Nova Southeastern University

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 12, 1998

325 N.L.R.B. 728 (N.L.R.B. 1998)

728
325 NLRB No. 150
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
1 The only issue on which review was requested was the Regional
Director’s finding that a unit including graduate and undergraduate
faculty was appropriate.
3 The unit appears as stated at the hearing.
4 In its brief, the Employer appears to have dropped any claim that
Philinda Hutchings, an associate professor in the Center for Psycho-
logical Studies, is a supervisor. In any event, the record fails to es-
tablish that she is a statutory supervisor.
Nova Southeastern University and Nova Southeast-
ern University United Faculty of Florida, affili-
ated with Florida Teaching Profession, Na-
tional Teaching Association, Petitioner. Case
12–RC–8207
May 12, 1998
ORDER DENYING REVIEW
BY CHAIRMAN GOULD AND MEMBERS FOX AND
LIEBMAN
The National Labor Relations Board has delegated
its authority in this proceeding to a three-member
panel, which has considered the Employer’s request for
review of the Regional Director’s Decision and Direc-
tion of Election (pertinent portions are attached as an
appendix).1 The Employer’s request for review is de-
nied as it raises no substantial issues warranting re-
view.
APPENDIX
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
5. The Petitioner seeks an election in a unit of all full-time
faculty employed by the Employer in the position of lecturer,
instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, and profes-
sor in its Farquhar Center for Undergraduate Studies, Center
for Psychological Studies, Oceanographic Center, School of
Business and Entrepreneurship, School of Computer and In-
formation Sciences, and School of Social and Systemic Stud-
ies, excluding all program professors, visiting professors, ad-
junct professors, program coordinators, associate deans and
deans, all employees employed in the Fischler Center for the
Advancement of Education, the Family and School Center,
the Shepard Broad Law Center, the Health Professions Divi-
sion, and supervisors as defined in the Act.3 The Employer
contends that the Fischler Center for the Advancement of
Education should be included in the unit, and the Farquhar
Center for Undergraduate Studies should be excluded from
the unit, based on its community-of-interest analysis. There
is no other dispute between the parties regarding the scope
or composition of the unit, nor any other issue for resolution
presented here.4 There are approximately 140 employees in
the petitioned-for unit and approximately 139 employees in
the unit proposed by the Employer. There are approximately
194 employees in the unit found appropriate here. There is
no history of collective bargaining among the Employer’s
employees.
The Employer is a nonprofit, fully accredited, coeduca-
tional institution founded in 1964. It is governed by a board
of trustees. There are 8 administrative units and 10 academic
centers, with associate vice presidents or vice presidents for
the administrative units, an executive provost for academic
affairs, and a chancellor for the health professions division,
reporting to the president. The Employer has an employee
handbook applicable to all employees which contains its em-
ployment policies and procedures and employee benefits. The
Employer also has a faculty policy manual, which is applica-
ble to all faculty.
The Employer is known for innovative and flexible edu-
cational programs designed for working adults and profes-
sionals, as well as recent high school and college graduates,
using traditional and nontraditional formats. It offers courses
at its home campuses and at field-based locations. The Em-
ployer has rolling admission/registration periods.
As of 1996, two-thirds of the enrolled students attended
classes in the three counties surrounding its main campus:
Broward, Palm Beach, and Dade. About 82 percent of the
student body attended classes in Florida. Unlike a traditional
university, graduate students accounted for 74 percent of its
enrollees. The majority of undergraduate and graduate stu-
dents did not enter their programs immediately after gradua-
tion from high school or college. The mean age for under-
graduate students is 30 years and for graduate students is 38
years. As of 1998, there are 16,500 enrolled students.
As noted, the parties agreed that the following centers
should be excluded from the unit: the professional schools
known as the Shepard Broad Law Center and the Health Pro-
fessions Division, and the Family and School Center which
provides programs to meet the needs of families and children
through specialized and alternative educational environments,
parent/child classes, and counseling and testing services.
The Petitioner seeks to represent six of the seven remain-
ing academic centers: Farquhar Center for Undergraduate
Studies (FAR); Center for Psychological Studies (CPS);
Oceanographic Center (OC); School of Business and Entre-
preneurship (SBE); School of Computer and Information
Sciences (SCI); and the School of Social and Systemic Stud-
ies (SSS). Contrary to the Petitioner, the Employer contends
that the Fischler Center for the Advancement of Education
(CAE) should be included in the petitioned-for unit, and the
FAR should be excluded therefrom.
FAR and CPS are located on the main campus in Davie;
OC is in Dania (15 miles from Davie); SBE, SCI, and SSS
are in Fort Lauderdale (7 miles from Davie); and CAE is in
North Miami Beach (16 miles from Davie). The university
library is located on the main campus.
The CPS offers predoctoral internships, master’s and doc-
torate and postdoctorate programs. Its focus is on training,
research, and service. It operates the Community Mental
Health Center, with three sites, serving western Broward
County.
The OC conducts innovative research and provides under-
graduate and graduate education in the marine sciences. Its
undergraduate programs are offered jointly with FAR.
The SCI offers programs that enable professionals to pur-
sue advanced degrees in computer science and information
systems without career interruption. The master’s degree pro-
grams are offered on campus or ‘‘on-line.’’ The doctoral pro-
grams are offered through cluster or institute formats: cluster
students attend four extended weekend sessions a year, and
institute students attend two week long sessions a year, with
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729NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
5 Cornell University, 183 NLRB 329 (1970).
