ARCHIVE: September 2008
September 18th 2008
Adjunct Puts His Foot in a Pile O' Palin
Andrew Hallem, an adjunct, teaches English at Metropolitan State College of Denver. There, he is quaintly referred to as an "affiliate" faculty member. According to a local Denver news source, "Metro State College is investigating a professor who asked students to write an essay critical of Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin." Dang. It gets worse, though. Much worse. A student alleges that Hallam singled out Republican students in his class and allowed others to "ridicule them."
A spokesperson for the University was quoted as saying, "Should he have broadened it and included all the political figures, yes."
What will happen to Andrew Hallam?
For starters he "revised" his assignment. Next, methinks, he should be revising his résumé, for surely the "affiliate faculty" at Metropolitan State are not entitled to due process when they get the old bum's rush! Unfortunately, local journalists in Denver probably won't find that little detail worth covering after the election is done, and Andrew Hallam has turned in his grades for the semester and suddenly finds himself without courses the next semester.
Posted By Part-Time T. at 5:31 PM
Comments
September 18th 2008
He Didn't Really Just Write That, Did He?
Some people have no shame. Don't get me wrong; I'm not judging. I'm jealous. I wish I could I could be way more shameless. Hell, it's fun, right? Having the "If-I-write-that-I'm-being-an-incredible-hypocrite" gene is just a big fat pain in the ashcan. I blame my upbringing, but then again I'm of that certain age where you have to suck it up and give your Mamma a break with the blaming for your personality. So, though I wish I could write shamelessly, and without a thought to reality and/or the truth, I can't do it.
Worse still, I can't read shameless tripe without becoming somewhat incensed. It's a curse, my friends, believe me. It's much better to be able to read shameless tripe, smile about the hypocritical nature of the writing and just move on. Since I probably wouldn't be able to do that without some serious medication (which I cannot afford since I don't have prescription coverage at the moment), I blog. By now, no doubt, your curiosity is piqued: "What on earth prompted this entry?" Conversely, maybe you're feeling impatient: "Can we please get to the point? I have 500 essays to grade, and after that I have some time set aside this afternoon to blame my mother for letting me agree to teach eight sections of intro. comp."
Craig Smith (yes, him again) posted an entry on the American Federation of Teacher's FACE Talk blog about the part-timers at Kent State University. It would appear that the administrators at the university had the mendacity to include a clause in the contract which covers the institution's 635 full-time faculty that calls for merit pay and bonuses for just the full-time faculty. Yes, you all will be shocked, shocked to know that there is gambling going on in that fine establishment, and that 697 part-time faculty were left out of the merit pay and bonus bingo game. Would you be surprised to learn that at AFT affiliates all over the United States, union contracts negotiated on behalf of both full-time and part-time faculty routinely exclude part-time faculty from merit and bonus pay schemes cooked up by union negotiators to boost pay for the full-time faculty union members?
Would it surprise you to learn that the recently negotiated contract at CUNY-PSC (an AFT affiliate) included pay raises averaging $14,000 for the 5,000 full-time faculty members and, on average, $500 for the 5,000 part-time faculty members of the union?
Smith writes, "It is hard to figure out how an incentive system that doesn't include all stakeholders is supposed to encourage buy-in."
Indeed.
Evidently, Craig Smith and the American Federation of Teacher's leadership think no one would think to look at what the AFT's own affiliates are doing to (not for) its own part-time faculty members. Mr. Smith is shamelessly hypocritical to even think about taking administrators at Kent State University to task for not including part-time faculty members in the merit/bonus pay scheme as long as AFT affiliates all over the United States do it year after year to their own dues-paying members.
Posted By Part-Time T. at 8:00 AM
Comments
September 15th 2008
The Best Little Whore House in Texas
Ruben Flores is, one might say, developmentally delayed. Flores works as the dean of the evening and weekend division at San Antonio College. Unless you have been busy hiding from desperate students who need to add your course to their schedules, you've heard about San Antonio College. That's where the part-timers were asked to teach 12 credit hours, and asked to sign a waiver stating that they would accept pay for teaching 11 hours, giving up their right to a higher salary and benefits made available to faculty who teach 12 hours.
A piece from the San Antonio News outlines a complete picture of the practice.
