YPSILANTI, MI - Online degrees offered by Eastern Michigan University with marketing help from an out-of-state private firm are drawing criticism from faculty members who believe the program could reduce the quality of education students receive.

Leaders of unions representing faculty and full-time and part-time lecturers at EMU announced a print and advertising campaign Wednesday, Nov. 15, calling for a temporary halt to the new marketing partnership with Texas-based firm Academic Partnerships.

The unions also created an online petition calling for the university to send its contract with the firm to EMU faculty for a thorough review.

Judith Kullberg, professor of political science and president of the EMU-American Association of University Professors, believes the online degree programs could result in lower-quality instruction.

Kullberg said Academic Partnerships is marketing EMU degrees and programs that a student can complete without ever stepping foot in a classroom. While she believes there is a place for online instruction in higher education, it shouldn't replace the experience students currently have with instructors and the EMU campus.

"We don't think EMU students should become guinea pigs for an experiment in a teacherless classroom," Kullberg said. "Our students deserve better.

"Online instruction certainly has a place in higher education, so we're not arguing against it, but it shouldn't totally replace the high quality teaching and scholarship we offer on this campus. We're calling for a halt until faculty can thoroughly review (the contract). Our contract provides the faculty with shared governance. It is our position that EMU violated those rights and made no attempts to involve faculty in creating most of these online degrees."

EMU spokesman Geoff Larcom stressed that the marketing agreement with Academic Partnerships leaves instructional control with faculty and that the marketing agreement with the company is not subject to faculty approval.

Faculty can, however, opt out of the marketing effort with Academic Partnerships, Larcom said, and some have, including instructors in the master's degree in curriculum program and a number of business master's programs. Instructors still are responsible for teaching those online courses.

"(Academic Partnerships) is a student recruitment entity to more widely market EMU's online offerings and bring us students from outside our immediate geographic region who might not otherwise attend EMU," Larcom said. "Through this, we hope to grow enrollment and enhance revenue, as many other universities are doing. AP's student recruitment efforts extend far wider than EMU's resources would allow, and thus the university gets revenue it would not otherwise generate."

Online-only programs offered by EMU go back more than a decade, Larcom said, and EMU faculty have total control over how those programs are offered in an online format.

EMU signed the contract with Academic Partnerships in November 2016 and began marketing some of the 15 EMU-branded online programs this summer, including a completely online EMU nursing degree. The online program has "grown appreciably" under Academic Partnership's recruitment efforts, Larcom noted, from 40 students in its September 2016 online cohort to 100 students in September 2017.

The program, which launched in August 2015 has accumulated 500 students. The number of students in the Masters in Education Leadership program is 200, Larcom said. The university's total enrollment this fall was 20,313 - down 3.8 percent from last year.

More programs, including entirely online bachelor's degrees, are scheduled to launch in January. Academic Partnerships will receive 50 percent of tuition and fees from these online degree programs.

A course in the online undergraduate nursing program is approximately $335 per credit hour. The ground-based version of that program would be approximately $516 per credit hour.

EMU lecturer and Federation of Teachers President Daric Thorne questioned whether giving half of the revenue of online courses will help the university at a time when funding at the state level remains stagnant.

"We want to know: How is this a good deal for Eastern Michigan University?" Thorne said. "Our state legislature is providing this university and other public universities in Michigan with fewer resources - this has been a problem for years. We're being told to generate our own funds through tuition, fees and other means. In such an environment, how does it make sense to give away half of the revenue from a new degree program to an out-of-state company?"

Union members have filed grievances against the university, accusing EMU administrators of violating their labor contract by entering into a contract with Academic Partnerships without prior consultation with the faculty. Hearings on these grievances concluded earlier this month, and the parties are awaiting a decision by an independent arbitrator.

The EMU-AAUP also claims it asked EMU administrators to confirm, in writing, that "coaches" will not be subcontracted to provide student contact hours for these online degree programs, but the university refused.

Larcom said no new academic programs are added without faculty consent as stipulated in the EMU-AAUP contract.

"(EMU faculty) definitely have a say over whether they're online or even exist," Larcom said of the entirely online programs. "The implementation of a new academic program is a rigorous process in which the faculty participate and the regents vote on. It's the faculty's choice whether or not they want to participate in this student recruitment effort, which would naturally expand enrollment and require further faculty resources devoted to it."

Kullberg believes any instruction of the new exclusively online degrees is going to be provided by "online coaches," which aren't hired by Academic Partnerships, but another out-of-state firm, Instructional Connections.

The firm is specifically identified as a "strategic partner" in EMU's contract with Academic Partnerships.

"We don't know all the facts of these controversial online degree systems of delivery, because the administration won't tell us all the facts, but we do know enough to confirm that these entirely online degrees will not meet EMU's present high standards for a high quality, affordable education," Kullberg said. "Completely online degrees offered by for-profit companies we know are notorious for their low quality and high attrition (rates)."

Larcom said the services provided by Instructional Connections are primarily used if an EMU faculty member wants assistance in setting up a course from a technical standpoint, but faculty are in control of whether they want any form of assistance.

"We have confirmed many times under oath and in various communications that we are not hiring AP coaches as instructors for courses," Larcom added. "We have labor agreements that prevent that, so those stipulations are in writing."