CAUT Guidelines (long)

[Fred Sturm]

List,
	Richard made some excellent points. I'd like to comment/expand on a
few:
Richard West wrote:
> 
>  The term "bean
> counters" is not one I would choose to use.  I must say that I think we need to
> be careful of how we think about our supervisors/directors/administrators, etc.

Absolutely correct. And it's a very complex maze of responsible people,
each with a set of priorities. In my state institution, the closest to
me is the music department chair, who has an allocated budget that is
never adequate. He must juggle between such demands as opera studio
wanted to mount a production, jazz studies wanting a soloist, etc. Then
the dean of fine arts must balance between music, theater, and visual
arts, together with any college wide projects. 
	And above them is an administrative layer (provost, vice president for
finance, president, etc) that allocates to various programs and
colleges, tries to build and maintain facilities, and so forth. For
them, one of the main factors is student contact hours, of which fine
arts produces an extraordinarily low proportion per faculty. So we're
already perceived as over-funded, comparatively speaking, a luxury.
	And then there are the regents, the legislature (which always thinks
$20 million for an athletic stadium is higher priority), and the
governor (who line item vetoes "frivolous" expenditures).
	To the extent my chair and dean are "bean counters," I want them to be
very good at their job, having experienced a chair who didn't count her
beans and created a half million deficit over 2 1/2 years, from which we
are still trying to recover (and no pianos purchased, dammit!)
> 
> I've always thought that the guidelines were primarily for technicians to help
> them organize their thinking to be able to make better presentations to the
> people that control the purse strings.  

Precisely! In my case, I lobby the chair and dean (with the help of
faculty, especially piano faculty) to make pianos a priority within the
department and college, but equally if not more important is helping
them influence the thinking of the upper administration.

>  Are there any business models
> out there that descibe equipment maintenance in terms of the cost of the item
> being maintained?   For example, if a piece of equipment or tool costs $100,000
> should an adminstrator try to budget 5% or 10% of that cost to maintain it?  What
> about depreciation?  How does that figure into knowing when to replace a piece of
> equipment?  I'm no business major, but surely someone has thought about these
> things and we should try to develope ways to justify our own budget and salary
> using strict business models.  If there's a conflict between good business
> practice and our guidelines, then we need to either justify the difference, or
> change the guidelines.

	Here, I think what would be most useful is an inventory replacement
formula. Tuning, regulation, voicing and the like mostly affect quality
standards - amount of work done leads to poor to excellent level of
quality, affected particularly by humidity swings in the case of tuning.
But as far as "maintaining" the instruments goes, tightening screws and
replacing parts are really the major factors, along with level of use.
So it's only a discrete portion of piano service that actually serves to
"protect the investment." 
	Now quality standards are, from a practical everyday point of view, of
highest importance to serving the needs of the school. But it's hard to
express in "business" terms. Having a replacement and parts budget (from
which perhaps a portion can be borrowed for other purposes) fits the
business model better. A percentage turnover (annual investment to
maintain an average age) figure would be very helpful. Or perhaps a
range of percentages, optimum to bare minimum.

>   Peer status means something to
> administrators.  When I first took the job here, there weren't all that many
> staff techncians at universities in the midwest.  Now almost every major
> university has one or more.  Making a case for more support can often be one of
> "keeping up with the ------ (fill in the blank with a peer university)."  Getting
> accreditation may include more attention to instrument maintenance and so peer
> review becomes important.

I think Richard really hit the nail on the head here. Comparisons with
peer institutions are what catch the attention of the public, and are
easiest to deal with (don't confuse people with the details). It means a
pretty extensive data gathering process. There are earlier efforts to
build on, but we don't have adequate data at this point.
	I'll also note here that the accreditation process is a useful tool for
"putting the screws" to the upper administration, getting their
attention. About 20 years ago, our department successfully used a poor
review of piano conditions in the department (it was listed as a
deficiency that had to be corrected) to get a one time budget for major
purchase and rebuilding (unfortunately most of it squandered, IMO, on a
new D and B rather than on 20 uprights and more rebuilding. I wasn't
working here then). Then, about ten years ago, a similar poor review was
squandered, being patched over by instituting a piano loan program. The
next one is coming shortly, and I hope to have practical programs of
ongoing replacement and rebuilding ready, in hopes that we can generate
some more permanent progress.

Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico