UNION TOWNSHIP — In addition to teaching classes, advising students and doing research, Kean University professors have a new task this semester: Filling out time cards.

Last month, the Union Township-based public university began requiring full-time faculty members to submit biweekly forms proving they are working at least 35 hours a week.

Kean officials say the time sheets are needed to document that professors are working full-time hours and are eligible for state health benefits. But some members of the faculty union — who have been feuding with Kean President Dawood Farahi for years — say punching a virtual time clock is an insult.

“President Farahi is turning Kean University into a factory that mass produces college graduates,” said James Castiglione, a professor who serves as president of the Kean Federation of Teachers. “The time sheets are effectively treating faculty not as experts … or scholars, but as 19th-century factory workers.”

Kean is believed to be one of the only universities in the nation to require full-time professors to account for every hour of their work day on a daily basis. The school’s new requirement has been reported in national higher education industry publications, where it sparked an online debate among professors across the country on whether it is appropriate to ask scholars with advanced degrees to clock in like hourly workers.

Read full article at http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/02/kean_university_now_requires_f.html
Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger