Kean Professional Staff Under Siege

Professional staff at Kean University are under siege, resulting in a shrinkage of the number of professional staff, the transformation of professional staff positions into “managerial” titles and the degradation of their remaining positions to the lower titles and salary ranges.

The evidence is overwhelming. Since 2006, an entire decade ago, the number of professional staff positions at Kean has shrunk by 11% while rising at sister institutions from a range of 3% to over 100%. During roughly the same period of time, the proportion of so-called managerial employees to that of AFT unit employees has risen from 25% to 38% while remaining stable at most of its sister institutions. Furthermore, the number of upper level professional staff titles such as Assistant Director I and II and Professional Service Specialist I and II have sharply declined at Kean in contrast to its sister institutions.

A comparison with Montclair State University, the institution which Kean itself considers its closest counterpart, reveals the following:

Number of Professional Staff
	2006	2016
Kean University	176	157
Montclair State University	233	387

 

Number/Proportion of Managers to Unit Employees
	2006	2016
Kean University	144 or 25%	205 or 38%
Montclair State University	155 or 22%	245 or 24%

 

Number of Assistant Director I, II & Professional Service Specialist I, II Titles
	Kean University 2006	Kean University 2016	Montclair State 2006	Montclair State 2016
Assistant Director I	17	6	11	9
Assistant Director II	9	6	21	25
Professional Service Specialist I	15	6	21	50
Professional Service Specialist II	45	19	55	105

To add insult to injury there has been a sum total of one (yes, one) professional staff performance-based promotion in the past 12 years and that was 12 years ago!

The numbers do not lie. There is no explanation for them other than a wholesale attack on professional staff at Kean, which is part and parcel of the attack on faculty at Kean whose numbers have also diminished and status undermined by the proliferation of non-tenured “Lecturers,” the paucity of promotions and sabbaticals and the use of time sheets to monitor their activities.

The Council is seeking to challenge the creation of bogus managerial titles at Kean through the filing of “Clarification of Unit” petitions at the Public Employment Relations Commission, a slow and difficult process. Direct pressure on the Kean administration to respect the professional staff and to reverse the damage done to their status is also required.