In the meantime, we have Reuben Flores—Dean Reuben Flores. When asked about the waiver, he replied that the college had been using it for years. "If they [part-time faculty] don’t want to do it, we don’t push them,” Flores said. “No one has ever told us it’s not right.”
Uh huh. I am going to go out on a limb here and assume Reuben Flores is over the age of 12, when, developmentally, children can be counted on to be able to know the difference between right and wrong. Not all children develop psychologically at the same rate, of course. Reuben Flores is a phenomenon, however. He is a graduate-degree wielding college administrator who, it would appear, needed someone to tell him that cheating employees out of pay and benefits is, well, wrong.
Then again, he was in good company. This is a quote about the college's waiver from a graduate-degree wielding college faculty member, Donnie Meals, who signed one. “I do not think that it’s right.” Meals, an adjunct instructor, has taught in SAC’s radio, television and film department for 25 years and signed the waiver in August. “They respect me, I respect them, but I was just like, ‘This sucks.’.”
"They respect me?" Who is Meals kidding? And "This sucks?" WTF?!?!
Someone treats you like a court jester, cheats you out of pay and benefits, and your response is to go along with the scheme and say, "This sucks?" The smart part-timers, I have to imagine, realized long ago that with a graduate degree in San Antonio, Texas, there are options other than letting Reuben Flores screw you out of your pay and benefits semester after semester.
A representative from the AAUP suggested that job security resulting from union contract or union representation would have eliminated the practice of using the waivers. No doubt. However, since there are few, if any, AAUP union affiliates that offer their part-time faculty contractual job security, it's rather a moot point. An AAUP affiliated union would certainly have capped the number of hours San Antonio College could offer part-time faculty each semester. AAUP affiliates across the country have done that to their part-time members. In truth, faculty unions cap the number of hours temporary faculty are allowed to work all the time. However, does job security address the sheer buffoonery of faculty with graduate degrees who will sign a piece of paper that robs them of their dignity, self-respect, pay and benefits just to keep teaching at a two-bit community college campus?
Yes, it simply boggles the mind that Reuben Flores could do what he did year after year because no one told him it was wrong. However, that the college graduates who signed those forms did so year after year is equally mind-boggling. If you ask me, it looks suspiciously like part-timers are screwing themselves at San Antonio College.
Posted By Part-Time T. at 12:40 PM
Comments
September 10th 2008
Just Makin' Sh*t Up
Let's get this out of the way immediately: Gary Jeandron is a Republican.
According to a $435,000 advertising campaign launched by the California Faculty Association, Gary Jeandron also "supports ruthless cuts to the state's educational institutions in order to help solve the budget crisis." In this piece published in the California State University student newspaper about the CFA's advertising campaign, Jeandron told the reporter, "No one from CFA talked to me." Without bothering to ask the candidate, the union dubbed him the education anti-Christ. Maybe no one from the CFA in charge of the union's "Flunk the Republicans" advertising campaign noticed that Gary Jeandron is also an adjunct faculty member and a member of his local school board.
I hear you sighing. The union officials went to Jeandron's web site and got all the evidence necessary to ascertain that he would, indeed, "support ruthless cuts to the state's educational institutions." I had the same thought, so I visited Jeandron's campaign site. Irritatingly, there is nothing about his campaign platform on the site. If I wanted to know what Gary Jeandron thought about making "ruthless cuts" to state education budgets, I'd have to send him an email, or get him on the phone and ask him directly.
I am wondering why officials from the CFA didn't do just that before they launched their advertising campaign. Maybe Gary Jeandron would support cuts to education, or maybe he wouldn't. He told the reporter from the California State University student newspaper that he does not, in fact, "plan on cutting education." Ok. Maybe he's just telling the folks what they want to hear, but so is the CFA by neglecting to ask Jeandron about his position on the issue before targeting him in the union's "Flunk the Assembly Republicans" ad campaign.
And if Jeandron gets elected? Maybe he's a forgiving soul. Lord knows most politicians have the angelic natures of saints. Maybe he won't hold the union's smear of him and blatant partisanship against it when the time comes to vote on money for adjuncts and education, or resolutions that further and/or protect the rights of higher education union members in California. California unions went whole hog and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting the Democratic candidate for governor in the last election cycle. Ahhhrnold recently slammed higher education, including the CFT and CFA membership, with $1.3 billion in budget cuts. Those cuts cost part-time faculty union members and lecturers their jobs at many schools throughout the state.
