63 exemptions granted in Jindal hiring freeze Just what kind of game are Louisiana higher education systems playing in regard to the hiring freeze implemented by Gov. Bobby Jindal? The executive order mandates that state agencies obtain exemption to hire in any open position, since Jan. 15, from Commissioner of Administration Angèle Davis. While the Louisiana State University system won approval for the one blanket exemption, to hire direct providers of health care in the charity hospital system that it runs, Davis has rejected two other requests from Commissioner of Higher Education (soon to parachute into the presidency of the University of Louisiana- Lafayette) Joseph Savoie, first a blanket exemption for any university hiring, then one adjudged by university heads not Davis just turned down by Davis. While all of this jockeying from higher education has gone on, other agencies have been dutifully compiling the data and getting exemptions – one of them being Savoie’s employer, the Board of Regents itself. In the meantime, Savoie has been complaining about having universities do the same – and not always recounting his case for blanket exemptions in an accurate way. In a letter to Davis the day after the inauguration, Savoie wrote “More importantly perhaps, it would send a signal throughout the entire academic community that Louisiana is not a state upon which faculty, researchers and top-flight administrators can depend for good faith recruitment efforts.” If he believes this, it shows that despite his dozen years in his position and almost two decades in higher education prior to that, Savoie hasn’t learned a whole lot about faculty hiring in higher education. Position freezes are not at all uncommon for job applicants to deal with and they are not seen as unusual nor automatic disqualifiers of a prospective employer precisely because they are so common. Later, Savoie argued that the freeze would affect hiring for adjunct positions. Adjuncts instructors are hired on a course-by-course basis to fill in gaps not able to be covered by the full-time faculty members. But unless I have totally missed something in the wording of the order, the freeze doesn’t apply to adjunct positions because they are temporary and part-time. We also have to understand to context of the complaints Savoie is making. Remember that Jindal knows full well how higher education works, having led the University of Louisiana system. He probably knows that, in fact, the process of re-justifying new faculty positions is probably easier than what most other agencies face. In academia, new faculty jobs are created at the behest of academic departments who provide evidence of the need of the position – burgeoning enrollments, for example – which then must be approved by a chain of command all the way to the system level before any hiring can begin. This means most of the work Davis is requesting already has been done. In other words, if Savoie would just give the order to system presidents, universities could take out their old documentation, maybe update them slightly (if they would need to at all), and then send them up the chain eventually to Davis. It’s just not that difficult to do. And, while I’m at the very bottom of the academic food chain, I’ve heard nothing come from the Regents or the system level at my university to do this while Savoie pursues this quixotic quest. Why can’t both, blanket requests and specific requests, be done at once? So why is Savoie digging in his heels so much? The answer comes from Jindal’s oft-stated goal of making universities in the state more outcome-oriented, focusing not so much on inputs (money, students attending, etc.) but on outputs (degrees awarded, graduation rates, and the like). The very first step in implementing this sea change in philosophy is to align human resources with desired outcomes – and Savoie, not just as outgoing leader of higher education but also as incoming university head, fears this larger agenda (as probably does his employer the Regents and the university system boards they oversee). Davis has publicly stated that she would give great deference to university hiring, and I’m willing to predict that over 90 percent of such requests she’ll end up approving. However, she will make approvals with the realigning agenda in mind focusing on “critical” needs. And the university administrative culture, for the most part insulated in its own world, is such that it disdains any interference and resists change. The easiest way to accomplish this goal facing this crisis is to ask for a blanket exemption to help blunt realignment. So that’s why Savoie would rather throw up artificial barriers than get down to business like other state agencies have that would aid Jindal in his initial effort to imprint his agenda on Louisiana higher education. (If you'd like to have Prof. Sadow's column mailed to you, go to http://www.between-lines.com and click on "Join the mailing list!" on the left-hand side.)