Our department has grave concerns about our current level of staffing.  Our enrollment has been steadily growing over the past several years.  In addition to increased enrollment from our typical sources, we have also seen a large infusion of students from the PTECH program.  We expect between 40 to 50 new students from PTECH each year going forward.  We already have two PTECH cohorts taking classes, either here at Middletown or at NFA in Newburgh.  In addition, due to statutory issues registering PTECH students, they are not technically matriculated into our program, and as such probably are not reflected in our departmental enrollment numbers.  As enrollment of the PTECH student cohorts begin to overlap, there will be significant strain on the resources of our department.  For example, the percentage of contact hours taught by full-time, tenure-track, on-load faculty has decreased from near 40% to 28.7% this semester, and will be 25.7% next semester given the current set of courses scheduled.   

One of our department’s stated goals is to expand and enhance our offerings and programs to create a larger student pool and broaden the technology skills of our graduates.  As our program continues to grow, and we update our existing courses and construct new programs (certificates, degrees in cloud computing and web design, etc.), we need to build a faculty with a diverse yet balanced set of technical skills.  Our department is in dire need of an infusion of qualified professionals with industry experience, vendor certifications, and practical skill sets.  Given the incredible pay disparity between academia and industry for our field, it is quite difficult to find qualified, experienced adjuncts with relevant, current skill sets who are willing to work during the day.  Our current set of day-time available adjuncts are drawn mostly from retired professionals and faculty.  It will be difficult to support the necessary changes and enhancements to our program with adjuncts who may not be fully invested in the long-range goals of our department. 

Another goal of our department is to create relationships with industry partners to supplement our curriculum with vendor endorsed certification materials.  For example, we are currently in the process of becoming a Certified Cisco Networking Academy.  Such programs frequently require that in order to use the certification materials in our courses, instructors teaching these sections must be certified by the vendor.   As such, relying on adjunct instructors will severely impact our capacity to offer such courses.  Given the importance of industry certifications for our student population, these vendor partnerships are an essential component of our future plans for the department.

We must fill the existing open tenure-track line (recently vacated by Arlin Bartlett) with a capable instructor with experience in systems administration, networking, and programming.  Currently, this position is being filled with a temporary line, occupied by Miroslav Krajca, who is doing an outstanding job, as evidenced by three separate faculty observations, instructor evaluation forms, and general student approbation.   As our program grows, it is imperative that we have additional support from someone with substantial industry experience whose skill set complements that of existing faculty. 

Note:  The resources number for this position was obtained in the following manner:  the base salary is from the Instructor 1 rate from the latest contract, along with 42.6% added for benefits (as suggested in the "Resource Planning Tips" document distributed during the PIP training sessions).