THE COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY CONTRACT TECHNICIAN (CAUCT) AN INTRODUCTION AND PROPOSAL By Bill Shull, former RPT (currently Associate Member, PTG)Contract Piano Technician at the University of Redlands, La Sierra University and Riverside City College. As a contract technician for many years at two universities, and as a participant in the CAUT Forums of the late 80's which led to the excellent "Guidelines for Institutional Maintenance" (which I will refer to as the CAUT "Guidelines", singular), I have had cause to reflect on the plight of the contract technician in the college and university (which I will call CAUCT). Who is the CAUCT? Well, there are about 550 NASM accredited schools of all sizes. Add to that all the WASC accredited departments, Fine Arts programs, and community college music departments and you have at least a couple thousand music departments with pianos across the land. Only a very small percentage have technicians who are employed, who are on the CAUT list and who participate in the CAUT classes and forum. Most of the rest - a noticeable percentage of the PTG membership, no doubt - are CAUCTs. The CAUCT is like the generalist in a world needing a specialist. The university needs the knowledge and experience of a technician who attends CAUT forums and technical sessions, and who tailors his or her continuing education to meet his specialized service area. But more often than not, CAUCTs do not advance their training in this area, except sometimes on a need-to-know basis. Further, a sizable percentage are not members of the PTG, and many of these might not pass the RPT tests. The CAUCT technician is another bean-counter money-saver, like the contract teacher. School administrators have learned, in the last decade or so, that they can reduce their teaching costs by using contract professionals. In the case of the contract professor, the school receives a great return for its little investment, for the contract professor usually has at least a Master's degree and is often equally qualified as her/his tenured peer. The course load is often twice that of the tenured or tenure track professor. The contract tech may not be so equally qualified, further justifying the administrator's under-use and under-compensation of the piano technician. The CAUCT may be undereducated in his field, and may even be less expensive than his peer in the community. There are no standards, or points of reference, which a school administrator may refer to in order to hire a contract piano technician. School administrators do not usually consult with some professional standard, or document on how to structure their piano service program. They usually don't call the PTG home office to obtain the CAUT list or the Guidelines. If they did, they may decide it is not relevant to their situation, which will seem to be on a much smaller scale than that described by the Guidelines. Contract technicians often do not have a defined sense of professional identity. The clear specialization that exists among the employed CAUT is needed in the contract technician arena as well. The demands may, or may not be as high, or as comprehensive, or as frequent, as the employed CAUT. But the moment a piano technician successfully negotiates a contract with a university or college, he or she has entered the specialty of the CAUCT, and needs to ensure that his or her knowledge and skills, and his or her collegial framework, is now up to a CAUCT level. If a contract technician wished to improve his specialization skills, he or she would be pressed to find a list of courses, seminars or curriculum which would permit this. Yes, the CAUT Forum and annual classes provides excellent presentations for the CAUT. But we are a long way from providing guidance to the CAUT/CAUCT on comprehensive training in this field. This needs to be provided in several ways: 1. On the PTG CAUT web page; 2. As a set of curriculum objectives for the CAUT annual convention classes, 3. In the Journal as part of a regular CAUT contribution, and 4. To all administrators who hire or supervise CAUCTs and CAUTs. Because of the way the PTG membership is set up, I would recommend that the CAUT Committee develop a curriculum recommendation which may be met voluntarily. CAUT recognition would require both RPT status and attendance at the required classes in the curriculum. A sample of this curriculum would include: Maintaining the recital hall/performance piano; Introduction to historical/period keyboards and tunings; Servicing the Prepared Piano; Working in the Educational Context (politics and people); The CAUT Guidelines, an Introduction; The Contract Technician (the unique problems and issues which are faced). But other ideas can be gleaned from a list of the CAUT-sponsored classes of the past 10 years. Many of the fine CAUTs in the PTG could get any of these classes up and running with competence. The CAUT "Guidelines" was written for the employed tech situation, by employed CAUTs, without any reference to the exclusive use of the contract tech by a university. It needs to specifically address the contract tech situation. This may seem an unfair criticism of the Guidelines. It has been said that any school that wishes to obtain good information about its piano service can have the Guidelines formula numbers crunched, and with the additional information provided in the Guidelines, it should know what it must do. But there is more than this. First, the school believes it can accomplish "whatever" with a contract tech. Second, the school believes it doesn't have to follow the Guidelines recommendations, because the school next door doesn't, and it will never get the money too, anyway - points we should be more aware of and sensitive