The following letter was sent to SFAI students and distributed via student mailboxes on April 22, 2009.

22 April 2009

FROM:

Espi Sanjana, SFAI’s Chief Operating Officer

TO:

The SFAI community

On Friday, 17 April, leaflets created by the Student Action Group were found to be distributed in SFAI mailboxes and across the SFAI campus. The leaflets purport to contain information about senior staff and faculty compensation as well as about the more general financial situation at SFAI. The information in the leaflets is either inaccurate or, where accurate, misleading because incomplete. We are writing to clarify the facts.

Faculty Compensation

Beginning four years ago, the Office of the President initiated a standard promotion and ranking system with tenure at SFAI. Since this system’s inauguration, thirty-eight (38) faculty members formerly ranked as “residents” have been granted tenure. According to information provided by the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD), SFAI’s implementation of such a tenure system has placed it in the same category as only three other art schools in the nation: the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, RISD, and CCA. The other twenty-two art schools in the US do not currently offer tenure. Further, SFAI faculty compensation is competitive with that of other AICAD colleges. In fact, the average faculty compensation at SFAI is 11% higher than that of the colleges within the second quartile. SFAI ranks in the middle of the second quartile in number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) students.

The implementation of a tenure system and competitive compensation are only part of SFAI’s ongoing investment in its faculty. Other benefits include the following:

• Teaching Load. While the collective bargaining agreement states an institutional obligation to guarantee an entire group of faculty only three (3) classes, SFAI has chosen instead to support faculty by scheduling them at six (6) classes wherever possible. Most tenured faculty at SFAI are teaching the full time load of six (6) courses a year, even those who have been guaranteed only half a load. Although visiting faculty could be hired at a lower cost, SFAI has tried to utilize tenured faculty wherever possible. If tenured or tenure-track faculty members are not teaching a full load, it is generally because they have chosen not to do so.

• Administrative Work. SFAI supports, in some cases with additional compensation, those faculty who are performing key administrative work such as chairing a department or leading a curricular initiative with course release.

• Step Increases. One third (1/3) of the full-time faculty are eligible for step review annually (i.e., eligible for both advancement through the step system and corresponding increases in compensation). Since 2004, SFAI has granted 100% of faculty eligible for step advancement a corresponding increase in compensation. The annual overall increase total runs from $50,000 to $60,000.

• Faculty Development Grant Fund. SFAI has budgeted for and awarded faculty research money on an annual basis. In fall 2006, the amount was raised from $20,000 to $25,000 per year. These funds are designated to assist faculty in the ongoing development of their art practice, research, and scholarship.

• Sabbaticals. SFAI provides up to twelve (12) sabbatical contact units for eligible faculty each year. When a faculty member has accrued at least twenty-four (24) credit units (every four [4] years), he or she is eligible to apply for a three-contract-unit sabbatical for one (1) semester. Faculty who have accrued at least thirty-six (36) credit units (every six [6] years) are eligible to apply for a four-contract-unit sabbatical for one year. SFAI has supported on average $130,000 per year for faculty sabbaticals. In view of the effects of the global financial crisis, SFAI was forced to suspend sabbaticals for the next 2 years.

• Contribution to Medical Plan. We continue to provide comprehensive and high quality healthcare, covering the total cost for each tenured or tenure-track faculty member. On average, healthcare costs have been increasing between 15% and 20% per year. This year, the school is incurring $504 to $2,657 per faculty member additional to what is incurred for staff with the same coverage.

• Contribution to Retirement. Since 2003, SFAI has increased the institutional match from 0% to 8%. In view of the effects of the global financial crisis, SFAI was forced to suspend the match in fall 2008.

• Additional Contributions to Retirement. In the case in which a faculty member may want to retire, SFAI has made every effort to support him or her. In June 2008, three faculty members retired after a three-year step-down process. During that period they received additional compensation in the form of reduced course loads at full pay to ease the transition.

