April 16th 2008

CCCCs in San Francisco (2009)

Greg Zobel, who writes the blog for Bedford St. Martin's web site, and a blog we featured in our piece on adjunct bloggers in the January/February 2008 issue of Adjunct Advocate recently invited me to participate in a workshop he's putting together for the CCCCs annual conference in San Francisco. The CCCCs organizers may well decide against the including the workshop. Though with the sheer numbers of part-time faculty who teach composition, as well as the number of part-time faculty who teach in California, one would have a hard time imagining why they would nix a workshop for part-timers.

The last time I attended CCCCs, it was in San Francisco, as well. This time around, regardless of whether the workshop proposal is accepted or not, we'll have a display booth. I also intend to sponsor some sort of event at the conference, perhaps a reception, just for the part-time faculty who attend. I have also decided to underwrite the conference entry fees of 17 part-time faculty to celebrate our 17th year of publication. I will work together with the folks at CCCCs to publicize the conference fee giveaways, as well as the social event for part-timers.

In the meantime, I hope any more temporary faculty who belong to NCTE will join Greg Zobel in putting together proposals for panel and roundtable discussions, as well as workshops for the 2009 CCCCs conference. The theme of the 2009 conference is, aptly enough, "Making Waves." The deadline is May 2, 2008.

Posted By Patricia L. at 8:00 AM

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April 14th 2008

The Pamphlet Police at Wayne State University

For the past few weeks, I have been watching the HBO series "John Adams." I'm a history buff, who narrowly escaped enrolling in a Ph.D. program in history. I recently returned from a conference in Philadelphia, one of my favorite cities. I do the same thing every time I go to Philly. I take the bus down to Fourth and Walnut, and just wander around the neighborhood near Penn's Landing. Wander down the right street (I am not going to tell you which; you should find it yourselves), and you will look up to see a blue historical marker that tells you you're standing on the spot where the American Revolution began. It's the print shop where Thomas Paine published his pamphlet, "Common Sense." The pamphlet sold 100,000 copies, and played a crucial part in rallying support for the break with England.

The distribution of pamphlets to raise awareness about issues and gain support has a long and distinguished history in our country.

At Wayne State University, the part-timers recently formed a union. I wrote about their contract negotiations in an earlier post. On April 10th, journalist Bob Woodward gave a speech at Wayne State University concerning secrecy in the American government, and the war in Iraq. Outside the building where Woodward was speaking, members of the Wayne State University's part-time faculty union distributed information about the group's struggle to bargain job security in their first contract with the administration.

According to a press release by Wayne State union officials, those distributing the information sheets were threatened with arrest by members of the Wayne State Police force. On WSU Police web site, this is how their "service" is described, "The Wayne State University Police Department is committed to providing our students, staff, faculty, visitors and guests with prompt, courteous and professional police services." There was obviously a failure to in this particular instance to treat the pamphleteers respectfully.

The union is calling for help pressuring the institution's president, Dr. Irvin D. Reid, to bargain a first contract. Unfortunately, Reid announced his retirement on September 26, 2007, and the Board of Governors is in the process of seeking a new leader for the institution. It's quite clear from the pace at which bargaining has progressed thus far, administrators have no intention of bargaining a first contract before Reid's replacement is hired. Reid doesn't want to saddle his successor with a union contract the candidate didn't have a hand in negotiating. It's a classic move, but an unfortunate legacy Reid is choosing to leave behind.

As for the Police, the officers involved acted stupidly, to be sure, and the Chief of Police, Mr. Anthony Holt, owes the union members, whom his officers threatened, and who are Wayne State faculty, a prompt apology. Further, Wayne State officials should make it quite clear they will not interfere with the union's efforts to distribute information to the faculty, staff and students at the college. Send a message in support of Wayne State's part-time faculty union members to Chief Holt by clicking here.

Dr. Irvin Reid followed in the footsteps of Dr. Mary Sue Coleman, who leads the University of Michigan, when he recognized the Wayne State part-timers' union promptly. Dr. Coleman allowed the lecturers' union on the three campuses of the University of Michigan to form quickly, and recognized the group's right to bargain on behalf of Michigan's 1,200 lecturers very promptly. She did not, however, roll over and play dead when LEO bargained its first contract. Michigan's negotiators worked very diligently to give up as little as possible. LEO President Bonnie Halloran came away with an excellent first contract, but the union also threatened to strike, and used financial data concerning lecturer pay quite cleverly to embarrass university officials. Parking lot attendants at Michigan were earning more than some lecturers.

The union leaders at Wayne State should count their lucky stars that Wayne State's president didn't fight the union. Union leaders need to recognize that officials aren't stalling, but rather following a very predictable course in waiting for their new president to be appointed. After the new president is in place, union officials should expect to bargain aggressively--they will have had plenty of time to gather sample contracts, financial data on the university's budget, prepare press releases, and consolidate their own membership.

If Wayne State's new president won't form a team that bargains in good faith and at a steady pace (this does not mean Wayne State will give the union everything it wants in the first contract), I pray Wayne State's part-timers will strike the middle of the Fall 2008 term, and that AFT president, McElroy, will come with a $1 million dollar check from AFT's $25 million dollar Solidarity Fund, and together with AFT Michigan president David Hecker, will walk the picket line with them. I hope Mr. McElroy will call on his colleague John Sweeney at the AFL-CIO, with which the AFT is affiliated, and ask AFL-CIO affiliate members to respect the picket line at Wayne State.

If AFT is serious about organizing part-time faculty, and expects new locals to be able to bargain good contracts for themselves, AFT officials in Washington are going to have to show some serious support to the locals that affiliate with the union. Anyone interested in an excellent example of how national union support of part-time faculty affiliates is done, should read this, look north, to the recently settled strike at Wilfrid Laurier University, and listen to my Podcast interview with WLUFA President Dr. Judy Bates.

Posted By Patricia L. at 8:00 AM

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April 11th 2008

Academe's Titan Steaming Toward the Iceberg

Listen to my blog entry here.

I remember when Dr. Cary Nelson first spoke out nationally in support of part-time faculty. It was electrifying, and he gave a voice to many who were simply unable to voice their opinions without risking their jobs. Cary Nelson continues to speak for part-time faculty. For years, it was difficult to get adjuncts to write for Adjunct Advocate magazine because they were so frightened of retaliation.

After interviewing Marc Bousquet, reading his book How the University Works, and several of his postings at Inside Higher Ed, it is obvious that he, too, wants to be a voice, like Dr. Nelson, for part-time faculty. However, there is a huge difference between speaking out on behalf of part-time faculty, and telling them what they should do.

Marc Bousquet (though not only Marc Bousquet) has referred to long-time adjunct activist Keith Hoeller, as anti-union. I can imagine Cary Nelson giving just about anyone a piece of his mind. (I had the pleasure during a recent interview for our Podcast Interview Series.) However, I simply can't imagine Nelson referring to any part-time faculty activist as anti-union. What does "anti-union" mean, anyway? Maybe we should ask the House Committee on Part-Time Faculty Anti-Union Activities. AFT officials have called me anti-union, as well, and officials recently refused a request for a written interview out of fear that their views wouldn't be presented fairly in the magazine.

Marc Bousquet urges in his most recent piece for Inside Higher Ed, in essence, that a part-time faculty activist, and his many colleagues, who have a much, much greater personal stake in the situation, and who have a much longer institutional memory of the struggles part-time faculty have endured, need to be more temperate and reflective. I've published pieces about the legislation those same activists have gotten passed to the benefit of their colleagues. I've published pieces about the class action lawsuits instigated by the same activists on behalf of their colleagues.

Are these gains the results of lack of reflection and intemperance? It's best to let the Washington State part-timers with the $800,000 settlement comment. Interestingly, Washington's thousands of part-timers, represented by Dr. Schroeder, could have had multi-year contracts today, but WFT officials refused to endorse the proposed legislation because, according to a WFT official, WFT didn't propose it; Keith Hoeller and his colleagues convinced a legislator, without giving the politician a single penny in campaign donations, to introduce the bill.

I have reported on union indifference to part-time faculty concerns, and the bargaining of incredibly lop-sided contracts, for longer than I care to say. As far as I can determine, FACE has not won concrete gains for AFT's part-time faculty members.

