feel is apt.
The IHE article does not indicate that the signing of the contracts with CAEL did not happen on most campuses until August 17, which so happens to be the first time the topic appeared on the state Meet & Discuss agenda. On that Friday, we received only a minimal explanation of the program, which PASSHE’s CAOs (Chief Academic Officers) have been working on “for some time.”
From a quick, superficial look at this program, APSCUF starts (this may not be the end of the list) with two issues: first, the transcript review involved seems on the face of it to be our bargaining unit work (thus the EC approval of a possible ULP), a major labor violation; second, this outside review of transcripts seems to violate a core principle of the college academy that says faculty control the curriculum (and evaluation of credits involved there).
As far as we have been told, there was no formal faculty involvement in any of the discussions of this program. PASSHE has said that it will provide additional information on the program to APSCUF.
APSCUF will continue working on this topic which is important to the quality of our institutions and we will try to keep you all informed of forthcoming news on CAEL.
— Steve