I'm not saying California's Governator targeted higher education because the state's higher education unions targeted him, but it doesn't take Wile E. Coyote to figure out that getting involved in partisan politics is a dangerous game—a game higher education unions are playing with tens of millions of dollars in union dues each year.
Lila Jacobs, education professor and president of the CFA's Sacramento State chapter said: "We want to let the greater community know who supports higher education and who doesn't."
If only she really knew.
Posted By Part-Time T. at 3:41 PM
Comments
September 2nd 2008
A Bigger Slice of Pie for Part-Timers
You know how I love so-called equal percentage or across-the-board "raises" negotiated by union leaders on behalf of their part-time and full-time faculty. I love them just as much as I love other blatant misuses of trust and power. Call me old-fashioned, but I think that when union members get screwed during contract negotiations it shouldn't be by the group that collects the monthly dues payments. So, it is with reserved delight that I want to congratulate the United Faculty of Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community Colleges. The independent union represents 1,300 full-time and part-time faculty who teach in the California district.
According to this piece from the San Diego Union Tribune, union leaders negotiated a larger percentage raise for the group's part-time faculty than for the full-time faculty. According to union president Zoe Close, part-time faculty will get raises totaling 2.8 percent more than full-time faculty over the course of the two-year agreement. This sets a welcome precedent.
However, before I get carried away, let me ever-so-gently remind United Faculty leaders that the union's full-time faculty are still making out like bandits, and will be awarded the lion's share of the total $1.4 million dollars being divided among the union's members over the course of the new agreement. In fact, full-time faculty will enjoy raises exponentially larger than those of their part-time colleagues.
As I've written before, all unions (and particularly unified locals) must close the immense pay gaps between their full-time and part-time members. Awarding a larger percentage of the total dollars won in contract negotiations is the path to pro-rata pay for part-timers. To do otherwise brings union leaders very, very close to abrogating their legal obligation to equal representation of members.
In the meantime, the new contract negotiated by the leaders of United Faculty is a definite step in the right direction.
Posted By Part-Time T. at 8:00 AM
Comments
September 2nd 2008
A Bigger Slice of Pie for Part-Timers
You know how I love so-called equal percentage or across-the-board "raises" negotiated by union leaders on behalf of their part-time and full-time faculty. I love them just as much as I love other blatant misuses of trust and power. Call me old-fashioned, but I think that when union members get screwed during contract negotiations it shouldn't be by the group that collects the monthly dues payments. So, it is with reserved delight that I want to congratulate the United Faculty of Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community Colleges. The independent union represents 1,300 full-time and part-time faculty who teach in the California district.
According to this piece from the San Diego Union Tribune, union leaders negotiated a larger percentage raise for the group's part-time faculty than for the full-time faculty. According to union president Zoe Close, part-time faculty will get raises totaling 2.8 percent more than full-time faculty over the course of the two-year agreement. This sets a welcome precedent.
However, before I get carried away, let me ever-so-gently remind United Faculty leaders that the union's full-time faculty are still making out like bandits, and will be awarded the lion's share of the total $1.4 million dollars being divided among the union's members over the course of the new agreement. In fact, full-time faculty will enjoy raises exponentially larger than those of their part-time colleagues.
As I've written before, all unions (and particularly unified locals) must close the immense pay gaps between their full-time and part-time members. Awarding a larger percentage of the total dollars won in contract negotiations is the path to pro-rata pay for part-timers. To do otherwise brings union leaders very, very close to abrogating their legal obligation to equal representation of members.
In the meantime, the new contract negotiated by the leaders of United Faculty is a definite step in the right direction.
Posted By Part-Time T. at 8:00 AM
Comments
Book Source
Blog Archives
• Adjunct Puts His Foot in a Pile O' Palin
• He Didn't Really Just Write That, Did He?
• The Best Little Whore House in Texas
Cartoon Time
Daily Excuse
Thursday is the Warriors home playoff game and I REALLY want to go. The game is at 7:30. I can come and turn in my paper and then go, but I don't want to hurt my grade. What do you suggest?
Feel like relaxing? Why not play a little Hang-Prof?
Terms of use » Privacy Policy » Reprintings & Permissions » Contact Us » About Us