The Adjunct Advocate

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ARCHIVE: August 2008

August 20th 2008

No Conflicts at CCCCs This Year

I am presenting at the March 2009 National Council of English Teacher's CCCCs Conference in San Francisco. I just visited the NCTE's web site and used their great conference event scheduler tool to check out what's on tap at the conference when I am free. I spent way too much time searching through the offerings, and have settled on 10 offerings. I thought I would share my Convention Schedule with you. To download it in pdf format, click here. You'll see where I'll be, the title of the presentation, roundtable, workshop, etc....and a detailed description of the event. I am particularly interested (obviously) in offerings that focus on the professional needs and concerns of temporary faculty. I have to say that this year's CCCCs offers an unprecedented selection.

Furthermore, unlike in past years, the schedulers did a fantastic job of making sure that those events that focus on temporary faculty concerns and issues are not presented at conflicting times. The last time I went to CCCCs in San Francisco, there were numerous scheduling conflicts, even though there were fewer than 10 total offerings that touched on issues related to temporary faculty. I was disappointed, and sent off an email to the Executive Director of NCTE, Kent Williamson. I am sure I wasn't the only person who found the scheduling conflicts frustrating, and I am delighted to see that this year's convention offers even more for part-time, adjunct and temporary faculty and that there are no scheduling conflicts!

I am presenting at CCCCs on Wednesday March 11th in the "Adjuncts & Allies" all-day workshop organized by Greg Zobel. Greg writes the wonderful "Adjunct Advice" blog for Bedford St. Martin's Adjunct Central web site. If you plan to attend the CCCCs, I hope you'll check out the workshop.

I am planning to arrange an evening social gathering for temporary faculty attending CCCCs on Friday evening March 13th. If you have suggestions, feel free to leave a blog comment or email me. Stay tuned!

Posted By Patricia L. at 2:25 PM

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August 10th 2008

When's Some Adjunct Group Gonna File a Lawsuit?

In my last entry, I mentioned the common practice of higher education union affiliates negotiating equal percentage raises for both full-time and part-time faculty. As if on cue, AFT Local 2067, representing 345 full-time and part-time faculty at the Community College of Allegheny County, proudly announced that union negotiators had hammered out a new three-year contract. Read about the contract here.

According to the article in the Pittsburgh Business Times, "Under the three-year contract, the union’s 345 full-time and part-time faculty and staff at CCAC will receive average salary increases of 3 to 4 percent the first year, and 4 to 5 percent in the second and third years."

I know AFT's Craig Smith, the American Federation of Teachers Associate Director of Field Services and Communications reads my blog, and I hope he will comment, and explain to all of us how equal percentage raises benefit part-time faculty, and how negotiating equal percentage raises qualifies as equal representation of full-time and part-time faculty within a unified union local. If you check out this page from the CACC union's contract, you'll see that the three percent raise will mean exponentially more money for the full-time faculty members. The previous contract raised senior professor salaries by $11,000 over the life of the agreement, and set forth negotiated salary minimums.

Negotiating a raise in pay 10 times larger for one union member at the expense (literal and figurative) of another union member is business as usual nowadays in AFT, NEA and AAUP locals. Every time I read about such contracts, I hope a group of part-time faculty somewhere will file a class-action lawsuit against their local, as well as the national union rather than accept the equal percentage raise. It's very likely the only way the higher education union leaders in the United States will be moved to put an end to the heinous negotiating tactic that actually guarantees part-time faculty will never achieve pay parity in locals that practice it.

Posted By Patricia L. at 8:00 AM

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August 7th 2008

Managing Adjunct Faculty

AFT's Craig Smith is at it again. On July 17th, he "discovered" the book Managing Adjunct Faculty, a book published by our company the Part-Time Press. We bought the copyright to the book from Dr. Donald Greive in 2003. He wrote the book along with his colleague Catherine A. Worden. Don Greive was a Dean at a community college in Ohio for many years, and was responsible for hiring and supervising a large group of part-time faculty.

Craig Smith had some interesting comments. The one that got me thinking was this one: "Here is an idea for the new millennium: what say we create good jobs and support those who are committed to making a living by working with college students to expand their knowledge and skills? Sure classes, colleges and education as a whole might change as our technologies, communications, and cultures change, slide and shift, but I am going to bet that having a corps of committed and professional educators is an idea that will transcend time. We should stop acting like exploiting contingent faculty is a brave new world cultural development and admit that it is based in a philosophy of teaching on the cheap and is within our control to change."

Of course the exploitation of adjunct faculty isn't new. The AFT's sudden interest in the organization of adjunct faculty is new, however. AFT officials have said over and again that they dropped the ball for a couple decades there and now, well, now it's time to saddle up and get adjuncts unionized. Welcome to the party. Adjuncts who are trying to make a living from teaching have been living on salted peanuts and seltzer water since 1990. Now that AFT, NEA and AAUP are in the room, they've decided there are too many adjuncts eating the nuts and drinking the mixers. The new push is to get taxpayers to pony up more money for full-time faculty.

The day the national AFT office (or any other union that represents part-time faculty) issues a policy statement to the effect that pay gains won by their affiliates must be divided equally in actual dollars between full-time and part-time faculty members, will be the day the AFT's public relations office has a leg to stand on when talking about the "abuse" of adjunct faculty.

Posted By Patricia L. at 2:37 PM