The Adjunct Advocate

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ARCHIVE: February 2008

February 28th 2008

Interesting Tip-off

Listen to my blog entry here.

I have been reading, with interest, the whoop-la over at the AFT about its FACE initiative. Craig Smith has given over his FACE-talk blog to part-time faculty in states where FACE legislation is being introduced. Lila Harper, a Vice President of the Washington Federation of Teachers left her opinions concerning FACE, then Jennie Smith, a Pennsylvania AFT representative and part-timer, left a somewhat plaintive call for solidarity. There is, it appears, some serious dissent in the ranks concerning FACE, and it seems that AFT officials are trying to stop it.

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from an Adjunct Advocate reader who alleges that the Washington Federation of Teachers had hired part-time faculty at $30 per hour for its so-called FACE Force. The hiring of the faculty isn't really anything out of the ordinary. Organizations hire consultants all the time to help educate members. It was the second part of the email that caught my eye. The writer said that part-time faculty employed by the WFT's FACE Force had testified in front of the Washington State Legislature in support of the WFT's proposed FACE legislation.

Paying people to testify isn't anything new either. Expert witnesses don't testify at civil and criminal trials out of the goodness of their hearts. They get paid. The catch is this: those taking testimony are told which witnesses are getting paid to testify. I sent an email to Dr. Lynne Dodson, who did the hiring for FACE Force, and asked if any of the part-time faculty who'd testified in front of the state legislators had been paid to do so.

According to Dr. Dodson's biography on her local's website, "....She became SCCFT President for the first time in the fall of 1999, took a year off when she ran (proudly but unsuccessfully, alas) for the state legislature, and was re-elected to the presidency in 2007. She is also a VP in the AFT WA and chairs the AFT WA Community College Council, she's a delegate to the state and county labor councils, and serves on the Executive Board of WA State Jobs with Justice."

I have assigned a reporter to investigate whether part-time faculty in Washington State were paid by the WFT/AFT to testify and, if so, if legislators were made aware. I'm also curious about where the money to pay the part-timers came from, and how much was spent. As I said, paying part-time faculty to share their opinions in support of FACE is nothing out of the ordinary. Not making it clear to those taking the testimony that the witnesses were paid is somewhat more unorthodox. More on this later, as the story develops (or not).

Posted By Patricia L. at 8:43 PM

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February 18th 2008

New Podcast Interview Series

Listen to my blog entry here.

We've kicked off our AdjunctNation.com Podcast Interview Series with an interview of Dr. Peter Brown. Adjunct Advocate profiled Dr. Brown in our November/December 2005 issue. In that piece, author Brian Cole writes:
Recognizing the part-timers need for their own voice, Brown formed the Adjunct Faculty Association (AFA) in the fall of 2004 and invited all of New Paltz’s over 400 part-timers to the meeting—over 30 adjuncts showed up. Reaction to the new group has been mixed.

New Paltz German teacher and AFA co-president Jeff Crane describes the part-time faculty situation as “abysmal” and welcomes Browns efforts to speak up against these injustices.

“I…fantasized about just getting a megaphone and shouting in the middle of campus, ‘I’m mad as hell…’ Then there was a note in my box last fall – ‘Calling all Adjuncts.’”

But not everyone stood waiting to embrace the organization.

”The union [UUP] freaked out,” Brown says.

He notes that UUP New Paltz chapter president, Dr. Glenn McNitt and executive committee members opposed the AFA formation and tried to talk him out of forming it. They believed that concerned adjuncts should work within the union structure to create change.

To listen to the first in our new Podcast Interview Series, click here. The interview is about 20 minutes long.

In future, new Podcast interviews will be available first to Adjunct Advocate subscribers, then to AdjunctNation.com Family members. To join the Family, click here. We'll announce new interviews in the AdjunctNation.com Family e-Newsletter, as well as the e-Advocate Newsletter.

In coming weeks, I'll be interviewing Doug Lederman, Editor of InsiderHigherEd.com, Kip Lornell, adjunct activist from George Washington University, Dr. Dan Jacoby, who produced the ground-breaking study on the correlation between graduation rates and the use of part-time faculty at two-year colleges, and Washington State adjunct activist Keith Hoeller.

Know someone whose work on behalf of temporary college faculty you think would merit an interview? Email me.

Posted By Patricia L. at 8:00 AM

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February 15th 2008

The Adjunct Advocate (Not!)