As far as I can determine, WFT doesn't have friends in the legislatures where FACE legislation is being introduced; the group has politicians to whom hundreds of thousands of dollars have been donated directly and indirectly. This is money, for instance, from the dues of the thousands of WFT members whom WFT President Dr. Sandra Schroeder represents (including Keith Hoeller, but not Marc Bousquet), but who've not gained a single job or a single dollar in pay increases from the expense of the push for FACE, or the $500,000 "pilot program" funded by the Washington State Senate.

If full-time faculty want to support their part-time colleagues, that's going to mean respecting and following the lead of the part-time faculty who are (and have been) leading over the past decade. I think we're watching as part-time faculty come into their own in terms of defining how they will lead their own movement.

I'm probably being way too trenchant (the acerbic side of the list of synonyms), but street cred is street cred, and from what I have seen and reported over the past 18 years, Keith Hoeller and his Washington State part-time colleagues who belong to WFT, and pay their dues, have got it hands down. The best thing is that the Washington State part-time activists represent just the tip of the part-time leadership iceberg out there. I think Cary Nelson helped calf the iceberg of part-time faculty activism and leadership. Meanwhile, Marc Bousquet and Dr. Sandra Schroeder (AFT), et. al. are left steaming full speed ahead, sure the safest way to cross the ocean that separates full-time and part-time faculty, is an old-school, paternalistic brand of "support," organizing and unionism, Academe's Titan.

Unless something changes drastically within the leadership of the nation's higher education unions, I think the Titan and the iceberg of new part-time faculty leadership are set for a collision, unfortunately.

Posted By Patricia L. at 8:00 AM

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April 7th 2008

Report from AACC: Adjuncts are in, Sweetie

Listen to my blog entry here.

I am currently in Philadelphia. We displayed the books published by the Part-Time Press at the annual conference of the American Association of Community Colleges. I visit between two and four conferences a year as either an exhibitor or participant. I came to AACC because our professional development books are aimed at part-time faculty, and community colleges employ more adjunct faculty than the Surgeon General has concluded is good for the health of higher ed.

AACC is a bigwig fest. Attendees include presidents, provosts, trustees, deans, VPs of instruction and a wide variety of other upper-level administrators. If you have ever gone to MLA, CCCCs or some other annual conference sponsored by your discipline's association, let me tell you that those conferences, in comparison, are fine events, but nothing like trailing in the wake of the attendees of AACC. The spouses of participants of AACC get name badges festooned with festive (yet tasteful) ribbons identifying them as married to the Big Cheese. There were lots of spouses. At MLA and CCCCs, one sees thousands of people on cell phones and catches snippets of conversations that include things like "tell the kids we'll deconstruct their fight when I get home...."

How can I put this next observation nicely? Oh, I can't. At AACC, participants were, well, older, shall we say? At CCCCs or MLA, I feel like a fogey. There are all those soon-to-be-minted Ph.D.s in their basic black with their impossibly small glasses, frowning, trying to look important and professorial. At AACC, participants aren't worried about looking cool, and most everyone had huge smiles plastered on their faces as they processed through the Academic Marketplace (aka Exhibit Hall). Deans trailed along behind presidents and presidents alongside trustees. I lived in Rome for three years, and I crossed paths accidentally several times with Pope John Paul II and his papal processions around the city. At AACC, I felt as though I were in the Eternal City again.

Over the course of the three-day conference, I had many great conversations with presidents about our books, and the importance of their professional development programs for part-time faculty. At the end of many of those conversations, the president would shake my hand warmly and assure me that s/he would send over the Dean of _________________ (fill in the blank) to talk to me. And that's just what happened. Time and again. I have a two-inch thick stack of business cards from people who want more information for their professional development and orientation programs.

Now, for those of you who work for Deans and Department Chairs who make Darth Vader look like a Boy Scout, there were people at this conference who gave the impression that they'd been trained at the Dark Side Academy of "leadership." There were Vice Presidents of institutions who, when asked if there were adjunct faculty employed by their institutions, replied glibly that there were but that adjuncts were not their responsibility. I even had a trustee smile, wave and say that the school employed 1,000 adjunct faculty, but that she had nothing to do with them. One can only hope she finds a doctor soon to get something for her delusions.

