Allocation System
The term "allocation system" refers to the financial arrange-ment by which CUNY senior colleges are compensated for the contributions of their faculty to doctoral education. The system involves the annual allocation to the CUNY senior colleges of appointment authority for a pool of lines funded by The Graduate Center. For example, the number of allocation "lines" for 2006-07 was 223 (212 for faculty, 11 for support staff). The costs of administering (payroll and fringe benefits) these lines are also borne by The Graduate Center. (Community colleges whose faculty or participate in doctoral programs are compensated through adjunct replacement funds, not out of this allocation system.)
The computation of the number of faculty lines in the pool to be allocated to each senior college is made according to the following principles. Each one-semester doctoral course taught by a faculty member from a senior college is considered one unit, and six units equal one line. All full-semester doctoral courses, with the exception of independent studies and dissertation supervision (discussed below), are considered a unit, independent of the number of credit hours associated with those courses. Thus, a CUNY senior college that contributes instructors for six doctoral courses in one academic year will be credited in the following academic year with one faculty line held in the allocation pool by The Graduate Center and paid for out of The Graduate Center budget.
To take into account the contribution that college-based faculty make to doctoral education by supervising indepen-dent studies (IND) or dissertations (90000), a college is credited with 0.2 unit for each student supervised by a faculty member from that college. For example, if five different faculty members from a given college are supervising student dissertations or independent studies during a semes-ter, the college earns one unit for that semester. (No individual student is "counted" in dissertation supervision for more than six semesters, irrespective of the time to comple-tion of degree.) Alternatively, if one college-based faculty member supervises five (or more) students in dissertations or independent studies in one semester, his or her college is credited with one unit for that semester. The latter policy is consistent with how the workload of Graduate Center-based faculty is determined, whereby five or more dissertation or independent study students is the equivalent of one unit, and six units per year is the basic minimum assignment. Six units of independent study or dissertation advisement by its faculty earn one allocation line for the college.
From the point of view of individual college-based faculty, the system works as follows. For each doctoral course taught by a faculty member in a given semester, he or she earns one course teaching credit toward the contractual teaching load during that semester. For supervision of individual doctoral students, college-based faculty earn 0.2 unit for each semester of supervision of an independent study or a dissertation until a full unit is accumulated. At that point or in the following semester, the faculty member's home college will recognize that unit as a "course," and it becomes part of his or her workload. In the unusual case when a college-based faculty member supervises more than five students in a single semester, he or she still earns for the home college just one "course" in that semester and is credited by his or her college with that unit as part of the workload.
The allocation system also recognizes the participation of senior-college doctoral faculty members in tasks associated with the direct administration of the doctoral programs. Faculty members who accept assignment as an Executive Officer are released by the college full-time for the term of this service, and the college is credited with one line in the calculation of its share of the allocation pool. Deputy Executive Officers earn for their home colleges one course each semester, and the college is expected to credit the faculty member with one course for this activity as part of his or her workload at the college for that semester. All such arrangements are negotiated between the provost of The Graduate Center and the provost of the relevant college.
The faculty and staff lines in the allocation system earned by colleges for the participation of their faculty in doctoral education are assigned to the college provosts, who determine how they will be distributed within their colleges. The allocation system operates, in other words, between administrations and not between programs and departments. Note that colleges are compensated for the services of full-time faculty with full-time lines and not with adjunct replacement costs. The integrity of the college's instructional mission is thereby protected. Furthermore, the system allows colleges to retain flexibility in the deployment of their resources. Provosts at the colleges allocate adjunct replace-ments to departments as the needs of their institutions demand, instead of on the basis of direct reimbursement to departments whose members provide doctoral instruction. Although the system provides appropriate and flexible compensation to the CUNY colleges, it can occasionally provoke discontent in departments that do not receive adjunct resources proportionate to their doctoral contribu-tions in any given year.
The day-to-day practical administration of the consortium is carried out largely by individual doctoral programs. The doctoral program first establishes a suitable set of courses to be offered in the following semester. The program then determines what portion of that proposed offering can be provided by Graduate Center faculty (if that program has GC appointments). To staff the remaining courses, the Executive Officer consults with the chairs of the college departments. Specifically, the Executive Officer first contacts the relevant department chair to ask if a particular faculty member is available; if the colleague is available and would like to teach at The Graduate Center, the program and the college department then coordinate the teaching schedules. Procedures for approval of faculty participation in doctoral programs are determined at each college. The provosts of the Graduate Center and the colleges are responsible for ensuring the smooth operation of the allocation system and for facilitating contacts between colleges and The Graduate Center as necessary.