to. But most importantly, the Guidelines do not discuss any of the issues related to contracting for regular piano service. Because of this void, the Guidelines make it easier for the school to ignore its recommendations and plod forward with its existing program. The Guidelines needs to include a section that addresses how to incrementally upgrade any under serviced program. It needs to present contract tech models. It needs to discuss the types of challenges a school faces when it relies on the contract tech for primary service. Frequently the contract tech works in a loosely run ship without bearings; issues of who is responsible for what kinds of decisions, who seeks funding for service needs, should be addressed. The contract tech is at a real disadvantage, without the "ownership" which the employed tech has for the position, and is outside of the loop for obtaining funding, vendors, etc. We may not know as much as we think we do about the capacity of a college or university to employ/contract a piano technician. This may not seem important, but if we learn real-world school capabilities in piano service staffing, we can identify the real-world problems, which will help us to propose and facilitate meaningful solutions. Specifically, I contend that a majority of universities and colleges use a "model" for piano service which is peer-defined, and FTE-driven. This model is more influential to the school administrator than any Guidelines formula-crunched numbers we may present. We need to penetrate this world and identify it with a professionally written survey study. We need to present the results of this survey, and our solutions, to the appropriate groups of people and forums: NASM and like organizations, piano and educational publications, and of course, the PTG in the Journal. We need to create a graphic picture of the difference between the results of the existing model and the ideal, complete with a list of the negative consequences of the existing model, vs. an alternative CAUT recommendation. If I were to recommend a course of action for the CAUT committee, it would be that we look at a 10-year cycle of planning and evaluation. We are at the 10-year point in the Guidelines, and its evaluation is appropriate. Now it is time to look at a genuine process that will establish specialization for all CAUTs, contract and employed. In addition to the revisions being discussed for the Guidelines, I propose: 1. Development of a basic CAUT curriculum that can be completed in a reasonable period of time by all CAUT employed and contract technicians, and which would provide a completion certificate. I recommend that this completion certificate be available only to RPT's. As this curriculum is implemented, it will result in the development of a CAUT contract technician list - a group of contract CAUTs committed to the improvement, maintenance and sharing of their university-related skills and knowledge. The school administrator will have more difficulty with the status quo if this program exists. Pressure will be on us all to upgrade. 2. Completion of a survey of a random sampling of all music departments, schools of music and conservatories to obtain information about the real world of budgets, expectations, etc. I recommend that this survey be performed on a periodic basis, along with any Guidelines evaluation - say, every 10 years. Annual discussion and midcourse (3-5 year) mini-evaluations would also be helpful. 3. The writing and publication of a companion document to the Guidelines. This document will serve to introduce the CAUT technician, explain the Guidelines, discuss some of the issues - including the contract technician issues - present the results of surveys, and provide anecdotal success stories about upgrading. 4. The development of state and regional CAUT ombudsmen, individuals who keep in touch with CAUTs regionally and are aware of developing issues, problems and so on, and who are committed to the goal of the upgrading of the CAUT and helping to facilitate the PTG CAUT resources in their region. This individual may be at the PTG booth at a convention, and may have a chapter program or mini-program prepared on servicing in the college setting. 5. Efforts to "get the word out" to piano technicians. The CAUT web page, contributions in the Journal, the CAUT Newsletter are all ways to keep this on the front burner for the potential and current CAUT technician. 6. Efforts to "get the word out" to music educators. A master mailing list of schools and colleges should be developed which will be used as often as a budget permits, in order to inform the music administrator of this class of piano technician. What I have proposed goes well beyond the inclusion of CAUT contract information in the GUIDELINES. What is needed is a systematic effort by the PTG, through the CAUT Committee, to identify the professional needs of this large group of technicians and begin to meet those needs as efficiently and economically as possible. I realize that there are organizational and financial challenges that would have to be worked through. But all CAUTs - employed and contract - will benefit greatly if this is successfully done. The CAUT Contract Piano Technician, or CAUCT, is a large body of dedicated piano technicians with a clear specialization, but with little or no collegial presence or identifiable source of training. If the next few years are dedicated to the CAUCT's professional development we should see a significant difference in the quality of service at all universities and colleges across the land, a possible increase in convention attendance and RPT applications, and a renewed sense of professionalism and purpose among ourselves.
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