North Carolina State University
SACS Compliance Certification
August 15, 2003

Comprehensive Standards: Educational Programs #27 (sufficient staff)
The institution provides a sufficient number of qualified staff—with appropriate education or experiences both in library or other learning/information resources—to accomplish the mission of the institution. 

Compliance
North Carolina State University is in compliance with this standard

Explanation
NC State University enrolls nearly 30,000 students and employs almost 1,700 faculty members.  It also offers more than 5,000 course sections both on and off campus.  To support the needs of this community, the university employs highly qualified staff in the NCSU Libraries, the Instructional Technologies Division (ITD), and the Distance Education and Learning Technologies Applications (DELTA).

We are confident that the number of staff in these three areas is sufficient to provide exemplary service.  Sophomores at NC State University are surveyed each year to gauge student satisfaction with university offerings.  The results from 1998-2000 demonstrate that students are very satisfied with library services and comparatively quite satisfied with technology services.  Data for 2002 show continued general improvement in both areas.

NCSU Libraries
As of June 30, 2002, the Libraries had 293.6 total full-time equivalents (FTE): 120 professional, 126 support, and 47.6 student assistants.  In 2000-2001, the most recent year for which comparable data are available, the NCSU Libraries ranked 36th out of 113 universities in the Association of Research Libraries for total FTE and 39th for personnel expenditures.

The Libraries recruits nationally to fill professional vacancies.  All professionals hold appropriate credentials (M.L.S., M.I.S., and/or specialized degrees).  All support staff meet the educational and/or experience requirements as specified by the various classification levels of the State Personnel Act. 

In 1999-2000 the Libraries instituted the Fellows Program to address the challenge of recruiting librarians in a highly competitive environment.  Through this initiative, the Libraries recruits a diverse pool of top graduates with demonstrated potential for academic library careers in science, engineering, and digital librarianship, and library management. 

The program offers a two-year appointment; each fellow is assigned 20 hours per week to a  "home department," where he or she is a fully integrated member of the professional staff, and twenty hours per week to a project in an area outside the home department.  So far, 18 librarians have been or currently are NCSU Libraries Fellows.  To date, all eight fellows who have completed the program are working in academic research libraries.

ITD and college-level information technology support
The Information Technology Division (ITD) employs 87 staff, of whom 30 provide user services directly to students, faculty, and staff; seven administer the division; and 50 contribute to the computing infrastructure, for example, by supporting the mainframe and servers, ensuring security, supporting systems, or through research and development.  Of these staff, four have doctorates, and 18 have at least one master’s degree.  ITD senior staff includes two full professors with dual appointments in ITD.  ITD also has 20 FTE in part-time employees, most of whom are students who work at the help desk.  All ITD staff meet or exceed the education and experience requirements specified by their job classifications. 

In addition to central IT support and services for teaching and learning provided by the Libraries, ITD, and DELTA, each college employs support staff for IT learning and information resources.  Their tasks include support for student computer labs, discipline-specific software, teaching and learning with technology, and direct desktop support for faculty and staff.  The focus of responsibilities assigned to college IT staff varies among colleges and departments.  In all, the colleges employ 127 staff in IT-related positions.

Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications (DELTA)
As of June 30, 2003, DELTA employed 49 FTE (22 professional and 27 support staff).  DELTA also employed the equivalent of 23 FTE in temporary staff, including student assistants.   

DELTA conducts national searches for professional positions.  The search process includes advertising to cast as wide a net as possible, creating a search committee with strict screening processes, conducting interviews/seminars, and strictly adhering to university hiring policies.  DELTA professionals have a variety of educational qualifications; 14% have doctorates, 48% have master’s degrees, and 38% have baccalaureate degrees.  Sufficient professional experience supplements these academic credentials. 

All support staff in DELTA meet or exceed the minimum requirements for education qualifications and experience as mandated by the State Personnel Act and are hired in accordance with university hiring procedures.  These employees bring a wealth of education qualifications and years of experience to DELTA.

Summary
Currently, there is no generally accepted definition of “sufficient support” in terms of IT staff to technology user.  For basic computer desktop support, the standard is one support staff per 100 desktops.  NC State University has an estimated 30,000 desktops connected to the campus network, including 7,000 owned by students living in residence halls.  According to the North Carolina IT Expenditure report for 2002, the university has a total of 441 IT related staff (including administrative computing, programmers and systems support), for a ratio of about 1:70.

References 


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