There were, thankfully, more trustees who stopped in to get materials to give to the presidents of their schools.

With the release of recent research and studies that conclude that poor institutional support of part-time faculty leads to dips in student retention (not to mention dips in faculty retention), I am hopeful that more administrators will be moved to ramp up their support, development and orientation programs. The more your school invests in you, the more valuable you will become to them. Ultimately, this will lead to better opportunities for part-time faculty to compete for tenure-line jobs. In the long run, the goal is to make administrators value all faculty equally, because all faculty are expected to produce the same results in the classroom.

Meanwhile, AACC gave me valuable perspective and insight into what college leaders are thinking about part-time faculty. The good news is that adjuncts are no longer invisible to those who lead universities. In fact, AACC confirmed something I have suspected since finding out both candidates for president of the American Association of University Professors were running as self-proclaimed "contingents." As British actress Jennifer Saunders of "Ab Fab" fame might put it, "Adjuncts are in, Sweetie."

Posted By Patricia L. at 2:55 PM

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April 2nd 2008

Can P/T Faculty at Wayne State University Win Job Security?

Listen to my blog entry here.

In the most recent issue of Adjunct Advocate (which will be posted today), we have a wonderful interview with Susan Titus, president of the new part-time faculty union at Wayne State University. The part-timers' union recently began bargaining its first contract with the administration, and the group has hit a major snag. The union wants courses assigned by seniority (to establish some form of seniority and job security), and the administration has said it won't agree to that. On AFT's FaceTalk blog, there was a blog entry titled, "Wayne State University Doesn’t Get It," posted by Barbara McKenna, who edits AFT's member publications.

At the University of Michigan, LEO leadership recently negotiated a form of job security, including seniority. In truth both gains are muted and leave the University wiggle room to use technicalities to get around the job security system. For instance, in the 2007 agreement, "Except as provided in B.5. below, the order of layoff for Employees within each specific title in the academic unit shall be on the basis of expertise, ability and performance relevant to the assignment in question." B.5 says, in essence, all things being equal, employees shall be laid off in inverse order of seniority. LEO's leadership also won multi-year contracts for some of the 1,200 members.

In California, the lecturers in the California State University system are covered by a contract negotiated in their behalf by the California Faculty Association (CFA). The contract includes opportunities for multi-year contracts. However, a clause in the contract allows university officials to break the multi-year contract of any lecturer at any point in order to hire a tenure-line faculty member or give work to the tenure-track faculty member.

As we can see from the schools where there are large numbers of full-time temporary lecturers employed, negotiating seniority and job security is difficult. At Wayne State University, the majority of the temporary faculty are per course part-time lecturers, not full-time temporary lecturers. As we know, per course faculty are viewed as significantly more expendable than full-time temporary faculty. The two unions mentioned above have both codified such assumptions in their contracts by setting forth procedures for the layoff of part-time temporary faculty before the layoff of full-time temporary faculty.

So, at Wayne State, it's no surprise that the negotiations for the union's first contract are already at an impasse. I suspect administrators there would rather double the per course pay than give the 1,000 part-time faculty seniority. Quite frankly, I believe administrators do understand the connection between job security and student retention and progress. However, the part-timers' own national union, AFT, has launched a national campaign (FACE) to fund the hiring of more TT faculty. AFT officials argue more TT faculty are needed in higher education, because reliance on part-time faculty has, AFT state leaders have testified to legislators from coast-to-coast, seriously damaged the quality of higher education in America.

Why Wayne State's leaders would give job security to faculty who have been branded by the union to which they belong as responsible for "damaging" higher education is beyond me. Why any part-time faculty group would ever affiliate with a national union that branded them as "damaging" higher education is truly a puzzle to me. The truth is that research shows any "damage" done in courses staffed by temporary faculty is the direct result of the simply horrid job college and university administrators do in supporting and compensating the temporary faculty whom they employ. Unfortunately, no education union in the United States has ever launched a national campaign to combat that. Let's hope that changes sometime soon.

Posted By Patricia L. at 8:00 AM

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