Senior Staff Compensation: The Case of the President

Since the start of 2009, President Bratton’s total compensation is $232,500. He receives no other allowances. Though SFAI’s enrollments place it in the middle of the second quartile of independent colleges of art and design, President Bratton’s compensation is in the lower third of other presidents in this group. Examples include the Kansas City Art Institute (total compensation for the president: $241,080), Minneapolis College of Art and Design (total compensation for the president: $286,920), the Cornish College of Art in Seattle (total compensation for the president: $294,419), the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington DC (total compensation for the president: $283,500), and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (total compensation for the president: $300,000).

Moreover, where senior-staff housing is concerned, it is common practice that when academic organizations move senior administrators to high-housing-cost areas like the Bay Area, they provide them with loans to offset housing-cost increases. Whereas the loan is customarily forgiven between three to five years, President Bratton’s loan is on a ten-year schedule, and, to date, no portion of it has been forgiven. As to the claim that his home is in Piedmont, President Bratton lives and pays taxes in Oakland.

Investment in Students

SFAI made a strategic decision five years ago to begin seriously investing in and building student support and student services. This decision has included greatly expanded financial aid, overall advising, counseling, and other student services. SFAI has also greatly increased its capacity to house students. Regarding the new dormitory, SFAI moved decisively and rapidly to correct problems as they arose (e.g., mold abatement in several rooms in the facility). SFAI also remains attentive to issues of overall affordability and has chosen to keep dorm fees lower than those charged by other schools. Brian Carlisle, the Associate Vice President for Student Affairs, benchmarks our services and fees against all other academic institutions.

Though the decision to lay off not only faculty members but 10% of SFAI’s overall workforce—faculty, staff, and administration—was and remains a difficult one, SFAI was forced to take it in order to prevent deficit spending, to maintain an endowment diminished by 30% in the stock-market crash, and, thereby, to create a sustainable future. As to issues of cash flow and deficit spending, one of the principal factors underlying both the economic need for faculty layoffs and the 2008–2009 furlough is the fact that, due to SFAI’s diminished endowment, what the leaflet refers to as a “short-term bridge loan”—which, it implies, should be easy to retain—is exactly the kind of credit line that banks are generally no longer extending to institutions like SFAI.

A further reason that the faculty lay-offs were necessary—a reason that President Bratton chose not to mention in his 5 March 2009 memo to the SFAI community (http://www.sfai.edu/dialogue)—is

 that the faculty union refused to accept temporary across-the-board pay cuts that were initially proposed by SFAI as a way to fairly accommodate the effects of the financial crisis. By contrast, these temporary pay cuts went into effect for administration and staff at the beginning of February 2009 (the highest-paid employees absorbing the largest reductions, ranging from 25%, for the three senior administrators including the president, to 0% for those staff making less than $40,000/year). It should also be noted that, while staff and senior staff members who were laid-off were given short notices (fewer than two weeks), faculty received six months’ notice of the decision. 

Because laying off faculty members is one of the most difficult things an administration ever has to do, the decision was taken neither lightly nor carelessly; on the contrary, it was taken with a view to mitigating any impact it might have on the quality of education at SFAI. One faculty member teaches only one course per year, and that course has been canceled due to insufficient enrollment. Five faculty members are not teaching at present—they are on sabbatical, family leave of absence, and suspension. Some faculty members who are not currently teaching the full six (6) course load may now have to teach more. All faculty layoffs were made in accordance with thefaculty union agreement, which requires SFAI to reduce faculty based on length of employment and meeting the needs of the curriculum.

Each step we are taking is part of a larger, proactive economic strategy for addressing both SFAI’s short-term cash needs and its long-term financial health. We remain focused on continuing to provide the excellence in education for which SFAI is internationally known and on ensuring that SFAI remains strong, viable, and sustainable into the future.

Espi Sanjana

Chief Operating Officer

San Francisco Art Institute 

<This letter was copied directly from the email sent on behalf of the SFAI administration on April 22, 2009.  No part has been embellished, omitted, or altered.  Please feel free to contact the administrator of this page with any questions or concerns.>