Listen to my blog entry here.

I have been called the adjunct Advocate on numerous occasions. It's the title of the publication, after all, and I publish the magazine. I suppose it would seem natural to assume I automatically side with adjunct faculty on most every issue. How could the adjunct Advocate do otherwise? If I didn't, by that logic, I couldn't possibly be the adjunct Advocate. Right.

I publish a magazine for a living. I also own a book publishing company. I never intended to go into the publishing business. When I finished my graduate degree, I planned to get a job writing for a magazine or, possibly, teaching. After I applied for half a dozen creative writing jobs, I realized without a book length manuscript I would never be able to land a full-time teaching gig. Few graduate students in creative writing finish already having published book length manuscripts. So, I followed a different path and ended up here, a journalist, a publisher, a business owner.

I chose to publish a magazine for adjunct faculty because in 1992 there wasn't one, and I knew from first-hand experience what the life of a part-timer was like. I never imagined I would do this job for the rest of my life. I thought I would quit after 10 years and do something else. In September 2008, the magazine will celebrate 16 years of chronicling the life and often difficult times of our country's 700,000 temporary faculty.

I never set out to be the adjunct Advocate. I set out to publish a magazine what would help part-time faculty connect. Somewhere along the way, I realized that I enjoyed journalism, and was well-suited to owning a business. By nature, I am perfectly comfortable having an opinion different than that of the people around me. I am happy to agree to disagree. I am curious, and enjoy ferreting out information, and studying statistical data. I have a scary good memory for numbers.

I learned a long time ago that I couldn't publish Adjunct Advocate and be an adjunct Advocate. I learned that I had to go at news stories and interviews with as little pre-judgement, and as few preconceived notions as possible. I would simply have to ask questions, and wait to see what the answers turned out to be. This doesn't mean I have no empathy; it means I never take sides. Over the years, I have had more than my share of angry people confront me about this. It happened recently.

As I get older, it gets easier to accept that people may be disappointed when they discover I am not the adjunct Advocate, but rather someone whose journalistic work focuses on a particular group of people who work within higher education. I love my job, and I actually enjoy asking tough questions, and trying to anticipate the trends within higher education, particularly as they apply to temporary faculty. I am proud to say I have been a good prognosticator more often than not.

For this reason, I'm going to keep asking the tough questions, and publishing pieces on what I consider important issues to our readership, primarily, and to higher education, secondarily. I know several adjunct Advocates out there, and am pleased and proud to say I will never been one of them. My road lies in a different direction, toward truth and information.

Posted By Patricia L. at 8:10 AM

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February 13th 2008

Asking Questions & Getting Answers

Listen to my blog entry here.

I love really well done interviews. Interviewing, I think, is an art form, and it's a part of my job that I enjoy immensely. I am fortunate enough to be able to contact most newsmakers in higher education, and get speedy replies to my inquiries. I'm not saying the replies are always positive. However, with patience and persistence, I have been able to land interviews with most everyone I've set out to interview.

Well, all this recording of blogs got me thinking. Ask my family, and they will tell you that when I think, it can be very dangerous. In this case, however, I believe I've come up with a great idea! There are just loads of enthusiastic, intelligent, motivated and interesting people in higher education today who are busy at work advocating on behalf of the country's 700,000 temporary faculty. From Cary Nelson (currently running for re-election as the President of AAUP) to Kip Lornell (part-time faculty spokesman and union organizer for the past eight years at George Washington University). What publication better to interview them about their work on behalf of the nation's 700,000 part-time faculty than Adjunct Advocate?

So, we're going to start offering regular Podcasts! We're kicking it off this Thursday with an interview with John Pawlowski, president of the 1000 member part-time faculty union at Pace University, in New York. We wrote about the Pace faculty union's struggle recently in the "Part-Time Thoughts" blog, as well as in the news section of the Adjunct Advocate March/April 2006 magazine.

Look for a link to the Podcast of my interview with John Pawlowski in the Friday issue of the e-Advocate Newsletter. If you aren't already signed up to receive the free weekly update, email me. I'll make sure you get it each week. To have a look at the most recent e-Advocate Newsletter, click here.

Enjoy the new Podcast feature! In future, we'll be asking for your suggestions about whom to interview, and what questions you'd like to have asked. In the meantime, thank you for visiting AdjunctNation.com, and reading my blog.

Posted By Patricia L. at 1:20 PM