6 Trustees of Boston University, 228 NLRB 1008 (1977), and 236
NLRB 1535 (1978).
7 Trustees of Boston University, supra at 1010–1011.
8 See Syracuse University, 204 NLRB 641 (1973), regarding its
school of law.
9 Dezcon, Inc., 295 NLRB 109 (1989).
on-line computer activities, projects, and research conducted
between sessions.
The SSS has two departments, family therapy and dispute
resolution, which offer master’s and doctoral degree pro-
grams. The SSS also operates the Clinical and Community
Outreach Center, Family Therapy Associates, and the Con-
flict Management Center, which provide various services to
the local community.
The SBE’s academic mission is field-based or distance
learning. A majority of SBE students are working profes-
sionals. The master’s division offers programs focused on the
needs of middle and upper level management personnel for
general management skills and technologies. The SBE doc-
toral division offers programs focused on the needs of high-
level corporate and public agency personnel for strategic
planning and decisionmaking skills. The Institute for Family
Business is a cooperative effort between SBE and SSS which
offers programs and services designed to meet the needs of
business families.
The SBE offers all its graduate degree programs on the
main campus and offers several master’s and doctoral degree
programs in the cluster format throughout Florida, selected
U.S. cities, and abroad. Full-time students attend classes on
weekdays and working students attend classes on weekends.
Although the SBE employs approximately 140 adjuncts for
its offsite clusters, the full-time faculty must be willing to
travel in order to conduct offsite teaching on a face-to-face
basis. The SBE shares full-time faculty with the FAR for
teaching business courses.
The CAE offers field-based degree programs at the mas-
ters and doctoral levels designed for working professional
educators and administrators. Its programs are offered in 49
cities in the U.S., Canada, and abroad. Of its 8000 students,
approximately 3000 attend classes in the three counties sur-
rounding the main campus in Davie. Its six programs focus
on instructional technology and distance education, teacher
education and school administration, communication sciences
and disorders (speech-language pathology and audiology),
and life span care and administration.
The CAE operates in cluster or cohort groups of graduate
students with classes offered on weekends, at various inter-
vals, during a semester. Although a few CAE faculty mem-
bers have the primary function of overseeing the adjunct pro-
fessors who teach at the distance education sites, all other
CAE faculty teach through the utilization of distance edu-
cation technology such as on-line computer, compressed
video, and audio bridge.
The CAE’s full-time faculty, known as ‘‘program profes-
sors,’’ are located at the Employer’s north Miami beach site.
Unlike the other graduate centers and the FAR, the CAE
does not apply the traditional academic ranking system to its
faculty. However, the faculty policy manual applies to the
CAE faculty in all other respects.
At the FAR, the College of Professional and Liberal Stud-
ies offers Bachelor’s degree programs in the arts and
sciences, which are conducted primarily in a small classroom
setting with face-to-face contact between students and teach-
ers. The College of Career Development offers Bachelor’s
degree programs designed for working adults, with classes
conducted in the evening and on weekends, on campus and
at various off campus sites. The FAR offers dual admission
programs with the CPS, OC, SSS, and SBE. In general, the
FAR faculty carry a heavier teaching load than faculty at the
graduate centers.
With the exception of SSS, all graduate centers and the
FAR offer distance learning through the traditional onsite
teaching format or through an on-line computer, compressed
video, or audio bridge.
Since asserting jurisdiction over private, nonprofit univer-
sities,5 the Board has continued to apply ts traditional com-
munity-of-interest analysis to questions posed regarding the
composition and scope of petitioned-for units.6 The Board
has not prohibited the inclusion of undergraduate faculty
with graduate faculty in a single unit,7 although it has ac-
corded individual treatment to faculty in a postgraduate pro-
fessional school.8 The Board’s traditional analysis requires a
petitioner to seek an election in an appropriate unit, not the
most appropriate unit.9
Based on the foregoing and the record evidence as a
whole, I find that the CAE and the FAR should be included
in the petitioned-for unit. The record evidence establishes
that the faculty employed in the CAE and the FAR share a
sufficient community of interest with the petitioned-for fac-
ulty to warrant their inclusion in the appropriate unit. The
CAE and the FAR faculty receive the same benefits and are
subject to the same policies and procedures as the petitioned-
for faculty. Their primary function is teaching, whether in a
traditional setting or in the distance learning format, just like
the petitioned-for faculty. The record evidence shows that the
Employer’s innovative and flexible approach to the evolution
of its educational mission has permeated all its programs. In
addition, the FAR has several dual admission programs with
the graduate centers and shares faculty with the SBE. It
should be noted that the OC offers both undergraduate and
graduate programs. The CAE faculty’s lack of traditional
academic ranking fails to outweigh the common benefits,
terms and conditions of employment shared with the other
faculty.
Accordingly, I find that the following employees constitute
an appropriate unit for the purposes of collective bargaining
within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act:
All full-time faculty employed by the Employer in the
position of lecturer, instructor, assistant professor, asso-
ciate professor, professor and program professor in its
Farquhar Center for Undergraduate Studies, Center for
Psychological Studies, Oceanographic Center, School of
Business and Entrepreneurship, School of Computer
and Information Sciences, School of Social and Sys-
temic Studies, and Fischler Center for the Advancement
of Education, excluding all visiting professors, adjunct
professors, program coordinators, associate deans and
deans, all employees employed in the Family and
School Center, the Shepard Broad Law Center, the
Health Professions Division, and supervisors as defined
in the Act.
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